Double blessing

Isn't this double rainbow awesome! We took it last week one night during the week it never stopped raining ;) It was two perfectly bright arcs right over our neighborhood! It was the sweetest blessing to see, and I think just a precursor to more blessings to follow. Our heavenly Father LOVES to bless us when we seek Him, and I've got to tell y'all a story about our latest 'shower of blessing'!

I've been letting this blog post ruminate for about a week now and when I think of what I want to say, I'm still at a loss! I'm humbled. I'm grateful for God's promises and provision. I'm thankful for our church body and encouraged by their support and love. well, here goes...

Last sunday evening we were invited to a small group get together from several couples/families in our church. I thought it might be the perfect time to say 'thank you' to Michael for all of his hard work he's put in to ministering to the people of Pinelake these past 10 years. His '10 year anniversary' was in april of this year, but it was CRAZY this spring as we were short staffed and preparing for Easter. So I thought the summer would be fun to get some people together and surprise Michael with some appreciation. These amazing families were all about it, and they went to work inviting even more folks and organizing food etc! As we gathered in the living room to let Michael in on why we were all gathered, one of the small group leaders started talking to me in front of the whole group and explaining that they had all been selling homemade Mexican blankets to help support the Mexican orphanage that our church partners with. (as an aside,; I knew that they had been doing this). What I didn't know, was that they had increased the price on the blankets with the hopes that they could also bless someone else from this project-they just didn't know who it would be. This very same small group leader who never gets on facebook, 'just happened' to get online and saw some friends of mine supporting an adoption through the profits of their business, then he saw a post I had put up under theirs with my blog post about our family doing an adoption fundraiser (our garage sale). He said that when he saw that, he knew he was supposed to give US the extra money for OUR adoption costs!! The group presented us with a sweet card and the money and I was just crying! Michael knew they were going to do this for some time, but wanted them to surprise me! :) Then I turned around and told him that we were so grateful for HIM and all his hard work at pinelake and our fellow staff said some sweet words too. They gave him a cake, a pack of mountain dews and homemade oreo balls ;) they know him well! It was awesome. Those sweet folks may never know how much it all meant to both of us. Let me just encourage you to encourage your pastor whenever you feel the holy spirit's leading because it's a tough road sometimes! Another cool part-the amount of money they gave us was the amount we needed to finish paying for our referral fee! That's the $ due when we are matched with our daughter and will probably not happen until this time next year...but you never know! We have been praying this month for 9 baby girls to be matched to their forever families, and we have some exciting movement news to share at the end of this month so stay tuned and keep praying!!!