Adoption Update

Adoption Update

I just wanted to give everyone an update! I know I have been a little quiet about our adoption lately. It’s just been hard for me to take it all in and to share. I want to apologize because I need to share our story! Because it is not “our” story it is God’s story being played out through us. I give all the Glory to God, even through the good the bad and the ugly.

A LOT has happened the last few months.

We actually got word in October that we might not get to adopt Ali. It’s still in limbo as we were told “you cannot adopt him right now But you MIGHT in the future”……… when that future is, we have no idea…3 months? 6 months? 12 months? 2 years? Never?

Our hearts have been crushed… the only thing that keeps us going is

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Not just for the Deason Family but for little Ali as well. It breaks my heart that he is still in the orphanage when we should actually be so close to having him home with us now. My prayer is that he will be adopted soon, If not by us then by someone that can give him a loving home.

That same week God opened another door. We were given another referral of a little boy, Abass , that needed a home. He is around 4-6 years old. I have to admit. We had no clue what to do. Do we just wait on Ali, not knowing if we will ever get to adopt him? Do we move on?

Talk about emotional overload. I cried for a week straight! I cried out to God and sought out Godly Christian counsel from people I knew and could trust. It came clear to me that I would never give up on Ali! He is my son. Until God tells me otherwise I will fight like heck for him! My GOD can move mountains! He parted the Red Sea! He died on the Cross for My sins! I have faith that God will one day bring my baby boy home to us!

Then I looked into Abass’s eyes and saw a little boy that so desperately needed a family to love him too! I told Justin,”You don’t want to know the answer I have”. But he already knew what I was going to say. He knows the person he married. And the person God put him with. He thinks God is crazy sometimes LOL.

So looks like we are going to be adopting two little boys! Both are different situations. And I have to admit. I am a little scared, but I’m putting my trust in God.

So here is what happens next.

Our next step with Abass is a court date and to travel to meet him. –they have told us it could be as soon as the end of the year!!!!! Yes that is in 4 weeks!!! I am not counting on it…..but I guess I should have it in the back of my head. J But more likely it will be in a few months.

For this to happen we need to raise $6,5000!!

So that is our Goal as of now! We need to be prepared to travel to meet our sweet boy Abass. So we could need $6,500 is less than four weeks… ok I just had a heart attack!

In the meantime we are in continuous pray that the situation in Ali’s region will resolve and they will call us and tell us that we can proceed with his adoption. If they do we will that that road as it comes. I give my complete trust and faith in God!

I want to thank each and every one of you for your support if our adoption. It really means a lot to us.

If you feel the need to help us with our next step in our adoption you may do so my contacting us. autumnlj@yahoo.com

Love, The Deason Family

Uganda Necklaces, Scarves, and bracelets

My sweet mother in law had a friend that went to Uganda on a mission trip this summer. She had heard about our adoption and want to help us out! She purchased, along with my mother in law ,hand made scarves, necklaces, and bracelets from local women that make these for a living! The necklaces and bracelets are made our of recycled paper! I love these! The scarves are beautiful! And with winter coming around they will make a great accessory to any outfit! Check them out! You would would like to buy one message me at autumnlj@ yahoo.com! I also accept Paypal via that same email!!
Thanks for supporting our adoption!!

Orphan Love Mud Run

We, along with some pretty amazing people, are hosting an Adoption Fundraiser event. Thisevent is called Orphan Love Mud Run!!!! It a mud run, in case in you didn't gather that from the name, lol! As of right now it will be help 6 families(us included)bring their children home through adoption! It is going to be super fun!!! Our goal is have this every year to help adopting families!

You can check it out at www.itsachildslife.org. Sign up at www.earlysign

Waiting to Feel Complete

On Thursday June 21st my phone rang... long story short(which I just backed spaced ), it was our case worker telling us she had a referral for us.........what???? I was in total shock... I was not expecting this at all......how could this happen so soon. immediately i started shaking..... my heart was pounding...I went numb for a sec... I then snapped together and answered with ..."Really!!!...What do I do now? She then began to tell me that there was a little boy (3-4 years old) that they thought matched of family! She said that he was full of life and out going. She then had to walk me through what to do next..She was sending me the referral via email...

It seemed like I waited forever to get my email to pull up(stupid old computer)... during the mean time  I was pacing the floors and trying not to cry ...FINALLY.. The email opens and there He is!!! His smile shot straight through to my heart!! I was numb! This was the child that God had been preparing our hearts for!!! My emotions were everywhere. Justin was at work and was on his way home for lunch... he could not get here fast enough. As he walked through the door... everything was so surreal... was this really happening.. Together we got to just stare at our son's picture as our hearts were being changed forever!

Its been two months and our hearts grows bigger and bigger everyday for our little one. The wait gets longer and longer as we are waiting on a court date to finally get to go meet the him.  we think about him every second of the day. We are so ready to be a family of five.... Until he is home a piece of us will be missing.

We are ready for our hearts and home to feel complete!

I Post of Praise and Thanks

Where do I begin.....
 The past month and a half have been pretty amazing and ALL the Glory goes to God! The First of April we got our First "bill" from our adoption agency....the balance they needed was the first $5,000 of the $30,000 this was to start our home study and continue with our Adoption Process.That's when it became real that wow we are really doing this...so we better get busy!  I had already been thinking about selling T-shirts, so my long time friend Dana Schafer(who is the owner of a T-shirts screening company inn Edmond, Ok) and I finished up our T-shirt Designs.So our Fundraising began!!I thought that I had a plan that would earn us our $5,000 with T-shirt sells. We needed to sell 400 T-shirts.. Well the plan did not work,we only sold 150, but God still had a plan. *I want to thank my friends and family for helping me sell the T-shirts.. (weather you sold 1 shirt or 20 It means so much to me that you cared enough to try!!)  They alone sold over 60 Shirts!! Yay for Friends and family!!! I also want to give a big thanks to everyone that bought a Shirt...you Rock!


The rest of God's Plan........
One Sunday night I was sitting on the couch thinking about fundraiser Ideas....thinking "Can we really do this??".I mean $30,000 is A LOT of money... Well I'm not sure why I was even thinking if"we(Justin  and I)" can do this, because there is no way we can do any thing without God! "For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strenght." Phillippians 4:13 While sitting there my phone rang.....It was one of the owners of Champion Tumbling and Cheer here in Ada. He was telling me about an event that his Gym holds every year called the I AM Third meet. This meet is about putting God first, Others second, and themselves last.. During this meet they raise money for different Charities. They had already had a charity lined out, but at last minute they could not do it.. so they wanted to help us raise money for our adoption! Of course we were more than happy to accept!!! The meet was going to be the coming up Saturday! WOW, God is good... I called my mom told her the great news! She then suggested that we have a bake sale! I told her it sounds great....but I'm am not sure I will have time to bake( it was a busy week).So her and my sister baked for three days!!! Love them!!! I have the BEST mom and sister in the world... I must add that my sister had just had her first baby the week before!   The meet went great and Champion raised $1,350 for us!!! Thank you to everyone from Champion that had the meet happen!!!


Well with both of these fundraisers we were still short of the $5,000 that we needed. I called our agency and asked them if you could just pay the home study fee ($1,500) and get that started?!?!? They told us no that we would need the whole$5,000. We were bummed. Justin and I decided that we would throw together a Garage Sale! So we asked for donation and where over whelmed with the support of our friends and the donations they gave! We decided to have it on a Thursday night, Friday, and Saturday. During our planning I got an e-mail form our agency that said they had great news!! The Case worker for our case was coming to Ada on Saturday(this was a Thursday) and she wanted to get ours started!!! YAY! so we paid our $1,500 fee that day and two days later we started our Home study... This was so exciting because if this was not completed we could not move on.
The next week our Garage Sale went underway and we raised $1,800!!! God is so Good! Thanks to everyone that helped make it happen!!!!


Here is the amazing part!!! In a month and a half with the donations of some amazing people and our Fundraisers, God blessed us with $7,400 for our Adoption!!! That is just crazy!!! I am not sure why I ever worry....because I know my GOD will ALWAYS provide!!


We will have to have another $5,800 (well $4,400) very soon but I know God will provide!! Be looking for our next fundraisers! A few are already in the works!!! I am very excited about them!!

More details to follow!!!!

I will claw through a brick wall to get to my son

I need to get to my son....... I will breaking through a the brick wall to get to him........there is not a day that goes by that I do that think about him. You ask "but you have never meet him or even seen his face?". I look at this stage as the "pregnancy stage" only I don't have a baby growing in my tummy, my baby is growing in my heart. As when you are/were/will be pregnant.....you have never meet your son or daughter and yet you already love them so much.That is how I feel.

"Orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they're not real before you hold them in your arms, but once you do everything changes."-David Platt!

 There are 147million orphans in this broken world. You can chose to ignore it, but it does make it not real...
What if that was your "Hudson"???????

400 T-shirt Challenge

Our First Fundraiser!!!

400 T-shirts..... ='s  # of T-shirts that we need to sell in order to move forward with our Adoption.Well I know there is no way that Justin and I could sell 400 T-shirts by ourselves, but we do know that all things are possible with God!! 

A few verses that have my back!

Matthew 19:26- Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with GOD all things are possible."

Mark 9:23- "What do you mean?" Jesus asked. "Anything is possible if a person believes."

Mark 14:36- "Abba Father." he cried out, "everything is possible for YOU. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. I want your will to be done, not mine."

So I was thinking... I do not know 400 people that would buy a t-shirt, but......... I do know 20 people that could probably sell 20 t-shirts!!!! So here we are looking for 20 people to take on this challenge of selling 400 T-shirts with us!!! Justin and I also thought we would make it fun by throwing in a $50 gift card to the Person that goes above and beyond and sells the most T-shirt...(or fund raises the most money..some people might not like my designs and would rather pay to Not buy/wear one of these shirts! hehe.
If you would like to accept the challenge let me know and I will set you up!

If you do not want to take the challenge, but would like to order a _T-shirt, Message me, call me, text me.....

Sizes
youth s-xl
adult 2-xxl

$20 each.

Here are the designs:

T #1 Adoption Rocks

T # 2 James 1:27

Im so excited to see what God has instore for this journey!

Prayers Needed

1.       Our Son

It is hard for us to know that our son is suffering, without anyone to hold him, and to tell him they love him. We are ready to show him how much love we have to offer. We are excited that he is going to be part of our family. Pray for comfort and peace for him. Pray that he is getting his basic needs met. Pray that he knows the Love of Jesus and they we are trying everything in our power to get to him as quick as possible..

2.       Our Family-

This Journey is going to long and hard. We want you to pray for strength for whatever obstacles that come our way. Pray for peace as we are waiting on our addition into our family. Pray for Jaxon and Aubrey in their new journey.

3.       Funds-

The total cost of our adoption is estimated to be around $30,000, this covers agency fees, country fees, USCIS fees, home study, updates, travel, and all that is required to be able to adopt. Yes I did say $30,000! We have no Idea where this money is going to come from, but we know that God is in control of it. Please pray that this need is met so we can bring our son home without any delays.

A Father's Letter

We want to share with you a new chapter in our family lives. Currently we are expecting to adopt from Ghana which is a small country located in Africa. Dillon International is a Christian non-profit organization that will work beside us in our adoption process. We have done a lot of research on Dillon International, finished our application, and seminar with them. We are excited about our new friendship with Dillon International and feel they can contribute towards a new step in our lives.

We’ll it all started in the spring of 2011. We both have family members that have adopted and found ourselves exploring the idea of adding a new family member. We felt God was motivating us to read scripture, speak with friends, family, and our church in this new passion. We both decided that we should go through the foster adoption process. During that period, we learned a lot. We went to classes during the summer and continued to pray about this new Journey. We had almost finished the process in October, when Autumn went off for her second mission trip. This time she headed out to Africa. The intent was for her to become closer to God and teach children more about the word of God. Well Autumn learned a lot from those little angels. Even though they were poor they were very happy for the few things they had received. She said,” you could really see the Lord all over the place. HE would provide when there was no thought it could be done.” The experience changed her life and allowed her to become closer with the Lord.  During that time our family became closer to the Lord as well. Remember October is football season!

When Autumn came back from the mission trip I notice there was something different in her. Each day she prayed that the Lord would help deal with her new emotion. We prayed together and she spoke with me in her passion in Africa. We were currently about to finish our adoption here but I really felt in my heart that the Lord wanted us to go in a different direction. I asked her if she was thinking the same way and she responded very quickly “me to”. We were certainly scared about this new journey but you got to have a little faith right.

We have prayed a lot during this process, reading biblical books, and going to classes. We have definitely changed during our time together, growing closer to God and each other every year. We want the Lord to change us into the person HE wants us to become. While I have been slowly learning and growing, I have continued thinking in my mind, if your child was out there all alone, wouldn’t you hope someone would take care of him? Well my answer is,” Yes” I would. I know Autumn will and if that is what the Lord wants us to do, then HE will direct us and has. I’m excited about this new child. I don’t know how we are going to manage it all but hey, I already have a defense full of children to take care of, what is one more? We have plenty of love for another child. It is amazing to see the path the Lord has in mind for our family. I would be the first to tell you I would have never imagined anything like this. I can tell you that I have faith in God. I truly believe the Lord has blessed us and I’m very thankful for all that he has done. What an amazing ride!

Not a Real Blogger!

Okay so I really feel like I need to start of by apologizing! I really need to read a book on how to do this whole blog thing! Is there a "Blog for Dummies" book????So bare with me as I am in the learning process!!

So where do I begin? I am doing this blog, honestly for myself. I thought this would be a place that I could come and share my feeling and thoughts about our adoption process as well as keep anyone that might be interested updated! :) I am so excited about the Jounery that God has lead us to, as well as scared to death of the ALL the unknows. But I have great hope and strength knowing that God will be leading us and by our side the whole way!! I have heard that this is going to be a jounrey like no other. So here we go..........Let the Journey begin.