My assurance is to be built on God’s assurance to me. God says, “I will never leave you,” so that I may boldly say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear.” Faith begins to falter when apprehensions enter [our] thinking, and [we] forget the meaning of God’s assurance. When it seems that there is nothing and no one to help you, say to yourself, ‘But the Lord is my helper this very moment, even in my present circumstance.’ Take hold of the Father’s assurance, and then say with strong courage, “I will not fear.” When we realize how feeble we are in facing difficulties, the difficulties become like giants, we become like grasshoppers, and God seems to be nonexistent. But remember God’s assurance to us — “I will never forsake you.”
~ Oswald Chamber

Our new son, known as “Marcus” for now. This is the only picture we are allowed to share right now, but stay tuned.

We are so very thankful to each of you who has prayed for our son and his adoption, for the kind and encouraging notes (please keep those coming, you have no idea how much they help), and for the donations made to help us get him home. Thank you all so very much. We wanted to let you know where things stand.

We can’t share details but, sadly, things have continued to escalate in his current situation, and he needs to get home now.

It’s so very hard to wait on God when we get reports that leave our hearts aching to reach out to him and start helping him heal — no matter how long that path to healing may turn out to be. It’s frustrating not to be able to even begin. We had hoped to be traveling next week, but that’s not going to happen.

We are still waiting on some paperwork that we really hope will be completed early this coming week. And we are still waiting on God to send the remaining funds.

Each time we start an adoption, we look at that huge dollar amount and recognize the impossibility of coming up with it. And each time, we watch God supply. This domestic adoption, of course, is nothing like the costs of our international adoptions, but paying for it is just as impossible for us as the more expensive adoptions. Each time we begin an adoption, we start with very-little-to-no money to do so, and ask God to move through His people to bring home His child.

Sometimes He answers very quickly, and other times He takes us right down to the wire. He is taking us down to the wire this time, and when this happens — especially in cases like this where we get word that our child’s situation is becoming increasingly urgent — we can relate to Mr. Chambers’ description above of becoming “like grasshoppers” and perceiving our difficulties as “giants.”

We need to get to our boy. He needs us to embrace him and help him start over. We know that God has this story well in hand, though, and we want to trust Him with the timing and with the necessary provision for bringing our son home.

Recently, Scott was calculating the total costs for all of our children’s adoptions. This photo showing all of our adopted children who have come home to us so far, represents close to half a million dollars! And everyone of these children is safely home and well on the road to healing. This is staggering! God is able. Why do we ever doubt? But we do sometimes as we face the pieces of this adventure that we can’t control and our inability to get these pieces into place.

Our kids doing a “simul-jump” the day of the last full moon, as they hoped to cause a seismic event that would coax their nephew to leave the womb and enter the world. He was born 43 hours later. 😄 So maybe it worked?

Would you please pray for our faith, as it sometimes falters? Please pray for our hearts that break for our little one’s huge needs? Please pray for our son as he waits for us? We are asking God to supernaturally give this child hope somewhere deep inside; to sustain and hold him until we can hold him ourselves; and to prepare him for our arrival.

We think we will be traveling sometime around June 25 or 26, if we have the funds in place. We hope to have a clearer and more certain idea of dates by the end of this coming week.

Would you please ask God to provide the rest of what we need? He has, through many of you, provided half of our attorney fee now, and we are excited to report that we also have his bed! Friends of ours took this need to their small group at their church, and this group of people bought all of the materials needed for building his bed. Then they donated their time and gifts to stain and build this triple bunk bed needed to fit our new little guy into our home. Also, because of your loving gifts, we have been able to buy his mattress and bedding. His room will be ready for him by the end of the day tomorrow after Scott and the boys do the final assembly of the bed. How can we ever thank all of you who have been a part of this? There are no words.

Here is a breakdown of the money still needed before we can travel:

• Travel (plane tickets, hotel, meals, car rental — based on seven days): Approximately $2900
• Last 1/2 of the attorney fee: $1000

If you would like to help with these needs, here is info for making tax-deductible donations:

HOW TO DONATE TO OUR SON’S ADOPTION

donate online here

or

mail a check to:

The Shepherd’s Crook Orphan Ministry
P.O. Box 773
West Chester, OH 45071

Either way, be sure you designate that the donation is for “Marcus Rosenow”

Thank you for being a part of this story with us. As we keep saying, we can’t wait to share more pictures of our son, and his name. Hopefully, it won’t be too much longer.

This post, I Want To Be Your Hero, from my personal blog, “Owning My Nothingness” shares more from my heart about this next journey we are starting, and about our ongoing journeys with all of our children.

Oh, and here is a picture of our newest grandson, Keller Wayne, born to Allan and Nicole on June 4. He’s just too precious for words.