Tag Archives: children

PARENTS!

Posted in Wonderings by

It’s amazing how God works sometimes. I was joking with my husband a couple of days ago and told him how I thought God had a really interesting sense of humor. Let me explain.

This year has been full of changes, but in the month of August we’ve gone though some major ones:

  • My husband has been in the process of obtaining his ministry license for the past year, and on August 10th, he passed his interview to become a licensed ministry worker with the CMA (Christian Missionary Alliance church denomination). That’s one step closer to becoming a pastor!
  • I resigned from my position at church as the Early Childhood Coordinator. Part of the process of Brian becoming a minister is attending a CMA church together. We had to move from our home church of the last 10 years (CF CityPlace) in order for this to happen, thus me stepping away from ministry. It was a difficult decision, I loved the volunteers, kids and their families, but I knew this is what God wanted us to do.
  • Brian resigned from his position as the Mentoring Program Coordinator, a program that he started from the ground up in the inner city of West Palm Beach. The program is run by Bow Down Ministries, and because of the move to a CMA church he had to step down.
  • A new school year started, meaning that as a 5th grade teacher Brain had to get everything in order. We needed to get Brian’s classroom ready! God bless Pinterest! (will be posting a blog on his room decoration soon!)
  • And the most important thing was that we completed our adoption home study! We were able to start looking at children!

We were so excited about the last change, but with everything else that happened in August we were taking this new change slowly. We had decided to start slowly by just looking at children and praying for God to guide us in the process. We had been told by our wonderful Case Manager that it could take a year or more in order for us to be able to find a child.

Well, remember when I said that God has a really strange sense of humor? This is why.

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A week after completing our home study we received an email asking if we would consider submitting our file for adoption consideration of a little 5 year old boy. We prayed, read the information and decided to step out on faith and say yes. Three days later we were asked if we would be open to receiving the little boy in our house sooner rather than later, we said yes once again. Two days after that we received our little boy in our home!!!! He’s a 5 year old fountain of energy, smiles and fun. We couldn’t be happier and more tired at the same time, LOL!

God has blessed us in a way that words can’t describe. Our hearts are full of joy, love and gratitude. Our little family is complete!

We are now entering uncharted territory. Not only in the legal realm of waiting periods and paperwork and visits from social workers, but in the parenting world as well. We are learning all about bedtimes, school, books, games, toys, clothes and everything else a 5 year old might need. Due to legal and privacy issues posting pictures of our little one is not allowed until everything is final.

I’ve been feeling like those ladies in the TV show “I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant.” Out of nowhere there’s this little person that just showed up and that needs all our attention. Completely overwhelmed and happy at the same time. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Thank you to all of those family and friends who have prayed for us, and have been of encouragement during this time. We love you all. If you would please still keep us in your prayers, we would really appreciate it. We need God’s guidance in this process. The adoption is not final yet, we have to wait for 30 days for some legal processes to complete and then another wait of 60 days before we can finalize the adoption.

Much love,

Karla & Brian

We’re

Posted in Wonderings by

It’s been eight years since I said I do to the love of my life. We’ve experienced highs and lows, been each other’s support systems and encountered so many changes in our lives.

Sometimes it amazes me how naive I was when we got married. I had all these carefully laid plans on how everything would go for us: enjoy being just us for a couple of years, have Brian become a minister, grow in love with each other and with God and then start a family. Well, life had other plans.

I’m pretty sure that those who know us can attest that we both love children. We’ve worked with kids of all ages for years. Whether it was our profession (Brian is an elementary teacher) or as part of our ministry. I’ve worked with preschoolers in church for over 20 years. Brian has worked with at risk children for the same time in schools, churches, camps, etc. It’s engrained in our DNA, sort of speak.

When we first got married I knew there was a possibility that it would be a challenge to conceive. I had experienced some issues during my youth and had an idea that we would need to see a doctor at least. Well it was more than that. After almost a year of trying and seeing a doctor and taking medications, we decided to see a specialist. The news we got were heartbreaking: we had less than 5% chance of conceiving. Unexpectedly we both had issues. When we first shared this with family and friends we got everything from: “God can make a miracle happen, all you need is faith,” to “Oh well, maybe this is God’s way.”

We knew in our hearts that we are filled with love to give to a child. We were given the option to explore in vitro fertilization (IVF) but even that wasn’t guaranteed. We decided to move in faith and start saving, even creating a funding website to help raise funds. We had some very generous family and friends that donated, and to which we are grateful to this day. After a year, we were still a long ways of to reaching our goal of $15,000.

We looked into private adoptions of newborns as well, but those are even more expensive than the IVF procedure would be.

During a church service a little over a year ago, there was an announcement for Place of Hope, a local non-profit that houses an orphanage and assists in fostering and adoptions from the foster care system.

We decided to pray and attend the informational meeting for the adoption class. I knew that I couldn’t make the commitment of becoming a foster parent, loving and caring for a child that might return to the unhealthy environment they had been removed from.

We faced adversity even from the start of the class: our teacher was adamant that we would never be able to adopt a young child, paperwork took longer than expected since we were moving, my grandma passed away and that pushed everything back as well. When we returned to the task of completing our paperwork we were told that the agency could no longer facilitate adoptions, we had to start the process all over again with a new agency. It has taken us a year, but we can finally say that it is official:

WE ARE ADOPTING!!!!!!!

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We’re adopting!

It might take us a while to find our child, but the search has started. We hope you will pray for God to guide us to our forever child.

Thanks,

Karla & Brian

Mother’s Day Craft for preschoolers

Posted in Craft projects by

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One of the things that gets me very excited each year is making Mother’s Day crafts with the little ones at church.

I was doing a search online and found a couple of cute pictures of a simple craft to make, but unfortunately they had no instructions attached to them. For me it’s very easy to figure out how to get to the finished product based on a picture alone, but I know that’s not the same case for everyone.

I decided to make my own easy craft and post the instructions on how to make it here.

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Here’s what you’ll need:

  1. A paper plate cut in half. If you want to create an extra fancy craft, you can trace and cut a circle out of a craft foam sheet and then cut it in half.
  2. Crayons or markers. I prefer crayons since it’s easier to clean up.
  3. Foam flower stickers or any decorative stickers.
  4. Glue
  5. Hole puncher.
  6. Yarn, thread or ribbon.
  7. Happy Mother’s Day banner printed on nice cardstock.
  8. Tissue paper in different colors.
  9. Clear tape.

Here’s what you’ll help the little one do:

  1. First, take the two halves and have them face each other forming a pocket. Align the edges and using the hole puncher, punch one hole on each side.                                                                                                        SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES
  2. Cut out the Happy Mother’s Day Banner and give one to the little one. They can color it or if printed in a nice paper, They can glue it directly to the front side.
  3. If using paper plates, give them to the child with crayons and let them color to their hearts content. This is where their creativity can flourish. Once done, give them the stickers to decorate the edge of the front side of the pocket.                                        SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES
  4. Help them glue the phrase to the center of the plate. Attach both halves together by applying glue to the rim of a paper plate and placing another on top.  Help them thread the yarn, ribbon or material used through the holes previously punched and secure with a knot on each end.                                                                                                                                                                                                         SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES
  5. Cut the tissue paper in squares and instruct the children how to crunch up the tissue paper to make it look like flowers.
  6. Have them place the flowers inside of the pocket, they can be left as is, but if you want them extra secure, a little piece of tape can be added inside the pocket.