All coming together!

What a great week we have had! We are excited about what is coming up in our life and we look forward to what God has in store for us.

We have our profile up on Angel Adoption's website which means that at any point a birthmother could pick us! We are so excited to be in the waiting period and we know others are so excited as well. I have the joy of hanging out with teenagers and whenever my cell phone rings and the number is not in my contacts they are like "this could be it! Answer it!" It is a joy to be able to walk through this journey with our family and friends and we are all waiting with high hopes for what God has in store for us. If you want to look at our profile this is the web address... http://www.angeladoptioninc.com/component/option,com_family/Itemid,138/id,428/view,detail/

What else has been going on you may be asking? Well we have been considering doing a dinner here at our house but quickly realized that we won't have enjoy space for everyone so the church is letting us use the fellowship hall. We are going to have our dinner March 23 from 6:30-8 pm. Everyone is invited, we are asking that you PLEASE RSVP so we have plenty of food and have enough tables set up. We are going to do the dinner by donations. We are also blessed to have a friend who is donating the cake for the event. Her name is Carolyn Ferris Graves and she owns Cake & Islands and we thank her so much for the amazing donation of a cake for the fundraiser. (her facebook page for Cake & Islands is https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cake-Islands/261922133835004?sk=wall) We are also going to have the talented Bob Wilson play some jazz music on the piano during the dinner so thank you to him. It is amazing to Todd and I that we are so blessed by people willing to help us as we continue to follow the call of God to adopt a baby to our family! We hope you can come to our dinner and enjoy the talents of these wonderful people and get to have fellowship as we rejoice over what God is doing through our lives.

We also have our tee shirts for sale starting TODAY! :) We are thrilled that this has worked out for us as we want to not only raise money for our adoption but help others be able to adopt in the future. Our shirts are being sold through Adoption Bug and $1 from every shirt goes back to the Show Hope Organization which helps families adopt! We are thrilled. If you would like to support us and buy a cool tee shirt at the same time all you have to do is go to, www.adoptionbug.com/petershopefaithjoyfamily and place your order. Your shirt will be shipped to your house and we will raise money for our adoption! Easy!!

Thank you so much for your prayers as we continue to wait on the Lord to have our birthmother directed to us. We can't not say it enough but THANK YOU! Thank you for your support, prayers, love, and strength! We are so blessed!

We hope to hear that all of you can make it on March 23 at 6:30 pm at Church for our Adoption Fundraising Dinner!

God Bless,

Meredith and Todd Peters

Occupy

Occupy. Occupy Boston, New York, Washington, it is all in the news! People are occupying space to be heard, to have the world think for a moment about why they are where they are and what they are doing.

Well I am not occupying a city or anything like that but my mind is occupied. All I think about is the adoption of our child. The wonderful day when all the meeting, birthing, waiting, paper signing is done and we are a family. Todd, myself, Hunter and our baby!

Adoption is different than being pregnant, obviously. Pregnant, you have a due date and you know you need to be ready by that day or sooner even if it is a rough estimate of a date; adoption- 2 months to 2 years, crazy! I kind of enjoy the not knowing, our society wants to know everything so fast that we tweet or go on facebook and it is there. But this adoption has reminded me to wait, to be still and know that God has it in control. Don't get me wrong, my mind is occupied and my heart is leaping for it to hurry but in this time of waiting, Todd and I are growing closer together. We are also having a wonderful chance to be faithful stewards with our money and the gifts we have received to pay back a portion of the loan we took out for this adoption.

What is occupying your heart and mind? I know the Bible is clear to think about "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things (Philippians 4:8)." I am thankful that we are adopting and that maybe for another 2 months or maybe for 2 more years we will get to think about God and his love for us and for our child and be occupied with our minds and hearts over our future child because it is good and excellent!

A special thank you to all of you who have donated to our adoption! We are so blessed and wish we could thank you more because we feel so thankful and we know words can't thank you all enough for your outpouring of love and support. So thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Prayer: God thank you for allowing Todd and I this time to think about the good things in life, to be occupied with our adoption and to focus our love and attention on you and our family. Please continue to guide us and provide for us as we continue to be your faithful followers! Amen

Outpouring of Love

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as member of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Colossians 3:15+17

"Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful." Colossians 4:2

Wow! We have been praying for guidance on the whole paying for our adoption at the same time as we have been praying for our birthmother and our future child.

We have had such an amazing outpouring of love to us and we are so thankful. Some gifts that have come, were totally unexpected and wonderful and no gift is received without us stopping and giving thanks to God for the person/people that sent it. Thank you!

Thank you God for being a God that provides in our weakness and a God who loves in real ways!

We are excited for some upcoming events. We are thinking about hosting a fundraising dinner here on the Cape, still thinking and praying about how/where/when, etc.

Someone also said we should sell shirts, we looked into it and were concerned about the money you had to put out front and how to ship them to people but then I remembered reading the book "Choosing to See" and the agency that the author opened. The group is called Show Hope and they work to help people adopt so I went on their website and we can open a "shop" for our friends and families to buy shirts, they print them and ship them and then we get the profit. So hopefully Feb. 24 will be the day that we can have a new post with how you can buy a nice tee shirt and support our adoption!

We are so thankful for all of you and for all your prayers. We continue to wait for a birthmother to pick us to be parents and we are excited about what God has in store. Please continue to pray for Todd and I and our journey. We have loved going on this journey with God and with all of you! Thank you again for all your support, prayers and love!

Humbly, Meredith and Todd Peters

The desire

This morning I woke up with the desire to blog so here it is,

I am thankful for the opportunity to go through this adoption journey with my favorite person, my husband. It is a wonderful chance for us to grow closer together and to use each other's strengths when a weakness of ourselves shines through. God has blessed me with an amazing husband and I am blessed to walk hand in hand with him as we adopt.

This week after much planning on my part with money we figured our that we will not be getting money back from our taxes (which I had desired to pay off part of our adoption loan with), we will be breaking even which is fine but I was mad when I realized it. Todd thought about it and when we readdressed and refocused, we both realized we are fine, we will continue to pay the loan and be thankful for our jobs and family and friends that make all this possible. God is with us and He already knew that we were not going to have money from our taxes this year and still continues to guide us forward in this adoption journey. Facts about Todd and I, he is calm and thinks through situations and I tend to be emotional and get frustrated or worried.

One of my favorite movies is Anne of Green Gables and there is a line in the movie that reminds me of Todd and I, "Anne: I can't help flying up on wings of anticipation. It's as glorious as soaring through a sunset... almost pays for the thud. Marilla: Well, maybe it does. But I'd rather walk calmly along and do without flying AND thud." I know full well that I plan to the point that I thud down when the plans are not fulfilled, my mind thinks and plans but daily God is teaching me that His path is right and mine leads to missed lessons and missed opportunities to share about His amazing grace and ability to provide so I will try not to fly so high and walk calmly along. Maybe with Todd and God I will figure it out one day, maybe.

I am so truly thankful for our families and friends. I pray daily for people who do not have a strong support system. I do not understand how they get through life, as we could not be where we are and who we are without our support systems. Todd and I are so blessed to both come from families that care about us, love us and pray for us and our church family and friends, amazing! The outpouring of love, support and prayers continue to astound us and we are so thankful for each person who tells us they are praying for us as we go through this journey! So thank you! Thank you for the encouragement through prayers and gifts, you are all miracles to us!

What will tomorrow hold? Who knows but for us we continue to hold onto God and we continue to strive to learn more and more to let Him lead and us follow.

We pray for all of you and give thanks for you every day!!

God Bless! Love, Todd and Meredith Peters

Thankful

We are sitting at our kitchen counter together working on the blog and we are both feeling similar emotions.

Last Saturday night, Todd's aunt hosted a dinner fundraiser and we are so thankful! We are thankful for the generous gifts that people gave to be at the dinner (which some of them that gave even brought food to). We are thankful for Aunt Karen and Uncle Mike because the dinner was 100% their idea and all their hard work! We are thankful for our families and all their love and support as we go through this process. And we are thankful to the extended family that we enjoyed getting to know at the dinner. We are also thankful for the opportunity to share our adoption story and faith walk with everyone!

Adoption is expensive and at some points can be a little overwhelming but we trust God to provide. We took out a loan to pay for some of the fees upfront and now that our homestudy is done we are applying for grants. We are hoping to receive some financial help by grants but we know that we will also need to keep working hard to save money and trust God to provide in ways that we are not aware of to date. If you feel called or led to donate, thank you! You can mail your donations to 7 Poplar Lane South Dennis, MA 02660.

We want to thank all of you that read our blog, that pray for us and with us, that give or have given to us as we could not go through this journey without all of your love and support. We are beyond grateful for the opportunity to adopt and as we wait to be picked by a birth mother we have the opportunity to prepare financially for the journey ahead.

Our prayer: Please God grant us wisdom to follow your will and your way. Thank you for our families and for the dinner that was such a blessing both financially and emotionally, we are so blessed and we give those blessings back to you as the giver of all good things. Please help our profile to stand out to the right birth mother and be with our unborn child, to keep them healthy and safe! Thank you for all you have done for us on our journey to adopt and all you will do with and for us in the future. Amen!