HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

We are looking forward to this New year, we know that it will bring lots of wonderful memories, laughs, tears, pain, praise, love, loss, new friendships and prayerfully a new addition to our family <3

I know some of you have heard of our idea but I am putting it out there again for those who want to be a part of it.  We are trying to raise 35 thousand dollars. We have an idea, we made some cards to pass out to give info, ways to follow our story, as well as donate towards this mission. We ordered 500 cards and Shannon did the math, if EACH person that gets a card gives $70.00 we will have the money! So here is my thought... email me at heatherlynncompton@gmail.com with your address if you would like one for yourself OR to pass along to someone you know would be able to help and we will send them your way. This can be a fun way to get others involved and advocate for adoption... These sweet little kids need a loving home, and we want to inform people of the need, not only for our little family but also for families across the US to get involved for themselves and adopt and give a future to someone who is in need of the basic needs of life! Please let me know if you would like to help! I am excited to see what will happen with this!!! We will keep you posted. Love, The Compton's

I put this on facebook and FOURTEEN cards have been sent out as of today... This makes my heart happy, knowing with each card and each person that gives we are closer to our goal and therefore close to our child! We have also received $1,000 gift the other day. PRAISE THE LORD!!! Thank you for all your love, prayers and support! 

FAITH

We are getting so excited... but I have to be honest, I lay awake sometimes thinking how quick God can provide this money and drift off to sleep dreaming of holding our little one, but by the time I wake up I feel so discouraged thinking "how in the world can we raise this much money?" I quickly have to redirect my thinking! I was teaching Will and Miles a song yesterday, "God will make a way, when there seems to be no way, He works in ways we cannot see, He will make a way for me!" as I sang this simple children's song, I realized I have a "grown up" faith not a "child's faith". He calls us to come to him as a child, with a faith that trust that he will indeed provide for us, love us and work in ways we can't understand. We as adults try to understand before we move... that is not faith, Shannon and I have decided to claim Proverbs 3:5-6 for this year! 

Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart, do not lean on your own understanding. In ALL your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths! 

Heather

Adoption 101!

Heather and I were excited when we received our Ethiopian Adoption Program packet in our email last week. I printed off all the information as soon as I could and we marked a night on the calendar that was free to sit down together and sign the paperwork. On Tuesday night of this week we tucked the boys into bed and pulled up a chair at the dinner table to take the next step of our adoption journey.  After signing all the papers and reading the information we are really thankful for America World Adoption and the time they take to educate their clients on the entire adoption process. Here is what we learned Tuesday night together.

The first phase of the process is the application and dossier-building phase.  If you are like us you probably have no idea what a dossier is. We learned that a dossier is a package of information about the prospective adoptive family that is sent to the government of the country where the adoption takes place. It includes everything from an extensive home study done by social service professionals, to our medical history, marriage certificate, criminal background check and financial statement. We also have to complete several hours of education classes as part of our dossier as well. This phase can take a few months or more and can cost up to $6,300.00 according to the budget we have been given that lists all the fees for the forms and studies we have to submit. We also learned that America World Adoption provides us with a family coordinator that will help us with every step of the process including building our dossier! This will be the next step in our adoption journey once we raise the funds we need to get started.

After we have all our documents together, our home study completed, and classes are finished the next phase is submitting our dossier to the country we are adopting from. In our case that is Ethiopia! Our dossier will have to be translated and then reviewed by the government of Ethiopia before we are allowed to adopt. If they accept us as worthy adoptive parents then they will begin to send us child referral packets. These packets contain information about orphaned children that need a loving home. We will prayerfully consider each child and when we accept one of the referred children we move on to the next step. This will no doubt be the hardest phase of the process for us. How do you choose just one child to love and give a home to? Please pray for God to direct our hearts to the child he desires us to adopt! This phase of the process can cost up to $7,700.00 and can take up to a year or more.

The third phase of the process is our official acceptance of the child referred. American World Adoption will send in a letter of recommendation to Ethiopia saying that they recommend us as adoptive parents for the referred child and we send in a signed acceptance letter saying we accept and desire to adopt this child! Once the letters are received our family coordinator will secure us a court date in Ethiopia to begin the legal process of adopting our little girl. This phase includes two trips to Ethiopia for Heather and I. We will spend time with our child and fill out the legal paperwork on the first trip, and then on the second trip we will bring home our new adopted daughter! This phase can cost up to $20,000.00 (mostly due to travel and legal expenses) and can take a few months or more. Once we are home we start the final phase of our adoption journey.

The final phase includes post adoption paperwork and follow up visits. Once we arrive home we have to get all of our child’s US citizenship paper work finished and some follow up visits from DSS and American World Adoption will take place to make sure everyone is adjusting well. Once this phase is completed our little Ethiopian girl is officially a Compton and a US citizen!

It was great to sit down together and learn so much about the journey we are taking. It also gave us some real goals to set out in front of us. We are prayerfully considering how to raise the funds we need and stepping out in faith trusting that God will direct each part of the process. We know that there are no guarantees and that this journey could be a very difficult one but we are compelled by the love of our savior to step out and no longer just live for ourselves but to reach out and share that same love with those in need. We can think of no greater need than a child’s need for a family that loves them.

Will you pray for us as we take this journey?  If so please email us at thecomptonsjourney@gmail.com and subscribe to our blog at www.thecomptonsjourney.blogspot.com.

Fundraising Goal’s

Phase 1 = $6,300.00 (Dossier building and home study)

Phase 2 = $7,700.00 (Dossier submission)

Phase 3 = $20,000.00 (Travel and legal expenses)

Phase 4 = $1,500.00 (US citizenship and follow up)

Total = $35,500.00

*If you would like to donate to our adoption fund (we need to raise about $35,500.00) please click on the paypal donation button on the right hand side of the screen. Thank you so much! 

 

Sincerely

The Compton’s!

12/16/11
Adoption has been in the DNA of our marriage since before our courtship. While Heather lived in South Africa as a missionary she had been in the process of trying to adopt a little girl named Rose. When she was forced to come home due to an illness I took the opportunity to pursue Heather and a year or so later we became Mr. and Mrs. Shannon Compton! During our courtship while Heather was home she continued to work trying to adopt Rose but God had other plans. Heather was informed that she would have to live as a resident of South Africa for two years to be eligible to adopt. This was impossible due to her health at the time. Heather was forced to step out of the adoption process with Rose. Soon after the door was closed for her a family from Switzerland became her new mom and dad. Heather and I both struggled a bit at first feeling a sense of loss and at the same time overjoyed that Rose had a family that loved and cared for her. As a brand new married couple we sought for understanding from God and He was so gracious and gave us a peace to just trust him and wait. Soon after our wedding we were given a big surprise when Heather became pregnant with our first son Will only a month into being married! Surprise number two came when we became pregnant with Miles only nine months after Will was born! The desire to adopt has never left our heart though. Looking back we are so thankful for the plans the Lord had for us and how He directed our path those first two years of our marriage.

This year God has again been moving adoption to the forefront of our heart. He used a variety of ways to open our heart to the possibility again, the greatest of which was the loss of our third child Naomi. Heather became pregnant again not long after Miles was born but soon into the pregnancy we knew something was not right. We lost the baby (whom we named Naomi) at 13 weeks. It was the hardest trial we had been through yet as a couple. God used Naomi's life to strengthen our faith in Him and to instill in us an even deeper sense of the holiness of life no matter how small or short it maybe. Her life is cherished as a priceless gift at the deepest level of our heart.

Soon after experiencing the loss of Naomi we had the privilege of hosting His Little Feet children's ministry. His Little Feet works with orphanages in Honduras and Ethiopia to bring children to the States to travel as a musical group to raise awareness for the urgent needs of children all over the world. They were amazing and as we spent time with these beautiful children God impressed on our heart (as well as several other families in our church!) that we needed to take a step of faith by opening our heart up to the possibility of adopting again.

In November of this year we took that step of faith and started the process of adopting a little girl from Ethiopia. We filled out the application, sent in the $250 and waited.

As of a few days ago we have now been accepted by American World Adoption Agency into their Ethiopian adoption program! We have a long way to go, a lot of forms to fill out, a whole lot of money to raise, and a lot to learn, but we are excited and committed to following the Lord on this journey. The one thing we are absolutely sure about is that God's heart is for adoption. We can be sure because he is our adoptive father who paid a high price and suffered more than we could ever imagine choosing us as his own children and giving us an eternal home with him. We are also excited because we are not the only ones he has been moving in this direction. We are honored to share life with a small group of faithful Christ followers many of which have also began the process of adoption as well and all of which support us whole completely.
So that is how this story has begun. Now we are looking at the road ahead of us excited to see how the Lord continues to faithfully direct our steps. We trust Him and love him and know that he is with us. What more do you need than that?


*If you are interesting in adoption check out www.awaa.org for more information.
*If you would like to know more about His Little Feet check out www.hislittlefeet.org for more     information.


*If you are willing to join us on this journey through prayer please contact us via email at thecomptonsjourney@gmail.com or a leave a comment on this blog


*If you would like to donate to our adoption fund (we need to raise about $35,500.00) please click on the paypal donation button on the right hand side of the screen. Thank you so much! 


More on our Adoption Journey to come!!!

Merry Christmas!

We want to wish you a merry Christmas and share with you why Christmas is such a special time of year.

What Christmas really is not:

Christmas is not buying lots of stuff, eating lots of sweets, and

saying happy holidays to people just because it’s that time of year.

 It is defiantly not a night a large, jolly, and very generous bearded man breaks into your home with a sack full of toys to leave under your tree, although that would be amazing!

What Christmas really is:

Christmas is the day we celebrate the miraculous birth of God’s only begotten Son Jesus Christ.

Why should we celebrate the birth of Jesus?

Jesus said this about why he had been sent into the world,

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” The Gospel of John chapter 3 verses 16-18

According to Jesus Christ, Christmas is so special because:

There is a God in Heaven.

He loves us and does not want us to die eternally separated from him because of our sin but instead he wants us to spend eternity with him as his children.

So he gave us his only son and if we believe in him we will spend eternity in heaven with God.

 God did not send Jesus to condemn us but to save us by giving his life on the cross to pay for our sin completely.

Whoever (that's anyone) believes in Jesus will be forgiven of their sin because they accept the full payment for sin that Jesus made on their behalf on the cross.

Whoever does not believe in Jesus remains condemned for their life of sinful rebellion against God and rejects his gracious offer to make things right between them through his son.

Jesus Christ came to save sinners (that is all of us!)

Have you heard this Good News before?

Do you believe that it is true?

Have you turned from a life of sin and returned to God the father by accepting his gracious offer to forgive your sins through Christ?

Would you like to?

All you need to do is pray and honestly tell him from your heart that you do believe that Jesus Christ is his son, that you have sinned and that you now accept his son’s payment for your sin on the cross and are willing to follow Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

Would you like to hear more about this Good News?

Please feel free to talk to us about our faith in Jesus Christ and how his forgiveness has changed our lives forever. You are welcome to email us at thecomptonsjourney@gmail.com or leave a comment below!

We pray you have a truly Merry Christmas!

Accepted!

We are accepted! We have been accepted into the America World Ethiopia Adoption program. We are so excited to have opened the door of our heart and taken a step towards adopting a child from Ethiopia and look forward to the journey ahead!