Children In The Son

Dear Family and Friends,

I thought that Daniel’s 34^th birthday was a great day to share our big news with all of you.  If you receive our postal newsletter, you already know. 

I AM 14 WEEKS PREGNANT WITH TWINS!!!

Here is a photo we took today of us both holding my burgeoning tummy.  I have only gained a few pounds since we found out but it sure does feel like more! 

As many of you know, Daniel and I have been praying for The Lord to open the doors for us to adopt in Romania.  We identified a little girl that we wanted to adopt but the government told the director of that private orphanage that they would make sure any child we wanted to adopt was adopted by a Romanian family, even if they had to bribe a family to do it.  That made Daniel and I very afraid for the well-being of any child we would identify so we decided not to proceed.  We prayed about it and felt it was time to come back to the USA for an indefinite period of time to adopt a child in the USA.  At the beginning of December, I purchased our tickets to return to the USA on February 1^st because that date was the cheapest I could find. 

During the month of December, our Romanian Administrator, Georgy, let me know that she was having trouble with obtaining the necessary paperwork to extend our visas.  Usually, we get a letter from the local Department of Health for the work we do with babies in the Children’s Hospital but because we switched our project to the Maternity Hospital, they refused to issue the letter stating that we were not working there legally.  We showed our contract with the hospital and they still refused to accept it.  The reality is that the government was furious that Daniel and I, as foreigners, had knowledge of all the babies being abandoned in the Maternity Hospital.  Additionally, this was a way they could “punish” us for my appearance on ABC News 20/20 in 2001 and for attending the conference to the European Union parliamentarians last year.  The first week in January, we found out that we were definitely going to have to leave Romania by January 31^st and we would no longer have the right to reside there more than 90 days.  Then the shocker happened.

On January 18^th, Daniel and I were stunned to find out that I was pregnant.  After all of these years of praying and having others prayers, we could not believe The Lord and His timing in everything.  We only had twelve days before leaving Romania and we told only our employees our wonderful news and waited to tell family after we returned to the USA.  Our employees were overjoyed and celebrated with us for days.  Here is a photo of us with all of our staff a few days before we left.

When we left Romania, our house parent, Viorel, read us a verse that he said The Lord put on his heart.  Ecclesiastes 3:1 “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven”  The day we arrived in the USA, my brother called and read me that same verse!  We could not agree more.  The Lord, in His perfect timing, knew the exact moment for us to return to the USA indefinitely.  But the story doesn’t end there!

About two weeks after we returned to the USA, I had my first doctor’s appointment here and we found out that I was pregnant with twins!!!!  So not only has The Lord blessed us, He has given us a double portion of His blessing that we are still shouting gratitude for with each breath we take.   I am now 14 weeks pregnant and the due date is September 25^th.

Our journey with infertility has been such a long, emotionally difficult time but The Lord has been faithful to us through each step and blessed us in a way we never imagined possible.  Our theme verse during this time in our lives is Psalms 40:5, “Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done.  The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.”  Amen, amen, amen!!! 

We will continue to work full-time here in the USA for the ministry doing fundraising and the correspondence to our sponsors, especially for our Sponsor-A-Child projects.  We have a long way to go in getting all the children sponsored in all the projects we have.  We are visiting churches now and will continue to do so until I can no longer travel.  We hope to see many of you soon!  We will be in the Washington DC area from April 2^nd through the 7^th and then back in the Raleigh area until the end of April.  We would love to hear from you so please feel free to call at the numbers below. 

May The Lord bless you abundantly as He has us!

Basking In The Son,

Michelle