Why "Eight Is Not Enough"?

When we were younger, there was a television sitcom that was called "Eight is Enough". The television watching world was entertained with the thought of a family with eight children. Most of us were shocked at the prospect of such a large family- myself included! Then ever so slowly, God began to work on our hearts, until we surrendered to Him all of our lives- yes even gave Him sovereign control over the size of our family and He has blessed us immeasurably, with eight biological children. Each of these children have been an amazing gift to us and we cherish each of them. And we praised God for them and felt to ourselves "eight is enough" - at least for a time.

Then God began to stir our hearts. It was as if He spoke to say to us "these 8 precious children I have given to you, but what have you given to my orphans in return?" A burden began to build on our hearts to adopt. We knew that for us God still had other plans for us as parents if we would be faithful to His calling- that eight is not enough. And so, we followed this call to adopted and He has continued to blessed us through adoption. First a sibling group of three from Soacha, Colombia. They joined our family in November, 2008. In May 2010, we adopted twin infants from Texas. In September of 2012 we were privileged to return to Colombia and adopt a sibling group of two from Cali. At this time, we anxiously wait for our travel date to depart for China where a very special girl and boy wait for their forever family. By the time they all reach adulthood, we will have had the amazing privilege to be parents of children in our home for a half century. Our life is full beyond measure, beyond our wildest expectations, yes even beyond anything we could have ever hoped. Truly, eight is not enough. As of late we have wondered if God's plan for us as parents all along was not for eight children, but rather eight plus eight. Our heavenly Father knows and His word assures us "I know the plans I have made for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you." We trust He knows the number of His children He wants us to love and to nurture on His behalf, and whether that is eight or eighty times eight we stand ready and say speak Lord, your servants are listening and are prepared to be father and mother to your fatherless on earth.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Home Sweet Home


We had a great trip home. We got to the airport in Bogota about 3 1/2 hours before our scheduled flight. We thought that was plenty of time. But..... It took every bit of that time, and when we got to our gate, boarding was already in progess. We were slowed down in large part because we had 9 people to get through all the process. We also had to go through 3 seperate security screens, passports, plus the adoption added additional checks. God provisioned for everything and we got on the plane just fine.

Our kids - new and old alike did great on the flight and we got to Atlanta without any problems. It took about 1 1/2 hours to process through customs, passports and imigration and then headed for our connecting flight home. We had 7 tickets for one flight and two for a later flight. Once at the gate we found there were 54 people on standby for our first flight - the flight we needed two more tickets to all fly together. This was not even a challenge for our God who provisioned for us to get the first two standby seats given out. We got to our house fine even though a major ice storm was in the forecast. We were all happy to be back home and all the new guys are settling in well.

They are meeting lots of new people. We have not experienced any problems since arriving home. We continue to integrate together as a family. It was a bit overwhelming for our new kids when we got home. There were so many new toys, they felt like they needed to play with everything at once. We have got to the point where they now know they can play with anything they like- only one thing at a time.

We met with all the people from our small group past and present 3 days after arriving back home. These are the people who have been are consistent prayer partners since we began this journey. We had about 85 people about 60 who were kids. Yession , Tatiana and Santiago did great with this large gathering. They are not having any inhabitions about meeting new people or going new places.

We had a great first Christmas togehter. We had our entire family together for Christmas and were able to take a new group picture with everyone. Today's post includes the new family picture taken at our church and a picture of the 8 children who still live at home.
Jim and Betty
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