Four About To Become Six!

In six short days, we will be on our way to Ethiopia to enlarge our family from four children to six. We are so excited and overwhelmed all at once! Prayerfully, sometime around Christmas we will get all six kids together for a picture.

Our packing is almost done. Our living room is packed with luggage! We still have so much to do this week!

In church this morning, our wonderful church family prayed over us for our trip and our new children. We are so blessed with the church family we have. What a journey God puts us on...we are having the time of our life!

Thank you for lifting us up in prayer!

Kurt and JoLynn

The Original Four!

What A Year To Be Thankful!

We have had the most memorable Thanksgiving this year. We went home to Nebraska for the first time in almost a year and spent time with family. The most precious day was spent with Ali, Kurt's oldest daughter and JoLynn's beautiful step daughter. We have missed her terribly and we are so very proud of the wonderful, sweet, beautiful young woman she has grown into. We have never been so thankful! The four kids had a great time together, dancing, singing, and wrestling around as siblings do. What a gift to us all! We love you, Ali! So proud of you!

Dad and Jo

Preparation

We got Julianna's crib set up this weekend. We put her in Brooklyn's room as this will become her room as soon as we can get the bedroom in the basement finished. Bethany will move downstairs, Brooklyn to Bethany's room and Julianna will have Brooklyn's room. We still need bedding for the boys' room and while we are gone, some ladies from the church are going to paint some in their room. We have the greatest people in our church! They have been amazing through this process.

It will be good for Brooklyn to room with Julianna for awhile...give her a chance to bond with her after Bethany spent the first week with her alone.

Here are some pictures also of our adoption service. It was an awesome evening and God touched many lives. Joshua and Julianna have no idea how much they are loved by so many!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! We are thankful for you!

Fighting to Get To Our Kids!

We were told by so many families adopting internationally adoption was not for the faint of heart. The devil simply does not like adoption. It's such a picture of what God does in our lives as we are adopted and grafted into the Vine. It is literally altering generations for the Kingdom of God, taking children with no inheritance and giving them a heritage...very much a snapshot of how God takes us as sinners, orphans living with no inheritance of heaven, and makes us His children with all the same rights and privileges as the very Son of God! Wow! So powerful.

So, the resistance we've felt in recent weeks to us traveling to Ethiopia hasn't been a shock to us and God has been so faithful to stand with us, strengthening us. Our vehicle situation became an immediate need and God provided through a precious family a beautiful van. We are now struggling with illness as Kurt has pneumonia and JoLynn the stomach virus. We won't be deterred. We continue to press on, knowing this is but a test of our faith. Kurt preached today regardless of the pneumonia and God's grace was there.

It feels almost like a battle for our children in these last moments before travel and you must get a fighting spirit about you, unwilling to let anything stop you from bringing these beautiful little ones home. What a moment of reward as we lay eyes on them for the first time.

Packing has been a continual process since November 3rd. Our living room is full of suitcases and bags as I consistently pack and check things off my list. Two weeks from today we will have our children safely sleeping in our hotel room. No doubt I will watch them through the night, soaking in the reality that they are finally in my care.

We have pictures of both children on our refrigerator and today I was filling up my cup with water from the fridge to make hot chocolate and my eyes fell deep into one of those pictures. I was noticing how tiny Julianna's hands were pressed against the care center floor and imagining her hand in mine. I compared her hands to the thick, round hands of her new brother Joshua and smiled at his cute, round face. Suddenly, I realized water and powdered chocolate were running over the top of the tall cup as I was snapped back into reality. I have been looking at those pictures of Joshua for 16 months and of Julianna for six months. I can't imagine how it feels to suddenly be looking at those same faces in the flesh. That moment is but 14 days away.

Thank you for covering us with your prayers...pray for good weather in Denver for our flights going and coming home. Pray for our health and for the health of our babies in Ethiopia. Pray for the multitude of details we have to cover before leaving from child care for our two here and their busy schedules to the paperwork we need to bring with us for embassy. We so need your prayers.

We will try to post updates from Ethiopia. Can't wait to post pictures of us holding our children!

Kurt and JoLynn

18 Days and Counting!

Wow! After 15 months of waiting and praying and working towards getting my two children home from Ethiopia, it has come down to 18 days!! We are almost vibrating with excitement and preparation. So much to do in such a short time! Car seats and high chairs, paperwork, packing, meds to purchase, donations to organize...it's so overwhelming, but so wonderful!

We have nearly arrived at the funds we need. Scripture has come to life before us as the Malachi test and promise has unfolded before us. "Bring your full tithe into the temple treasury so there will be ample provisions in My temple. Test me in this and see if I don't open up heaven itself to you and pour out blessings beyond your wildest dreams." (Message Malachi 3:10) The NIV says that God will pour out so many blessings that we cannot contain them. Heaven itself has open up above us and we have been blessed beyond our wildest dreams, our vats so full we cannot contain them. There is a purpose for that overflow...that we would be the conduit for God to do the very same thing for someone else! We will forever send monthly support to families in the adoption process, being a blessing as so many have been for us. You just can't out give God. He will take you up on that challenge every time.

One of the moments I anticipate most, after those first moments with my children, is the opportunity to see the many children of my friends who are waiting to go home. I cannot wait to bend low and cup the faces of those children and tell them, "Your Daddy and Mommy so love you...and they are coming for you soon." I can't wait to hold them and whisper prayers in their ears and become Aunt Jo forever. It's such a precious gift for me and for their parents as we report back how beautiful their children are. Those were gifts to us as so many saw our Joshua Israel and held him and talked to him and took gifts to him from us. What a moment that will be!

Keep us in your prayers as we continue to prepare. Not being detail oriented, this is a challenge for me. Thank you for praying for grace and clarity of thought.

In just 19 days, we will be gazing into the faces of our children. The thought of it almost beyond what I can grasp right now. What fun it will be to pen that experience and share it with you!

Much Love,
Kurt and JoLynn

The 11:59 Miracles

We have had several needs recently. Our older minivan has finally given up the ghost. It's sitting in our driveway needing to go to the junk yard. Our car has been dying as we drive and then not starting up and we have read all sorts of problems with this year of Impalas and the trouble in getting it fixed on the internet. With the time winding down to travel and knowing we will have a family of seven quickly, we needed God to direct us in what to do...trade in our car for a van, try to find a 12 passenger van? We didn't really have the cash flow for new car payment. We put out a request for prayer about this and God came through miraculously. Dear, new friends who have also adopted came to our house and told us they wanted to GIVE us their minivan! We were overwhelmed, speechless, humbled....God provided just in time through precious people willing to give sacrificially. It's a beautiful van and we are so blessed!!

We were waiting on God to provide for the remaining $1900 we needed for our tickets. Our travel agency let us pay for two tickets and gave us a week extension on the other three. We should have known God would not fail us. By 9:30 all of our ticket money was accounted for!!

We belong to a adoption web board with the most precious families from across the country. These are people we may never meet face to face, but we are bonded together in a unified calling and unique understanding in this adoption process. All of them are either in the process of adopting children from Ethiopia or are just home with their new children.

Knowing of our deadline...one posted this:

My daughter is studying about pioneers right now and we read the other day about the devastating effects of a prairie fire and how neighbors would immediately drop what they were doing and rush to help, plowing a strip of land around endangered farms (creating a “firebreak”), beating the fire with wet blankets, and doing whatever they could to stop the fire. At the end of the day, the community members were exhausted and filthy and had given their all in the fight, but often they had saved their neighbor’s farm! So when I read about the “fire” JoLynn was facing today, I wanted instantly to run to the fields to help her fight! If you are a “neighbor” and can help, please post as such!

Several of these precious families have committed to send $100. Shortly after reading that, our phone rang and we couldn't find it. We searched for our cordless phone and found and saw it was our doctors. We have the most awesome doctors...husband and wife team. They have helped us with all the preparations medically we will need for us and our new children. Kurt called them back and they told us they wanted to give us the remaining ticket money, $1500.

So often the disciples were left amazed at the works of Jesus as He healed the sick, raised the dead, cast demons from tormented people, and multiplied a few loaves and fishes into food for the masses. In the last 15 months of this journey, we have been left amazed at the miraculous work of Jesus over and over again. Jesus did not perform the provision miracle of feeding the 5,000 by Himself...He chose to use the hands of the disciples to carry out the miracle. The bread and fish were multiplied as the disciples gave it. In the same way, in this calling to the orphan, Jesus has used the hands of His disciples to provide the miracles to get Joshua and Julianna home to a new family, church, and community. He has used your hands! So many have given sacrificially to save two lives and to alter generations of people. You can be sure, God will multiply those gifts and bring a harvest into your lives. How he loves the orphan and how He smiles on those who care for them. Those of you who have given financially, with a vehicle, with gifts and support and prayers...we thank you and our children will never be the same because of you!!!

Whatever miracle you are needing from the Lord..no matter how late the hour seems to see the miracle come to pass, God is an 11:59 God. He is faithful. Believe Him to the very end! He will go the ends of the earth for you!

Waiting on a Miracle

God has amazed us over and over again in this process of adopting our children. Just in time, with each deadline, He has come through in ways we could not predict. What I've learned more than anything else over the past 15 months is trust. God is absolutely trustworthy! He never falls short of the complete promise. He is truly Jehovah Jireh, our Provider.

We are arriving upon yet another deadline, unsure how God will work. We are to have almost $6800 for our airline tickets by Thursday. We are short $1900. We are again lifting our need before a great God and knowing He has not brought us this far to leave us hanging.

Thank you for praying for this need. After this deadline, we will need about $6000 more to travel. God is faithful. Our kids will be home very soon.

Thank you for your prayers.

Blessings,
Kurt and JoLynn

Dreaming...

In just over four weeks, we will be soaring over the ocean on our way to our children! A 16 month journey coming to fruition! I can't even imagine the moment. I religiously watch "An Adoption Story" and imagine that moment for myself. What will those first moments feel like? Will Joshua be scared of these white people who speak a weird language and smell weird? Has he been looking at the pictures we sent of us and dreaming about what we are like? Will his spirit recognize us, sending him running into our arms? I have loved my little man for 16 months and I will, no doubt, want to embrace him and tell him how much his mommy loves him, but will he be ready for that in those first moment? We have heard so many different stories and each one is different. We have no way of knowing how he will feel and respond in those first moments. We sure don't want to put any expectation on him. What will that first moment be like for Julianna? My mothering instincts will want to scoop her up and hold her close, smelling her hair and skin, feeling my 20 month old daughter for the first time. Will she cry? Will we frighten her? The thought of that breaks my heart, but is very possible. Time will tell how that first amazing moment will unfold. However it does, it will be among the most precious of memories...a miracle unfolding before me.

We have spent the last couple of days since our great November 3rd packing, making lists and more lists, and praying. We still have $8,000 to raise to travel...$2100 we need to pay the $6800 in airline tickets by the 12th. We are trusting God just like we have for 16 months and have no doubt of His provision. He never leaves a miracle underfunded or incomplete. We don't know how this provision will come, but we will faithfully wait for it.

We fly out of Denver on December 6th, fly to Washington DC, then boarding Ethiopian Air to Rome, then to Addis Ababa. Our flight is an overnight flight and by the time we get there, it will be evening in Ethiopia. We will have to try and sleep again.

What a Christmas this will be! The kids will come home on December 13th to the first snow they've ever seen more than likely, Christmas lights and a Christmas tree. We hope to not overwhelm them, but it seems that it will be so very special. What a gift they are to our family this Christmas.

Got six new pictures of Julianna today. Isn't she a beauty?
We have our tickets and hotel on hold, leaving December 6th. Please pray with us as we raise our final travel expenses. We are still about $8000 short.

The realization that in just over a month, we will be face to face with these children is hitting us now. We are overwhelmed with love and anticipation. We know the transition could be difficult for them, but God has given us such a passion for them, we know we will be able to walk through their grief and loss and teach them to bond with us. We are so excited about staying at the Ethiopian Guest Home. It is a guest house specifically for adopting parents with suites made to fit your need. After the Tuesday embassy date, we will just be hanging out at the guest house all day and night, bonding with our new children. It will be a time we look back on as precious and pivotal, no doubt.

The outpouring of love and support for our family and these children is humbling. What an awesome community and church they are coming home to...a group of people who have
loved them for months and months and given so they can
come home. We are touched.


Thank you for continuing to pray for Joshua and Julianna.
Christmas will be so sweet this year!

Kurt and JoLynn

The Amazing Story

Click on the picture, turn up your speakers, and grab a tissue. God is so mighty!




Bringing Joshua and Julianna Home

Let us Introduce!

Our children! Both children miraculously passed court in the night and now they are Joshua Israel Coleman and Julianna Kay Kynadee Coleman! It's finally happening! And we will have them home by Christmas! What a gift for Christmas!!!`

Here are some pictures and a link to our video story!

Thank you all for praying! That is what got us through the last 15 months of this process and what has kept our children safe in Ethiopia!

God is amazing!!

Love

Kurt and JoLynn