The Journey Begins

WELCOME TO OUR FAMILY AND OUR AMAZING JOURNEY IN ADOPTION!

Even as I sit a type these words I am overwhelmed, excited, nervous, happy, humbled…to think that God would allow us, the Hunt family, to be a part of His care for orphans in such a real way is mind blowing!

This little blog is meant to be a place where you all can journey with us in a tiny way during the adoption process. So we thought it would be good to give a little bit of the story that brings us to “right now.”

The Beginning:

In a very real way the beginning started “before the foundation of the world” when “in love He predestined us for ADOPTION as sons through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:3-7). Our God is an adopting God, a Father who has pursued us in love to bring us into His family. He never asked us to prove we were worth adopting. He just loved us, even in all of our mess, and said through His Son, “I love you and want you in My family.”

Fast Forward a Billion Years or so (January 2010):

A few months ago I started studying the truth of God’s adopting nature. At the same time Shelley and I were attending a conference for college students in Atlanta. One day at the conference I attended a session called “Worship and Justice”. It was about how our worship is to overflow into all of life. A huge part of that was about God’s care for orphans and there was a presentation about orphans in Uganda.

While I was in this session Shelley was trying to get into a different session but it was full so she decided it was coffee time. She purchased a cup of coffee from a vender called Gobena (www.gobena.org). Their whole mission is to sell coffee in order to help feed orphans in Ethiopia. Shelley did not realize this until she paid and the lady behind the counter said, “Thanks. You just fed an Ethiopian orphan for a day. If you buy a whole bag of coffee beans you will feed an orphan for month. There is a video over there that will tell you more.” So not expecting anything life changing to happen, Shelley watched the video. As she saw all of these little faces she was overwhelmed that most of these children would never know the love of a family. She broke….

Fast Forward About an Hour:

Shelley and I met up. The conversation went something like this. Shelley: “So how was your session?” Doug: “It wasn’t what I expected. It was about all of these orphans in Uganda. It just made me want to rescue all of them.” Shelley: “What? You have to come watch this video.” Then the Spirit of God in her and in me collide…He was doing the same thing in each of us without us even realizing it. It is maybe the most profound sense of oneness in marriage that can be experienced.

We landed on this thought. When He speaks that clearly to us we have to do something about it. We knew that our Adopting Father was leading us to “be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love..” (Ephesians 5:1) pursuing to adopt.

Fast Forward to Today:

Over the past 3 months Shelley and I have been praying, reading, researching, talking, and praying more about “what now”. The results have been these things:

1. We are pursuing to adopt an infant from Ethiopia.
2. We are working through an agency called All God’s Children International (AGCI). www.allgodschildren.org
3. On March 25th our application was approved, which means we are officially in the process.
4. The process from now will take 12-16 months and cost around $25,000!
5. Our next steps will include fund raising, orientation with our agency, then what is called a Home Study (More on that later).

We would love for you to pray with us for our new family member. We will be updating this blog as the story unfolds so please check back.