Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Our Adoption Story

We are adopting because we believe God has called us to open our home up to orphans. Back in January, 2011, both Trey and Robyn had separate individual experiences where God began to impress upon their hearts this calling to pursue adoption. In mid-January, we were discussing this tug in our hearts, and we both saw this as God’s leading us to stop “talking” about adoption and start “doing” something about it. We both agreed that God had prepared our hearts with “extra love” that was stored up for children that were not yet living with us. We also saw how our decision to homeschool last year was the leap of faith that God used to prepare our home for bringing adopted children in where they could have personalized attention. In addition, we have seen how God has prepared our own children’s personalities to be suitable for the flexibility needed in an adoption.

In deciding to adopt internationally, we both were directed toward the Philippines after reading about the extreme cases of child trafficking and the sex-slave trade in the country.  In addition, we feel called to adopt a sibling group of 2-3 children because tsibling groups are, in general, more difficult to place for adoption since the agencies try to keep them intact as a family.

We also believe our adoption calling and experience is part of God’s plan to encourage our young church plant and the students we work with at Norwich University. We pray that God will use our journey and testimony of His provision for this adoption as a discipleship opportunity for our church to learn about God’s heart for the fatherless and God’s provision for those who obey His calling. Therefore, in response to God’s leading in our lives, we are pursuing an international adoption from the Philippines of a sibling group of 2-3 children.

Please see the post below for information on how you can help us bring our future children home!

Monday, July 25, 2011

Drink coffee...support adoption

Friends,

Our family is answering God’s call on our life to open our home to adopt a group of siblings from the Philippines. We have completed our home study through Bethany Christian services, and are now working to get our international paperwork complete so that we can be considered for a referral.

One of the ways you can help us right now is to pray that God with give us favor with all the agencies involved as we submit mountains of paperwork, and that we would see His provision for the financial expenses of this international adoption.

Another way you can help us raise the estimated $26,000 for our adoption is by doing something you might possibly do every week…buy coffee! We have created a storefront through Just Love Coffee, a Christian company that helps adoptive families fund their adoptions. Roasting Fair Trade Specialty coffees, Just Love uses proceeds to help an Ethiopian orphanage and families adopting not just from Ethiopia, but from anywhere in the world. For every bag of coffee you purchase through our storefront, we receive $5.00 toward our adoption expenses.

So, we invite you to visit our Just Love Coffee storefront at http://www.justlovecoffee.com/thecates

Make sure you cut and paste the link as-is, so that we get credit towards our adoption expenses for your purchase. Please feel free to pass this link on to all the coffee drinkers you know!

If you would like more information on how you can minister to children in need of families through adoption, or how you can help us with our adoption journey, please send us an email at tcates@newlifevt.com.

Sincerely,

Trey and Robyn Cates