Happy New Year dear friend!
We hope you had a wonderful holiday season. We are praying that this year will bring you many blessings and be a time of great growth for you in the knowledge and strength of God, that you may more fully know His love for you and experience the victory and truest joy of abiding in Him.
Your prayer and support were put to good work in November and December through several outreach events, including co-sponsoring a Hanukkah event with the Stand With Israel Club at Liberty University. Through these events we were able to build connections into both believing and unbelieving Jewish communities, establish relationships with Liberty students and community members who are interested in Jewish ministry, and educate them about Jewish culture and specific opportunities within Chosen People Ministries. It was an encouraging end of a year filled with many ups and downs.
We are now eager to plunge into all that God has for the year ahead – which brings me to a bit of news we have to share with you. BJ and I have traveled the world together and shared many adventures with you. But we have recently embarked on our greatest adventure yet: growing our family through Domestic Infant Adoption!
The choice of adoption to grow our family has been a dream on our hearts and in our prayers for the last several years. Early last year we decided that we’re ready to bring this dream to life, and our unexpected detour to Virginia made it possible to begin even sooner than we had anticipated.
Regardless of our desire or ability to have biological children, we choose adoption because we believe in the beauty of bringing a child who is in need of a loving family into a family with an abundance of love to give. This decision is not born out of infertility but out of love and our conviction to follow God’s calling to care for the widow and orphan (James 1:27). We have no doubt that we are blessed with the most wonderfully accepting and loving support system in you, and all of our amazing friends and family.
Will you please be praying with us as we ask God to bring us exactly the child that He intends for us to love? We don’t know yet what each step of this process will look like for us, but we know it will be in God’s perfect timing, and guided by His wisdom and love. We will keep you updated as we have news to share about this process.
B’Shalom Yeshua,
BJ and Carissa (and Harley)