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As I sit here about to embark on some new adventures in my life, I can’t help but think through all of the details and all of the possibilities that come with each new thing. What will come of this initial trip to Kenya? How is the first course of my new college career going to go? How in the world are we ever going to pay for this new adoption? What about Lucy’s adoption? (I must admit, there is still a lot of anxiety in that one and there will be until the day it’s finalized.)

And yet, even as I look forward, I’m also looking back. At the encouragement of a friend, I am writing out the complete story of how Melody and I got to where we are now. I will be posting it in a series of blog posts on our new adoption blog. And, what reflection I’ve done up to this point (I’m up to 2001) has brought back a flood of incredible memories and set my mind to wondering about some of the people we encountered along the way.

All of this, the looking forward and looking back (and now I have a Paul Abdul song in my head…great) has spawned a little creative monster in me. He creeps up now and again and REALLY doesn’t want me to sleep! But sleep I must, because I have a 14 month old who will wake up early tomorrow whether I want to sleep or not. So, I’m hoping that a little bit of writing here will calm that little monster down. Here goes:

Journeys longed for; adventures sought
Joy experienced, but pain brought forth
Forged by skilled hands, I stand alone
Unique among creation, just like everyone else

My story, not so unusual as to be remembered
Not so drab as to be left untold
Seemingly enjoyed by my Father
As he reminds me of its arc

Yet, once again, my particulars,
Not singularly spectacular,
Amass in strange ways
Which seem, somehow, to matter

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Melody and I are excited to announce that we have officially entered into the adoption process for child #2! After much prayer and discussion, we have decided to adopt a child from The Marshall Islands, a small island nation in the Pacific Ocean. The story of how we got here and why we made the decision we did is too long and complex to write in this post. The short story, however, is that Melody and I both feel strongly compelled that God has brought us to this decision and that the time to do this thing is right now.

Of course, anyone who knows us and has been following our adoption journey knows that we have already been through one unsuccessful international adoption process and that we are currently in the midst of a less-than-smooth adoption process for our little girl, Lucy. And so, the timing of this particular announcement and the fact that we’re diving in, once again, to the strange waters of international adoption may seem strange to some. It certainly seems strange to us, and yet we know that now is the time, that our next child will be Marshallese and that God has already chosen that child for us.

In addition to letting our friends and family know about this exciting new adventure, we want to give you an opportunity to learn more about the process, to track our progress and, for those who feel compelled to do so, to help bring our little Marshallese baby home by offering financial support. So, we have created a website with a ton of information about our adoption called “You’re Doing What? From Where?”

We hope you’ll check the site out often, including our new blog that will be all about our adoption journey. As our friends, family and church community, more than anything else, we ask for your prayers as we anxiously take the next steps in this adventure. This is a big leap of faith for us and we are blessed to have so many of you supporting us along the way. Stay tuned for more!

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You know that feeling when you’re on the verge of something really exciting and you can barely stand the anticipation? That moment at the top of the roller coaster, just before that last car breaks free? The last breath you take before leaping off the cliff into the lake below? You know that feeling? Yeah, that’s kind of my entire life right now.

As we continue to inch ever closer to the finish line on our adoption of our daughter Lucy, everything else in life seems to be in warp mode. Just to catch you up, here are a few things going on right now:

1. My missions involvement has really picked up in the last 6-8 months, with my primary focus being in two areas – Kenya and Central Asia. I leave for Kenya in just over a week for a series of meetings to discuss how we can best partner with local Kenyan churches to reach not only their country, but also the predominantly Muslim countries to the north as well. It will be an exhausting trip, but I know that God has incredible things in store!

2. Also on the missions front, I’ve been having a series of conversations with some incredible individuals about how we can support and play a role in the work that God is doing in Central Asia. There are incredible things happening in that part of the world that you just don’t hear about in the news. I can’t wait to see what happens there.

3. I’m going back to school! Only one other time in my life have I been excited about going to school – my freshman year of college – and I think that had as much to do with being several hundred miles away from home as it did anything else. This time around, I’m pumped to know that at 32 years old, I have some idea what I want to do (and more importantly, what God wants to do) with the rest of my life. I don’t have all the details, but I know the general direction. That’s a lot more than I could say at 18!

4. I’m really excited about where our church is headed. Over the past 18 months, we’ve seen a ton of new faces come through our doors and many of them are plugging into our community in exciting ways. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God is working in the lives of the people in our church community and I also know there is so much more yet to come. I love being able to share life with these people and am so thankful that God orchestrated our arrival at Trinity two years ago.

5. Lastly…well…I can’t tell you. There will be a big announcement coming from the Mosley household very soon. Melody and I have been hard at work putting the finishing touches on our efforts to communicate about this new adventure to our friends and family, so you probably won’t have to wait very long. However, I will simply say that once again, God has called us to embrace what He has for us, regardless of what we think is possible, and to trust in Him for the strength and provision to see His work through.

I think 2011 is going to be a whole lot of fun…if it doesn’t kill me first!

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ABBA Fund provides interest-free loans for adoptive families

Have you ever had a meeting with someone and walked away absolutely sure that the encounter was God-ordained? I had had just such a meeting on Monday with Jason Kovacs. Jason is part of an organization called ABBA Fund. ABBA Fund is an organization that offers interest-free loans to families to pay for adoption expenses. Yes, that’s right, interest-free. No interest. No fees. Nothing. Just money that you need in order to pay for adoption.

And if that isn’t cool enough, ABBA Fund is also in the business of partnering with local churches to establish church adoption funds. Of course, in keeping with the spirit of their mission, they don’t charge the churches anything to set up or administer these funds. Yeah…zero dollars to handle the process from beginning to end. Sound crazy? Yeah.

If you’re like me, whenever you hear of an organization willing to put forth the kind of energy, expertise and risk of reviewing applications, approving and managing personal loans and they don’t ask for a dime of interest from the loan recipient or from the partnering organization, you ask one question: What’s the catch? There’s always a catch, right?

Well, yeah. The catch is that these guys are crazy about adoption. They are crazy about God’s heart for orphans. And they have determined to do everything in their power to help unite these kids and the families who want to care for them for the rest of their lives. As I talked to Jason, I began to understand that there really is no other objective here. It really is all about the kids.

Of course, one of my first questions to Jason as we began to talk (over a bowl of Pappasito’s chips) was, “So, if you don’t make any money off of the loans and you don’t get any money from the partner churches, how to you afford to operate?” He explained that ABBA Fund has a few donors who believe in the mission of the organization and who designate funds specifically for operations. By keeping their overhead low, ABBA Fund is able to function on these donations alone and allow all of the money coming in from other sources to go back to families in need of adoption funds. “People keep suggesting that we charge for what we do,” he told me, “but the board just keeps coming back and saying ‘We want to do this for free.’” (Sounds like a good board, Jason!)

As Jason and I continued our conversation, it became very clear that God had put us together for a reason. We talked about the future of ABBA Fund, about what God seems to be doing within church circles regarding adoption and about the need for more organization, more communication and a better network for adoptive families. We promised to keep the lines of communication open as we journey down this path and we promised to meet again soon. I know that we will and I’m really looking forward to it.

You can follow Jason and ABBA Fund on Twitter at @jasonkovacs and @ABBAFund. You can also read more about ABBA Fund and what they do at www.abbafund.org.

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It was a favorite expression of my mom when I was young. Having a son with a flair for the dramatic and the ability to blow just about anything out of proportion, my mom had her fair share of mole hill battles. As I look at the world today, I see that so many things in life are just mole hills, but we give them so much importance as to make mountains out of them.

There is the mountain of infertility that so many couples (Melody & I included) try to overcome. Yet, once we got to the other side and embraced the call to adopt, the idea that we may never have a child biologically becomes very…um…mole hillish. Likewise, once we had made the decision to adopt a child, the mountain of fostering seemed like one we would never top. Then we came to the stark realization that we could choose to risk heartbreak (which we could endure if we had to) for the sake of providing a loving home to a child, even if temporarily. Suddenly the risks of foster care seem like mole hills.

Then there are the financial mountains. Every month, most weeks and some days, we face that giant mountain of bills that threatens to consume us. Yet, in the midst of that battle, we commit $30 to an orphanage in Kenya, give $20 to relief efforts in Haiti and continue to faithfully write our tithe check to the church. Seeing the results of dozens, thousands and sometimes millions of like-minded people making the same small gifts we made somehow causes that mountain to shrink. If I am rich enough to provide someone else with clean water to drink, then I certainly have “enough”.

Of course, we are surrounded by mole hills – mole hills that we’ve elevated to mountain status. In scaling the insurmountable in front of us, we so often are able to look behind us and see how diminutive our past challenges really were. Here’s to all of the mountains we have yet to climb…and to discovering just how many of them are actually just mole hills.

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The adoption journey that we have been on has been a long one, but it has taught us many things.  We have tried, through it all, to remain open to all possibilities and to stretch and grow in the process.  As a result, we have wrestled with many of the tough questions of adoption: “What are the challenges of having a multi-racial family?” “How do we handle the unknowns of a child’s medical or psychological history?” “Are we willing to do what is necessary for our child to develop emotionally and physically, even if that means making a greater sacrifice than we’re even currently aware?”

The answer to the last question is a resounding “YES!”  You see, we’re not adopting just because we want children, although we do.  We’re not adopting through CPS because it’s less expensive than other means of adoption, although we’re happy it is because it allows more opportunities for more families to adopt and more children to find permanent homes.  We’re not looking to adopt a child of another race because “that’s what’s available”, though we are fully aware of the high number of minority children entering the system every day.

The reason we desire to adopt a minority child through CPS is that we care for these children.  We have a loving home ready and waiting for a child who is in desperate need of a loving home.  We understand that raising a child, no matter what his or her  background is or needs are, presents parents with daily challenges that sometimes seem insurmountable.  And yet, we look to the great examples of our friends and family who have walked through incredible adversity to make a way for their children to grow up in a loving, safe and nurturing environment.

We don’t see the world through rose-colored glasses.  We don’t view children as constantly laughing, smiling and playing.  We understand that every child brings with him or her a personality that will range from euphoric to enraged, a body that will regularly produce dirty diapers, runny noses and physical ailments and a mind that will grasp some things easily and struggle with others.  Furthermore, we understand that every child is a “special needs” child and that it is up to the parents and, many times, medical and psychological professionals to help determine just what those needs are and the best course of action to take.  We understand that raising a child means taking on the responsibility of another human being’s life and we take that responsibility very seriously.  Yes, we are aware of the gravity of the condition that some of these children are in.  That is the very reason that we want to rescue them.

In this journey, we are fortunate to be surrounded by family and friends, not only to lend encouragement and a helping hand, but also to advise us on the special circumstances of our family.  In our immediate circle of friends, we have 10 multi-ethnic families, 7 of which are adoptive families.  We have adult friends who were adopted into multi-racial families and who are very open about sharing their experience with us from the child’s perspective.  We have a church family who has embraced not only multi-ethnic and adoptive families, but who have embraced the mission of adoption and caring for orphans.

Very close friends of ours have been adoption advocates for years. They recently set up a non-profit organization to help other families adopt and have raised tens of thousands of dollars in the past year alone to help fund adoption.  Into their otherwise Caucasian family, they have added an African-American/Caucasian little girl and twin Asian/Caucasian girls. Other close friends recently adopted an African-American girl into their home.  Other friends have adopted multiple African-American children.  The bottom line is that we are a part of an incredible multi-ethnic community that not only accepts, but encourages and embraces diversity in our community and within our families.

As for us, we have spent the last three years discussing what it means to be a multi-ethnic family.  We talk about it with our family and friends.  We ask questions of other families and spend time with their kids.  In our minds, we have made a shift to multi-ethnicity even if we don’t yet have children of a different ethnicity.

For us, however, it goes way beyond ethnicity.  We are called to help children out of bad situations and out of “temporary” situations into a permanent, loving home.  We take this responsibility very seriously.  When we say “yes” to a child, it is a full-throated “YES” backed up by all the books we’ve read, prayers we’ve prayed, conversations we’ve had and children we’ve held.  It is a “YES” to a long future with that child, whatever complications may arise.  It is a “YES” to sleepless nights and tiring days, a “YES” to challenges and obstacles and a “YES” to the hopes and dreams of that child – hopes and dreams that may or may not be achieved, but which are always worth fighting for.

We have no illusions that this road will be easy, but we know it is worth it.  We know we can’t rescue all the world’s orphans, but we can rescue some of them.  We know that trials and pitfalls are in front of us, but we stand resolute to hold tightly to each other, to our children and to our God to see us through.  This is why we are adopting.  This is why our answer is “YES”.  To that 2 year old, set of twins or group of siblings, our answer is YES.  Please let them all know that our answer is YES.

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