We are making... PROGRESS!!!

Paperwork Frenzy...


"Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise.
Give thanks for Him, bless His name.
For He is good;
His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations."
~Psalm 100:4-5

Guess what? The Lord has provided for our every need! We are moving forward in the process!! All glory goes to our great God. Thank you all for praying for us,  encouraging us, and supporting us. Let this paperwork pregnancy CONTINUE!

In celebration, we had PB and J's in the shape of Africa for lunch today. The Lord has provided for our financial needs through the opening of a small in home preschool. I have two little ones joining our home throughout the week. It brings me great joy (with a bit of exhaustion) to have a houseful of toddlers 3 and under! NEVER a dull moment hear! Praise the Lord with us- HE cares for the Fatherless and will not leave them destitute. 

Dark Night of the Soul

"Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me."    ~Mark 9:37

"You may feel delayed, but God is designing"   ~John Piper

"Jesus has tailor made mercies for the miseries of the day." ~John Piper

"Adoption is wonderful and beautiful and the greatest blessing I have ever experienced. Adoption is also difficult and painful. Adoption is a beautiful picture of redemption. It is the Gospel in my living room. And sometimes, it is just hard."   ~Katie Davis, author of Kisses from Katie



These are some quotes that have given water and refreshment to my soul these past few months. To be honest, this is my third attempt at writing a blog post. Nothing has progressed since I last wrote but a lot has changed. We are going through a trial right now in our lives, one that I know many have walked before us and have suffered well through it. We are facing unemployment and therefore, a hold on our adoption. Daniel does have a job, but it is not enough to sustain our family. We have placed hundreds of applications in, and we have received very few responses. The few interviews that we have went through, came to a halt after the second or third interview. We have been broken, humbled, struggled with God and our own unbelief, prayed fervently, clung to each other, and sought to cling to the Word of God.

He is sweet. Knowing Jesus makes miseries lighter. However, we still struggle.

My heart breaks as I know my two boys are on the other side of the world, in Uganda, desiring a Mommy. A Daddy. A Family to call their own. I LONG to see that beautiful country that they call home, to meet the amazing people that live there and know that culture, to look into my boys eyes, hold them tightly and bring them HOME. It has been a year since we started this process. Adoption is trully the longest pregnancy ever (side note, but TRUE!).

 Some trials we have experienced and some mercies The Lord has given:

1) I lost my nanny job around two months ago
2) Daniel has had a couple of job leads, that only ended without a call back
3) Our income did not match our bills for around a month and a half

Sweet mercies from the hand of The Lord:

1) Peace and encouragement from HIS Word and HIS people when I lost my job
2) The Lord has abundantly provided for our needs- even when on paper it did not make sense!
3) Daniel's family has been overly generous in caring for us
4) Both families have been encouraging rather than discouraging- they have been such a blessing to us!
5) Our family- how the little things in life have really become sweeter; so thankful for the necessities that The Lord provides!
6) We have seen our hope, our significance, our faith, our timeline, become more grounded in the unchanging Word of God. Jesus has been sweeter. His sacrifice, His suffering, has become more dear and we have become more thankful for HIM.

That is where we are at. We are so thankful for your support and prayers during this time! It does look like things are changing in the near future regarding these issues, and so, Lord willing, we desire to get the ball rolling again on this adoption!

*Pray for our family, to trust the Lord as our provider and not a job.
*Pray for His provision.
*Pray for our boys, for the Lord to sustain them and for them to receive proper, loving care from someone until we can bring them home!

In Christ by His Grace,
Amber Lawson

New items in Etsy Store!

It has been a while since I have updated all of you! We are finally settling into our new home, with our new jobs, a fabulous new home church, and the adventure that awaits us here in Georgia!

I wanted to announce the newest items in our Etsy store! I absolutely LOVE these little pouches! They are the perfect size for a make-up bag or just to use as a collect all bag for purses that can become a "blackhole" (I am thinking of my own here!). They are a no sew bag- the lining is actually duct tape! A special thanks to Christina Bailey for making these stylish bags to sell in our Etsy store!

We are selling them for 9.99 and ALL the money goes towards our adoption!

You know you want one :-) Check them out at our store: Threads for Africa

Thanks for looking! Enjoy your day!

In Christ by His Grace,

Amber Lawson

The Lord be magnified!

"Let all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; Let those who love Your salvation say continually, "The Lord be magnified!"  ~Psalm 40:16

As the year 2012 comes to a close and a new year begins, this verse is our cry to the Lord. We want our very lives to cause His people to say, "The Lord be magnified!". We don't know what this year may bring our way, maybe another little Lawson to join the family! But in all that this year holds, it joys, changes, and tears, we pray He is magnified.

These past couple of months have been a roller coaster ride of significant changes in the Lawson home. The Lord has been gracious in guiding us. We wanted to fill all of you in!

One exciting change that is taking place in 18 days is a move back to Georgia! We are so thrilled to be settling into the home that we will grow in as a family. Daniel's grandmother passed away last year and left her home to the Lawson family. We are able to move in, rent it out, and make it our own! This is definitely a HUGE blessing to us. We now live in student housing, and were attempting to make changes to a 880 sq. foot apartment to allow for TWO more little ones! Though I LOVE Ikea (LOTS of help there for small spaces) and could have totally made it work, more space is definitely a plus. We will be moving into a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with a garage and fenced in back yard. Oh, and I should not forget to mention, a DISHWASHER! My first since I have been married! We are really grateful for the blessing of this home and Daniel's grandmother who took impeccable care of it, paid for it in full, and left her family a financial blessing to make this possible. We are so thankful!

This amazing artwork is by Fred Mutebi,
a Ugandan artist that Daniel has come to love

Also, there have been some major changes in our adoption. As you may have gathered in recent posts or facebook updates, Congo is a very unstable country as of late. We have grown to greatly LOVE this country and have grown in love and respect for its natural beauty with strong people who have lived through some difficult times and hardships. We have prayed for DRC and continue to pray for peace and protection from the M23 invasion. We are praying for our agency, Lifeline, to wisely sift through so much of the corruption and child trafficking that is taking place. This is harming many children that have families and leaving destitute those children in desperate need of families. We LOVE our agency and fully trust them. They have been so wise and sought to be ethical in all their dealings with the Congo and its officials. With that said, due to such a lack of stability, Lifeline has been unable to give us a timeline that we could possibly bring our little ones home. All we know, that it is going to be a LONG road in finishing an adoption. With our young family, we knew we could not wait a significant amount of time longer. We prayerfully then considered working through the DRC program or switching to another program. With tears, Daniel and I took a date night, and prayerfully talked through our options. After much research, advice from others and our agency, we have prayerfully decided to make a switch to adopting from Uganda, a neighboring country. We are sobered about the loss of adopting little ones through the D.R. Congo, a country we have come to dearly love, and yet trusting the Lord's sovereign hand in leading us to adopt from Uganda. We are looking forward to learning more about this country and growing in love for the people as well.

We also wanted to share a PRAISE! Our homestudy has been completed! We are so thrilled! And through your generous giving,prayer, fundraising, and working overtime, we have exceeded the next payment! One great thing about reaching this milestone, is that we are now eligible to apply for grants. We are thanking the Lord for that! Lord willing, grants will play a huge part in funding our adoption.

 Pray for us in all of these changes! May He be magnified through these!

In Christ by His Grace,
The Lawsons

Naphtali is 20 months old!!

This is going to be a VERY eclectic blog post, just to give a heads up! There is a mixture of how my girl is growing and our fun Christmas memories. I cannot believe that my little girl is 4 months away from being 2 YEARS OLD! Where has the time gone?! Even typing out this blog has been such an encouragement and warning that the days may feel as if they are long at times, but that my life really is a vapor, here for a little while, and then gone. How children and families are a blessing in this! Though life is short, this is where my legacy lies- in my family. In my husband, in my children, in the church. How good God is to give us such great purpose in our lives! So, here is a few of my favorite pics recently and some cute things our girl is doing :-)

Christmas is my favorite time of the year... but it only gets better with kids! Naphtali helped pick out the tree!

And decorate it!

Isn't this SOO classic? She was not a fan... cousin Bethany (or Nee-Nee as Naphtali calls her) was concerned for Tili!

Our girl LOVED Christmas lights this year! Lately, she has been really loving on her Daddy. Mama is still her favorite :-), but she is learning that Daddy is the goofy and really fun one!

Christmas morning held its magic since having Naphtali! We got her this cardboard house for Christmas (BEST $5 we ever spent!!) that she can color and here is her first impression of it!!! LOVE! 

One of the sweetest things our little girl is doing, is playing "Mama" so often! Here she is with her sweet brown baby :-) Preparing for bringing her brothers home! 

It humbles me and melts my heart as well, to see how much she wants to be like her "Mama". She LOVES helping wash dishes, changing her babies' diapers, feeding them, going on walks with them, dressing them... it is amazing to see this sweet God-given quality in little girls at such a young age! 

This is definitely one of her favorite toys. She has lately LOVED little people... little playmobile babies, sesame street characters, baby Jesus from the nativity set, it has been really sweet to see her imagination develop. We want to encourage that!

Did I mention that she is off running?!!! Naphtali has always been SO active! From the womb on... we call her our future rock climber :-) 

I also wanted to list some of her new words and phrases she is picking up:

1) walk (she asks to "alk" when we are outside!)

2) chocolate (yes, she knows this word- she is my kid!)

3) George (for her love of Curious George...she now sleeps with her stuffed animal version!)

4) milk- another one of her loves. She is quite the dairy kid.

5) ball- loves these.

6) duck 

7) God (almost has this down- needs some encouragement, but she can say it!)

8) Jesus (comes out Gisuss- there is a little baby Jesus in her little people Nativity set that she dearly loves!)

9) Ashes, Ashes, down! (her version of Ring around the Rosie)

10) animal sounds- "neigh" , "quack, quack!" and "meow" are her new ones!

11) "Nee-Nee" (her name for her cousin Bethany), Nana (my Mom), Papa (both my Dad and Daniel's dad), Andma (Daniel's Mom)

These are just some of the highlights! It is amazing how her vocal is growing!! 

How we love our little blessing!!! 

Our New Etsy Store!

SO, like I mentioned in our last post, things around here have been BUSY. Very Busy. Our latest addition to our fundraising has been an ETSY store! WOO HOO! I love crocheting, especially hats. Baby's hats are the best. Recently, a friend messaged me on facebook to ask if I would crochet a hat for her son. I happily (with a bit of nervousness- I have always crocheted just for fun and not for profit!) agreed and then began what I see as another way the Lord is providing on our adoption journey. I have received many other orders just by word of mouth. Hence, the need for an official online store! Oh, how I have come to love Etsy, and now I get to actually sell items on Etsy! It's such a unique, artsy, fun place to browse.

I have opened our store officially with just a few items, mostly hats that I have made for Naphtali in the past (also that a friend, Rachel Lundy, made for her and gave me the pattern for! I LOVE her newsgirl hat!). We will be adding more items to the store in the near future! If there is any crocheted item that you would just love, but don't see in the store, please message me and I can most likely make it and add it to the store later!

Fall is here, winter is coming, and I will be sipping coffee, crocheting and working towards bringing our boys home! God is good.

Here is the link to our new store, Threads for Africa: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ThreadsforAfrica .

Noonday Fundraiser!

First of all, I apologize for dropping out of the blogging world there for a little while! We have reached a whole new level of busy with the adoption paperwork... even when in graduate school, I do not believe I have had this much output required. It has been a trying time, but the Lord is gracious to remind me that this is a season, it too shall pass. He has been gracious to encourage me that in order to adopt me and millions of believers into the family of God, it was HARD. He understands. What comfort to know this as we walk through the beginning steps of our journey! He has also blessed me with a time of CELEBRATION of our boys with a Noonday party! It was such a fun time of fellowship, SHOPPING, talking, sipping coffee, and enjoying learning about the heart of Noonday. Click on their name if you want to know more! Such an inspiring and compassionate organization!

Here are a few pics of the party! 

So much pretty jewelry! All of us had a hard time deciding what to choose!

Don't you just want all of it??!

Beautiful scarves just in time for fall!

The only man in the whole party :-)

Final decisions...

LOVE these ladies! They are each so encouraging and inspiring to me!

Beautiful!

Totally had a blast...

They even had a time of prayer for our family and for noonday! Sweet time of fellowship!

Kate Halaris, our ambassador, and myself. This lady has such a passion for adoption and for supporting artisans around the world! Check our her page here: http://www.katehalaris.noondaycollection.com


With this party and the generous gift of our ambassador, the Lord provided $125 towards bringing our boys home!!! We are so close to our goal of $2175 for our next payment! God is so good. He cares for the orphans. He cares for our boys across the world, in the DRC. Such a comforting thought! Thanks ladies for a FANTASTIC evening!