A Little Taste of Heaven

Once in a great while there comes a moment where a small taste of heaven's perfection is given into this imperfect life. A moment sacred and set-apart that almost causes time to stand still and joy to be experienced fully; a short time blessed by God's presence and filled with His mysterious love - a holy moment. For me, such a moment was experienced at Emily's adoption party.

In our lives as a family, we place great value on relationships experienced in simplicity and intimacy. In order to really get to know people, we spend time with individuals and families and try to keep our doors open and our house available for those relationships. When there was opportunity to celebrate a great event such as the adoption of Emily, we jumped on the chance to gather with all those close relationships in one place knowing that Emily's life has been touched by those individuals and families. As a family, we were overwhelmed by the amount of love and lives present at Emily's dedication. And as for me, it was one of the holiest moments of my life. I praise God for each person's (whether present or not) love and prayers throughout the whole foster and adoption process. They are our community and I hope God will continue to connect us together by His design for more sacred and holy times this side of heaven!

Christmas Greetings

We hope all is well with you and yours during this Christmas season. Advent is the preparation for the arrival of something very important. During the Christmas season it is preparing for the birthday of our Savior; and in our lives this advent and Christmas season is exciting and unique because it is the culmination of a long preparation. For one and a half years we have been fostering Emily, praying and preparing for possible adoption. And on November 17th, our foster daughter became our Emily Hope Barnes! What an incredible gift God has blessed us with in her. Thank you for all your prayers and support during this process!

Emily’s little brother Joshua was born in February, and has been with us as our foster son since he was three weeks old. Now he is ten months, and is also a huge blessing to our family. He has the greatest five tooth smile around, loves crawling and grabbing, and is developing a fun personality. We hope and pray his adoption will be final in the spring. He shatters the record for the most hair of any of our kids!

Isaac is our most energetic and passionate child. He just turned five and is looking forward to participating in as many extreme sports as possible. He may even invent a new one soon! We love Isaac and his strong and exciting spirit, and we can’t wait to see what his future holds. He can’t wait to start kindergarten next year.

Noah is seven and is getting more handsome by the day. He loves his new school and really has enjoyed learning about dinosaurs this year. His thoughtful and tenderhearted spirit is a source of encouragement for our whole family. He has fully embraced his role as the big brother of the family and is a huge help in caring for his little sister and baby brother.

As we think of you all during this season we realize how amazingly blessed our family is to have such wonderful friends and family to journey through life with. Each of you has touched our lives in a special way and we are so grateful for your friendship, support and prayers on our behalf. We love you all so much and pray God’s blessing on you this Christmas!