Encouragement

Somebody quite special to me sent this to me today. Gave me encouragement & thought I would share it with you all......

Still waiting & praying for our sweet girls.....


Assurance in Jesus

May Jesus assure you that as you follow Him
you will never meet a fear He cannot conquer,
you will never face an enemy He cannot defeat,
you will never enter a battle He cannot win,
you will never have a need He cannot meet,
you will never face a temptation He cannot overcome,
you will never have a burden He cannot lift,
you will never face a problem He cannot solve,
you will never have a bondage He cannot break,
you will never have a moment when He does not care,
you will never have a time when He is not there.

Matching Grant Update #2

We reached our $2,500 for our matching grant! God is so AWESOME!

We got home from church yesterday & started to grab lunch for the boys when we heard a knock on our door. A friend came in & told us he had something to tell us. He said a group of people had decided to come together & finish up the remainder of what was left to reach the $2,500! Isn't that UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME! God is so GREAT to us!

Thank you SO much to all of you who have been praying for us & our sweet girls & who have donated to our adoption! We've been so blessed with such an amazing community to be a part of this with us!

We are still waiting for our referrals. We could get them at any time now. Please pray with us that they will come soon!

Matching Grant Update

Today is the final day for our matching grant. All the Paypal donations will be sent out in the mail tomorrow. We're almost half way to $2,500. Can you help us with the rest? If you'd like to send it directly to the agency, please send it out in the mail tomorrow so it reaches them in time. Remember to write our names in the memo box. You can send it to:

GGAM
P.O. Box 4
Modesto, CA 95353

You also have ALL day today to make a donation thru Paypal. Just click the DONATE button on our blog!!! So easy :-)

Please pray with us today that we can reach the $2,500. This $5,000 will put a huge dent in our travel costs & post-adoption expenses & get us closer to being ready to go get our little girls. Please also pray if God may have you be a part of helping us reach our goal.

Thanks so much for all the prayers!!!!

WE'RE ALMOST THERE SWEET GIRLS!

2 Years & STILL waiting....

Yesterday made it 2 years of this exhausting journey we started called adoption. Yes, exhausting.... I am exhausted. The selfish part of me wants our girls here now. I want to hug them. I want to kiss them. I want to feed them. I want to take care of them. I want to hear their little voices while I go about my day. I'm clinging to God these days with white knuckles & not loosening my grip. He's the only One getting me through this. I knew at the beginning of this it wasn't going to be easy, but I never imagined 2 years after beginning all this that we wouldn't even know what our girls looked like. I have faith that in this time of waiting, God is preparing them, preparing our boys, preparing Josh & I, preparing our family for what is to come. I have no doubt that God will bring them to us soon. I have no doubt that God will give me strength to get through this waiting period. I have no doubt that I will soon have our little girls wrapped in my arms...... I'm asking for extra prayer from whoever is praying for us. This time of waiting is, well truthfully, heartbreakingly difficult for me. I'm clinging to His promises:

Eph 3:14-16 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being

Ps 37:4-5 Delight yourself in the Lord & He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him & He will act

Matt 7:11 "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"

Isaiah 30:18 Therefore the Lord is waiting to show you mercy, and is rising up to show you compassion, for the Lord is a just God. Happy are all who wait patiently for Him.

Jer 29:12-13 Then you will call upon me & come & pray to me & I will hear you. You will seek me & find me. When you seek me with all your heart.

Please flood Him with prayers that He'll bring our girls to us soon!!!

Thank you so much for all your support & prayers.

Matching Grant

(Click on image to read letter)

We received a letter in the mail the other day informing us that we were chosen for a $2,500 matching grant!!!! God is so incredibly great to us, has been through this entire process, & continues to provide.

We need your help! This is a MATCHING grant, meaning if we can't raise the money they can't match it. All donations need to be sent in to the grant agency by July 15th, yes July 15, 2010. That's a very short amount of time to come up with $2,500. I know we can do it with everyone's help! Any amount will help us out so don't feel bad if you can only give a little. You can make your checks out to God's Grace Adoption Ministry, Inc. Make sure you put "Josh & Anna Cousineau" in the memo so they know it is for our family. You can give or send your checks to us (129 Summer St, Auburn, ME 04210) so we can mail it to GGAM or if you'd like your donation to be anonymous you can send your check directly to them at

GGAM
P.O. Box 4
Modesto, CA 95353

All donations are tax deductible & confidential. I also attached a letter above GGAM sent us to inform our friends & family about the process.

We need about $10,000 more for travel & post-adoption costs so this will knock us down to only needing $5,000 more which would be AWESOME!!!!

We're still waiting for our referral. Praying we will hear from our agency any day so we can finally know who our precious little girls are! Thank you so very much for all your prayers & encouragement through this whole process.

Anna

Tired

So.... I'm here to tell you all I'M TIRED!!!! I've been having a rough time since I last posted. I've been trying to pretend that everything was cool, good, great.....but frankly it's not! After venting to a very wonderful, godly, & extremely important woman in my life today, I was reminded that I don't have to like all this. I don't have to like the fact that we are almost 2 yrs into this adoption process and still don't even know what our girls look like yet. I don't have to like the fact that out of the 2.4 million orphans in Uganda our agency has told us it will probably be quite a wait to even get a referral for 1 girl let alone 2. I don't have to like the end of each day when we time & time again don't get any word from our agency. I don't have to like the fact that we now have a room for our girls that sits lonely & empty. I don't have to like the fact that we have room & love available in our hearts & home & still God isn't sending us our girls.... I was asked today, "Did Jesus like the cross? Did He like the garden? Did He like any of the passion week?" My answer was obviously no. If my Savior didn't like the HUGE task set before Him, I don't think God is expecting me to like all He has planned for me & my family. So I'm telling the truth now when I say I don't like this whole adoption process. It's hard. It's tiring. It's emotional. It's time consuming, but I'm planning on doing it again after this one is done :-) I'm planning on doing it again until we've run out of money & room, but then God could just provide us with more money & a bigger house over & over again. I thank God for this opportunity He's given Josh & I, for this task He has set before us, but I don't like it completely. I do know everything is done for a reason. I know that our girls aren't with us right now b/c of something, whether it be He thinks I'm not quite ready to handle 4 children (don't know if I ever will be), whether He thinks the boys couldn't handle the transition of everything yet, whether He needs time to work on family members heart to except the "difference" adoption is bringing into our family, I don't know what it is, but I need to remember that God loves me, loves my family, loves our girls & He knows what's best for all of us. I know that when this is all said & done we will be able to wrap our arms around our little girls & they will bring such happiness & blessings to our family. I'm praying that through our adoption, God will open other families eyes & hearts to adoption & will call them to adopt as well. I know that above all God's name will be glorified through all of this!!!
Please keep praying for me & our family as we struggle through the (hopefully) last stages of this process.....

1 Month & Waiting.............

So today marks 1 month since we were officially put on the referral list. As I think about it, there is a wave of emotions. I don't even know how many times I thanked God last night for making this month go by so quickly. It doesn't even feel like we've been waiting for a referral for a month. But then I turn to my motherly part of thinking. A month is huge in a mother's world. In 1 month, a baby has a chance to start smiling, sitting up on their own, crawling, walking, their 1st tooth could pop through, they could say their 1st word, wave "hi" or "bye" for the 1st time, go on the "big kid" potty for the 1st time...... all of these are HUGE in a mother's world, and all i can keep thinking about as this time passes by is I'm missing 1 if not all of my little girls' 1st's. Almost every morning I wake up & think how wonderful it will be to hear 4 sets of feet running around the livingroom dancing to the Imagination Movers (no I'm not crazy! As crazy as my boys are, I am anxious to be a Mom of 4!). My hope is that as I sit cuddling w/ my boys that God is doing the same w/ my girls. My prayer is that April 9 - May 9 will go by just as quickly as March 9 - April 9 did. Thanks for waiting w/ us. Thanks for praying for us. Please keep praying the issues in Uganda will be resolved & that God will keep overflowing patience onto me.