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.

Update on the iPod Touch raffle

So unfortunately PayPal will not allow us to use them to receive payments. Everyone who has already made a payment through PayPal is fine, but from now on we can only except checks in the mail or cash by hand. So sorry for the inconvenience...... You can send your checks to 129 Summer St., Auburn, ME 04210 & can make the check out to Anna or Josh Cousineau. Please just leave a comment or email us (akooz04@yahoo.com) to let us know how many tickets you are purchasing & that your payment is on its way. Thanks so much for your prayers & donations!!!!

Click HERE for more info on the raffle......

Who wants an iPod Touch?!?!?!?!

So Josh & I have about $7,000 left to raise for travel!!!! Sounds like a big amount, but trust me it's so tiny compared to what has been paid :-)



We will be raffling off an 8GB iPod touch. Tickets are $3.00 a piece. You can buy as many tickets as you want to better your chances of winning. The winner will be announced Sun. March 21 late afternoonish. Deadline to buy tickers is Sun. March 21 @ 11AM. We will post it on Facebook, Twitter, this blog, & we will contact the person asap. If you're out of state we will ship it to you. All of the proceeds will be going towards our travel expenses while in Uganda.

Ways to pay....
*Send us a check asap in the mail or give it to us asap (mailing address 129 Summer St, Auburn, ME 04210 You can make the check out to Josh or Anna Cousineau) Please leave a comment or email us ( akooz04@yahoo.com ) to let us know your payment is on its way.

*Give us cash

(If we haven't received your payment yet & you're picked as the winner, we will send the iPod out to you as soon as the payment is received.)

Tell everyone you know about this! Post it on Facebook! Post it on Twitter! Get the word out! Who wouldn't want a chance to win an iPod touch?!?!

Why are Josh & Anna Cousineau adopting???????

First off I'd LOVE to announce that we are officially waiting!!!!!! We received our last document from the USCIS (immigrations) giving approval for us to adopt.... next step is our referral!!! Now we wait.... could be weeks, months only God knows :-/ Please pray for this impatient soul! Pray that all goes smoothly, and the wait won't be too long and that things will be resolved in Uganda....

So I'm going to answer a few questions that I've been hearing lately & some that you all are thinking but just won't ask....

*Why are you adopting anyway???? (Wonderful question I may add :-)
(2 verses for you to go with this question)

Mark 10:21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

Proverbs 3:27 Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.

Josh & I feel strongly nothing we have or own is ours. It was given to us as a blessing to glorify His name in some way. We have a very tiny bit of money left over every month, we have more room in our home, and room in our hearts. This life is not ours, and God says many times in His Word that we as His followers are to care for the fatherless. There are about 163 million orphans in the world today. God gave a command, God gave us room in our home, who are we to live a comfortable life and do nothing while 163 million children suffer? We find ultimate joy in our adoption in Christ's family. We can't think of any other way to thank Him for His ultimate gift than to adopt children and teach them and introduce them to the ultimate adoption we have been given.

*What about your boys? What if the girls are sick and expose your boys to diseases????
God didn't just call Josh and I to adopt. He called our whole family to adopt. God will protect us all. The girls we are waiting for are just as much our children now as our boys are. We think of them no differently. If Braden came down with something we wouldn't ship him off somewhere so Tanner wouldn't get sick!!! Simple as that.

*They're from Africa! What if they have AIDS????
Then we will be extremely blessed to have exposure to medical help for them, and will be able to offer them a WAY longer life here then if they were left in Africa. Yes, we would have to take precautions throughout our life, which isn't comfortable, but then again God didn't say life would be comfortable.....did He???

*You know it's not going to be easy right???
I don't think even raising 1 child is easy! Of course we know it's not going to be easy!!!! God didn't call us as believers to live an easy comfortable life. He called us to pick up our crosses and follow Him. So because I want to have 8 hrs of uninterrupted sleep at night I'm going to turn down a starving little girl who cries herself to sleep every night because she remembers watching her mother die from a disease that could have been treated if they had the money to buy the medicine to treat it? Because I want money to stop to get a coffee 4 mornings out of the week I'm going to turn down a little boy that was left in a dumpster to die because his father was nowhere to be found and his mother didn't have the money to care for him??? (These stories I'm sure are true, but I just typed what popped into my head) How selfish is that!!!! We know life is going to be hard, but we also know God is walking right along side us giving us the strength we need to get through everything He'll be throwing at us. We also know we have an awesome church body! We have a ton of families in our church that have gone through this that we know for a fact will be here for us......

My question to all of you is this......
*Why are you NOT adopting???? (Only non-selfish answers please because most of the ones I hear are in fact out of selfish reasoning)
Yes, I know not everyone is called to adopt, but if you've had even a tiny thought in your mind about adoption, I just want to know...... why not???
If you're one who is not called to adopt, are you called to help in some way? Helping a family pay for their adoption? Bringing meals to a family transitioning from an adoption? Calling the adopting couple to pray with them? (Just a few examples, and no I'm not just talking about helping Josh and I, although we would love all of those :-)

If you have any questions for Josh and I about our process, about adoption, or anything else leave a comment and I'll try to answer it :-)

Please keep our family in your prayers!!!!!

I May Have A Control Issue

It's been over a year & a half now since Josh & I started the adoption process. Going into it, I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but, boy, I sure didn't know how extremely difficult it was going to be. Sure, the paperwork is tedious, tiring, never-ending. Having someone come into your home to decide whether you're "capable of parenting" after parenting for over 3 years already, was a little different as well. The waiting is a little trying, too, but the thing I've found most difficult is the control.... In the world of adoption, you have none! When you're pregnant, you at least have that sense of somewhat protecting your child since they're living in you & taking over your body. I have no way to care for or protect my little girls. It kills me! It kills me to think about what they're living right now while their brothers sleep in their own comfy beds in their own rooms w/ filled little tummies. The only thing getting me threw all of this is knowing that my heavenly Father loves them even more than I can imagine. He has them wrapped in His arms protecting them. I pray every night that God will give them a sense that there is a family fighting for them. I use to read about adopted mothers telling their children "you didn't grow in my tummy, but you grew in my heart." I don't think you can really get that statement until you've gone threw this process. I never imagined having this much love for 2 little girls I've never met, seen, I don't even know their names yet, but they're my little girls. As we further into this process, my love for them grows stronger & stronger. I can't even imagine what I'm going to do when I finally have them in my arms. When I got word from our adoption agency that Ugandan adoption was put on hold, I was devastated. I cried a little.... ok, I cried ALOT! but again I have no control. I have no control over our government. I have no control over the Ugandan government, but my God does. My God moves mountains, & this is only a tiny speed bump to Him. This just gives Him time to show me once again that He is in control, not me :-) He never fails us. He keeps amazing us & providing for us. We were given a $1,000 grant about 2 weeks ago & we received a call today that we've received a $5,000 interest free adoption loan. Of course, as soon as I got off the phone with the agency, I automatically thought "Well alot of good that's going to do us when we can't even adopt right now." Shame on me!!!! What I should've thought & now am thinking is, "God, how wonderful! Now we're so close that when You do open the doors back up in Uganda, we'll be ready!"
So all that to say, please keep praying for our family & for God to move mountains & open up the doors again for Ugandan adoptions. It seems so untouchable to me, but to Him it's nothing. Thank you to all of you that have been walking this journey with us. You're prayers & encouragement mean alot to us. It's prayers that are getting us through this.....

Please pray!!! Ugandan adoptions on hold....

Please join w/ me in some strong prayer! I received an email last night from our adoption agency telling us that Ugandan adoptions were put on hold. Apparently the US is not pleased w/ the wording the Ugandan judges are using to grant guardianship to US citizens. I'm not completely sure exactly what is going on. This will affect our adoption, but more importantly there are families there in Uganda right now who have guardianship of these Ugandan children, but are not being allowed to leave w/ them. Their own children & our government is saying they can't leave w/ them! This is very upsetting, but I know God can change those embassy workers' hearts. If we all join together in prayer miracles can happen..... Please pray hard!!!