FAQ

happy monday everyone!

i hope your weekend and sabbath was as restful and reflective as mine was.

this next week, i plan to share with you some of the frequently asked questions dell and i have answered recently about our choosing to adopt and adoption in general since we have shared our news to grow our family in this way.

 some have been quite simple and easy to answer, and others.......well..... 

...one left me speechless for about a minute. :)

i am so excited to share our heart and excitement here with you and i want you to know, i appreciate your questions. 

maybe some of these questions you have wanted to ask about our adoption, or another adoptive families or maybe just about international adoption in general. i know it might feel uncomfortable and you may be timid to ask hard and honest questions for fear of hurting or discouraging an adoptive family. i want you to know it's ok to have and ask questions.

it actually is quite comforting to know people are thinking about us and  that it's not just dell & I & the kids, living in this very real process and journey that can be so lonely at times.  i hope through my sharing these questions and answers with you, openly and honestly from our perspective, you will be able to see into our hearts and rejoice with us in how God is leading and working.

 so please know we appreciate your care, concern and questions....

  feel free to ask away at any time..... we LOVE to talk about adoption!

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FAQ #1

*with so many children in the US that need loving homes and families, why are you choosing to adopt internationally?

this is an excellent question and one we have been asked most from the people who are closest to us.  it is also a question that has many answers, reasons and layers to it.

and for every adoptive family, the reasons and answers will most likely be very different.

for the ledbetter family, it is a multifaceted  answer  as well. 

a question that for us,  has many in depth answers and issues that we feel very passionate about and would love to discuss and share with you if you ever want to have a chat.

for times sake, i am going to choose just one of the reasons WE feel called and compelled to  adopt internationally and hope through this answer and the ones to follow, you might have some of your own questions answered.

ANSWER #1

we feel strongly about pursuing the adoption of children that may have some special needs. needs that can be met and treated here in our country relatively easily.  the very same needs may go untreated or minimally treated in their country and can greatly decrease their chances at living a full and healthy life. older children and those who have special needs in orphanages and institutions internationally , have a much greater chance of never being adopted.  rarely in America in our foster care and adoption system, are there countless children who are wasting away and dying daily b/c of preventable and treatable illnesses and diseases. children are rarely found to be malnourished and lacking simple preventative medical treatments, medications and therapies. all these things are readily available to parentless and vulnerable  children in our country. also, virtually no American children are institutionally housed  just because they are orphaned or come from vulnerable and hard places.  we have a system set in place, (albeit an oftentimes flawed one)  that seeks to place children in homes where they hopefully, will be given the benefit of living and growing up in a nurturing family environment.

our hearts do break for the thousands of children in our country who deserve and long for, a loving, forever family. every single child on earth longs for unconditional love, support and approval from parents who love them. we understand there are great needs children in this country go without being met every day. we pray that more good families will choose to foster and that more children will be permanently placed in good and loving homes in this country of ours.

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be sure to check back for FAQ #2 tomorrow.

i hope your week is filled with great joy, peace and thankfulness.

blessings!!!

heather

story: part 2 -long overdue

*please check out story: part 1 if you happened to miss it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
for the next 1 1/2 years, God stretched us.

it was a time with it's share of struggles and tears.

you see, dell's employer had given him a notice  that he was to transfer

to Charlotte, NC in just 3 short weeks.  

our only option was to move away from

the only place we had ever known together. 

away from stability, comfort, familiarity, family, friends and small town life.

we briefly considered dell quitting, but with 4 children, ages 14, 4, 3, and 5 months,

we knew that really wasn't an option at all.

I keenly remember driving  home from an appointment and crying out to God.

He answered me.

He asked me if i trusted Him.

if i could just trust and follow right now.

at that same moment, i heard the words of this song on the radio.  

"I'll praise You in this storm
And I will lift my hands
For You are who You are
No matter where I am
And every tear I've cried
You hold in Your hand
You never left my side
And though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm"

in that drive, God moving us into what i felt was like a desert,

became well with my soul.

dell went ahead of us to start working and find us a home and 

the kids and i followed a few weeks later.

 so began a year of our perceived,  "wandering in the desert wilderness."

dells hours increased to 80+ hrs a week.

i would fill our days with fun outings, eating out and shopping. lots of shopping.

i was so exhausted and stretched to the max.

i felt like a single parent and missed dell so much.

 i couldn't seem to find a church or community to get plugged into and dell wasn't there to help me anyways so it seemed pointless to find one he wouldn't like later on.

trendy was miserably homesick for our old town, church, school and friends.

 but just as a few short years ago God knew trendy would need us, 

i believe with all my heart, in that 1st, hard year in charlotte,

 God also knew that i would need trendy just as much as she had needed me. 

trendy was my only friend, my mother's helper, my movie buddy and late night pal.

she was my joy and her laugh was like medicine to me.(especially the snort at the end)

she loved all the kids and was so good with them. 

i still look back on those memories and smile and thank God for the gift of trendy lynn.

dell soon got tired and burnt out and took a job as general manager at chic-fil-a.

we were finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and got plugged in at our new church we had settled into.

about a year after living in charlotte, trendy began visiting with her dad a few times a month and in the spring of 2006, she chose to move out of our home and back to her 

original hometown. 

our hearts broke as our family dynamics changed again.

it seemed like every day the kids asked when "trinny" was coming home.

we missed her so much.

in 2007, dell and i began talking about adopting for the 1st time since we were dating. 

at that time, my heart was set completely on a baby less than 2 years old.

we looked into international adoption but then quickly decided we couldn't "afford" it.

 then we looked into fostering to adopt.

 at that time, i felt like there was no way i could let a child go after loving

and caring for them. 

we had a ton of conversations and they ended with,

"we'll talk about it again in a few years."

looking back, i see that we just  weren't ready.

we were still calling all the shots and telling God "who" we wanted and what

 and what we could not do.

in february 2008, God lovingly graced us by moving us again.

from Charlotte,NC to Three Lakes, WI.

to HoneyRock.

this time around, we were so excited for this new adventure.

there was only joy and expectancy.

we were so ready to change our lives.

to take a different pace.

to take a $40,000 pay cut.

what a change it would be... in every sense of the word.

we settled in quickly at camp and felt so thankful for the good gift God had given to us  by moving us here. we are still so thankful every day for how God has grown us and changed our family for the better by bringing us to the northwoods of WI.

in 2010, dell and i started talking about adopting again.

this time, we began talking with our kids and feeling the idea out with them.

we wanted any decision to be a family decision now that our children were older and we wanted it to be understood and supported by our kiddos. 

they were so on board and asked when we could go pick up their new siblings. :) 

if only it were as simple as that for all orphaned children to find good, safe and  forever families.

for several years i had been receiving emails from Rainbow Kids about waiting children from around the world and 

our hearts became broken for 2 boys in haiti.(david and mj)

 dell and i desperately wanted to pursue adopting them. 

 but once again, we were overcome with fear by the cost of the adoption.

having taken such a drastic lifestyle change and pay cut upon our move to WI, 

we truly believed there was absolutely no way we could ever afford to actually do it.

so we tabled the long discussed and weighed adoption topic yet again.

this time we thought for good because our $ situation wasn't likely to change in the foreseeable future. 

off and on for the next 2 years, haley and jackson kept pursuing us with questions about adopting. they wanted us to adopt so badly. and so did we!

dell and i would answer their questions when they had them the best we could,

 and every time they would ask, our hearts would stir towards adoption yet again.

but it just didn't seem possible for us at the time.

in the meantime, trendy had a baby girl and needed to come stay 

with us during the summer of 2012.

we loved baby genesis so much and all of the kids cared for her, 

played with her and toted her around.

when trendy moved back to NC in august, we all felt the loss of them leaving again, but it wasn't totally devastating. we had loved them well and then let them go.

as we talked through how we felt and how we were able to love trendy and genesis with all of our hearts while they were here,

and still be able to let them go,

we talked about foster care being kind of similar to that.

as we  talked in depth, openly and  honestly  with the kids and answering questions about what foster care could look like off and on for a few weeks,

 everyone seemed to really want to do it. we felt we were all on the same page

and so we started filling out paperwork.

around the time we were going to turn in our foster care paperwork and begin a home study with the state, dells mom needed to move in with us.

so we tabled foster care until she was settled back on her own.

we see so clearly now, how God used the time when dells mom lived with us,

as the time our kids needed to truly ponder and weigh the decision we were making as a family to foster.

 in january, haley and jackson came to dell and i and had an honest heart to heart.

haley shared that they both "really love the idea of foster care but really don't

feel comfortable with kids coming and going from our home while we are still so young and maybe you could do that when we're all older." immediately, jackson chimed in, "but we want to adopt! if we would've started 2 years ago to adopt david and mj, they would be home already." 

God spoke directly through our kids, to our hearts.

 and the tears flowed freely.

and with those tears, washed away all the fear of the financial considerations
we had been worried about all these years. we knew then and trusted that God would make a way.
we knew in that moment that this has been Gods plan all along.

we knew finally, this was about us trusting Him, obeying Him and it required us to take immediate action. 

so we would walk in faith, following God's lead. 

we would let Him show us how and where and who.

we would trust without borders and without stipulations.

we would adopt.

will you please remember our family and our kids who aren't home yet in your prayers?

we simply can't wait to have them home but we still have a ways to go.

our home study is almost complete and then we wait.

we're praying for a quick "wait," if there is such a thing. :)

will you join us in praying for our kids' health, safety and comfort as they wait for us?

thank you friends, for joining us on our journey to the 2 sweet souls across the ocean who are waiting for us.

story- part 1

so i've been wanting to tell you
 all about how God brought us here...

to today.

to this place and time in our lives where we follow.

where we walk in obedience and faith.

 where we trust Him completely.

with every ounce of our being.

 with our whole heart. 

with abandon.

we are confidant of what we hope for.

sure, of what we don't see.

fear and doubt have been evicted from these hearts.

and peace and rest have moved in.

* photo credit: meredith elsen

 it is with great joy, we invite you into our story.
the story God is so beautifully penning every day.
so grab a seat and something warm to drink,
and join me as we start from the beginning.


our story begins years ago.  
dell and i have always talked and dreamt together about adopting one day.
back in the 90's when we were dating, (gasp!)  and  at different times throughout our marriage.


God rocked our world and yet so beautifully opened our hearts, home and hands to "the fatherless" for the first time in 2002. 
looking much bigger than what we had ever talked about.
and looking so much different than any dream we had ever dreamed before.

 my cousin, Trendy,12 at the time, came to live with us summer of '02. 
it was a hard, wonderful, difficult, fun, memorable summer
that went down in the books! :) 
and we thought that was it.

 but through some hard circumstances later that year, in the spring  of 2003 when Trendy was 13, we became her legal guardians. 
 her family.
we were so very, very young...i was  only 23 and Haley and Jackson were only babes... and here we found ourselves with a broken 13 year old. 

but not by mistake at all. 
it was in God's mercy, grace and great wisdom, He gifted Trendy to us when He did.
"for such a time as this."

we were so clueless and naive and were in the trenches learning,
making mistakes and quite frankly,
growing up right along with "our" teenager.

i laugh now, remembering some of our battles, mistakes, rules and attitudes.
 but then. 
man, those were some hard days.

i am so  very thankful for those hard days now, however,
and treasure that time in our lives in my heart. 

i believe it was in that time, God  planted a seed, deep in our hearts, that would one day grow, and open our eyes and arms wide,
 to receive an adoption story line that would be much different  than
 any of our past dreams and ideals had ever looked to us before.

the day dell sat on the couch and let trendy do his hair and put makeup 
all over his face... including, but not limited to, lipstick and eye shadow....
simply because she had asked him to and  because it was so worth it to hear her laugh..... 

yeah....those were the beginning days when God was at work in our hearts.
constructing His plans and deconstructing ours.
but i'm getting ahead of myself.


not only were we given the privilege  to love on and be Trendy's 
family when she needed us most,
but God used her coming into our lives , to bring me, personally, to the end of myself. 
finally.
finally, i fully realized my desperate need and re-surrendered
 to the Savior and let Him become Lord of my life.

i recognized my weakness. my inability. 
i knew this assignment was too big, too important, and way too impossible for me. 
i knew in my own efforts and attempts...
 i. would. fail.
and a little girl's heart, well being and  future  all hung in the balance.
so i surrendered all to God, as i drove over the oak island bridge to go pick up a bed for my new 13 year old daughter.

in the days  that followed, God began to sing over us and into our hearts, 
a song of great love and compassion for the unloved. 

the youth group  at our church that we took trendy to, started to explode in growth.
at first, dell and i became youth leaders,  simply  to help our youth pastor friend out
 who was in desperate need of youth leaders, because so many kids were coming.
what a great problem to have, right?
but out of more than 70 youth, there was only 2 intact families represented within 
our youth group... and one of them was the youth pastors!
God gave us a holy passion for these kids...His dearly loved children!

this time in our life was a joyous sharing and pouring out of God's love on 
those kids day after day. 

we had teens in our home to hang out, talk, just needing a place to be or over for dinner 2-3 times a week. 
 trendy was thriving.  haley, jackson and jordan were right in the ministry with us.
we were one, divinely pieced together, big and happy family.
we were all so happy in this work of loving all these hurting kids that
 God had crossed our life paths with.    
we were content. 
we were comfortable.

and then in the middle of our  content, comfy,  and happy life,
God's plan was to stretch us once again.





"God places the lonely in families;
He sets the prisoners free and gives them joy..."
Psalm 68:6

journey

our latest family photo taken aug. 2013:   haley -13, jackson-12, jordan-9, jacob-7

i finally get to share with you, dearest friends, family and random readers,    the most wonderful & exciting news!!!        our family is growing!!!      that's right.... the Ledbetter's..... WE are expecting!!!!       not only are we expecting, but we are expecting 2!!!!      we are SO excited for all God has in store for us as we begin the journey of our heart....stepping into and letting Him lead us to His heart and the ones He chose to complete our family before the dawn of time!

no. we're not pregnant with twins....   we are in the process of adopting!!!!  adopting siblings between the ages 0-9, from ethiopia through america world adoption.  we have quite the story about how God, through His great mercies  He makes new to us every morning, has brought us to this place.    over this next week, i will share with you the story God has been writing over the years for us...      yes. i said years!      we have been slow to believe and act on His promptings...quite honestly, we were full of fear and weren't having very much faith in the Creator of the universe who works miracles and holds the world together.  but praise His name, He wouldn't leave us to ourselves and our ways and our plans.  instead, He kept pursuing our hearts...even the hearts of our bio kids... and now, here we are...  embarking on this journey..... the journey to bring our children home!


right now we are in the paper chase phase as well as simultaneously beginning our home study.    there is so much information to take in and digest,  gazillions of things to do, classes to take, house to organize, several ginormous stacks of paper to read and go through, as well as an endless fee schedule... all the while balancing daily life (which is so crazy busy with 2 junior highers and 2 elementary students) and constantly dreaming of the day our family is complete.  but we're chuggin right along.... chipping away at my endless list that has several lists of it's own!!  :)

God has been so faithful to meet me in moments when I'm feeling discouraged or overwhelmed.    through the promises He speaks within His Word, He reminds me to just trust in Him, be still, abide in His promises, have patience and  know that He is God and He alone is in control. 
  what an amazing God who stoops low to meet us wherever we are and who draws us close to His heart when we listen for His voice and follow in faith and obedience! 


please be praying for us as we journey down this road. pray for our kids' protection, health, hearts, safety and souls as they wait for us.   pray for our home study process, our favor with  government offices and officials and  for our finances. every aspect of this process needs to be covered in prayer and we ask you to remember us.   

thanks for stopping by!  i'll be updating as often as i can, so be sure to check back.

blessings!

in her words: a letter from haley.

hi everybody!

betam conjo.  

that means "very beautiful" in amharic. the main language of ethiopia....however,fun fact: there are over 80 different languages in ethiopia! crazy,huh?

ethiopia is betam conjo.

i know it has been a long time since i went to ethiopia, but i just wanted to let you all know how fantastic it was and how it changed my life.

i loved playing with the children and seeing what they did in school and in their daily lives. even though squatty potties were a change and struggle.....

and my mom and i got stuck in a 90+ degree elevator....

 i had the best time of my life!

GOD is faithful.

i had a high fever when we first got to ethiopia and at first, i just wanted to go home. i had a fever every night for 3 nights but it went away during the day and i felt normal. i didn't miss anything! 

things got difficult when everyone started getting sick, especially my mom... *here's an ethiopian woman watching my mom puke!!!!!!! hahaha! it's funny now but then she was SO sick.

i was around so many people who were so sick and i was so scared i would get it too and that it would ruin the trip.

but GOD came through and answered our prayers and i didn't get sick at all!

it was very difficult seeing so many children in their neediness, but also such a joy to see them in their school uniforms and having their 1 meal a day....

i feel like everyone sees orphans and vulnerable children as sad, unhappy and forgotten.

i saw that they were happy, had friends, and have adults and teachers that care for them and give them knowledge.

most importantly, they have leaders and pastors that come every day, 365 days a year to teach them the ways of GOD.

they are not forgotten.  it even says in LUKE 12:6-7,

"are not 5 sparrows sold for 2 pennies? yet,

NOT ONE OF THEM is forgotten by GOD. indeed, the very hairs on your head are numbered. don't be afraid; YOU are

worth more than 2 sparrows!"

not 1 orphan is forgotten by GOD !!!!!!

that is the main thing GOD taught me on this trip.

you may be poor and alone and scared in this world, but GOD will

NEVER forget about you!

to me, ethiopia is rich and we are poor.

ethiopia is rich in love and kindness.

and sometimes, we over here are poor in that.

i'll never forget seeing those faces light up and glow,

so full of joy. i saw GOD shine through them and their leaders.

how they wouldn't stop telling me they loved me.

how desperately they need love and how freely they give it.

how they could quote scripture telling of GOD's love.

and how they would hold my hand and my elbow for 3 hours straight.

ameseginalehugn!!

thank you!!

thank you for your support of our trip!

me and my mom couldn't have done this without you and your prayers and support.

this trip has changed my life and i am planning and saving to go back.

and to keep going back!

*this is my friend anna and i sniffing eucalyptus leaves because of the horrible smell of manure.

LOVE~    haley joy