BIG ANNOUNCEMENT - I think we are going to have to change the name of our blog.....

WOW!! What a journey we have had so far and the fun has only begun. I look back at the last eight to nine months of our lives and just continue to stand in awe of God, His promises, His undeserved blessings and His timing. Jay and I have learned a lot about all three of those things and I have a feeling this is just the beginning of lessons learned.

While waiting for some new info to be sent in for our clearances, Jay and I found out that we are expecting another Baby Clark in September 2015!!!!! I am just out of my first trimester and I have had an amazing experience so far. With that being said, so many people have asked us what we are going to do about the adoption and the answer is- continue to pursue it. Unfortunately, India has specific requirements for their adoption process and we are having to put the process on hold. Unless something changes, we will not be able to continue to pursue our Indian baby until our child turns one year old.

When our caseworker delivered this news, I was extremely emotional. Jay and I knew that we would have to prolong the adoption if we were to get pregnant going into the process, but we had no intentions of getting pregnant. (Funny how God reminded us real quick who is in charge.) As I sat and pondered the information she gave me, I was reminded once again that God's timing is perfect. I feel like that phrase rolls off of every "Christians" tongue so easily, but the reality is that when it is all said and done Jay and I pray daily for His guidance and will for our lives, so if this is it then  I think we are in a great place.

For those of you who have donated time, money, yard sale items, whatever it may be- please know that ALL of those funds are in our account for the adoption at the agency. We do not have to start over completely, we will just pick up where we left off once we start the process again. Any financials that have been applied stay in place.

We are so grateful for the continued love, support and prayers from everyone. Please continue to pray for both of my sweet babies. This is all happening a lot sooner than anticipated so if you want to add Jay and I to that prayer list we would greatly appreciate it ;) I will be posting occasionally with updates about the pregnancy, our lives and our journey in general. I am not going to post every week or even every month, just when big events are happening. I love you all. Thank you again for your love and support.

Sincerely,
Jay, Erica, Baby Clark#1 and Baby Clark#2

A Time for Everything

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens; a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. - Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

This verse speaks volumes to me right now as I go through this season of life. I think between Jay and myself, we have experienced one of these "times" at least once.

Since June there have been a lot of different events occur in our lives that have really put a damper on my mental, physical, and emotional health, which naturally (whether directly or indirectly) affects Jay. At the beginning of June, I had some issues happen at work that lead to a downward spiral of my mental health.  Poor decisions were being made by the people in our company which lead to them losing over half of their outside sales reps in a matter of 30 days. The amount of stress I was under caused so many issues that I ended up being sick for the large part of the summer into September. Thankfully Jay saw how this was affecting me and let me put my two weeks in before I had a secure job offer. My last day with GTM was September 19.

During this time, we were also dealing with some big curve balls that were thrown our way with the adoption process. I get a call from my caseworker in late August asking me when we sent our blue line fingerprints in for the initial clearance needed from DHR to start processing our paperwork and get a home-study set up. April 30- which is our anniversary, I told her. She explained to me at this point that she still did not have our clearances so I needed to call and figure out what was going on. I could feel the pit in my stomach rising up. As I hung up the phone I just started praying for the Lord to suppress the anger I could feel dwelling in me before I made this phone call.

I call DHR and tell her what is going on and ask her if she knows anything about it. She asks me to hold and I gently say, no problem...... 10 minutes later I hear a "Mrs Clark, I have some bad news." Apparently, the caseworker who initially received mine and Jay's fingerprint card was "let go" and the envelope containing all of the information necessary to clear us has been sitting on her desk since April. For those of you who know me well, I am sure you can imagine the fury that consumed me at that point. Intolerance is something I have always struggled with and at this point I knew something was going to come out of my mouth, but I wanted to make sure that I didn't kill my witness as a believer with a sin I have been praying about for years.

I took a big, deep breath as a tear of anger rolled down my cheek and said, "OK- what do we need to do about this?" She said, at this point there is nothing we can do except process it and wait for the clearances. I knew that is what was going to be said. I knew as soon as my caseworker at the agency told me that she still didn't have the clearances that this was going to be one more thing added to my list of road blocks for the summer. I gently began my sentence with, "I understand you are just the woman who answered the phone and I am sorry you have to hear this, but ...." I explained to her how their job was important and it affects the lives of people and their children DIRECTLY. Now my child, who could be homeless, starving, even abused, will sit on the other side of the world for 4-5 more MONTHS than necessary because they overlooked paperwork. If I did not call, we would still be waiting for clearances and I may be checked in somewhere. She apologized 100 times and I know it wasn't her fault, but it was so hard to swallow that pill.

 I proceeded to ask her about ten more times, is there ANYTHING else that needs to be done. I almost get off the phone in the clear and she says, oh I did see that one of your husbands cards are missing a signature, so he is going to need to get all of his cards redone. We can't except any of the cards if one doesn't have a signature. At that point I just simply say ok and hang up the phone and cry. I felt so broken and so worn out emotionally. I had been praying so hard about so many things that I was just exhausted. After a good cry I realized there was nothing I could do and just decided I would move on. It was then I started praying very intentionally for many things in my life- and then the real fun began :)

Jay immediately went and had his fingerprints redone and sent off. He received a letter about his clearance one week after sending it in. I thought, ok, this is a good sign, we are on the up and up.

After having a heck of a July and August, September didn't prove to be much better for me. Almost two weeks after the inital phone call to DHR, while searching for a job, I received a letter notifying me that my fingerprints could not be processed and I would have to go get mine redone as well.  In times like this, you laugh or you cry- I did a little of both and then went back to the Shelby County Sheriff's Office to get my fingerprints redone.

I get to the office, wait for someone to come and help me get my fingerprints. As I wash my hands thoroughly, put all of the necessary chemicals on my fingers to get them EXTRA clean, we start the process and immediately there are issues. The machine can't read my fingerprints. He asks me if I am a surgical nurse, I chuckle and tell him no. He said that he has the hardest time getting fingerprints from  nurses and brick layers. At this point I am just praying while I am in the room that somehow these prints will magically appear and not to my surprise, NO LUCK. I was in there for about 45 minutes trying to get a decent fingerprint. After he tries and tries and tries, he basically tells me - you can send these in since they are printed out, but I am going to be honest, I don't think they will accept these because there has to be a certain percentage of your print to read it and I just couldn't get it. I take them and thank him and ponder what I am going to do.

A couple of days later, I decide that I am sick and tired of hoping certain things work out, when I serve THE GOD that is in charge of every single thing in the entire world, including fingerprints. I literally sat in the parking lot of the post office and prayed over every single card that I put in the envelope, sealed it and understood that HE was in control of the situation and if he wanted my fingerprints to be cleared HE would clear them.

Fast forward to the end of October and several things just started falling into place. On October 29, I was offered a full time position with Champion Sports Medicine as their Sales/Marketing Rep and then shortly after, on November 6, I received the beautiful letter that said I was CLEARED and I met the "criteria regarding approval of applicants for an adoption."

So what does all of this mean ? It means that now, with me having a new job, I do have to tweak some of the financial paperwork, but hopefully it will all be approved in a timely manner. Please pray that it does go quickly and smoothly without any more speed bumps. Once the initial paperwork is cleared in the US, we will send our paperwork over to India for their approval.

God has our little one in the palm of His hands. There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about what he/she looks like. If they are tall or short. Will they be an athlete? a doctor? a missionary? How will I teach them to love Jesus and have a servants heart? The list goes on and on. I am falling in love with a child that I have never laid eyes on because I know in my heart that he/she was created to be ours. I know one day, I will look back on this time and fully understand why there were so many delays. Simply put, our baby isn't ready for us yet and when he/she is, everything will be cleared and we will hold them in our arms and never look back.

There is a time for everything in life. Weakness is a gift from God, so you can experience HIS strength.

Thank you for your continued prayers. We need them every day.

Love Always,

Jay and Erica

Do you like Marvel Comics? If so you are going to want to check this fundraiser out!!

$5 Marvel Quilt Raffle!!!!!

 ONE OF A KIND, HANDMADE, MARVEL COMICS QUILT!!!

This drawing will be held in October. Each raffle ticket is $5 and you will be contacted if you win. 

ALL PROCEEDS GO TOWARDS THE 

 CLARK ADOPTION FUND!

If you are interested in purchasing a ticket, you can email me at elclark0430@gmail.com and I will give you details on payment. 

Here are close up shots of each panel....

YARD SALE = SUCCESS!!

I am so sorry for the delay! June and July both proved to be extremely challenging months for me, so I am sorry for those of you who have been asking me about the yard sale!

Several weeks leading up to the yard sale, I had SOOOOOO many people calling and donating their items to our cause. We had any and every single item you could think of!! From fish tanks to clothes, sinks to tv's, wedding gowns to couches- We had it!

 
My dear friends were kind enough to switch cars with me. I went from a small Hyundai Elantra to a big F150 - needless to say I was feeling extremely cool. As you can see, I went and made the last of my pick ups and packed that truck tight!! Once I was able to get everything to the church I was a little over whelmed!

This is just the beginning of what turned out to be an amazing day!

I had so many friends and family members who came out on Friday to help me unpack and turn piles of what seemed like junk, into a magnificent, gently used clothing store! Putting a yard sale together is not an easy task. Because the weather started acting up, we decided that it may be safe to set everything up inside and that is exactly what we did. 

 You can't have a yard sale in the rain, or at least a successful one, so  I was praying hard that the rain would stay away. I had spent weeks advertising and picking up items that people donated to our cause so the thought of rescheduling was not even existent in my mind. I knew the Lord would take care of us regardless of weather and THAT HE DID!!

 We turned piles..........

and piles........... 

                             

and MORE piles.....

of stuff into one of the BEST yard sales I have ever been too!! 

We had cocktail dresses with tags still on them!!! CLOTHES were coming out of every crack of that place!!

We had all types of hand bags and purses. We even had a margarita machine! (which went quick!) Bicycles and fish tanks were up for grabs as well.

  

  And what is a yard sale without shoes......

Needless to say, we were not without and that includes people! This yard sale helped us raise enough money to pay for our final application! PRAISE THE LORD!!! You guys have no idea how huge this is for us. Jay and I can't thank everyone enough. If you donated time, money, items, yourself, or prayer - THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF OUR HEARTS. I also want to give a HUGE shout out to Argo Christian Fellowship for donating their fellowship hall for us to have this yard sale. Pastor Jerry and his staff have done nothing but give of themselves and for that Jay and I are eternally grateful. We love you guys so much.

I know this is only the beginning of many other fundraisers that we will have, but if they are all like this then I know we will have nothing to worry about. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. The paperwork seemed like it would never end and I know that we haven't even gotten to the hard times yet. I am fully aware that The Lord will provide and take care of us, it just seems scary at times.

Thank you again for your love and support.

With Hopeful Hearts,

Jay and Erica

Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep.

Psalm 36:5-6

Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from Him. 

Psalm 62:1

Paper Pregnant

I first want to acknowledge the reaction to our announcement of our adoption plans. In the social media world we live in, "likes" are apparently a really big deal. It was pointed out to me that our announcement was "liked" and "shared" a lot!!! I know in real life this is not a measure of anything that affects Jay and I directly, but to know that we have the support and love from our friends and family is overwhelming for me personally, so THANK YOU!! The more we can share the  news of this big event, the more awareness I feel like we can bring to the fatherless and adoption being "PLAN A."

So, where are we in this process?

I have had A LOT of people ask me where we are in the process, what age will our child be, did we give a gender preference, when will we get matched and my favorite question - what can we do to help?

We are in the final application process now. From what I gather from my AMAZING case worker, this batch of paper work is the largest, most time consuming and has definitely been one of the most emotional experiences of my life personally. I kept hearing the term "paper pregnant" and I feel that I now understand the concept behind it.

 The final application process has consisted of giving every detail of mine and Jay's personal lives from our experiences growing up, why we want to adopt, how we plan to parent, bank statements, checking yes or no to certain questions, pictures of the rooms in our home and the list goes on and on. I am not what people would consider to be a "private" person and this has been hard for me. On top of the amount of paperwork that we are required to give the agency, we have also been working on our dossier that we will send to India once we are approved (God willing). So basically, we are working on getting clearance from the United States and then we will need clearance from India and once we have all of that we will be eligible to be matched.

BOY or GIRL?

So originally Jay and I had decided that we would put the gender preference as a male. We thought it would be cool for all of our other children to have an older brother to look up too and to protect them. Then right after my birthday I was birthday shopping at one of my favorite boutique's in Sylacauga called Buttons and Bows. As soon as I walked in I saw this bed and ALL of the ridiculous frilly, girly, sparkly things that I am drawn too in general and thought to myself, WE HAVE TO GET A GIRL!!!

I called Jay as soon as I got in the car and asked him his thoughts. His first reaction, naturally, was "we've already talked about this and made a decision." I told him to think about it and he did. He finally decided it would be ok for us to give girl as our preference, I was so excited and then I was overwhelmed with emotions. I thought to myself, shouldn't this be the Lord's decision. When we have a baby we won't get to decide the sex, so why should we now? With that being said, we decided since this is our first child we will put no preference on sex and we have been praying the Lord will give us the child he picked out for us before the world was created.

The last two details we have decided on is age and whether or not we would take special needs and the answer is 0-3 years old and YES !  we are willing to take special needs. These special needs are very specific and once we are matched we will be able to give more details.

PRAY

First and foremost, Jay and I both need a lot of prayers. On top of the daily routines in life, this process is long and tedious. There are a lot of decisions that need to be made and sometimes they are not always easy. On top of the support from our family, God has placed some AMAZING people in our life that have been a wealth of information and experience and we will forever be grateful to them for their continued prayers, love and support.

GET INVOLVED

Jay and I are in the midst of trying to come up several different fund raising ideas. If you or someone you know has experience with certain types of fund raisers and would like to help us out, please let me know. We would be eternally grateful.

DONATE TO OUR YARD SALE

I am sure that you have heard, read, seen a Facebook or instagram post about our upcoming yard sale. If you have any items you want to donate, please contact me and let me know. I am working on a day that I ride around and pick up items from people who are donating, so if you can't meet me anywhere find me and I will get a date and time and get your items out of your way. If you do not have any items to donate and want to donate time, I would love as much help as I can get to help get everything set up and organized on the day of the yard sale. It will be an early morning, but any help I can get will be appreciated. 

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.

Ephesians 1:4-5

MULTI FAMILY YARD SALE!!!!

We will be having a multi family yard sale at Argo Christian Fellowship in Trussville, AL on Saturday,July, 19 2014. If you or anyone you know is cleaning out and wants to donate gently used or new items to the yard sale please let me know! Anything that we do not sell will be donated and put to good use. If you want to go ahead and get these items out of your home I have a place at home that I can put it so you can drop it off at my house or I can meet you somewhere. If you have any issues just contact me. Again, thank you for your continued support and I hope to see lots of people there! Spread the word!

Sincerely,
Erica Clark
elclark0430@gmail.com

Argo Christian Fellowship Church
936 U.S. Hwy 11
Trussville, AL 35173

Orphanology, by Rick Morton and Tony Merida

For those of you who can't really comprehend what Jay and I are doing I would strongly urge you to indulge in a great book that I am currently reading called Orphanology, written by Tony Merida and Rick Morton.  This will give you a bit more insight as to one of the many reasons we feel the calling to adopt.

Link to the book on Amazon.com >  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_9?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=orphanology&sprefix=orphanolo%2Caps%2C392

This book informs you not only of our role in taking care of orphans, but what that really looks like in our day to day life. It helps you understand statistics and how we as a church are responsible for the well being of orphan children. Whether you are adopting/fostering or supporting those who are adopting/fostering, we all play a role in protecting God's children in the United States and the rest of the world. Yes, this problem seems too large for a few people to handle, but we HAVE TO TRY. Sitting around, having knowledge about what is going on in our own towns, cities and/or counties and doing nothing is not good enough.

Excerpt from Orphanology that really puts the issue at hand into perspective -

How many orphans are currently living on the earth? It seems like a pretty straightforward question, and you may be surprised by the difficulty answering it. According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), there are estimated to be between 143 and 210 million orphans worldwide, though this number is uncertain. While this estimate is staggering, it likely fails to give a full picture of the scope of the problem. You see, UNICEF only includes children who have lost one or both parents to death in its calculation of the worldwide orphan population. While this approach to defining who is an orphan isn't really wrong, it does fail to account for many of the children who are truly fatherless. 
     
There are several organizations that offer you a way to be involved in making a difference. One I would like to highlight simply because Jay and I are involved is Compassion International. Compassion is a christian child advocacy ministry that provides the opportunity to sponsor children all across the world. We are currently sponsoring a little boy from the Dominican Republic and a little girl from Indonesia. It is so cool to receive the packet of information about the children, their needs, what their environments are like. It tells you about their day to day lives and how your sponsorship is going to affect that in a positive way. You are also able to have direct contact with your sponsored child. If they do not speak/write in English, you get the original letter and then one that has been translated so you can read it.

http://www.compassion.com/about/about-us.htm

This experience has been so fulfilling to pray for children to come to know the Lord personally while watching them grow and gain education. It has given me perspective in the sense of what the Lord has provided Jay and I with and despite the negative things that are going on in this country, what an amazing place it is to live.  I am so thankful the Lord chose for me to live in this great nation.

Please keep us in your prayers as we finish up the last of our paperwork. I have been so thankful that the Lord has provided us with fast results when getting paperwork from other people. It has really blown me away, the work ethic behind some of the people that have helped us. We are truly blessed to have met and encountered the people in our journey so far and I know this is only the beginning!