295: A Lot Can Happen in a Week

 AJ Jones.
 Yes, sir.
 Episode 295.
 295?
 Keeping up with the Joneses.
 This episode, I somewhat anticipate,
 will be different from our normal episode.
 I think so, yes.
 I agree.
 If you've been listener for more than two episodes,
 you will know that we typically start
 with a weekly catch up.
 Yes.
 Main topic. Yes.
 A listen's question. Yes.
 And a wrap up. Yeah.
 But behold, this week is altogether
 something completely different.
 It really, really is.
 for two reasons, I think.
 - Okay.
 - Number one, I can't remember a time
 when we've recorded on the episode
 in a more vulnerable position than we are right now.
 - No.
 (laughs)
 - And number two, which is closely linked to number one,
 is we have a lot going on in life right now.
 - Just a little bit.
 - Yeah.
 - Before we jump into our topic,
 I do want to play just a little clip.
 - From last week?
 - From last week.
 Yeah, it will become clear why we're playing this.
 - Okay.
 - Let me take you back to seven days ago.
 (laughs)
 To us saying this.
 We should probably do an adoption update.
 - Yes, nothing has happened.
 (laughs)
 - Now, before we tell you a wonderful story,
 allow us to set some context for said story.
 - Okay, in 2021, we started the year off just normal
 and the Lord was knocking on our hearts about adopting.
 He had been talking to us through dreams and things like that for several years before that.
 But in 2021, we did all of the things to get on board with adopting a baby.
 And so we did a home study and all that kind of stuff.
 And in the fall of 2021, we were approved and could then be considered to adopt a baby, which was just like a huge adventure again.
 We did talk about it.
 Yeah.
 We did a whole episode on adoption.
 So we don't want to rehash the history.
 You can go listen to episode 260.
 Yeah, if you want to hear about how we got there,
 put a link in the show notes.
 There you go.
 And I think we thought it would happen pretty quickly.
 So yeah, it felt like the behind the scenes 2021
 was us getting ready to adopt.
 Yeah.
 And you know, we were working on it for months
 before we ever announced.
 Oh, so much work.
 And then in November when we released the episode,
 I remember our whole life shifting with the focus of like,
 I remember we went away for your birthday to celebrate.
 Yeah.
 And we told our friends, you know, hey, you know, we're coming away, but we might need to leave last minute.
 Right.
 Everything all plans are tentative.
 But as you can tell from last week's clip, largely nothing has happened.
 That's not fair to say nothing's happened.
 We've had opportunities.
 But whenever we've put our name in to be considered for those opportunities, we haven't been picked.
 So we've done that a number of times, like six or seven times.
 And we have also seen many, many situations posted
 that we couldn't put our names in for,
 for different reasons.
 Anything from the birth mother would like a dog
 in the household to shoot like a non-religious home,
 things like that.
 So we've seen quite a few situations.
 We've seen less that would apply to us
 or that we could apply for.
 We've put our names in, you know, for six or seven
 and received a no.
 Hence your fair confidence last week
 by saying absolutely nothing is happening.
 Nothing is happening, yes.
 But no sooner had we finished recording that episode.
 Yes.
 Almost as soon as those words left your lips.
 And into God's ears.
 (laughing)
 We were notified of a situation.
 And so this is what happens sometimes time.
 One of the adoption agencies were with,
 will email us and say, there's an adoption situation
 that's going to be presenting itself fairly soon.
 Would you like to be considered as one of the families
 that we present to the birth mom who can pick for you?
 - Yes.
 - And this is where it feels a little bit vulnerable
 because I'm afraid I sound a little shallow
 is we read the profile and the amount of information
 you get varies from case to case.
 - It's usually not very much.
 - Not very much, but in, I don't know why,
 I don't know where we got this from,
 but I think from our conversations,
 perhaps our longing, perhaps our desire.
 We'd always talked about our desire for another baby boy.
 - Yeah, I think 'cause I'm from a family, well, you're not,
 but I'm from a family with two girls, two boys.
 And in my head, I always thought,
 "Oh, two girls, two boys."
 You know, it's good.
 - Got those things decently in an order.
 - It's decently in an order.
 But, you know, going back over the dreams,
 we had dreams about adopting both girls and boys.
 There wasn't any, all different ethnicities.
 - You were absolutely right, but for whatever reason.
 - In our hearts, we landed on,
 We'd love to adopt a boy and MJ really wanted a baby brother.
 - He did, yeah.
 So this particular case presented to us,
 it was one of the first ones I feel like in a long time
 that we've seen that was a girl and it wasn't a boy.
 And I remember you text, we said,
 "Hey, there's another..."
 And by the way, how this happens is you literally get an email.
 You might get an email at lunchtime
 and they might say, "Let us know if you're wanting
 "to be considered by 4 p.m."
 Or you might get at dinner at time
 and it'll be like, "Let us know by 9 a.m. tomorrow morning."
 Which is crazy.
 - It's a life decision and you have a few hours.
 - Yeah, on very little information.
 - Yeah, and on this one, I regret to say,
 I was fairly flipping, you know, you were like,
 "Hey, do you wanna put your name in for this one?"
 And honestly, I was like, "Yes, not a boy, not really."
 And sooner than I texted that back to you,
 I realized that week you'd had a dream
 about, in fact, you referenced it last week on the podcast.
 I had another adoption dream.
 You had a dream about adopting a baby girl.
 - A baby girl that was Hispanic.
 - Yes.
 And what do you know on this profile,
 both parents are Hispanic.
 - Yes.
 - So I was like, okay, this.
 - This seems like something.
 - This seems like the Lord.
 That seems too much of a coincidence to not be the Lord.
 - Yes.
 - We'll put our names in.
 - We'll put our names in.
 - And after a couple of days,
 we got notified that we weren't picked.
 - Yes, we were not picked.
 So that was a little confusing for my heart.
 I was a little discouraged.
 - But here's what we've learned
 is I'm not trying to minimize your discouragement at all.
 No, I know.
 But what we have found very helpful as we've gone through this process a number of different
 times is that the whole process is so opaque.
 As in, I feel like the Lord is saying, "Hey, I'm inviting you to adopt."
 So we pray about it and we're like, "Yeah, I think you are."
 "Okay, as far as we can tell, sure, okay, we're going to go for it."
 And then all these cases, I can only think of a handful of times that when we've prayed
 and said, "Lord, do we put our name in? Have we heard the Lord say, 'No, this is not the child I have for you.'"
 Yes.
 But almost all of the other ones, it's kind of like, "Okay, well, let's just put our name in."
 Well, I'm reminded of a passage in Acts 15 where the apostles are like, "It seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit."
 Yeah.
 And that's honestly about as best as we've got in terms of conviction, strength, like, "I mean, that feels good.
 We'll put it in."
 So when we get a no, rather than being devastated,
 it's not to say there isn't sadness with it
 because your heart points there.
 No, we're not devastated, but it's like, oh.
 But you do get clarity.
 The no is a clarity, is a clarifying thing.
 Like your mom says, clear guidance.
 My mom would have this phrase, good staunch Calvinist.
 My mom wasn't a Calvinist at all.
 My father was very Calvinist.
 But my mom would have this phrase
 where she would talk about clear guidance.
 And just, you know, God--
 It could be for anything.
 you'd show up at a restaurant and, you know, it was closed and you'd be clear guidance.
 Clear guidance. So, there's a danger, like anything in the kingdom we can over-scrage
 Elijah over-use things. It's stuck with me. And I'm like, yeah, that's clear. God's not
 going to be- Okay.
 God is all powerful. And there's this verse that's been really helpful for us. It's Proverbs
 21 1. "My ability to memorize scripture tonight after the last 24 hours, I'll read it to you.
 is that the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord,
 like the rivers of water,
 he turns it wherever he wishes.
 And I take that to mean that the Lord
 can direct the decision makers in your life.
 The Lord can direct circumstances
 and manage things in your life for your life.
 - So when it's our baby, we believe, okay,
 a mom will pick us.
 And it was funny because we sent out an email on Monday,
 didn't we?
 - Tuesday, I think, oh, I forget all the days
 of blood into one, but yes, we sent out an email.
 - It's not an email to our list saying,
 "Hey, we've got the situation.
 "Would you please pray about it?"
 And they all did.
 And then we sent another email,
 like a day or two later, going,
 "Hey, we didn't get a baby.
 "Thank you for praying."
 We actually hear that no as a,
 that's clear guidance.
 - Yes.
 - The hand of the Lord.
 - This is not the child I have for you.
 - So imagine our shock.
 Well, why don't you tell that part?
 - Well, what was funny was I had coffee
 with a new friend on Tuesday,
 and then I had lunch with a good friend,
 And with both of them, I said, yeah, we didn't get picked for this situation.
 And but, you know, I know when it's supposed to be our child, a mom will pick us.
 And anyway, I pick up Abigail and we go do some, yeah, running around.
 And we're at the grocery store and the one of the adoption, I don't know if you call
 them agents, but somebody from the adoption agency.
 She calls and she's like, "Hi!"
 And I was like, "Hey!"
 And I'm thinking, like, I'm missing paperwork
 or something like, you know, so I was like, "Hey!"
 And I'm only getting bits and pieces,
 like a word here, a word there.
 And so the sum that I hear is picked you, you know,
 she picked you and then--
 - Congratulations.
 - And I'm like, what now?
 Like, what now?
 like, who picked me?
 And then, like, and I said, I'm sorry,
 I can't really hear you.
 And she said, oh, that explains it.
 Normally people are excited to know they got picked.
 And then the line just goes dead.
 And I'm like, okay.
 But somewhat, like somewhere in this sort of
 stilted conversation, I said, sorry,
 which mom picked us?
 So then I call Alyn.
 And let me just say, I don't know,
 husbands, do you ever get in the zone
 and through no fault of your wife's?
 - No fault of mine.
 - No fault of mine.
 - Did you hear that?
 - No fault of mine.
 I don't know what's coming, but it was no fault of mine.
 - I'm in the zone doing creative work.
 - Yes, sorry.
 - And you had probably called like once, twice,
 three times already, about nothing,
 other than, hey, miss you or what do you want for dinner?
 - Right.
 - And I was getting progressively more frustrated
 because my day was being interrupted.
 - You did sound a little grumpy.
 - A little turd.
 - So you call me not knowing this has happened.
 - Yeah.
 first words are, honey, I'm gonna need your full attention for this
 for God. So somehow you picked up that. So I step away from my
 computer and you start telling me piecing things together like
 hey, they just called and congratulated us and and I was
 like, but we were told we weren't picked and you were like, no,
 I think it's another mom and, you know, we're kind of scratching
 our brain and I'm realizing I'm putting two together realizing
 they've presented us to a mom that we haven't put our name in to be presented.
 Yes.
 And I can feel myself getting big, angry, in distress, because I'm realizing that's a
 big no-no-lay, that's a huge faux pas on their turn.
 And as I'm feeling that, getting like, this is, you know, I can hear the Holy Spirit,
 just go, "Hey, buddy, hey."
 Like, "Hey, calm, calm, I do."
 I'm like, okay, no, I wanna have ears to hear.
 And so you say, well, I'm waiting for her to call back.
 She was in a storm, she had to pull over,
 like the reception was so bad, she was in a storm,
 she'll call back.
 So I'm like, what is going on?
 So she calls you back.
 - She calls me back, and poor sweet Abigail
 doesn't know what's going on.
 So she's gone off to get different things
 and bring them back to the cart.
 She comes back to the cart just as she calls.
 And so I was like, Abbie, stay here with the cart.
 I'll be back, and I like run out of the grocery store
 so that I can have better reception.
 And so by the time she's phoned me back,
 she's actually checked her files
 and she's realized the same mistake.
 And so she starts by saying, and she's amazing.
 This lady is just so sweet.
 And she's like, I just wanna tell you,
 I've just realized you didn't put in your names
 to be presented to the mom that I presented you to.
 And I'm really sorry,
 I've been doing this job for 10 years.
 I've never made this error.
 I'm really surprised.
 I'm very sorry.
 So she's very apologetic and everything.
 And as she's talking, I start to think,
 okay, God, what are you up to?
 And I actually said to her on the phone,
 well, she's like, what do you wanna do?
 I can call the mom and say,
 "Hey, I've made this mistake and this family
 "didn't put their names in and I can help her
 "find another great family."
 And she's like, or like, what are you thinking?
 And I was like, well, I'm just wondering
 if this is Jehovah Sneaky, which she laughed at.
 I guess she hadn't heard that before.
 And, you know, I said, Alyn and I have been in this process
 because the Lord asked us to be in this process.
 And we've believed, hey, when a mom's, you know,
 when it's our child, a mom is gonna pick us.
 What are the chances of us being presented?
 - Yeah, but never in our math did we consider
 that a mom would pick us without us knowing
 that we were even in the rut?
 - Like ahead of, yeah, yeah.
 So anyway, I just said, "Hey, would you give me time
 "to go home?"
 I said, "I'm not at home, I'm at the grocery store,
 "to go home, to talk to Alyn.
 "We need to pray, we need to talk to our kids,
 "we need to pray with our kids."
 And she was like, "Absolutely."
 And in the end, I ended up texting and saying,
 "Could we have until the morning
 "so that we can just make sure that we seek wisdom,
 and we're really like, you know, solid.
 And so we talked to the kids and,
 I mean, which was kind of amazing on a couple of levels.
 Like the feeling sort of ranged from,
 oh, I thought we were gonna have a boy
 to excitement that we're gonna have a girl.
 - Or excitement that we've even been picked.
 'Cause our poor kids had gotten to the stage of like,
 please stop telling us about--
 - Who were presenting to you and stuff.
 - Only tell us once we've been picked.
 We can't do this.
 I was like, oh, bless your heart.
 - Yeah.
 a couple of moments at the table with them,
 and I don't think they would mind me sharing this,
 but some of the sort of shining moments
 of that conversation is one of the kids said,
 "Mom, I think this is God.
 Like I think God has done this."
 And she was super solid on that.
 And then one of the other kids said,
 "Mom, do you realize only in this situation
 with this error having happened,
 do we actually get to choose back?
 So she was saying like in every other situation
 you're part of a group of, you know,
 five, 10, sometimes 20 profiles that are put
 in front of this mom and they do the choosing
 and then you just, you know,
 you go along with whatever happens
 and she's like, this is the only way we actually get
 to choose this baby back and we get to choose this mom.
 And so we're like, I was like, oh.
 - That's a wonderful perspective.
 - It's so bizarre, isn't it?
 - Yeah.
 - Because the only thing I can get close to
 and forgive me if this is insensitive,
 the only other major life decision I've made
 that's similar in scope and in size is buying a house.
 Like you go see a house, you walk through it,
 and then you have to make an offer right there in there.
 - Like right away, yeah.
 - And you're spending, you know,
 hundreds of thousands of dollars of money
 on a 15 minute visit, and you can do all the research you want,
 but it's that kind of like the impact of the decision
 versus the amount of ability to weigh.
 - Right.
 - It's like that.
 And I was with some friends on Tuesday night
 when we were trying to make the decision
 and they're like, you're very calm.
 And I'm like, I understand what you're saying
 but we've made this decision like six or seven times.
 - Right, big life decisions with minimal information.
 - Yeah, like, hey, do you wanna--
 - Because we're in a--
 - Do you wanna know?
 I don't know any about adoption.
 I mean, when we say yes, hey, present us,
 we're like, well, we'll say yes and see what the mom says.
 And if she says yes, well, no, no, no,
 when you say yes, you are.
 - You have to say yes and me.
 - So, you know, we've done this,
 not under these circumstances.
 I immediately jumped back on our prayer list.
 These people on our adoption prayer list.
 Thank you so much, by the way, for praying for us.
 - We so appreciate it.
 And we felt it.
 And honestly, in the midst of, you know,
 the craziness that has been the last 48 hours,
 so much peace.
 So yeah.
 - So I wrote back and said,
 "Hey, remember that email I just sent you
 about, hey, it's like a roller coaster
 and we're just kidding, we got something else to do."
 And so I said, "Would you help us discern
 whether this is a clerical error
 or the hand of God moving on behalf of our family?"
 That was our prayer.
 And we just kind of went to bed
 and thought, "Well, we'll sleep on it."
 - Yeah.
 - And I'd gotten up early the next morning and I was praying
 and I was, I didn't hear anything from the Lord,
 like, yes, my son do this.
 But what I did hear, I was reminded of two things.
 The one thing is a number of years ago,
 very early on in emanate,
 and I'm ashamed to tell the story.
 It ends well, but it does nothing for my reputation.
 Was it confession's good for the soul,
 but lousy for the reputation?
 - My reputation, yeah.
 - You were preaching emanate and I'm sat in the front row
 and I hear this kerfuffle behind me
 And it's a man and a woman in the early 20s,
 coming down the aisle while everybody seated
 in the middle of preaching.
 And so I'm ashamed to say this,
 but I'm frustrated that the service has been interrupted.
 So I go up and ask them,
 and they're clearly unchurched.
 I've never been to our church before.
 And they're just like,
 I was told that if I brought her here, she would get healed.
 And in my head, like a complete Pharisee,
 I'm like, yeah, we will pray for the sick
 at the end of the service.
 And I'm being frustrated that the service has been interrupted.
 And I hear the Holy Spirit say, "Whoa, easy tiger."
 Right? And I'm like, "Yeah, I'm kind of in a Pharisee here.
 There's six days to be healed."
 Don't come on and say that.
 So I realized this is a God opportunity.
 So take a couple of people back and we pray for her.
 And anyway, this woman gets completely healed.
 You know, crutches are gone,
 she hasn't been able to walk,
 she can go up and down stairs.
 And I'm thinking I nearly missed it because of my anger.
 - Yeah.
 - Well, when you called and told us about the mistake
 that they'd made. I felt the same anger. Like, I can't believe they would do this. And I felt
 more gentle. I didn't hear the Holy Spirit say, you know, easy tiger, but I could feel the Holy
 Spirit move toward me. And I'm like, yeah, Lord, you might be in this. That's one thing.
 Yes. But the next thing is I was praying. I was, I felt like, in one sense, what is the really
 to pray about? Because the genesis of this whole thing is the Lord saying, Hey, would you adopt?
 And we said, yeah.
 And we said, yes.
 And then the example I had was I felt the Holy Spirit teasing me going, Alyn, it's like
 you read the parable of the Good Samaritan and are like, you know, charged and like,
 yes, I'm going to love my neighbor.
 And then you come out your front door and realize that Miss Deirdre, who lives next
 to us, has slipped and fallen.
 And then you're like, yes, but is she the neighbor that I should be helping?
 Like, this is a no brainer, folks.
 Yeah.
 Well, that's kind of larger what we got to.
 This feels like a no brain, this feels like a gift from God.
 And I was with the Lord thinking about all the clerical errors
 that we've received over the years that have benefited us.
 Like I remember when we bought our house as a clerical error
 that was in our favor.
 I remember when we built the house, the builders specked it
 with marble and we couldn't have afforded marble
 and they were like, well, I guess it's a mistake.
 And you were a favor.
 There you go.
 So I'm like, I also had the thought today.
 I was processing with a friend and I had been thinking this
 and then she said it and I was like, yeah, for sure.
 But she was like, you know, if you hadn't had the dream
 and therefore put your name in for the first baby girl,
 probably you wouldn't have been on this person's mind
 who does the presenting.
 And you know, you wouldn't have been presented
 to this baby that's now gonna be your daughter, you know?
 So--
 - Or if we hadn't done the work
 about being open to adopting a girl.
 - Yes.
 - Yeah.
 - It's so funny how this whole
 half of three works together.
 Yes.
 I think too, and we've learned this number of times as well,
 but I think it's important,
 especially when you're following dreams
 and prophetic words and stuff like that,
 that we don't become precious
 about how we think it has to go down.
 And I just felt like even in that,
 there was the kindness of the Lord
 to sort of redirect us towards,
 "Hey, you're probably gonna need some help
 opening up your heart towards what I'm bringing for you.
 And so I'm gonna do that.
 Like I'm, and so to me it's even in that,
 it's like, oh God, you're so in the details,
 you're so kind, you make sure we're in the right place.
 And then, you know, you put us in the running,
 even when we didn't put ourselves in the running.
 - We nearly missed it.
 - We have.
 - And then hold on, hold on, hold on.
 - And the words like, actually, you know.
 So yeah, we're so excited.
 We're very excited and if we're honest,
 if we come back to our vulnerability part,
 we're also a little overwhelmed.
 Now, I'm not sure how much information we're allowed to share.
 So I'm gonna keep it as vague as I think would be helpful.
 But the baby's gonna arrive by C-section
 so we kind of know when it's gonna arrive
 in the next three to four weeks
 in the early parts of April.
 Which means we have a lot to do between now and then.
 - We sure do.
 It's a domestic adoption, so it's within the United States, but it's in a different part of the states that we live in, which means we have to fly out there.
 I have a place to stay and all that stuff.
 I hired our fifth lawyer, so I feel like a real grown-up.
 That's amazing.
 Five lawyers.
 I hired an adoption or retained an adoption lawyer today.
 There is so much paperwork, and that is not my gift mix at all.
 But probably the biggest thing that is overwhelming us is the cost of this.
 Yes.
 You know, that's really staring at us.
 It's kind of like, "Hey, Lord, we love what you're doing and we want to follow you."
 But there's some giants in the land that we probably need some help slaying.
 Yeah.
 So this morning, I just authorized a wire transfer of $25,000.
 Yes.
 It's the first half of a deposit.
 This episode will come out on a Monday.
 on Monday. So if you're listening to this on a Monday, we need to find another $25,000
 before Friday.
 Yes.
 And at the time of recording, we only have $7,000 to give towards that.
 So we have to raise about $18,000 in about five days.
 Yes.
 So the thing is we've got amazing history with God, amazing testing with God coming
 through, but it still doesn't excuse the stretching.
 Yes.
 And even at that, about a week and a half after that, we have all the medical fees, all the lawyers fees.
 That's another 4,000.
 All the, you know, flights, hotels, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
 No, no, no, granted.
 I'm just, I'm just like, I'm.
 Personally, yeah.
 Yeah, yeah.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Let's keep the main thing.
 The main thing.
 Like I'm praying and fasting for this amount on this day.
 And then that challenge will all begin again.
 OK.
 Good.
 Perfect.
 So when I said at the beginning, you know,
 This is gonna be a little bit of a different episode.
 It's because our head space is somewhere.
 This news is about 24 hours old for us.
 - I think, I don't know what we've mentioned
 on previous podcasts.
 I doubt we would have talked about this,
 but I've had people say,
 "Have you kept any of your baby things?"
 And we didn't 'cause we thought we were done.
 So we gave everything away, like everything.
 So now we're starting all over again.
 - And again, a great nod to our wonderful community
 that within a day,
 - Yes, they're already working on a shower.
 - People are organizing a baby shower for you
 and a meal train and all the encouragement and texts
 that we received is a huge thing.
 But we wanna invite you to journey with us
 if you would like to.
 This is a real, I think part of the reason
 I feel so vulnerable is normally when we're sharing
 on the podcast, we're sharing about things that have happened.
 Like we're on the other side of a victory
 and here's our testimony.
 - We're not inviting you to help us with a victory.
 This is a real time event where you get an insight into our relationship with God as we're walking.
 And like, if you tune in next week, you're going to hear, "How did your prayer request
 about that? Where are you at?" And we know, "How did God show up for you?"
 Yeah. But there's a couple of things we would really, really cherish from you, our dear listeners.
 And we want to invite you into a couple of different spheres. The number one thing that we would
 deeply covet is your prayers. Yes, please. I don't say that to be super spiritual. I say that because
 'cause we have received the fruit
 and the benefit of people praying for us.
 - Yeah, and we have felt like,
 especially in the craziness of this week,
 like knowing we have over 100 people
 on our newsletter that are praying
 and we could feel it like.
 - Oh, absolutely.
 And the joy, and we'll talk about our newsletter in a second,
 we'd invite you to jump on that.
 I've spoken to somebody yesterday,
 I was like, "Well, there's no part of me joining
 "your newsletter now, now you're adopting."
 I'm like, "Are you kidding me?
 "Do you know what's gonna happen in the next four weeks?
 We need your prayer more than ever.
 And I imagine we'll send updates after we, you know, after we have heard.
 But it is the, it is as soon as we know, almost like as soon as we process the first thing I do is I go and I craft the newsletter and I send it out to our people so that they can pray.
 Thank you again for those of you that have been praying for us.
 Yeah.
 It's been huge and we were joking talking about the podcast earlier and we were like, you know, literally you could just think about anything to do with the situation.
 pick that and pray about that thing.
 - Yeah, just anything, just pick one thing.
 It's fine, yeah.
 - Especially pray for this mom,
 this precious mom who's about to give birth,
 pray for this precious, did we mention this to baby girl?
 Yeah, I think we did.
 Pray for this precious baby girl,
 pray for all the nuts and bolts, all that.
 So we'd love your prayers.
 - So number two is please share this episode
 with as many people as you think would be encouraged
 by our story and would pray with us or partner with us.
 we would love to get the word out.
 - Number three, if you have the means,
 would you please pray about sewing into this adoption with us?
 We are staring at some pretty big financial giants.
 We have emptied our savings accounts to get here.
 We really do have confidence in God's goodness
 and we're inviting you to step in
 and be part of that story.
 I know from speaking to people
 that one of the biggest pains
 in the lives of Christians at the moment
 is the world's response to abortion,
 almost not just the indifference to abortion,
 but that, hey, it is a right.
 And at times, as Christians can feel completely powerless
 about how do we combat this onslaught
 of spiritual attack about abortion?
 Adoption is a very practical solution to abortion,
 and we invite you to help us as we adopt this baby.
 - I think also, especially as we've seen changes
 with Roe v. Wade and all that kind of stuff,
 I really believe the Lord's gonna start speaking
 to more Christians about getting involved in adoption.
 And it's a community event because of how expensive it is.
 Like I think that's something that I'm hoping
 we will see the body of Christ rise up
 and start to be the answer to.
 - Yeah, you can give by going to alynandaj.com/adopt.
 We have partnered with a 501(c)(3)
 501(3) CPO.
 We have partnered with a 501(c)(3)
 where all of the donations that you give,
 if you're an American taxpayer, we'll be a tax deductible gift.
 We won't receive any of that money.
 It will just go straight to the providers, our lawyers,
 or adoption, our hospitals.
 If you're outside of the US and you don't care about
 getting a tax receipts, there's also an option there.
 But for those American taxpayers,
 if you have an employer that does matching gifts to 501(c)(3s),
 please look into that too, because whatever you give,
 they'll match, and that's double the gift
 just by checking with your HR department.
 - Yeah, we'd also love you to pray where we've put our names
 in for some grants and things.
 And so if you could pray for a favor on those
 and that they'd need to come through real quick,
 that would be wonderful.
 And then number four is I would invite you to sign up
 for our newsletter about adoption.
 You would sign up by going to AlynandAJ.com/adopt
 and then you'll get to join us for this last leg
 and all of the wonder that it has all--
 real time. We are fanatical about not spamming people. So if you send it for that, your email
 is only used for the adoption stuff. Yeah, we're not going to email you other stuff.
 Man, a lot happens in a week. Wow, so much. Yeah. Tune in next week to see what else has happened
 in the weeks since this was recorded. But seriously, we thank you for your interest in our adoption
 story. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for praying for us. Thank you for sharing.
 Thank you for giving if you choose to give and we're excited to bring you an update about what's
 happening as we become parents again.
 A new born.
 A new born baby.
 Yeah. So we just want to thank you for being with us on this irregular podcast episode and
 hopefully our normal formatting will return next week. Who knows, I suppose.
 If you have any questions about our adoption journey or just about adoption in general,
 Just head to our website, AlynandAJ.com/adopt, and at the bottom there's a form you could fill out,
 and you can just put your questions in there, and we'd love to see them.
 We look forward to returning with hopefully regular programming next week.
 If you've got any questions you'd like us to talk about, if there's any topics you'd like us to
 discuss, you can go to AlynandAJ.com/ask and put them in there. But for now, thank you for being with us
 on this journey. We'll keep you posted about what happens. We'll see you next week. Bye.