introducing....

oh, friends!  today is a day of rejoicing & praise.

sweet Esther has officially met & been matched with her forever family!

i can hardly stop smiling.

this precious, little treasure that has waited for so long [i met her in 2009 when

we adopted clayton] and been through so much is currently with her family.

they are working with the officials, systems and paperwork in-country to

try to get their little girl home as quickly as possible.  not only does she need

proper medical care, but there will soon be a closing of courts for summer break,

so please join us in prayer that everything can be taken care of before then & she can be HOME.

i'm so, so grateful for the honor of introducing Esther's family.

please continue to join me in prayer for them, leave them a note of encouragement here,

&/or spread their journey so others can do the same.

it's no secret that adoption is expensive--add in the speed of this adoption & 

some additional costs to get Esther proper care & accommodations in their home for her

special needs & this is going to be a group effort fund-raising.

there will be more 'formal' fund-raising in the works, but for today

would you like to join me in congratulating them & give them a 

'happy matching day' gift?

you can do a tax free donation of any amount to their FIG fund.

THANK YOU.

please meet, Esther's [awesome!] family & read below from the mom:

 We are the Groothuis family, just your typical family of 16, with half of our children adopted
from Africa! We are a dancing, silly, somewhat loud, Jesus-loving family. We homeschool, live
in Iowa, and love to celebrate the goodness of God and His great love to us! We had 5 sons and
then adopted 5 daughters in 2005 from Liberia West, Africa. One of our girls died the day before
we flew home from Liberia and the others were quite sick. In 2008 we adopted 3 more
Liberian children, this time from a disruption. Some of these children had very intense medical
needs, had life-threatening complications and surgeries. We have seen miracles and the children
are thriving today. A child that couldn’t talk for years now verbal! A child with a very damaged liver.....
an anti-viral that has stopped the damage. A child that couldn’t swallow or eat for years....
now having oral intake! Broken hearts mended, diseases healed......it goes on!

So here’s what led up to Esther. Last December we updated our homestudy, thinking we would
 do an easy special need like HIV. Well then we were contacted by a girl who used to live with us when she ran away
and came to Iowa from a residential treatment center in South Chicago. She
found out she was pregnant and HIV positive and needed help. I know a fabulous
QUEEN OF HIV adoptions (Carolyn Twietmeyer of Project Hopeful) in Chicago who
took her under her wing and helped her out......and told me about a little girl named
Esther in Uganda who really needed a family and introduced me to an adoptive
mama who had been advocating for Esther for a long time, her name was Love.

Now a couple years ago one of our biological sons started having tonic-clonic seizures out of
no where. Perfectly healthy kid and at age 7...seizures became a huge part of our life. For 2
years much of his life revolved around seizures...and then God healed him. He has been seizure
free and medication free for a year and a half. Not so much as a headache. Hallelujah!
So I have this drawer full of rescue medication to stop status seizures and I wondered what I
was going to do with all that?! When I heard about Esther and her seizures I thought, “Hey, we
know seizures!” and she was non-verbal and I thought, “We’ve done non-verbal!” and I heard a
few other possible labels kicked around and I thought, “We know hypothetical labels!” and then
I saw the photos and a video link that some amazing mamas had made to advocate for her and I
 knew. This is our daughter!

I had a dream that she was in a crib banging her head (either from a seizure or from self-soothing)
I and went in and she stood up in the crib and reached her arms out to me and I picked her up.
When we told our other children about Esther they were quite concerned she didn’t have
hair. Hair braiding and weaving is one of our main crafts/hobbies and because
one of our daughters always stayed on the pediatric oncology ward at our children’s
hospital when she was there, they were concerned Esther must have cancer! We assured
 them they just shaved their heads at the orphanage, but soon she too would be introduced
to the wonders of beads, braids, and all things fabulous for her hair!

Now that we’ve met Esther and held Esther and prayed over Esther we are even
more in love than ever. She is a delight, a treasure, and we thank God over and
over we get to be her parents! Thank you, thank you, thank you
to those who never gave up praying for her, advocating for her, being her voice,
and being a channel of God’s grace to our family!!! We are all in awe and wonder at
how the Author and Finisher of our faith can write such a page-turner! His love and
favor are all over little Miss Esther and the next chapters of her life will be full of divine
reversals and new victories! How great is our GOD!