Making connections

At the end of March we had a new team member to our side business.  I set up an appointment to meet with Rachel to share information and answer any of her questions.  A couple days later, we met in the middle of the morning at a Subway in Greensburg, Indiana.  Her teenage daughter, Emily, was with her.

As I got to know Rachel and Emily, Rachel shared with me that her husband is the pastor of a small country church and that they have five children, three of which are adopted - two cute little boys and a girl. Sophia came into their lives exactly one year to the day after the two boys, Samuel and Isaac. Sophia was adopted because Emily had gone to China to spend a week working in an orphanage there. Emily fell in love with Sophia and didn’t want to come home without her.  I sat amazed with tears in my eyes as they told me their story.

Emily is also a musician who writes her own music.  She has written songs about adoption and has become quite the speaker in Indiana.  Her circle of influence has spread beyond state lines and all over into the Midwest.  She has been asked to speak at numerous events, conferences, summer camps, and ladies luncheons.

The night before I was to meet with Rachel, Bruce came home and excitedly told me about a website that he had somehow accidentally stumbled across while looking for something else.  This website told about an orphanage that was a dream becoming a reality in Jamaica.  I immediately contacted the names on the website and set up a phone call with them the next day.

So, while I was learning from Rachel and Emily about their heart for the fatherless, I told them about our vision for Jamaica and the phone call that I was to have later that afternoon.  They were excited to hear my story and are definitely first on the list for our first mission trip. They are both beautiful women and have become special, supportive and encouraging friends.      
                 
Later that afternoon I talked to Brittany and Christina, two of the founders of Project Orphan. It turns out that Christina is originally from Kingston, Jamaica.  The girls, who were friends from college at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, along with a few others, are raising funds to start orphanages in several different countries.  As I type this today, they are breaking ground in Uganda. How awesome!  Brittany and I have spoken several times since then and have become Facebook friends.  She has been an enormous help, a wealth of information, as well as some wonderful moral support.

Ironically, in my discussions with Brittany, we have discovered that both of our “visions” for helping children in Jamaica fall on the same timelines - almost to the day, in fact.  Wow.