Want to Help?

Hi friends! Our adoption process has gone as well as it could possibly go! We started the process in February and in 7 months we have managed to get a home study done, plus all of the needed paperwork, and our Dossier completed and sent in to our adoption agency. If you have ever adopted, you know just how hard all of that is. Living out of the country has made this process a tiny bit harder on us but the Lord has definitely blessed us.

However, now comes the hard part, we must ask for your help. International adoption is expensive and we knew all along it was going to take God moving in big ways to make it possible for us to adopt. He has shown us all along the way that He is in control of everything. Every time we have had a check to write, the money has come either through over payments of sorts, our savings,  or the generosity of friends and strangers as well. It has definitely strengthened our faith.

We still have about $13,000 that we need to raise in order to pay for additional expenses. Those will include; adoption agency fees, travel expenses to Colombia for our family, post adoption fees, and post adoption updates, just to name a few. We still have some additional savings we will be using but seek partners to help us little by little to complete this journey.

We were recently blessed as our friends at Kingston Ave. Baptist in Anderson, Indiana gave a $1,200 matching grant to get the ball rolling. We pray that God will bless that grant by doubling it, or even tripling it! Our fundraising goal date is October 6th, 2015, but funds will be accepted later than this date. ;o)

Options for giving are twofold and go 100% to our adoption:

1. Checks may be made payable to "Lifesong for Orphans." In the memo, note "Wood #5450" to assure it goes to the correct account. Please mail to Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 40, Gridley, IL 61744.

2. To pay online go to http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/give/donate/ Select "Give to an Adoptive Family."
Complete the online form and fill in the "Family Account Number- #5450" and "Family Name- Wood" fields to assure it goes to the correct account. (If your donation is over $50 you will get a tax-deductible receipt. Receipts for donations less than $50, will gladly be sent upon request.)

Thank you for considering helping us rescue a child and give them a forever family. If you would like to support us and are unable to do so financially, we would love it if you would pray for us as we continue on this journey. The path is unfamiliar to us and we truly covet your prayers as we walk in faith and do what we can to unite our little one with the family we know God has planned for them since they were created. We feel blessed to be a part of this journey.

With much love, Greg, Missy, Jerod, Alex, Annie, and Future Wood child!

Our summer adventures.

 This is a quick update on our summer. It went quick, so quick I never had time to update our blog! Our adoption process has been going slow but steady. We have just been steady at getting the mounds of paper work completed. It hasn't been easy, but we know we will be so blessed by  our new addition(s) once the Lord shows us who that special someone is. We are now just in a waiting game, as we are waiting on our adoption agency to have what they need on their end so that they can match us with the Child the Lord has planned for our family. Please pray for us as we wait. However, while we wait, you can see what we have been up to this summer! ;o)

                                                Celebrating the 4th of July with my family.

I must say, we will miss this once we are back in Mexico!

Trying to get used to what life will be like without Jerod. ;o(

Annie and Honey.

Annie and her counselors at Camp Cheerio. She had an amazing time. 

Annie's friends from camp. 

One of Annie's favorite people at Camp Cheerio. 

My favorite person at Camp Cheerio! My roomie, Michelle. 

We were so proud to witness Greg's graduation. He has done an amazing job. 

I am so in love. 

Our family vacation at the beach. It was cold, but we had fun anyway!

My crazies are in the middle.

They have so much fun together! 

Celebrating Papa's 97th birthday! 

He has the sweetest smile ever, and the best laugh you can imagine!

This is one hug I will definitely miss when I am in Mexico. 

Waiting on our next little miracle!

Many of you who are on Facebook have already seen our news! We are currently awaiting our 4th child! We have started the adoption process and are going to adopt from Colombia. We have decided to adopt an older child, with some mild special needs, who is already in waiting. We couldn't be more excited!

Some of you may know that my first job was with Children's Services as a foster-care and adoptions caseworker.  I loved the job and loved all of the children who I worked with. God was moving in my heart to adopt even then. Once we took our current job and moved to Mexico, I thought I may not be able to adopt. However, once there, my desire grew stronger. On April 24, 2011, I wrote in my journal that I knew God wanted us to adopt, He would just have to move in Greg's heart as well. Greg said he was open to adopting if the Lord dropped a child in our lap. Over the next years, I prayed like crazy that God would bring us the child He had for us. However, He never brought that child to our doorstep. I began to grow very frustrated and asked God to remove the desire to adopt if it wasn't of His will. However, it only grew stronger. I prayed harder, and asked friends to pray as well.

I love this man! 

On January 27, 2015, Greg told me that God had been moving in his heart and he was ready to pursue adoption. He was ready to be proactive in finding the child God had for us instead of waiting for Him to bring the child to us. I was beyond excited and we started the process like Olympic athletes. Remember, I have been in training for almost 4 years now, praying, waiting, seeking and now, baby, I am ready to run! So, we are working with 2 different agencies, one to help us with the actual adoption and another to do our NC home study.

Please pray for us as we travel this long journey to bring home our 4th child. 

I will warn you, this blog may start to look a bit different. I will still put updates on here about our ministry and our family and things of that nature. However, I will be focused on bringing my little boy or girl home to us more than anything else, for a time.

Please pray that we will know soon who this sweet child is. Pray also that we will have wisdom as we go through this process.

Thanks so much for sharing this journey with us! Missy

Free love, "No thanks!"

This is my Annie. She has a heart that would melt the Northern snow that has covered most of the Northeast. On Valentine's Day the two of us headed out to share some love with people. All people. We thought this would be so fun. We had 27 helium balloons and a teddy bear to give out. However, it didn't turn out exactly how we thought.

We went to a grocery store parking lot and as people walked up to their cars, we would approach them with lots of balloons and ask them if we could bless them with a balloon for Valentine's Day. Some people were so excited and accepted it without hesitation. Some were skeptical and cautiously accepted one and wondered why we were giving them away. There were many who said, "No Thanks," and kept walking. There were some who tried to pay us for them, but then once they knew they were free, were shocked. Then there were a few who were border line rude to us, as if we were in some way offending them by offering them this free gift. 

Once all of the balloons were given away, Annie was a tad bit discouraged, and I must say, so was I. I  told her that must be how Jesus feels. He has this free gift of salvation to offer people. He paid for it on the cross and all people must do is accept it. Some accept it with excitement, some do so, but with skepticism, some reject it, some try to pay for it through works of their own, then some are just mean.  My question for you is, which one are you? Jesus has a free gift for you, will you accept it? 

I pray all of you are feeling the love that He has for you and will be like the lady who took the balloon and hugged me and was so very thankful. Or even better, the one who took the balloon so she could share it with someone else. Go share His love today! 

Enjoying America

I know it has been a while since updating this blog, but I can blame America for that! We truly have been enjoying America now that we have become somewhat acclimated to the culture! These next 50 or so ;o{ (sorry) pictures tell what we have been doing. The gist of it is Jerod spends almost all of his hours at Chick-fil-a and is still happy to eat there every day. Alex loved playing football but now that the season is over he spends most of his time watching it and doing homeschool. Greg isn't in a ton of pictures b/c he is usually studying for his seminary classes and he is taking his last exams of the semester today. Please pray! Annie and I have been having the most fun for sure! We have gotten involved in a homeschool group and are really loving it. We have made lots of friends and it has helped our time here truly be joyous thus far! Thank you so much for all of your prayers! We have been traveling to many churches to share about what the Lord is doing in Mexico and how the LM offering  blesses us. We have more travels planned for the rest of the month. Please pray for us as we travel to TN, SC, and IN. We hope to see many of you during our travels! However, if we do not see you, we do wish you all a very Merry Christmas!! Much love!

J ready for work.

He generally works in the drive through outside, poor guy, it is getting cold! 

My football star!

Annie jumping with friends.

These 3 have become Annie's besties. She has so much fun with them!

Halloween with Annie's friend, Isabella and her sisters.

A field trip to the tiger rescue, it was really cool!

I have loved the leaves! I mean, REALLY loved them!

As you can see, I have kinda become a tree hugger! 

Annie and Alex have been spending more time together 

and figuring out what it will be like with just 

the two of them. It has been going fairly well. (most of the time)

Annie turned 11 and had 2 parties. One at Chick-fil-a with her 

non-homeschooled bestie, Virginia, and another a few pics down! 

Virginia's mommy, Amy is also one of my besties! 

I was able to reconnect with both college roomies this year! We have 

a lot to laugh about and so much to be thankful for!

We visited Liberty and had a great time. Jerod can't wait. 

Great Thanksgiving with family, Annie and Jerod found lots of beanie babies in MamaSay's attic

and were looking up their worth. We would love to have just the $6 for each! MamaSay

had 185 beanie babies and Annie was in heaven!

We entered a contest here at the seminary for our gingerbread houses, this was

Annie's.

I made a Mexican village home.

This is Alex's #Swag house. He is so funny.

This is Annie's homeschool birthday party. She invited her 

3 friends from our homeschool group to sleep over. 

These two sweet teens donated their time and resources to give the girls 

manicures and pedicures. Jamie and Adrian were a true blessing to us all!

Somebody really loves sugar! She wanted to eat all of the 

lemonade mix plain. 

We made homemade lipgloss...it was fun and not messy at all! ;o}

3 of these Turkeys stayed up all night long and only one of them crashed at 2:30. 

Then when I put a movie in at 7am...this is what happened. 

9:00 and they were up and ready for the day. Fun memories!

We pray the Lord will bless each of you the way He has blessed us! Love you all!