Close Beside Me: CD for Adoption!!!!!

Our new children's worship cd, "Close Beside Me", is complete and available for purchase!!! All proceeds go towards our adoption. The track list is:

Children, Children
Come Thou Fount
Jacob's Ladder
In Christ Alone
Al Creatures
Mid April
Amazing Grace
Jesus Loves Me
Lullaby

It is a kid friendly CD that parents might just enjoy a little more than their children. They are $10 dollars a piece and can be bought right here from the link or at Hope Community Church during services. Thanks so much for all of your prayers! For a sample listen go here: Preview

Quantity

Option 1 $10.00 Option 2 $20.00 Option 3 $30.00

Fingerprints and paperwork

Sorry its been so long since our last post. With two kids under two and both of us in ministry, time has a way of passing by.


Well, since the yard sale we have officially begun the adoption process. We have weekly scheduled phone calls with our case worker, 10 hours of education to complete, and a mountain of paperwork for our home study. Once this is complete the Dossier will arrive...then, finally, after a long waiting period, we will receive information on our little child. Jenny has already completed the majority of the paperwork for our home study! She's an organized machine. We'll let you know how the face to face meetings go.


Right now its about 6am on a Friday morning...which is my family day. I watch the girls and Jenny works until around 3. I cherish these days. But the past few weeks I can't help but thinking, somewhere in Ethiopia is our child. How many more family days will pass until I can spend the day with all of my children? Right now he/she is getting ready to go to bed...or to sleep rather. Do they even have a bed? Is today the day they are given away...abandoned...tearfully handed over to authorities in hopes of a better life. Is today the day that they are found...on the side of the road...behind some old boxes...in the arms of a loving but impoverished mother who has run out of options. Or is he/she older. Are they already at the orphanage. Did they have enough to eat tonight...did they get anything to eat? Have they been held, listened to, touched, hugged, sung over, desired? Do they feel safe? Have they heard the name of Jesus yet? Has a song about Him been gently whispered in their ear? Do they know that if they cry out, someone will come? Have their little hands grasped a lock of hair, an adults hand, a favorite blankey? Have they been prayed for...ever...by anyone? 


All these questions fill my head and bring tears to my eyes at the thought of another month without our child. And this is the life of an adoptive parent. So much anticipation...and SO much waiting. So much work with 0 results until months from now. But its worth it...God knows its worth it. A sort of Holy Frustration has begun to rise within both Jenny and I. It's not easy to sit back and wait until our notarized forms get notarized again on their way to be notarized finally when you know that you have a child waiting out there for you...relying on you to come get them before the food runs out or sickness strikes. It's hard to take classes on "post-adoption" reports and check ups when you don't even have your child yet. 


So if you see us and we're a little on edge...perhaps a little stressed...or extremely passionate when we speak about adoption in public...this is why...


I can't imagine what Jesus went through knowing He had to wait thousands of years before He could rescue His children..."For you do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are..."


We still need to raise around $5,000 for the upcoming months. Jenny and I will be selling our Children's worship CD within the next two weeks...just in time for Christmas!!!


We'll have a link available on this blog where you can purchase them.


Thanks so much for your prayers and support. Without you guys we couldn't bring our child home. God Bless


-Chase

Yard Sale = HUGE SUCCESS

The Yard Sale was yesterday and it was a huge success!!! We have officially raised $4,725 and counting!!! It was amazing. God moved greatly through the generous and selfless hearts of everyone who donated and attended. Deanne, YOU"RE AMAZING! Thanks so much for opening up your house, yard, garage, and life for the past few weeks in order to accomplish something great. You have no idea how much you mean to us. Thanks to all the volunteers who picked up donations, made and sold baked goods and drinks, helped organize and price the products, and gave so much of your personal time and talents for our cause. God's Spirit was on dramatic display yesterday and it is something we will never ever forget. Here are some pics from yesterday. More updates will follow!

Correct Address for Yard Sale!

Hi Everyone,
I am sorry I had the wrong address before for the yard sale.  The correct address is:
6505 Dresden Lane Raleigh NC 27612

7am-1pm Drinks and Baked Goods for Sale!
Thank you!

How God is Working

Its amazing to sit back and watch this whole adoption process unfold. We knew this would be a complete act of faith. There is no way, on paper, we can come up with the amount of money we need. Add in two kids under two, full time jobs in ministry during the fall, and four major events like weddings and church wide outreaches- raising $10,000 seems impossible. But God is so faithful. I love the words of Karl's song this morning taken from Psalm 89, "O LORD God Almighty, who is like you? You are mighty, O LORD, and your faithfulness surrounds you."


And its true. His faithfulness has been so visible. From the countless people who have donated items for the yard sale coming up, to the hundreds that have lifted us up in prayer, God is showing His faithfulness through His church. So far we've raised about 60$ not counting our savings. Just this morning a man walked up to me who I had never met. He heard about our adoption and handed me a check. I thanked him honestly for the 20 or 40$ I thought he had given. But when I made my way into the church, I began to cry. The check was for $1,000! 


We now need about $8,910 to reach our goal, and we're not worried one bit. We know God will use people we don't even know in the coming months to bring our precious little child home from Africa. And I'm so excited to watch as God proves His faithfulness to all those that our watching. I know will do much more than simply rescue a little child. He'll bring glory to His name and call many other children into a relationship with Him through this. For that's truly His heart. As the Psalmist says in Psalm 68:



A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
       is God in his holy dwelling.
 God sets the lonely in families, 
       he leads forth the prisoners with singing;


Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,
       who daily bears our burdens.
       Selah
 Our God is a God who saves;
       from the Sovereign LORD comes escape from death.

We Are All Adopted

Well, its been a few weeks since we started this whole adoption thing. And the funds haven't been piling in as we first thought. The whole "announcement" of our intentions to adopt was a little anti-climactic. We thought everyone would be super excited and hop on board, but what we received was a few passionate responses and a lot of blank or empty stares. The whole concept of adoption seems to be a bit frightening in our consumer "me first" American culture. But we have seen God use those few passionate people to deeply impact us and give us great hope for what He is doing. We are also growing stronger in our trust of this 11:59.59 God who usually comes through at the last possible second in order to assure all those watching Who is actually doing the great work. 


A few passages from Paul's letter have made me as excited as ever about this adoption. In Romans 8 Paul states:


     For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.And by him we cry, "Abba,Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.


Later he states:


We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.


And in Ephesians 1 he writes:


Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 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 to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.


And it dawned on me through these passages an amazing thought. I'm not sure if you realize it or not, but, if you call Jesus your Savior, YOU ARE ADOPTED! All of us, born into the sin of Adam, raised far outside Eden, in a sick and poor world, have been rescued from our hopeless plight by an amazing Father who has freely and joyously made us a part of His family forever. This is great news!


And what gets me so excited and pumped about this is that we all serve a God who is in the business of adoption. One of His number one passions is to seek out those who not a part of His family and to adopt and unite them into His family through the precious sacrifice of His son, now our older brother, Jesus Christ. 


So no matter how many blank stares or curious looks we get, I can trust that God is beaming! That He is overjoyed at our choice to model, though imperfectly, what He has been doing since the creation of the world. 


I'm excited because God is excited. I'm overjoyed because Jenny and I get the awesome opportunity to display God's never ending and furious love to all those that are watching our lives. 


So, to all those who are considering adoption but haven't quite felt the "spirit's leading", I say, "Go for it! God has already given you the green light. Sell your car...cash out that 401K...and bring a precious little child into your family and display in brilliant clarity the love and grace of God to the world that needs to see it so badly!"


Until next time...
-Chase

Unexpected Places

Chase teaches guitar to a little boy on Mondays. His 9 year old sister and her friend held a car wash this past weekend and raised $50 for the adoption! This was a great encouragement to us and we are so thankful for their generous hearts.  On the envelope that held the money they wrote "for the welcoming of a child".  I also had a volunteer in the nursery give us a check and that was completely humbling to see people sacrifice in that way.  We now have an updated goal of $9,910 by November 28th.  Keep praying, God will take care of the rest!

PayPal Correction

Our Apologies,
If you have tried to send funds via PayPal, it wasn't working correctly. We have identified the problem. The correct email address to send fund to is   mrsgardner07@yahoo.com. That's a zero before the 7. Thanks so much and lets get this 10,000$ raised before November! God Bless

Sustained by Him

Hello Everyone,

I am not a fancy writer like my husband but I do want you all to know what God has been doing in my life this week. You see I have a passion ignited by God for this adoption. I also have no control over the process so it's completely humbling to rely on the Lord. I have been so encouraged this week. Just when I feel discouraged someone comes up to me or writes me about how they want to help us with the yard sale or that they are faithfully praying for us. I keep thinking how God knew that we would adopt even when I was a small child and about His plan and how he brought my husbands life and mine together to bring Himself glory. It's just really humbling... Also I had a strange thought today. Being a Christian is kinda like an out of body experience, almost like you are a shell and you can view your life from a third party perspective. Long story short, it's almost a physical thing to die to yourself and let Christ live in you. You just don't care as much about yourself or what people think of you or how things effect you. I have a reaaalllly long way to go in this direction. Sometimes though I find myself say "my rights, what rights"? I really don't have any rights. This life is just a blink of an eye. If I can allow my life to bring life and possible Heaven to a child in desperate need, there needs to be no discussion with myself. It just is what it is:)
Jenny Gardner

Orphans in Ehtiopia

Abba Changes Everything

The opening paragraphs of Christianity Today‘s cover story on adoption and orphans, by Russell Moore (dean of Southern Seminary and author of Adopted for Life):

The creepiest sound I have ever heard was nothing at all. My wife, Maria, and I stood in the hallway of an orphanage somewhere in the former Soviet Union, on the first of two trips required for our petition to adopt. Orphanage staff led us down a hallway to greet the two 1-year-olds we hoped would become our sons. The horror wasn’t the squalor and the stench, although we at times stifled the urge to vomit and weep. The horror was the quiet of it all. The place was more silent than a funeral home by night.

I stopped and pulled on Maria’s elbow. “Why is it so quiet? The place is filled with babies.” Both of us compared the stillness with the buzz and punctuated squeals that came from our church nursery back home. Here, if we listened carefully enough, we could hear babies rocking themselves back and forth, the crib slats gently bumping against the walls. These children did not cry, because infants eventually learn to stop crying if no one ever responds to their calls for food, for comfort, for love. No one ever responded to these children. So they stopped.

The silence continued as we entered the boys’ room. Little Sergei (now Timothy) smiled at us, dancing up and down while holding the side of his crib. Little Maxim (now Benjamin) stood straight at attention, regal and czar-like. But neither boy made a sound. We read them books filled with words they couldn’t understand, about saying goodnight to the moon and cows jumping over the same. But there were no cries, no squeals, no groans. Every day we left at the appointed time in the same way we had entered: in silence.

On the last day of the trip, Maria and I arrived at the moment we had dreaded since the minute we received our adoption referral. We had to tell the boys goodbye, as by law we had to return to the United States and wait for the legal paperwork to be completed before returning to pick them up for good. After hugging and kissing them, we walked out into the quiet hallway as Maria shook with tears.

And that’s when we heard the scream.

Little Maxim fell back in his crib and let out a guttural yell. It seemed he knew, maybe for the first time, that he would be heard. On some primal level, he knew he had a father and mother now. I will never forget how the hairs on my arms stood up as I heard the yell. I was struck, maybe for the first time, by the force of the Abba cry passages in the New Testament, ones I had memorized in Vacation Bible School. And I was surprised by how little I had gotten it until now.

Read the whole thing.

Money Goal

Hello to all,
According to most everyone we have talked to on the subject of adoption, it is a good idea to have around 50% of the needed funds raised before the adoption process begins. The funds are spent sporadically during the process as paperwork is finalized and international communication occurs. If 50% is not on hand, the adoption can be brought to a grinding halt, and our little child has to spend more time without a father or mother.

    The process can begin for Jenny and I on November 28th. Taking into account the amount of money we have saved, we need to raise $10,000 by Nov. 28th of this year.

   If God has led you to give, please don't wait until later in the process. Jenny and I will be applying for every grant available, which will greatly diminish the overall cost. But we need, at the very least, $10,000 by the end of November.

     You can help us out by donating directly at the top of this page (you might have to try the link a few times before the page displays correctly). You can also donate some items for our Garage Sale in October or stop by Oct 23rd 7am-12pm to check out the merchandise and by a few things you've been wanting. You can also send us a check by mail or purchase our Children's CD which will be released in October. (email me at chaseg@gethope.net if you need our address or would like a CD)

     We are leaving this in God's hands and trust that the needed funds will come soon. Please don't delay. (Or I'll be forced to put up a huge thermometer on this site and no one wants that...trust me...I'll do it...)

The Family of God

     I'm sitting at church now during our training dinner for all of our Life Group Leaders and other volunteers. As I looked out at the crowd I noticed something for the first time. I don't mean this in a rude manner, but the majority of our volunteers and our congregation is made up of upper middle class white men and women. The reason I think this though passed through my mind is because it doesn't nearly match up with the picture I read in Revelation this morning of "people from every tribe, nation, and tongue" joining together to worship our Lord at his second coming. Time and time again in the Old and New Testament we see God's heart for a diverse and multi-racial church. His great gospel that He has been proclaiming since the beginning of creation was put into place in order to join the diverse people of the world together under one banner. There is a reason He created white, black, and brown people. He loves diversity! How odd it must seem to Him to look upon our churches and see them divided by economic and racial factors.

     As we began the adoption process a few weeks ago I realized something. I am the last male "Gardner" alive that can pass on my family line. For generations, my family tree has been made up of southern white Americans. But there is a high probability that the Gardners of the future, the sprouting limbs and branches of our family tree, will be multi-racial and diverse. And I think that God rejoices in this. Israel was meant to be a blessing for all the nations of the earth, and that purpose is true of God's church today. And in a step of faith, Jenny and I are submitting our family, our very heritage, to His plan for His glory. Thousands of years from now, when I stand at the gates of heaven and welcome the generations that came from Jenny and I, I will be hugging and kissing black, brown, and tanned cheeks. And I think the angels will rejoice with me, in a small part, due to this diversity.

     Please continue to pray for me, Jenny, and little Reese and Rory as we step out on faith in order to accomplish something great for the Kingdom of God that we have neither the resources nor wisdom to accomplish on our own. I have a creeping suspicion that God is going to accomplish great things through this.

Clarification

Ha! It seems like we need to make a small clarification. The children pictured in our email / adoption letter and the children on the site are not pictures of our actual possible orphans. They are just some pictures we found off our adoption website. We haven't started the actual adoption process yet, but will receive actual photos of our little one in the coming months. Sorry about that. Thanks

Why Adopt

Hi,

Chase and I have always said that we were open to adoption, but were never quite sure when or from where. Well, that all changed a month ago when 16 orphans from the Ukraine came to our church and community through a hosting program.  From the first moment I spent with them I felt that God was telling me to do something about this tremendous need.  As I drove home from church that night I prayed and called my husband and told him what I saw in those children.  In traditional Chase fashion he said "Lets do it!".  My best friend Laura Johnson had it exactly right when she said "It's been a whirlwind of a few weeks".  I have spent hours upon hours reading and researching to find the direction God wanted us to take.  While some would casually wait for direction, my new found passion for this drove me to hurry as if the very life of our soon to be adopted child was getting away from us.  I have also seen an incredible out pouring of pretty much everything from families to get those 16 Ukrainian orphans adopted and I have seen God work mightily as only He can to move hearts towards what I believe we all should be doing more of.  Why Ethiopia?  We chose this country because of the severe poverty, scarce medical treatment available, and vast number of orphans.  God gave us a special burden for this place and I believe we will be involved there long after our adoption is complete.  We simply don't have the funds to adopt but God has endless resources to help us!  These next couple of months will be a new step of faith for our family.  We have never tried to raise money for anything personal before.  I know God will provide with 100% of my heart.  In the meantime God has really pressed upon my heart to be faithful in the small things and the big things that He has already given us.  I would love to have your prayers and support through this process.  I will write to you soon!
Jenny Gardner

First Post!

Jenny and I recently decided to adopt from Ethiopia! More updates and how you can help are coming soon. Thanks and God Bless