An Open Invitation

We want to extend an open invitation to all of you- yes YOU- who may be reading this.



If you ever said a prayer for our adoption, if you ever asked God to intervene so we could bring our son home, if you ever sent up good intentions to the universe, kept our family in your thoughts, supported us by purchasing a shirt or an auction item or even if you just feel like having a front row seat to this adoption has changed the way you look at family and faith... please come. 

Our son was given his birth name, Amir, by his birth parents. People who I have never met, whom I love dearly and think of often. When we first saw his face, when we knew in our hearts he was our son, we battled within ourselves with our desire to change his name and the desire to keep what was given to him by his birth family.  Would he embrace the change? Despise us for it? He was three- almost four- by the time he was to come to his forever home.  What would changing his name do emotionally, psychologically, spiritually.... It's a tough internal battle.
I reached out to an adoptive mama & friend of mine.  In this uncertain world of adoption and parenting, I'm just flat out amazed at how this network of people who have never met provide the most loving and caring support. My friend Karly was the one who verbalized what I was needing to hear. To paraphrase her....
God uses all kinds of people in all kinds of ways. Several times in the Bible, God chose people for amazing things, and called them by a new name in the process.  In fact, the biblical Sarah I was named after is an example.  Perhaps the feeling we had to change our son's name was not a personal desire but a Godly one.  Big changes, big expectations.... a Big God. 
Elias: The Lord is my God.  Indeed.
Additionally- we are his first exposure to being Christian. He was not in a Christian orphanage, and his exposure to Christ happened the first time we took him through the doors of our church- the very building and family into whom we plan to baptize him.  Beyond that, we want him to know that the family of Christ to whom he belongs is not a building, it's not a denomination, a label, a title handed down by dogma. If I could ensure one thing, it would be that he would know that he is a part of a family far greater than religious theory. He is welcomed into the family of Christ- made of friends and family who connect with their God on many levels, by many names, in many ways.
Those who prayed him home.
You.

We want to fill the pews of this building with people who have literally been the light to the path home for our son.

 Hope to see you there.