Thank you all so much for coming out and supporting our Chick-fil-A night!!!

We are so grateful to have brought in $645 from Chick-fil-A and then another $335 put in our donation box that was set up there. Total of $980, which helps out so much! Since May we've been paying $750 a month to keep the girls in the transition home where they are getting such great care and this more than covers one of our months, so very grateful!!! What was so amazing about the night is the overwhelming amount of love and support from our church family and friends. Each time someone new came through the doors to support us I felt like crying, and well... at times I did. Those tears were tears full of joy! What a blessing it was to our family to be so encouraged by so many who love us and our girls. We have lots of pics from this special night to share with our girls and to look at as a reminder of how so many care for and love our family. We truly are so incredibly blessed.

Pierce only likes cow on his plate, not in person...

Fundraising Event!!!

*****EVERYONE IN MID TN****Join us Thursday night at Chik-Fil-A in Cool Springs on Mallory Lane 5pm - 8pm - proceeds to go to the SNOW ADOPTION -- Prizes to be given away including events, restaurants, movie tickets, Starbucks......FUN TIMES. Hope to see you all there! .

You are faithful!!!

     It's been quite awhile since an update, but I just didn't have it in me to post what all we were dealing with. I actually still won't post all that we went through, but will tell you it was very difficult and painful, but praise God He sustained us. We are so grateful to God that He drew us so near to Him. We certainly don't like the trials that we go through at times, but one thing in us remained consistent- our trust in a sovereign God. Nothing that we went through didn't first pass through His fingers. That being said we are grateful for His love for us, and that He allowed Brian and I to grow closer together, and depend on Him and trust His plan even when it didn't match ours. A very wise man at our church who's faith in God puts mine to shame at times gave me Psalms 37 to cling to. Oh how healing God's word is! All that we went through the last couple of months truly was for our good. We are forever grateful for our family, church family and friends that supported us during very uncertain times in this process. Thank you all for speaking truth into our lives when the enemy seemed to only want us to think the worst. God gave us the desire in our hearts for our three girls and He made that desire grow stronger and stronger with each obstacle. We didn't give up, even when it seemed hopeless.
     With all of that said here's for the good news, no great news, no wait a minute amazing news, no that's still not good enough, here's to the miraculous news, "Major papers are sent!" We are so grateful to our new agency and how amazing they have been with us, always getting back with us right away and being such encourager's to us and repeatedly telling us how it was their pleasure to work with us to get "OUR GIRLS", yes they said "OUR GIRLS" from day one! God is so good to us, He not only allowed for this process to move very quickly with this new agency, but showed us that transparency and honesty is always the route to take. HE blessed us with the most amazing, encouraging, and loving new agency that knew all about us and loved us. How blessed we feel to be working with them. We are so very grateful that God made it clear that we were not to give up and that He would work out all the details and for us to continue to trust Him. Thank you Lord!!!!
    We now get weekly updates on our girls, which is so very exciting. They have been moved to a transition home that's providing them with great care. Each new picture has them smiling more and more. I can't even begin to tell you how much we love them already. Our boys are thrilled to be getting sisters and get so excited every time something is dropped off at our home for them. Oh how seriously awesome it is to have sweet little girl clothes, and baby dolls in our home. Their room will be ready in the next couple of weeks, how exciting to have pink paint!
     Thank you all so much for your prayers, words of encouragment, and support. We are so overwhelmed by the outpouring of love for our girls already. We are so looking forward to our first visit to meet them. Brian and I talked forever last night about what we will say to them first and... well... we still don't have a clue. We are confident though that God will help us with that and we can't wait!
     This song is one Brian would sing to me at night while I laid in bed needing to be reminded of the truth's of God. May you cling to the truth that HE IS FAITHFUL!!!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nrv0yud2pm5w75h/MOV079.mp4

The women our girls are named after!!!

Nora Elizabeth Drinkwater went into the presence of our Lord on September 7, 2007. Our oldest daugher will be named Nora Yegile Snow, after her Great Granny who loved the Lord with all that was within her. What a blessing to be with her in her last moments, she was so ready to see Jesus. Granny was a precious gift to our family and we thank the Lord for her sweet and faithful spirit, that we'll share with our girls.

Diana Carol Johnson went into the presence of our Lord on December 6, 2011. Our second oldest girl will be named Diana Zenash Snow. The last couple of years the Lord really grew my sweet friendship with this precious saint. She truly discipled me and spoke truth into my life that I'm forever grateful for. Before Diana's passing this year she prayed and prayed with me for the little girl we would be adopting, she couldn't wait to meet her. Our prayer is our girls would come to know Christ and meet Diana in heaven. Who would of thought it would have been three gifts from our Lord. Her faith was fearless, and led many to our Savior! 

 

Kristina Jewell Schlegel went into the presence of our Lord on February 14, 2007. Our littlest daughter will be named Kristina Tsgereda Snow. My sweet and dear friend  passed away with stage 4 breast cancer. She had the biggest and brightest smile of anyone I've ever known. She truly lived a life that pointed others to Christ. Please go to her website and read more about the life of one of my closest friends- http://www.kristinascalling.com/ and http://www.caringbridge.com/visit/kristina . You will be blessed by reading her journal entry's on  her caringbridge site. Even in death God is using my sweet friends life to bring people to Him...

We love giving our girls names of women that truly lived lives that drew others to Christ.

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His faithful servants."

Psalm 116:15

We will say our girls names with such sweet memories of faithful women!!!

Went to the Ordinary Hero fundraising dinner... What a blessing!

May we never, ever be the same! Thank you Jesus for laying on our hearts what you want for us. We were so blessed to be connected with so many families that adopted through Ethiopia, God is so good.

What an amazing Night! We so can't wait to go to Ethiopia!!!

Thank you so very much Tabitha for having us as your guests!!!

Getting Passports!

     It will still will be quite awhile before we are able to get the girls. We have lots of paper work that gets sent off and we have to wait on the government to process things. We are hoping this won't take many months, but you can never predict how long the process will take. Rest assure though anthing we have to do will be done ASAP! Currently we are still waiting on our home-study to be finalized, so we can turn in our I600-A. We finished everything and now just waiting for the copy of everything, we so hope to have it by Monday and be able to send off our I600-A on Monday as well. We'll keep you all posted, thank you so much for your prayers, we greatly appreciate them.

Here's us wiring the money to secure our girls!!!

      Loved sharing our story with the ladies at our bank! Woah... to the crazy day of getting all the funds into our account and being available in time. So many people went above and beyond to ensure this would take place. We are so grateful to everyone of you! Can't wait to bring our girls to meet the ladies at Wells Fargo Bank in Manteo, North Carolina, you ladies are a blessing!!! 

From very Grateful hearts!!!

Please watch our thank you that Parker taped for us. This was like take 20, because I boo hoo'd through the first 19 takes...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/q0mouvc28jd5cst/2012-04-23%2017.24.10.mp4

     We are truly so overwhelmed at the outpouring of love and support in our efforts to give three beautiful sisters their forever family. Our words truly seem so inadequate to describe to you all how incredibly blessed we feel to be given the gift of being a Momma and Daddy to three daughters and three sons.

  ... "For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

(Matthew 17:20 ESV)

     We prayed for the Lord's will in this situation and truly hoped His will matched the desires of our hearts, and we can't help but believe He made His will very clear by providing all, and then some of what was immediately needed to secure the girls.

     

Praying for a BIG miracle!!! Scroll to next post to donate.

This is URGENT, we have less than a week!!!!! We need prayer, prayer, prayer well and umm.... MONEY!!!! The Lord has literally opened the door for us to adopt not 1, not 2, but 3 beautiful sisters from Ethiopia! They are biological sisters ...and we want to keep them together. They are paper ready and currently in Ethiopia's orphanage, but as soon as we can wire the money they will be put in a Christian foster home and cared for until we go and get them. The Lord truly did a work today moving mountains with our adoption agency to tie up so many loose ends. We are willing, open and ready to receive these girls and give them their forever home. However, because of the country we literally have to get the funds in ASAP or their ability to be adopted will close to us. We need the funds, as in yesterday! This is a shocker to us, especially since we were going domestic, and already had the majority of our funds for the adoption. However, the Lord put this opportunity before us and we truly know this is so much bigger than what we are financially able to do; that if He wants us to be their Mom and Dad, HE will have to provide the funds through others. We have pictures and their medical reports and everything, but we are not allowed to post them on the internet due to the countrie's policies, but let me tell you they are beautiful!!! They are 4 year old twin girls and a 5 year old older sister according to the country. However, Ethiopia does not have birth certificates and does not recognize birthday's, so their ages could vary just a little. They are healthy, but are MOST definitely special needs, because of there being three to be adopted at one time. Please send this to everyone you know, we are needing miracles and know our God is big enough to make this happen. We have set up a link through our blog for money to be donated, however we also have Julie Bergman Schepmann that is our administrator handling donations if you would like to donate, and don't feel comfortable online. Please contact Julie via email at XXXXX, if you are willing to give. We are truly overwhelmed at this possibility and need a miracle to make this happen, and know that it's in God's hands completely. Please pray for us and pass this on to everyone, "that's us begging!" Completely in His hands, Brian and Mel Please scroll down to donate.

Help us give them their forever family!!!! Please donate by clicking on the Chip-in square below.

Yay!!!! So much more has been given offline!!! God is so good!!! We actually went over the 23,000 that was needed immediately. We had a total of 24,300!!!! Thank you so very much we are truly so overwhelmed at the outpouring of support!!! The Donation chip-in is now on the side bar. Thank you all so very much for praying, sharing, and giving! We are going to have quite the journal for our girl's "story"!!!!

Her name is????

Nora Rejoyce Snow- She will be named after her Great Granny and her Memaw.

     Brian's grandmother was a precious woman who loved her Savior. I will forever be grateful for the last weeks of life with her, she lived well and she died well. One special night was when my sister-in-law and I got to stay up with her, which was her last night still speaking and all she wanted was to hear us read scriptures and sing songs to God. Open my eyes Lord, was one of her requests, and when we got to the part I want to see Jesus she wept with tears of joy at the realization that He was calling her home and she was going to see Him face to face. Her sweet voice singing that with all the strength she could is forever etched into my precious memories of her. I will never as long as I live forget the beauty of caring for our sweet Granny.

      Rejoyce comes from my Momma's middle name "Joyce". Love having a daughter that will be named after my Momma. My Mom however can't stand her middle name and maybe my teen rebellion years are coming into play with us choosing that name. Just kidding, I love my Momma and I'm so grateful to God for the special relationship we have.

     The Re added to Joyce well, is hopefully obvious- we will so rejoice in the little girl God chooses for our family!!!

     So yes, were not going to be doing the P. H. thing like we did with our three boys, besides my Momma really didn't like Petunia Hazel. lol

Oh how I love this!!!

How we got to where we are...

Adoption has been something we always said we wanted to do, but never made plans and put them into action until this year.
 Here's our story:
     When we first started to plan for children after two years of trying, we were told that we more than likely would not conceive unless Mr. B was to have an operation. Some snip, snip near his genitalia was quite freaky deaky, but hey we wanted children and this was a no brainer. We were told the surgery only benefited 50% of the men that had it, and it would also take about a year before we would know if it worked or not. We knew then that we wanted to go ahead and look into adoption instead of waiting to see if the surgery would work. At that time Steven Curtis Chapman our favorite artist had just adopted their little girl from China and we thought that was maybe the route God wanted us to take. We were still going to go through with the surgery, but wanted to be active in the adoption process as well. Anyway, the day before his surgery we went into sign the papers- ya know the ones that say we won't sue, you may lose an appendage etc. Well that same day Brian whispered in my ear as we were sitting in the office, "wouldn't it be great if you were pregnant and we could just cancel this surgery." Well long story short and a fall from the toilet, urine on my shorts, screams heard throughout the land- I found out that very same day that we were expecting our first child. What a miracle! We called that very afternoon and cancelled the "Operation Snip Snip".
     We now have three beautiful boys, whom we feel certain Brian's doctor believes were from a donor on the side. Seriously, we truly believe and know our boys are such a gift. Oh how He's blessed us! Parker Harrison, Paul Henry and Pierce Hezekiah are our three P's. How fun it is to be a Momma of boys. We know just about every word there is for flatulence, every tune to be sung to the diarrhea songs and every finger and toe was really given to be pulled.

     What brought us to where we are now.

In 2011 we were so blessed to conceive not one but two children from the Lord. Here's my FB posts that will get you up to date:

     April 11, 2011

For those of you who don't know we found out two weeks ago today that our 11 week old babies heart had stopped beating. I just passed the baby on Sunday afternoon at home after a long process of miscarriage. Brian and I were able to see and hold our child and prepare him/her for burial. How awesome of a Creator we have that at 11 weeks, there was NO mistaken our babies humanness. We are so grateful to God for being able to be blessed with yet another child from Him. Although, when I first found out I was pregnant we never would of imagined that our holding the baby would have been under such circumstances, but we truly give praise to God that we were still able to do so. We believe and feel assured by scripture that the very life God created went instantly to Heaven, and as if Heaven wasn't already great enough, we just can't help but be more excited to get there. I was so blessed by a sweet friend to be given the book, "Safe in the arms of God" by John MacArthur and was able to read the book in one afternoon and what a great joy God gave me. Thank you precious friends and family for celebrating the life God created through Brian and I as well as grieving with us in our loss. -My grace is sufficient for you, My strength is made perfect in weakness.(2 Cor. 12:9) -The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart. (PS. 34:18) "Count it all joy when you fall into various trials"(James 1:2) Because Your loving kindness is better than life, My lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, And my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips. (PS. 63:3-5)

     September 28,2011

Brian and I lost another baby on the 4th of this month for those of you who didn't know. I was 8 weeks and 3 days pregnant. I wanted to post sooner, but wanted my heart to match up with what my mind was telling it, before I posted. Praise God that even when His children have anger towards Him and don't feel like praising Him, He never leaves us. Hebrews 13:5 “…God has said, “I will never leave you... or forsake you.” I truly with my whole heart praise Him. I may not always understand or even like what He allows in my life, but none the less will seek to always give Him glory. If you are a believer, then you can believe these truths when facing a trial 1. It's hard 2. Good will come from it 3. God can be trusted even when we don't understand 4. God knows what He is doing 5. The way out is thru it -Byron Yawn Here's some questions and quotes that have been so healing to me: How can this make me more like Jesus?- Dawn Iverson It's so simple to adjust your attitude when you're in the word of God. -Dawn Iverson Do you live with Joy above your circumstances?-Dawn Iverson Thank you Lord Jesus for your word, that gives me such comfort. Psalm 34:18 The Lord is near to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. "12 Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him. Man, I don't feel so blessed when going through a trial, in fact I feel a bit cursed. Good thing I filter what my heart tells me through His word or I'd have no hope. Thank you God for reminding me through your word in the book of James that there is an end to this present time and that it will be more glorious than we could ever imagine in our present circumstances. To endure for me is to continually turn to God as my only source of life. How He loves me, that when I seem to only give Him my darkness, He still gives me His light!!! This sermon is one I listened to at home from my Pastor and let me just say I pushed play with such a hard heart after my husband asked me to listen, and well... of course I didn't want to add unsubmissive to my list that was getting longer by the day, so I clicked on it, and praise God I did! Thank you Lord for loving me, even when I'm so unlovable. Please take the time to listen...

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/life-is-hard.-god-is-good./id409399787?i=97004146

      After many prayers we are truly being called to grow our family through way of adoption and can't be more excited! Here's a list of some of what we have done to date for this journey:

• November 4th- 3 hour orientation
• submitted application paper work to start the process and 1st fee
• Had papers sent to several referrals: Kelly Willams, Brian Romkee, Danny Woods, Byron Yawn, Henry Wood "my Daddy" and Charles Snow "Brian's Dad"... Some of them really had their work cut out for them... Kuddos to all of them for being so prompt. Truly a blessing!
• Then had more paper work "formal application" oh and 2nd fee
• February 3rd- all day orientation "so awesome"
• Given more paper work- have mercy :0)
• February 7th adoption meeting 3 hour training
• physicals for the entire family updated shots, poked, prodded & etc.
• finger prints
• background checks from police station
• February 21st 2 hour expectation consultation
• Physche evaluations for Brian and I = 3 hours of torture
• weekly homework consisting of about three pages of questions on material we're required to read, due each week
• Tomorrow night last night of required training... ya to da HOOO!!!
• This week all of our paper work and 3rd fee will be turned in, and then we wait for someone to come to our home for the home-study process to be completed...

      There is so much I could share about each of these experiences and the trials that were put before us in trying to complete the above, but I'm too exhausted to type them all out, and I've got some boys to school for the day. Thank you so much to all of our family and friends for praying for us, our little girl, her birth parents and the entire process. We are so excited about God's plans for our family! More news to come...