WE NEED A MIRACLE LORD!

Well now we have to step out in faith and pursue adoption. We decided to go with The Gladney Center for Adoption since we read several positive stories from others who went with them. We sent in the initial application and conducted a telephone interview on Monday, Feb. 19 with Debra Parris. We told her the story of how we have been led by the LORD to pursue getting 3 daughters from Ethiopia. After telling her this, she said,"Now this is the worst part of my job, I have to ask, do you have the money to get started right now?" I told her without any hesitation that we did not.

My husband just started a job in January '07 after losing his job a little over two years ago. He was working one day in September '04, when the LORD assigned him a divine appointment to pray with a man outside of an abortion clinic. The man and his wife wound up leaving the clinic, (she was 16 weeks pregnant with their first child and they were having marital problems) at which point the clinic called my husband's job and filed a formal complaint that he made them lose business. So he was fired! The result of that was we wound up on this amazing journey of a deeper, richer level of faith and dependence on the LORD as we watched him provide for us day by day, and minute by minute. We had just adopted the twins, had to buy diapers, formula, etc. , had three other children and my parents moved in with us full time just two months prior. We now had more mouths to feed than ever and for the first time in our lives, we had no job or guaranteed income. For the first time in his life, Jerry could not find a job.

So we started our own private investigations business. Mestas & Associates actually provided a multitude of services, such as Spanish Interpretation, Voice Talent, and also marketing printed label products for Hispanic businesses. Every morning Jerry woke up juggling whichever hat was put on the table that day via the LORD'S provision. We really learned the LORD'S prayer, "Lord give us this day our daily bread". We were blessed day by day and cried many tears of joy and awe as we watched one miracle after another. The Saints that the LORD used to bless us were so amazing. We found groceries on our door step, envelopes of money in the mailbox, letters of encouragement and most of all, a newer, deeper trust and knowledge of our Almighty Jehovah Jireh!

During this period, our oldest daughter Melissa met the man the LORD created for her and he asked for her hand in marriage. I was so upset that we were not financially prepared to give her a beautiful wedding. But the LORD saw fit to provide. It turned out that because she is in the wedding photography business, her co-workers and colleagues came together and provided all of their services as a "GIFT" to her. The flowers, the DJ, videographer, photographer, coordinator, etc. She had the most beautiful wedding, better than we could have ever afforded! What a miracle!!

So, now we need another miracle LORD!

Where are we going to get $30K for 3 more daughters?

Well Debra Parris starts to tell us about some options, ie., loans, 2nd mortgage etc. and explains to us that the adoption tax credit will help pay it back. She then asked if we got a tax credit when we adopted the twins and asked what we did with it. I told her our accountant told us we did not qualify for a tax credit with them because we did not pay for them. Jerry always says "We got two for the price of none". They were a "Special Needs" adoption. She told me, that the accountant was wrong and we should check into it because there is a "Special Needs" tax credit. I hung up the phone and called him immediately, it was 10:00 p.m. and I called him at home. He said he would get right on it and call me back.

Well, the next morning at approximately 11:00 am he called to tell me it appears there had been a terrible mistake. He had to draft an amendment to our 2003, 2004 and 2005 tax returns for a "Special Needs" adoption tax credit. We now have $20,000 coming to us in the next 8-10 weeks. In addition to this miraculous revelation, he also said it was discovered just in the nick of time. We only had until April 15, 2007 to file an amendment to the 2003 return due to the time requirements to file amendments for tax credits. Do you see the LORD here?? Do you see this miracle?? If we had not stepped out in faith, pursued this adoption and talked with Debra Parris, we would have never known about this money that was rightfully due us.

Here is the neat part that Jerry and I realized: The LORD hid this money from us and revealed it in His perfect time for HIS specific purpose. And notice the name KASINDA - meaning born into a family of twins....the LORD used the twins to provide the money to go get our girls.

AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ADOPTION ? SHOW ME YOUR WILL LORD !!

Ever since our first adoption in 2003, we have felt that our family was not finished growing. We heard many testimonies of people who adopted and then got pregnant again. We are constantly praying that the LORD would bless us however He sees fit and by the means He prefers. So, over the last four years we have waited and even called our adoption agency, Children’s Home Society of North Carolina, and told them we would take another child any time. We had several calls but nothing worked out. With the constant perseverance of Sweet Ellie, we started the adoption process with America World Adoption Agency in 2006 to get a baby sister from China. We sent the initial payment, filled out the paper work and then prayed "LORD, you are going to have to do the rest, which is going to be a miracle to provide financially and open the doors for us to proceed".

Well, in January, 2007, we received an email from our case worker that said we are no longer qualified to pursue this adoption because of where we were in the program and our ages. By the time we were ready for a referral we would be TOO OLD! (According to China regulations) You see, Jerry will be 55 years old this year and I will be 48. So, we very carefully consoled Ellie and said we thought that this was the LORD’S way of saying we are done. No more adoptions, no more babies for us.

So we felt that the LORD was moving us to start an adoption ministry in our church to help encourage other people and give them the vision for adoption as well as assist them with the process. We teamed up with Family Life Today, Focus on the Family, and Shaohannah’s Hope to become advocates for the orphan. Jerry & I are so convicted that this is something the Lord desires for us to do.

But Sweet Ellie keeps telling me that we should pursue adoption again thru another program. Jerry and I were not sure and so I decided to take it to the LORD in prayer. Jeremiah 33:3; "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not."

Friday, February 2, 2007

It was quiet, early in the morning and I felt a yearning to talk with the LORD. It was like when you feel like you need to call a friend and you stop what you are doing and pick up the phone and dial. I made a cup of tea, sat at the kitchen table with my Bible and I begged the LORD to meet me there.

This was my conversation with my Heavenly Father: "Lord, I am begging you to speak to me today, right now, to give me your direction, your wisdom, and tell me what you want us to do. I don't want to pursue adoption anymore if you have closed that door to us, I don't want to keep Ellie hoping and waiting for more siblings. LORD, PLEASE speak to me as you have in the past, I beg you to give me an answer now. You see, we are too old, we have no money, Jerry just got a job in January after being out of work for two years and we are really in no financial shape to be growing our family. I feel so unworthy and like such a failure. We should be in a better financial situation in this season of our lives. We have not done as well as we should have in so many areas of our lives, LORD. I feel so unworthy to even come to you. But LORD, I need you, I need to know your will for our lives, please confirm this for me right now. I can see us starting up an adoption ministry at church but not personally adopting. I want to open your Word right now Father and where ever it opens, I want you to be speaking to me directly and clearly. LORD, Please speak to me now!!"

I opened my eyes, opened my bible and laid in front of me and took a big breath. It was JOB 42. Oh no, Not Job! And it was as if the words were illuminated on the page. The first thing I saw was: Then Job replied to God: "I know that you can do anything and that no one can stop you. You ask who it is who has so foolishly denied your providence. It is I. I was talking about things I knew nothing about and did not understand, things far too wonderful for me. You said, listen and I will speak! Let me put the questions to you! See if you can answer them! But now I say, I had heard about you before, but now I have seen you, and I loathe myself and repent in dust and ashes."

Wow, I heard the LORD telling me, he knows what he is doing in my life and I know nothing. He has things too wonderful for me to understand; I can see and hear him. I am mere dust and ashes and HE is in control of my life! Who am I to tell Him what my life should be. This gave me goose bumps all over and I continued to read the illuminated words on the page. The entire chapter was glaring at me and speaking to me.

After the LORD had finished speaking with Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite: "I am angry with you and with your two friends, for you have not been right in what you have said about me, as my servant Job was......my servant Job will pray for you and I will accept his prayer on your behalf, and won't destroy you as I should because of your sin, your failure to speak rightly concerning my servant Job."

I heard the Lord telling me that I was to speak rightly of HIM and to keep the faith. Job’s friends did not have the faith and did not speak truth to Job. But I was to remember to always seek and speak the truth. To have faith in him, when I don't understand, or when things don't make sense, to trust in God, He has a plan, I am just a peon and know nothing, but He is the one who has ordained everything in my life and I am just to trust, obey and speak of His righteousness.

Then when Job prayed for his friends, the LORD restored his wealth and happiness! In fact, the LORD GAVE HIM TWICE AS MUCH AS BEFORE!......So the LORD BLESSED JOB AT THE END OF HIS LIFE MORE THAN AT THE BEGINNING ......

Lord, are you telling me we are not too old to pursue adoption.?? God gave him seven more sons and three daughters. The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second KEZIAH and the third KEREN-Happuch. Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job's daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers. Lord, why are these names standing out? Why did you say these girls received an inheritance, in those days, girls did not receive an inheritance. What are you telling me?? At this point, I felt the LORD impress on me that "you are to go get your daughters Keziah and Keren, if you don't go rescue them they will not receive the inheritance of my kingdom." I got goose bumps again all over me and began to cry. LORD, are you telling me to pursue adoption for two girls named Keziah & Keren?? This is what I believe the LORD communicated to me.

So I closed my bible, prayed again for wisdom and I felt very quiet and calm. I just needed to meditate on these thoughts and try to make sense of them. Later that evening I called a family meeting and told my husband and Ellie what I believe the LORD had communicated to me that morning. Jerry's response was: "Well, if we are supposed to pursue adoption, we better get on it right away."

We cancelled our scheduled game night and went into the office to start looking on the computer for adoption info. Ellie went right to work showing us some of the things she had found. We tuned in to the radio broadcast of a Family Life Today show which was about a family who just adopted from Ethiopia. They just got home in January ‘07 with their children they adopted with The Gladney Center for Adoption. We went to their website and started researching about Ethiopia. I had gone into the kitchen for a drink when Ellie let out a yelp and said: "MAMA come quick" There is a city in Ethiopia named "KEREN" (Keren is actually in Eritrea, but was once part of Ethiopia). She said: "Mama, this is not a coincidence, God gave you that name and I think he wants us to adopt from Ethiopia."

Then she went to a blog where another family was sharing about their adoption from Ethiopia and they named their little girl "KEZIAH"... the second name the LORD gave me. So now we felt a confirmation that we were supposed to pursue adoption from Ethiopia, both of the names he gave me that morning just appeared as we were learning about Ethiopia. They currently have 4.7 million orphans in the country a little less than twice the size of Texas. This program just opened up about 1.5 years ago.

They are moving very quickly with the adoption process and they are one of the cheapest. As we read the prices for adopting two children, we noticed that to adopt a third child was only approx $1800 more. We all looked at each other and agreed that if we can rescue another orphan for that much, let’s do it. We'll find the money somehow.

So now we are going to pursue adoption from Ethiopia and we are going for 3 children. Twin girls and a sibling. As I communicated this with my girlfriend Beth she noted that her daughter had mentioned we were supposed to get three daughters just like JOB. Then I shared this whole story with another friend of mine, Karla, who emailed me a few days later. She is in the last stage of adoption from China herself. She told me that as she was doing some research for herself, the LORD gave her something to share with me. It is a name to consider for our third child if it is a daughter, "Kasinda" of African origin meaning..."BORN INTO A FAMILY OF TWINS"!

So now we have another name.

The Mestas Family Bio

I am the happy wife of my husband Jerry for almost 28 years and the honored and privileged mother of five absolutely amazing and beautiful children. I always say, in spite of me, my children are incredible people. I love their personalities, their hearts and the people they are becoming. They are all so much smarter then I and more spiritually mature than I was at their ages. They are gifted, talented, funny and happy! They are my reason for living and the joy of my life! We have a saying in our house "We DO Everything TO-GETHA". We really enjoy each other and laugh a lot.

Our oldest daughter Melissa is 24 years old, happily married to Randy Vaden Pearce since November ’06. They are very much in love with each other and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. She is a very gifted professional photographer and student at Southeastern, completing her degree in History and Biblical Studies. Randy is finishing his Masters in Ethics at SEBTS and pursuing a career in teaching. Only the Lord knows what he has planned for them after graduation, but at this point, of course, I am praying he will keep them close to home. They are hoping to travel abroad someplace and serve the Lord however He sees fit.

Our second child Jonathan is a strong and handsome young man, almost 17 years old and very busy pursuing God's will for his life. He is in a dual enrollment program for high school & college pursuing a career as a Fireman. He also works part time for an electrical firm and mows lawns. We have home schooled him from the beginning and we are intentionally training him to be a man of God who lives by the Word, with integrity, honesty, morality and the desire to serve others with his life. He loves hunting, fishing, trucking/mudding and country music.

Our third child Ellie, almost 14 years old, is the musical talent in the house. Since infancy she has been humming a tune and being as sweet as she can be. She also has always been home schooled and she is starting high school in the fall. She is my right hand lady, always helping me with running the house and caring for her younger brothers. She is very persistent in getting what she wants and always "does stuff". What that means is that she is a 'doer' that does not always wait to ask permission to "do stuff". She just does it. (Hmm, I wonder who she takes after?) It sometimes gets her into trouble but most of the time it just makes us laugh. She is "Sweet Ellie", always happy, very personable and she loves children. I often tell her I think she is going to be like her paternal grandmother and have at least 13 children. She baby-sits for others as well as for Mom all the time. Her favorite pastimes are playing the piano, reading, researching about adoption, and constantly telling me that we need to grow our family more.

Then we have our precious twins, Jeremiah & James, 4 years old, funny, smart HEALTHY, and the light of our lives. We adopted them in July, 2003, as 27 week preemies with the prognosis of possibly being handicapped with blindness, deafness, learning disabilities, CP and chronic lung disease to name a few. In spite of the initial prognosis, we have two beautiful and healthy boys. We felt led to pursue our first adoption many years ago, but we very slowly stepped out in faith. The Lord began to do a work in our family and show himself in miraculous ways that took us to a deeper love and faith with Him and gave us a greater meaning and purpose for our lives.

I will tell the whole miraculous adoption story of the twins another time because it is too wonderful not to share. However, this blog is for the purpose of journaling our newest adoption as we again step out in faith, only this time we are not moving slowly at all, we are in a sprint.

The LORD again is showing himself in miraculous and wonderful ways too wonderful for us to fully comprehend.

Let me tell you the amazing GOD Story......