Baby Caleb

March 7, 2010 will mark the 10 year birthday of our beautiful adopted daughter, Alyssa Rose. I will never forget the excitement combined with nervousness as I saw the ultra sound for the first time. There was this little life growing inside a young girl and yet amazingly and almost supernaturally I felt love for this child instantly growing in my heart. I guess for those of you have been pregnant it’s similar to receiving that long awaited positive pregnancy test.

It’s been almost ten years since we brought home the most magnificent gift we could ever receive. Throughout the years Andrew and I have walked the path of adoption with many, many young ladies. With every potential adoption we have earnestly prayed that the doors would only open for us if it was the right time to grow our family.

Well. . . .We are extremely excited and overjoyed to announce that we now have new photos to show off.

This is Baby Caleb.

Isn't he a handsome man?

Yes, it does indeed appear that Alyssa will have a little brother.

Keep us all in your prayers as we continue this process. I often liken adoption to a high-risk pregnancy. At any moment you could loose the child. We are moving forward in faith that the Lord has opened this door for our family exactly 10 years to the day. Both Alyssa and Caleb share the same due date. March 8th. I think its more than coincidence that Caleb will come at the 10 year anniversary of parenthood for the DiPastena's. Why is that you ask? The Biblical Meaning of Number 10 is completeness in divine order or completed course of time. There's nothing that is left wanting within. It's just like Jesus to fill those voids and leave us complete, wanting nothing within.

Do we serve a great God or what?

Wow God is Great!!

I've been meaning to blog this for over a month now and time just seems to be slipping by. I considered skipping this event, but the more I thought about it, the more I was overwhelmed by the GREATNESS of God. So sit back and relax as I tell you a true story of my personal journey of God's faithfulness.

One month ago from today we were in the middle of hosting a huge youth event at church called Illuminate. Andrew was on his way to pick our guest speaker for the evening and ended up in a fender bender. Ok so it was more than a bump...it actually totaled our car.

He took his eyes off the road for a moment and rear-ended the car in front of him, that in turn hit the truck in front of it. Thankfully everyone was fine.

So here's where my part of the story comes in. Our event was very successful but like most 4-day youth events...exhausting. By Saturday evening I was feeling very fluish and tired. Because of our busy weekend schedule I still hadn't even seen the wrecked car. I slept most of the day on Sunday afternoon and woke up at 6:00am Monday morning. This was a little early for me, but my uncontrollable coughing was making it impossible for me to get back to sleep. I decide to get up and spend a few minutes with the Lord. I read the passage from John 9 about when Jesus spit in the dirt and healed the blind man. The first 3 verses say this 1. As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.2. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"3. "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.

I continued to read the rest of the passage, closed my Bible and didn't give it another thought. To be completely honest I really just did a "ring and run" with God. I didn't "feel" like hearing anything from Him. After all I was sick and tired because I was "doing work for Him". Well I got Alyssa up and took her to school. Knowing the insurance appraiser would be by the repair shop shortly, I dropped Alyssa off and decided to stop by to take a gander at the car. I wanted to examine all the damage for myself. After looking at the car and taking the photos above, I started slipping into that yucky place. I began the "whoa is me" cycle of questioning God. My conversation went sort of like this.

"God, this is just great. You know we are a 2-car family and our 11 year old, 150,000 mile Camry was our good car. Why couldn't it have been our other car, the Grammy car? And how about our infertility issues? Why is it that everyone who isn't ready for children are always getting pregnant? Here we are chasing down our 4th adoption this year. Oh yeah, and what's up Andrews health? Why don't you just heal him? What did we do to deserve this?" Needless to say I wasn't in the best of place on a personal level. Ever been there? Well before I utter my next complaint, I looked in my rear-view mirror. Now those of you who know me well, know that I'm not one to say the "Lord spoke to me" unless I really knew it was Him. As I looked in that mirror, the Lord spoke to me like never before. He shouted this word in my spirit...MARBI, STOP LOOKING IN THE REAR-VIEW MIRROR!

Before I could even question what He meant, I was reminded of the passage of scripture that I had just read less than an hour ago. Remember? His disciples point to a man born blind and ask, "Who sinned, this man or his parents?" In other words, they wanted to know why did he deserve blindness? Jesus answers frankly, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life." The disciples looked backwards to find out why the man was blind. Jesus redirects their attention by pointing forward and upward with a new and different perspective. I realized that I was doing just as the disciples did, I was looking in the rear-view mirror of my own life for the failures when all along he wanted to reveal His Glory in my life. I made the decision right there in the Grammy car to trust Jesus with it all. After all He loves me and wants the best for my life. I wasn't sure how he would work but I knew that He was in control and I promised Him that I would give Him praise regardless of my circumstances. My focus had been inward on myself, thus making fear, insecurity, grumbling and despair my natural response. I came home that morning with a different perspective. One of excitement when I thought about how the Lord was going to work in our situation. Later that day a man in our church named Kevin called to tell us he had a car we could borrow until we found other means of transportation. Praise the Lord!

We also got the appraisal from the accident. $3850. What?! For our 11yr old 150,000 mile car. Unbelievable. So we had a nice deposit to put down on another vehicle. Praise the Lord AGAIN!! After a few days Andrew decided to ask Kevin who was letting us use his car if he would be interested in selling it? He said yes, that he was asking $4000 for the vehicle. WOW that’s almost exactly what our insurance check was for. By now I'm really starting to see how the Lord was doing His "Glory Work". A day or so passed and Andrew called to let Kevin, the owner of the fully loaded, leather interior, with 50,000 less miles than the Camry, know that we would like to purchase the car. Kevin came back informing us that the $4000 price was not going to work anymore. A bit confused, Andrew asked what he meant. Kevin proceeded to tell him that $4000 was just too much and how did FREE sound? Yes I said FREE. No strings attached. So the Lord gave us a NICE free car and over $3800. All I can say is God Is Great! I am completely overwhelmed by the faithfulness of our Savior.

WOW GOD IS GREAT! NO MORE REAR-VIEW MIRRORS!