It's Official!

It's official! Monday, October 26, 2009 Brianna was adopted legally through the Morgan County Probate Judge office into the Lopez family! She is now Brianna Nicole Lopez! We are so blessed that this adoption is finally complete and praise our Father for this wonderful daughter of ours that He has aloud us to have! Thank you to everyone for all the much needed prayers and concerns throughout this past year and a half. Please continue to pray for Brianna as she grows and learns to serve God. This coming Sunday, November 1, 2009, we will be dedicating her to God. May she grow to know Jesus as her Savior at a young age, and serve Him throughout her life. May she be kept safe both physically and mentally from the clutches of Satan. May she be an example to many other kids throughout her childhood, and help in furthering the Kingdom of God.

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Guatemala Update

Our trip to Guatemala will be Nov. 7^th – 14^th and we will be staying in Guatemala City. Most of our trip will be centered around working with children/families in the city dump. The poverty is immense, and the need for Christ is great! We are looking forward to seeing how God uses this team to work for His Kingdom. Here are some updates below:

• There are 18 people on this team: a group of 6 from Birmingham (Danny and Kim, JT, Greg and Kathy, Amanda), a group of 5 from Northstar in Alpharetta, GA, and a group of 7 from Bible Baptist Church in North Vernon, Indiana.

• There are two translators who will meet the team on the day of arrival and be available all week to help with translations.

• The group will be working at the dump, in the Tabitha House (a local ministry house with preschoolers and school aged children who live in the dump), and at a local church.

Currently, the following items are needed for this trip (we just received this list from Carol, our point of contact in GC):

• Music for VBS type events in the school (this would need to be something that kids can do, repetitive, and easy). e.g. The B-I-B-L-E, Rise and Shine, Jesus Loves Me, Jesus is the Rock

• Puppets (we could use 3-4 puppets; we can always make a stage) – the team can do Bible skits with these and easily tell a Bible story.

• Prizes for games (small prizes – 400-500 of these; can be pencils, small notebooks, stickers, fingernail polish, …a good variety)

• Recreation supplies – basketballs, volleyballs, soccer balls – if someone has access to nets for these, that would be awesome too. We will leave any rec. supplies there.

• Teaching material for preschoolers, elementary school and teenagers.
  

• Hats/sports caps for the teenagers

• School supplies – backpacks, paper, pencils, markers, construction paper, crayons, glue, rulers, etc for the Tabitha House

• Medicines for the kids – Tylenol, cold medicine, Neosporin, bandaids, alcohol, Hydrogen peroxide, Motrin, cough medicine, etc.

More details to come…..

Brianna's Adoption Hearing

Greetings all! We just wanted to let everyone know that Brianna's court hearing for her adoption is still on schedule for October 26th at 9:00am. We are anxiously awaiting this final step with her adoption. Please be in daily prayer for God's will to be done in this situation.

June '08 in Arizona

June '09 at our home

Brianna's birthday is 3/28/2007

Kim is Going to Guatemala!

God is doing some very amazing things in the lives of our family! We recently added Kim on the November Guatemala trip! This was not planned by any means. I had talked with our trip leader and felt it completely necessary for Kim to be on this trip with me. We had to make sure it was possible with the flight, get my mother lined up to babysit, and expedite a passport. But Kim is now on the trip with me! We will be spending a week in Guatemala City working with an orphanage and working in the Guatemala City dump evangelizing with a few of the 10,000 people that live there. During this trip, Kim and I will be celebrating our 13th wedding anniversary!