I've Been Retreating

I spent the weekend at the Created for Care Retreat with 250 other women who are thinking about, in the process of, or have completed adoptions.  It was wonderful- for so many reasons.  Let me introduce you to a few of them.

These are the Montgomery ladies that I traveled to the retreat with, from left:
Betsy (going to get her Ethiopian daughter next week!)
Joy (currently a mom of two biological, five adopted, and three foster kids!)
KC (just received their picture of their 2 month old Ethiopian daughter. They hope to fly to meet her in the next month!)      
Jacky (just mailed their dossier for their Ethiopian adoption!)
          
It was so encouraging to spend the weekend with ladies who are passionate about caring for orphans and passionate about spreading that vision to our city!

These ladies are some of my amazing friends from Atlanta (who are probably mad that I have posted this picture. :) Tammy, Kelly, and Tami are not adoptive moms, nor do they feel the call to adopt.  But they DO feel the call to care for moms who have adopted or will be adopting.  They gave up their weekend to serve us and make it really special.  Thanks ladies!!! 

This is Andrea, who was the brainchild behind the whole weekend.  She's a mom of four kiddos, including Isaac, adopted from Ethiopia last June.  She and her husband Richard have been friends for years and have been a huge encouragement to us as we have begun our journey.  She as been my sounding board as I researched agencies and countries and she has been a huge cheerleader for us along the way.  I am so grateful that she was willing to sacrifice sleep, time, and resources in order to put together this retreat.

I'll post more thoughts later- still trying to process through all the information from the weekend.  It was so, so good...but it's currently smooshed in my brain and coming out in jumbled pieces. 

I feel like Rain Man... I've been blurting out random, disjointed stories about the retreat to Brian since I got home.  Poor guy.