Update on Kyle and Tricia Holder

NOTE: This is an e-mail that I sent out to our friends and family just a few seconds ago.

Hello,

First of all, I wanted to apologize for the impersonal nature of this e-mail. Tricia and I are not ones to send out mass e-mails with the latest "What's Up with the Holders" news and such. Our style is much more of the "sit down and chat about stuff for a while." Well, because of the sweeping nature of what's been going on in our lives, and the fact that we are likely separated by many miles (in at least one case, well, it's a LOT of miles to Madagascar), we feel that the e-mail route is the best.

For the past five years that Tricia and I have been married, we have often heard of children who were in need. Sometimes this was a physical need, sometimes spiritual, but what has captured our hearts so often have been children who need a home and a family. We have often prayed and asked what we can do, and recently have recieved an answer to that prayer. Tricia and I believe that God is leading us to adopt a child sometime in the next year.

We are currently at the beginning stages of this process, and don't have a whole lot of answers to the questions that may be swirling around in your heads right now. Here's what we do know. There are about 150,000 children in the United States who are on a path to adoption in one form or another. Some are legally free for adoption, and are waiting to find homes. Others are in some sort of transition. We believe that God is asking us to adopt a child from the Foster Care system somewhere in the United States. We believe that He has given us wisdom in this, and has placed a few categories in our thoughts. At this point, we're considering a 5 to 10 year old girl. That's as specific as we have right now.

So, here we are, with this long road ahead of us, one that will be both challenging and rewarding. I think there are three things that we would like you to consider. First, would you join us in praying for not only this process, but for Tricia and I. We need wisdom. Not only for this process, but for the transition from parenting a cat to parenting a child. Please also pray for the child that eventually will be ours. Wow. That sentence carries a lot of weight and responsibility.

Second, a friend of ours made the suggestion that we tell everyone we know (and even people we don't know) about this. They said that you never know when or where an opportunity will show up. They adopted a little girl after a pastor at a church in another state heard about them, and knew about a situation in their town. So, we wanted to bring you into our "network" so to speak.

Third, as there are over 100 people in this e-mail list, it will be hard to keep each of you posted on the progress. So, we've set up a website (or blog), that you can check in on every once in a while (or every day if you want) and see how things are going. It's located at http://hosea14-3.blogspot.com. We're trying to be faithful about posting something on there daily. Sometimes it's a link to a website we've found, sometimes a resource, sometimes more. I think this site will serve two (and hopefully many more) purposes. First, a place for us to put valuable information, so we don't forget. And second, we know there are others who may travel down this same road, and anything we can do to serve them is our pleasure and privilege.

Thank you for taking the time to read this long e-mail. Please feel free to write back and ask questions at any time.

With much love,
Kyle and Tricia Holder