Christmas Hope

Merry Christmas from Joshua, Amber and Noah.

We pray this special blog post finds you wrapped in peace from the remembrance of the birth of Jesus; the greatest gift to all of mankind, bringing hope to the world.

We are eager to share our special announcement with you today. This name was long ago laid on my heart and we are excited to pray for our adoption and future daughter by name and encourage you to do the same. We will give her a new name when she is adopted but part of her middle name will be her African birth name; which we obviously do not know yet. The question mark is where we will place her birth name.

Without further anticipation we are excited to share that we will be naming our little one:

Noel Hope ____?____ Rohde

What does this name mean to us? So glad you asked J

Well, her name quite literally means “The hope of Christmas.” Christmas representing the new life we all were offered when Jesus came to the world. Born for us, and laying down His life for us. Hope, well that has been our central theme through this whole process!! Some of you have had a small connection to her name and didn’t even know it: Collecting loose change in your “Jar of Hope” or proudly wearing your “Shirts of Hope.”

The Old Testament  has numerous prophecies about the birth of Jesus (See the book of Isaiah) . Believers waited in anticipation for his arrival. For some of you it may be confusing why we are giving her a name now when we have not been "matched." However, that is where faith comes in for our family. We 100% believe we have been called to adopt and are waiting in anticipation for when that will happen. That is why we feel confident in sharing this with you all.

Joshua & I have a simple mission, to have a home filled with the peace and hope of Jesus Christ and to be agents of peace and hope to others. This is one of the reasons we named our son Noah, which literally means “Peace or comforter.” So, whenever our next little one comes home we will LITERALLY have a home filled with peace/comfort (Noah) and Hope, all given to us through the birth of Christ on Christmas (Noel).

May God bless you and your family with peace, comfort and hope this Christmas season and throughout the coming year.

Love,

Josh & Amber

Season of HOPE & Something to look forward to...

Dear friends,
  The Christmas season is upon us, December is all about hope and peace for us. When Christ was born, he came to give us all a new life in HIM and offer peace to those who believe in Him. As we pray for our adoption fundraising and our little girl we are energized by the concept of hope as it has absolutely no limits.

We are blessed today to have been encouraged in an unexpected way- check out our fundraising thermometer to see where we are!  Josh and I had set a goal of being 1/2 way to our fundraising goal by Christmas. That is only $6,000 away! I know it is easy to look at that and say, "wow, $6,000- that is a lot!" However, we don't look at it that way- We look at our goal as, "God, WHEN this is your will, help the support to come. We will trust in YOU alone." Thinking about fundraising in this way brings us great peace.

It would be amazingly, fantastically, wonderfully miraculous to us if we got to the half way point for Christmas. However, regardless of where we are with fundraising on Christmas Day we will be making a fun announcement. We have chosen our daughter's American name and have decided to share it with you all on Christmas Day, so that you can begin praying for her by name with us. Her first name at birth will be a part of her middle name after adoption, but, we will give her a new American first name & middle name. (Yeah- it will be a bit of a long name)  :0)

Thank you so much to all of our family and friends who have been there for us during this journey so far. Our hearts overflow with gratitude and we are energized by the hope you bring.

Love,
Josh, Amber & Noah