To our dear family and friends:

We have a lot to catch you up on, so we'll get right to the point! God has done a lot of work on our hearts in the past couple of years in regards to what it truly means to love people. We could easily fill a book or two with all that we have learned and how we have grown, but we know that if we make this letter too long, you might just stop reading!

Three big things are on the horizon for us. We'll list these in order of life-impact, though they just happen to also be in chronological order!

1) On July 3rd, we will be having a 23-year-old move in with us! This is a friend we met out in Colorado a few weeks back who is need of a rather dramatic change in his life. We'll spare you all the details of how this came about, but just know that we truly believe God is behind it. We just don't see the point in having vacant rooms in our house and he needs this, so he'll be living with us for a little while.

2) Erin will be heading to Rwanda, Africa for a missions trip September 15-25! We feel really sheltered here in our American bubble sometimes, so when the opportunity came up for Erin to go on this life-changing trip, we jumped on it! Financially, this will be very difficult to pull off (we need another $2,000)...but not as difficult as number 3. =O)

3) We have decided to adopt!!! While we are still planning on having our own biological children, this is something we have wanted to do for awhile and we've decided to not put it off any more. There are just too many children in the world who need a home and we feel like we have a lot of love to give! We don't want to continue putting off helping a needy child simply because we want to have biological children first.

Not only are we adopting, but we are adopting from Rwanda (through American World Adoption)! Why the sudden fascination with Rwanda? Well, we had been wrestling with whether to adopt domestic or international due primarily to the fact that domestic adoptions are so much cheaper. But sometimes you just have to step out in faith. Obviously, there is a great need for loving parents to take in the orphaned children of the United States, and we may pursue that route someday as well, but for now we feel led to help an orphan from another country as they generally face great risk of disease and poverty. We had just decided on international adoption at the same time that we made the decision for Erin to go on this mission trip, so Rwanda seemed like an obvious place to look into. The trip will provide Erin with a great opportunity to get a feel for the culture as we dive into this whole process. And it turns out that as expensive as adoption in Rwanda is ($17,800-$26,255), it is actually the cheapest country to adopt from outside of the states.

Needless to say, we covet your prayers for wisdom and direction as our lives are about to be flipped upside-down! We have only just sent in our initial application. Our next step is to set up a home study and hopefully be approved to proceed with the adoption which would take place between 9-14 months from now. We have also been shamelessly praying for our financial situation and would appreciate your prayers in that area as well. Even though it is an enormous amount of money, we believe strongly that this is what we're supposed to do and that somehow God will will take care of us. If you are willing and able to help financially with Erin's trip or our adoption, we would greatly appreciate it...but we covet your prayers above all else.

Some of you have not heard from us for quite some time...we apologize! But we really wanted to let everybody in on what God is doing in our lives and ask for your support. Please know just how much we love you all! You can keep updated on the whole process through our blog at addingasmith.blogspot.com and you can always stay connected through mail, e-mail and Facebook!

We love you all!

Jeremiah and Erin Smith

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