My Heart's Desire is to Glorify His Name

My heart’s desire is to glorify His name – Isaiah 26:8

In life I find that is not always easy to do, but a verse that I desire to strive towards. I often ask myself, “How did I do today in glorifying His name?” I want to wake up in the morning and ask the Lord to live this day in me and through me so that I might glorify His name.

Good Morning to all – this is Stephanie and I have the most amazing job in the world. I am the very proud mother of two beautiful daughters via international adoption. My husband and I hope and pray to have our third daughter home within the year. Our Sasha is now a beautiful 13-year-old and she is a gift of joy! Ellianna Ya-Ting is now 5 and she is our precious baby. The little girl we have yet to bring home has turned 3.

I am passionate about orphaned children and very passionate about children with special needs. Sasha is adopted from Russia and has cerebral palsy. She was in a baby home for children with mental disabilities. What a difference a few years of love and hard work can do in a life. She is now the top of her class with the highest grades in the school. Her life is a miracle and I can say that she is now twice adopted. She has asked Jesus to live in her heart and life and He is very evident in the person she is becoming. Sasha competed in a speech meet for the schools in the area and she created a speech piece from a book entitled “Boy in Baby House 10”. It is a five-minute speech about the day Vanya is taken from the children’s orphanage and placed into an asylum home in Russia. This is a horrible, but very real place and reality for many orphaned children with special needs in Russia. The last words of Sasha’s speech make me cry every time – “This would be my life had I not been adopted.” There usually is not a dry eye in the room after she completes that last line. I pray that each day she will continue to seek to glorify the Lord with her life.

Ellianna is adopted from Taiwan and has multiple special needs, but what a joy to watch her grow, change, learn and love each day of life. She is so excited about life and simply enjoys whatever we do – “except needing to be in her car seat and not be able to get up and move about”! She was once a child that had no affect and may have died soon had she not been adopted. She was unable to sit, crawl, eat, chew or take notice of anything in her surroundings. She has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and is very delayed. She also needed multiple surgeries – eyes, teeth and bowels. What a gift she is to so many. The Lord is blessing her with healing and she is no longer that shy and scared little girl with no abilities. After two years of love and proper care she is now learning to swim, walk and talk. These are all things she was thought to never do. She has a smile that lights up the room and melts a heart. Her neurologist is even starting to take her off her anti-seizure medicine. Something we were told that would never happen by the type of seizure she was seen to have on her EEGs. She is a miracle and continues to be a miracle in progress each day I watch her life. What an honor to be called by the Lord to be Ellianna’s mother.

I know that the little girl with multiple special needs that we are working to adopt will is also a miracle of the Lord. She appears to many to be nothing but an orphan that needs to be cared for daily – a burden with no value! To my husband and I she is our daughter and she has within her so many beautiful abilities and talents. The Lord created her and He calls us to care for her. I cannot wait to watch her life blossom!

The Lord calls for all His children to care for the orphans and the widows – James 1:27. This means that for some He calls us to adopt these precious children and for some He calls to pray or provide financially for someone else that is called to adopt. He calls us all to do something about these children. I am very passionate about my life as the very blessed mother of my precious daughters. I believe that the Lord has called me to be a voice for the voiceless.

I am crying out for the children that cross my desk and computer screen everyday. I am crying out to the Lord to bring the families of the children that I see. I work for Lifeline as an International Adoptions Specialist and am developing programs in countries that we sense the Lord calling us to. The Bulgaria program is very new to Lifeline but the Lord has opened the door and placed this program with Lifeline. There are so many children that need homes. They need to know the love of Jesus through a family they can call their own. They need a mother that is proud of them as they learn to swim or say their first word. They need a father that is able to hug them and tell them well done! They need to know that they have a heavenly Father that loves them and created them. They are not a mistake, but a beautiful gift of the Lord. I am honored to be able to be their voice and advocate. I have 15 new waiting children that I am working to get on Lifeline’s Bulgaria Waiting Children Page. They all cry out to me. I work on each document as I pray for their future family. If you think you might be their family please check out the Lifeline web site and click on Bulgaria. If you have ever thought that the Lord might be calling you to adopt and/or if you sense the Lord leading you to adopt a special needs child rather than a “healthy” child and need a place to voice your fears or to be heard please feel free to call on me.

It would be an honor and a blessing to talk with you and to share in your life. I pray that today I will glorify the name of the Lord in all I do, all I say, all I write and how I love. I hope that this might be a prayer for your life today as well. May we be the voice for those that have no voice!

In Christ's precious name,
Stephanie

Stephanie Carpenter
International Adoption Specialist
Lifeline Children’s Services, Inc.
Isaiah 26:8