IT'S A BOY!!!

Welcome the newest member of our family--"Baby" (Emanuel) Pitts!

He was born on 10/29/2007 (this last Monday) in Guatemala. We don't have many more details than that, but we can tell you that we are excited, as is Benjamin!

We have spent the year trying to decide if this was God's direction for us, and in July we were given a very strong GREEN light through the kindness of several people. As we have continued in obedience, God has smoothed the pathways to bring Him home. When we chose disobedience (what are we doing???!! the country is closing off ALL adoptions!!), God reminded us that ALL things are possible when you serve Him, and that and we were given a portion of these verses:

James 1:4-6: "Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding ault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt..."

We were reminded very recently that we have repeatedly asked for wisdom, and we have very graciously received it. So much like when we decided to move forward with Benjamin, within 48 hours of making a decision, we received this picture.

We have not given him a name yet--his given name is Emanuel, which means "God With Us", so we have decided to keep that as part of his name. We are trying to give him a name as soon as possible so that we can call him something other than "Baby"!

Benjamin is very excited about his baby brother (although he had wanted a sister), and has been telling people all about him (as much as we know, which at this point is not much).

We are told by the agency that we should be able to bring him home sometime in May of next year, if not sooner. All will depend on the Guatemalan/US adoption controversy and what that will entail. If we are not grandfathered into the clause, then we will not be able to adopt this baby. We don't believe that to be true, and all legislation is pointing toward grandfathering us so that our adoption would not be stopped in January 2008. (For information on this, please go to www.jcics.gov)

We also realize this will catch many of you off-guard...but you may not be too surprised when you think about the journey Steve and I have been on since the beginning. We have lived a life that we would never have imagined since the day we met 8++ years ago! God has big plans for this little boy, much as He does for Benjamin, and we are just the people that God has chosen to raise this boy to be the man God needs to use for His glory.

We appreciate your continued prayers for our little one...as well as for our older one! Benjamin will be 3 in January, but he acts like he's 5!! Very smart and very fun to be with.

We are truly blessed...

Steve, Julie, Benjamin, (Baby), Molly, and Sammy Pitts