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One of the very neat "side effects" of us adopting has been the friendships that we've formed with people literally all over the country.

Some we've traveled with in China.  Some we've met through FCC (Families with Children from China) get-togethers.  Some we've met in Orphanage e-mail groups.  Many we've met in person.  Many we'll never meet this side of heaven.  ALL of them...we wouldn't know if it weren't for the common bond of "adoption."

Joy Boutin is one of these friends.

Joy is my friends' pastor's daughter's friend.  Got that?  We were connected about a year and a half ago when she and her husband were beginning their current adoption process.  At the time they were trying to discern God's will for their family:  international adoption?  domestic adoption?  Our first contact was a multi-hour phone call late one night.  Since then we've stayed updated and in touch through our blogs and through e-mail.  We've prayed each other through some difficult times...and rejoiced through each other's good times.

Joy and her husband are the real deal.  Hearing the testimony of how God has been working in their family - from their infant son's death from SIDS, to their long and hard adoption of their youngest daughter, to this current adoption process...I have personally been greatly inspired and encouraged through my front-row seat of their process.

And this family took a leap of faith to begin this current adoption.  As most of us in the adoption community know, when God calls you to do something, He will provide the means to get it done.  I've seen it time and time again - in mine and Jason's own adoptions and in our friends' adoptions.  Joy and her husband were in the vast majority of adopting couples: stepping out and starting the adoption process, not fully knowing exactly how the Lord was going to make this happen...but having full confidence that He would!

Over 1/3 of people have considered adopting and only about 2% have actually done it...with finances being a major obstacle in most people's minds.

The Boutin family is in the final stretch of working to bring home their son Aaron from the Phillipines...and they need some help.  

God orchestrated it so that the Boutin family is featured on the "Give 1, Save 1" website this week, a site dedicated to helping people help families that have stepped out to bring an orphan home.  The idea?   Donate $1 to the featured family.

That's it.

$1

Watch their video.  Be inspired.  Donate $1.  And then help spread the word.