We're adopting - meet our new son!

Happy Fall!

It’s hard to believe that it’s fall already, but time seems to be both flying by and crawling at a snail’s pace. Let me tell you why - we are adopting! For those of you who are connected by Facebook or Twitter, you may have already heard this news, but we are thrilled to be adding a new son to our family. Anyone who has been through an adoption can tell you there is never enough time, and nothing seems to move more slowly! It’s definitely a hurry up and wait proposition. We’d love your prayers for him and for our family, and I’ve written more about why they’re needed so badly below.

In ministry news, I have several women’s retreats and conferences coming up this fall, and even some events where we let the men in as well! I would love to see you at one of them! I’ll be in Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and California this fall and you can see my whole schedule here. I am really excited about the ministry God has in store this fall. I love what I do, and sharing the Lord with people is such a blessing!

As always, we’d love to hear from you! Let us know what’s going on in your life, how we can pray for you, or how we can serve together. We’d love to talk with you!

In Christ,

Jennifer

Contact us to schedule an event!

Meet Our New Son!

We are so thrilled to introduce you to our soon-to-be son. We aren’t allowed to give his name publicly yet, but God knows it!

Many of you know that we have spent years working with kids in difficult circumstances. We’ve been working to fight poverty and trafficking, and have gotten so many kids sponsored (feeling like you want to do more? See waiting children with Compassion International here). Next to telling people about Jesus, there is nothing I feel more called to.

Over the years, we’ve interacted with many orphans, and God has just placed on our hearts the desire to do more. There are millions of orphans, and we can’t be family to them all, but we can be to someone.

We started asking the Lord if He had someone for us, and as we felt led to pursue it, we prayed more and more. We started out looking for a younger, healthy sibling pair in Africa, and if it’s any indication that God will take you where He wants you, it’s that we are now pursuing an older, single boy with a serious heart condition in China! One of these days I’m going to write the blog post about how that happened…

Our soon-to-be son is eight, loves school and legos, is apparently neat, friendly and happy (this is according to the people at the agency who have met him) and needs life-saving heart surgery. Having been through special needs in the past with our son, Toby, I can tell you that it was hard to say yes to this particular road, but we’ve been asking God for someone who really needed us, and God always knows what He’s doing. We happen to be 20 minutes from one of the best pediatric heart hospitals in the nation, and have already had so much help from the medical community that it’s humbling.

I’d love for you to read my past blog posts about this situation so you’d know how to pray. The first announcement and summary is on the blog and there’s a big update with information about timing and answers to your questions there as well.

The short version of our prayer request is that it may be too late for him to have the surgery, as he should have had it as a toddler, and we won’t know until he gets here if it’s even possible. We’d love for you to be praying with us, and praying for his heart and his protection and peace, and for our family as we make this transition which is going to be, in the words of my teenage daughter, “pretty epic.” We appreciate you all so much!

About Jennifer Shaw

Jennifer Shaw is a Telly Award winning speaker, author, singer, songwriter and five-time Top 40 Billboard artist. Her ministry has been featured by Focus on the Family, Insight for Living, FamilyLife Today, Autism Speaks, Joni and Friends, and many more. Her new book, Life Not Typical: How Special Needs Parenting Changed My Faith and My Song, has brought national attention to the issue of Sensory Processing Disorder.

After being classically trained as an opera singer at the prestigious Manhattan School of Music, Jennifer became a professor of music at Cedarville University before she felt led into her role as a contemporary worship leader. Her testimony includes tragedy and triumph, being the parent of a special needs child, and losing her father to Lou Gehrig’s disease. With the release of her fourth album, Someday, her songs offer hope in any circumstance and also reflect her recent experiences on the mission field in Asia, Africa, Central America and the UK.