God Bless,

Annie

We will be selling the Old Fashioned Sour Cream Pound Cakes and Iced Sugar Cookies for the holidays. 

Old Fashioned Sour Cream Pound Cake              $15.00

Iced Sugar Cookies                                                       $ 10.00 dz. 

We have a few spots left for Thanksgiving orders. We will make deliveries on Tuesday November 22 or sooner depending on your needs.  

All proceeds from the sale of the cakes and cookies go toward the adoption of our child from Russia! 

To place an order call or email Annie at 601-344-8778 or anniecweeks@yahoo.com

One of the greatest hurdles in adoption is the expense of the process. We understood this hurdle before we entered the process and we also understood the hard work it would take to raise the money necessary. When my wife and I discussed adoption we knew that this was a calling on our lives. The only thing keeping us from adopting a child is the fear of not being able to raise the appropriate funds for the process. We recognized this as an issue of faith. After recognizing this faith issue we were convicted about how our family leads our church through issues of faith yet we were unwilling to step out into that faith. Personally, I began to ask how I could preach about the faithfulness of God and not be willing to live in that faithfulness myself. We knew God’s call on our lives but we were fearful of seeing our savings account dwindle and to know that we had to raise money for the rest of the expenses. We knew what we had in savings and we knew that it would get us through about half of the process. We cut every expense within our home and have been able to cover the expenses to this point. We are to the place where we are going to have to begin raising money for the rest. This is hard for us because we take pride in not asking for anything especially money. But we realize that this pride is just as much a sin as being lazy and asking for everything.

My faith has never been troubled with whether we can love an orphan; my faith has been stretched as God has led us to get others involved in raising money for the process. I take pride in not asking for anything and that pride is what I have had to repent of.

We recognize that people desire to help and that God uses others to move his kingdom forward. We have created a project built around James 1:27. This project will offer help to widows and hope to orphans. The details about the project are on the next two pages and I ask that you read through them. We feel like The James 1:27 Project will be a great way for families to be a part of serving widows and raising money to bring an orphan home. We hope that you and your family or church will pray about your involvement in The James 1:27 Project. Please share this packet with anyone and everyone as we are looking for those who will commit to the project. We know that God will provide but we also know that he calls us to work, plan, and prepare. We want to be right in the middle of where the natural and the supernatural collide for the glory of God.

Please read the material from the links below and let us know if you desire to be on The James 1:27 Project Team. The family gathering and envelope stuffing party will be Thursday evening Oct. 6 at 6:00pm. We need to know if you are interested by no later than Monday Oct. 3. You can let us know by either calling us or at 601-344-8777 or emailing us at weeks.pj@gmail.com. There is also information on the website at www.anadoptionjourney.com. If you cannot be involved you can help by spreading the word to others. Thanks in advance for your prayers and participation.

 Click on the James 1:27 page button on the menu bar for more information on The James 1:27 Project and how you can be involved! 

We are finishing up our home study and Annie has filled out what seems like hundreds of documents for the adoption. The home study was not bad but it was very thorough. These people know more about me than my family and for good reason. There are some crazy people out there who wish to harm children and they could easily use adoption to do so. Along with the paperwork we have been focusing on fund raising. We have what I believe some of the coolest adoption t-shirts anywhere and they are great quality. All the proceeds from the t-shirts go directly to the Weeks Adoption Fund set up at Regions Bank. Many people ask how they can help and the best way is to spread the word about the t-shirts. In the coming months my wife will be baking cookies and cakes to sell for holidays and special events. If you have ever had any of Annie’s treats then I do not need to tell you how great they are. We will be sharing more on that in the coming weeks. Please continue to pray for us as continue this process. Some specific things that you can pray for are:

-          Encouragement through the process

-          Patience while waiting for paperwork to come back

-          Pray for the child that has just been born and will one day live with us

-          Pray for the mother who just had to give her child up for adoption

-          Pray for our two children as they are excited and filled with wonder

-          God’s gracious provision as we raise funds

Theology:

With each new post I will attempt to explain some of what the Bible teaches about adoption and how it relates to every believer. Please know that I am not an expert on orphan care but I am doing some study on what the Bible teaches us about adoption. Let me start by saying that one of the greatest resources I have come across is the book Orphanology by Tony Merida and Rick Morton. Tony was the pastor of Temple Baptist Church in Hattiesburg, MS and Rick is the discipleship pastor at Temple. Tony has since moved to Raleigh, NC where is a professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and is planting Imago Dei Church. For anyone wanting to investigate what the Bible teaches about orphan care and our adoption as children of God should read Orphanology.

Each week I will attempt to provide some insight into what the Bible teaches about the connection between our lives as believers and the adoption of a child. The word I will describe in this post is hope. The core of the Gospel is hope. The Bible describes our nature before Christ as dead. (Eph. 2:1-2) Whether we realize it or not we live in a hopeless world apart from the grace of God. We cannot work hard enough or make enough money to earn favor with God. We search for peace and we strive to find purpose to no avail. We may recognize the emptiness but we do not know what to do about it. Yet when we were dead in our sin Christ made us alive. (Eph. 2:5) Christ lived the life we cannot live and he died the death we should have died. He came to give us life and hope. Because of the sinless life, brutal death, death defeating resurrection, and ascension of Christ we can experience hope. When we come to faith in Christ we who were hopeless now are given a new family, new identity, new life, and an inheritance. (1 Peter 1:3-4)

When we adopt a child we are putting the hope of Christ on display. I am in no way saying that we are offering the same kind of hope that Christ offers us through salvation. I am saying that when we adopt a child it gives them hope in this world and it displays the hope of Christ to the world. What we desire to offer a child is a new family, a new identity, and a new life. We are adopting a child from Russia. There are 750,000 orphans in Russia most of which will not be adopted. The statistics show that 80% of orphans who are not adopted will end up in crime, prostitution, homeless, or commit suicide. The picture for these orphans is hopeless. Through our adoption process we desire to give a child hope in this world as well as hope for eternity. We desire to raise a child with the love of a family and with the love of the Father. We are imperfect people offering hope through a perfect God. 

Ladies T-shirt (modeled by Robin Anne) 

Men’s T-shirt (modeled by William)

• T-shirts are $15.00 with a $3.00 charge if we have to ship them.
• We have all sizes available from the smallest child to the largest adult. 
• All proceeds from the t-shirts go to help with the expenses of the adoption process. 

We are very excited with how the t-shirts turned out and look forward to getting one to you. 

To Order t-shirts:

• Click Here for the Store
• Click here to email us
• See Annie or PJ