Children are God's Best Gift

Dec. 1st Christmas Photo

2009-12-04T16:06:00.000-06:00

First Birthday

2009-12-04T15:57:00.001-06:00

Wow, on Nov. 4th Eva turned ONE! we can hardly take how time goes bye so quickly. We had such a fun time that day with family and friends.

our 10th wedding anniversary

2009-08-13T21:57:00.004-05:00

We celebrated our 10th on Aug. 7th! We are blessed - the Lord is sooo good.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

2009-07-29T12:54:00.003-05:00

Rusty is now another year older. We all had a great weekend celebrating with BBQ , cake, and the water park. Not all in one day of course.

PS: Dear friend Susanna from Sweden please email me at elisabethjohnston@ihop.org I tried to email you but could not work.

Growing

2009-07-15T12:59:00.004-05:00

Eva is now 8 months old. she is 26+ inches long, and 19 pounds. She is a very good eater and is already putting her two teeth to work :)

Evangelina is 1 month old.

2008-12-07T19:47:00.001-06:00

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

We are so thankful for out Lil Blessing...Evangelina

2008-12-04T21:58:00.001-06:00

Our new love & joy

2008-12-04T21:51:00.002-06:00

2008-11-10T22:19:00.002-06:00

2008-11-10T22:13:00.002-06:00

Take a peek...

2008-11-05T17:04:00.005-06:00

Dear Ones,

Thank you all for your prayers on our behalf for the adoption of Evangelina. She is a very precious one that we are blessed to have in our family. Baby & birth mom are doing fantastic.

Yesterday was exhilarting; we were all exhausted from being up before the crack of dawn to go to the polls and then from noon on we waited...

Several times during the induction we called out to our Heavenly Father for help in the labor. Momma was used to natural childbirth and she was a bit nervous. We prayed for her and I even tried Lamaze techniques I could (not) remember. It was pretty bad, but I was trying! It's amazing how babies know what to do when they listen to the Spirit of the Lord when He is calling them forth.

Come take a peek at our little (chunky) bundle 9lbs. 15oz!....more photos to come....soon.

Grandma Silvia Pryor

One more week

2008-10-29T17:27:00.005-05:00

This past Monday our birth mom went to get her "check-up" at KUMed and she is dilated 3cm and baby girl is still to high. The Doctor would like to wait one more week and then induce on Nov. 4th! election day! We are glad to let her "bake longer".

This also gave me time this week to do baby registry at Target and Babies "R" Us for Evangelina. I kind of waited last minute to do it but, it was fast and very fun to do :)

It looks like our Welcome baby party will be Sun, Dec. 14th - here in Kansas City.

Car update: My car is fine now and it is running great! It just took a couple hundred dollars to fix it :( It could have been worse.

More to come soon...

Ready or not....here she comes!

2008-10-25T18:22:00.008-05:00

This week has gone by so slow ....

It's Saturday evening and I (Silvia) am just getting off the phone with my youngest sister, Josie and Mom. My Mom is a very experienced "mommy". She had 7 of us and she knows her "mommy" stuff, ... she knows grandma stuff too! I forget how many grandchildren and great grandchildren she has now. Mom turned 78 this September.

Daniela is Josie & Juan's little girl; she's a 1 1/2 year old cutie and she is my niece. I have never actually kissed or hugged Daniela. They live in Soledad, California.

I'm wondering what being a grandma is going to be like????? I'll know pretty soon, I guess. I think I will be calling my mommy alot in the months to come.

Silvia Pryor: aka, Evangelina's Grandma from Missouri

She will be delivered next week!

2008-10-22T11:09:00.004-05:00

Every Monday they have baby health "tests". The birth mom is weighed, blood test (for her gestational diabetes), urine test, baby heart test, sonogram, etc.

And this week I was able to go along. She is bigger now than one week ago and the pictures from the sonogram showed lots of movement from the baby. I was able to see her sucking on her hand and fingers then after a bit she stuck out her tongue. Birth mom right now only gets about two hours of sleep at night. So, she was relieved at the words the doctor had to say Monday afternoon...."Monday (Oct 27th) we will check to see if you are thin and dilated and by the end of the appointment you will have a date and time that we are going to induce you." So, our birth mom could possibly be induced as early as Oct 28th! The Doc. wants baby girl out because of birth moms diabetes. As, of right now we are all hopeful and excited to see our baby girl next week! All good news!

The bad news - My car broke down on our way back home from the doctors appointment and we are unable to get it fixed until Friday. At least it "died" in a good neighborhood on College in Overland Park. :) So, in the mean time I think we are going to have to rent a car till mine gets fixed.

More to come :).....

Evangelina's Room

2008-10-18T11:48:00.006-05:00

Slowly her room is coming together. I still want to add all the pink girl stuff of course :)

last weeks Dr. appointment

2008-10-15T14:26:00.003-05:00

Our baby girl, Evangelina, is now 8 lbs. in the womb and growing! All is well with baby and mom. She is having some contractions. It could be a matter of a week of two!

This coming Monday I will be able to get time off work to go with our birth mom to her next Dr. appointment. More to come...

Day at the KC Zoo with birth mom & son

2008-10-07T22:04:00.001-05:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

over the past months

2008-10-07T19:38:00.005-05:00

Well, much time has past and we now are only one month away from being proud parents through adoption! I have hesitated to write anything for a while but, now we have much news to tell. We have been matched with a birth mom.

Our first meeting with her was in the month of June. She was about four months pregnant at that time. This is not very common, typically we might meet a birth mom at seven months . We met in Kansas, in a apartment parking lot. We had to invite a English/Spanish speaking translator with us. The birth mom only speaks Spanish. We exchanged greetings and first names then, I handed her one of our profiles ( a seven page book of photos including a short letter to the birth mom). This birth mom of course could not read our profile.

*update: later that night, after our meeting and looking at our profile pictures, the birth mom went to lay down to rest. She told my mom that my face was in her mind even though awake. When my mom first told me that (My mom is bilingual and the birth mom shared this with her.)I did not know what to make of it. I was in awe. The Lord was doing, confirming, speaking something to the birth mom and I was thankful for it!

The following day we saw our adoption attorney in Kansas, Mr. Kenney. He was very optimistic about our plan and even though she is here illegally from Mexico the adoption could be done. He said this situation is not completely unheard of. Our first thoughts were that it could not possibly be a successful adoption.

As the months passed we gradually began to trust the situation and build a relationship with the birth mom. Her housing situation became unstable and we became actively involved. We moved her and her son to temporary housing. When that situation turned out unsuitable for them we saw the need to move her again. Maybe this is the moment when our adoption changed from semi-open to OPEN.

My mom and dad also became active participants in our adoption plans. They opened their home to the birth mom and son. Now all four of us are very much apart of the journey. It is truly amazing ... among other words! It all seems so hard to put into words sometimes. We make all of her doctor appointments for her and her son, we drive her to the appointments, to lunch , to go shopping, to go to the zoo, before she stopped working we would take her back and forth to work, you get the idea.

The wonderful thing is when my mom(grandma Silvia)was able to hear the baby's heart beat with the birth mom for the first time, and later see the baby; the sonogram confirmed that it was a GIRL!! Our birth mom also has gestational diabetes, so she was referred to a new doctor and this is now considered a high risk pregnancy. Every time she goes to an appointment it's at KU Med in Kansas. We are about a month away from meeting our baby girl and while I'm waiting for her, I'm fixing up her room and starting to make her LIFE BOOK. Our phone's are always on now, day and night. She could come early is what we are all thinking. We can't wait to meet her!

Thank you for reading a bit of our story, Elisabeth

Adoption News Develops

2008-09-30T14:56:00.013-05:00

This has been a amazing adoption journey not only for us but, my mom and dad as well. Now this is not always heard of so, the four of us are in awe and feel honored to have this moment in time with this birth mom and her son. I want you to read this letter from my mom and dad's perspective (the soon to be grandparents!)
September 22, 2008
Grandparents: Update

September 15th we began providing a home for a single-mom and her 2 yr old. It would be good to mention that there is also a baby on the way. This momma is carrying our future grandchild! That’s right. Rusty & Elisabeth are adopting this momma’s baby.

The story begins with Rusty telling co-workers about wanting to adopt and completing a homestudy with a Kansas Adoption Agency. Acquaintances of the mom heard this story and told him they know of an expectant mom that was looking to make an adoption plan. Time went by and there was a lot of confusion and conflicting communication. Did we mention that this momma speaks no English? In any case, we were hearing things that didn’t make sense. We really didn’t know if this was going to work. Rusty & Elisabeth met with their adoption attorney a couple of times & over the phone, he confirmed that this situation could and does happen legally in the US. That made us feel better and we thought maybe this could really happen. She is about 8 months pregnant now & the baby girl is due November 8th.

August 30th was our first time meeting her when we helped move her to a new residence not far from our home. She had been living with friends but they could no longer have her stay in the apt. because there weren’t enough bedrooms. The friends offered to move to a larger apt so she could remain with them, but momma didn’t want to put them out knowing that this was very costly & they were moving anyway in a couple months. She decided that moving out to live with a female acquaintance would be best for all.

Unfortunately, that living situation didn’t turn out well for her and we saw from the beginning that the best place would be in our own home. We thought that the Lord was confirming this to us since one of the three students living with us was planning on moving out on the 15th. We felt it was truly the Lord when we asked her and she agreed to come.

Her goal in coming to the US was to get rid of medical debts incurred by the 15 year old daughter that has a kidney disease. Employment in the US has provided enough finances to buy medication the daughter needs and to send a little extra to the aunt that is caring for the other children. There are four children; three girls and one boy in Mexico.

Last year a tragic event happened in the life of this mom. Her 16 year old daughter was sold to a man twice her age. She was taken to another state and then was left in care of the man's 60 year old father. Mother was here in the US and about out of her mind; as were the other family members. She was found almost 6 months later, thank the Lord. A woman heard her and stopped to ask why she was crying and then the teen proceeded to tell her the story by slipping her a note with home phone numbers, names and addresses of family members. She was being sexually abused by the 60 year old man at gunpoint during this traumatic episode. The happy ending is that she has been returned home and is now involved in her local christian church serving the Lord. She attends youth group and helps in the youth meetings. Thankfully, this story has a much better ending than most.

During the course of getting to know the birth mom we realized that the 2 year old was needing surgery. Another issue weighing heavily on momma! One of our IHOP Spanish speaking friends came to meet with her & little guy one afternoon to pray. He was due for an appointment the following day. I saw momma after work that evening & she proceeded to tell me the Dr. had given him an exam with a "clean bill of health". He is healed! Nothing wrong with him. We rejoiced in the Lord and gave Him the praise!

We've experienced several things to Praise the Lord about since having them in our home. We've had some very difficult & trying things happen, but have seen the Lord turn those things completely around for His Glory! Beyond all doubt, we have seen the hand of the Lord in each and every situation.

Thanks for reading our story.

Written by: Steve & Silvia Pryor

update

2008-05-21T10:20:00.002-05:00

Everything has worked out well for the birth mom and the baby boy :) He now has a adoptive family! The birth mom was able to be presented with various profiles and was able to select one that she thought was best.

Thank you for praying into this situation! Bless you,

Birth Mother Update

2008-05-20T12:31:00.003-05:00

We want to thank everyone for praying into this emergency adoption situation. We have been blessed by you and we have felt the Lord's peace over us. It can be very emotional for the both of us, as I'm sure you can imagine. We have received almost $500 over the past couple of days. THANK YOU!!!! for your giving and generous hearts - truly all along this journey!

This is a quick update on the birth mother - As of right now, she has thoughts of placing her 6 week old baby boy with her brother. We really have no other details than that and our hope is that we would be able to hear another update in a few days; letting us know if that was successful or not. We pray everything goes well for her and the baby in the next few days.

Again, THANK YOU so much - we love you!

please pray

2008-05-17T10:38:00.002-05:00

There is a emergency adoption situation and our hearts are saying YES for this little one. The birth mom is in a homeless shelter. She is there with her two boys; a 2 year old and a 6 week old. She can not provide care for both and needs to find a adoptive family for her 6 week old baby boy. The baby had been placed with a couple and they had the baby for three days, then, for various reasons backed out of the adoption process and returned the baby to the birth mom (two days ago). It will be $15,000 to rescue this little one and bring him home into this house of prayer. Please pray and consider helping today. We have a matter of a few days to gather the finances.
The birth mom is turning 18 years old today!(5/17) :)

please feel free to share this need with others who may be interested. Thank you. elisabeth and rusty

Adoption 'Friend'raising Dinner, March 14th, 2008: Thank You!

2008-04-12T15:31:00.000-05:00

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

April 5th 'Garage Sale' Fund-raiser

2008-03-28T11:13:00.000-05:00

Please note the NEW details

Join us Saturday, the 5th of April, 2008
for a
Community 'garage sale'.

All to benefit adoption!

7:00am - 3:00pm
Rain or shine
All items 1/2 OFF after 1:00pm

Location: 10950 Glen Arbor Road KC, MO 64114

Book Fund-raiser: Angel In The Waters

2008-03-20T13:08:00.000-05:00

This is a beautiful children's book about LIFE in the womb from the baby's perspective. Children, adopted or home-made, will enjoy having this LIFE story read to them again and again.

Three to Five year olds at IHOP-KC enjoy this book very much and we are sure your family will too.

With your donation of $15.00 per book,

we will ship out your copy within 6 to 8 weeks.

All donations will benefit the adoption of 'Baby Johnston'.

Please email your order to: elisabethjohnston@ihop.org
Include: your name, delivery address, email/phone number.

Make checks payable to: Elisabeth Johnston.

Thank you.

You can help! . . . we have PICK-UP service for large items.

2008-03-03T15:17:00.000-06:00

Collect items around your home that are gently used.
Clean them up and take them to one of our drop-off locations.

PICK-UP service for large items will be

Friday, April 4th

By appointment only

Please have all items at easy access for pick-up.
*some large items may be tax deductible.
Cash donations accepted.

Questions?
Email: elisabethjohnston@ihop.org

Happy Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T16:37:00.001-06:00

We are loved by Him, formed by His hand, created in His image, and carried in His HEART. May He, who bestows all life, Bless you this day and always.

Silent Auction

2008-02-14T15:10:00.000-06:00

We are now welcoming any items or baked goods (baked goods can be delivered day of) that you would like to donate to the silent auction, benefiting our adoption fees. Silent auction will be held on March 14th, 2008.

Questions? email: elisabethjohnston@ihop.org

Have Dinner with us...

2008-02-13T17:40:00.000-06:00

We invite you
and your family
to join us -

March 14th, 2008 @ 7:00pm.
For our first adoption fund-raiser dinner and silent auction.

RSVP in advance and / or purchase tickets
at the door.

Our dinner location will be at New Hope UMC 310 West 106th Street in Kansas City, MO 64114

RSVP and Questions?
Please email | elisabethjohnston@ihop.org |

You can help us Adopt

2008-02-09T16:21:00.000-06:00

Here is how you can help-

1.Register at www.onecause.com and become a OneCause member. This only takes a minute and you'll be on your way to helping us adopt.

2.Once you have registered, find the "Dues Crediting" field on the on-line registration screen. You will see a field called "Purchases benefit".

Enter our registered email address and your contributions will automatically begin to benefit us.

Our Registered Email Address is: elisabethjohnston@ihop.org

3. Remember to Sign-in to begin all of your online shopping at OneCause so we earn credit.

4. That's all there is to it! Thank you so much for helping us adopt.

Please email us with any questions you may have regarding our situation. We are always excited and happy to talk about this wonderful adventure.

Help us adopt from your Home or Office

2008-02-07T14:47:00.000-06:00

This is a creative way to help us adopt from your computer. As we were seeking ways to raise more finances for the adoption we found a program through OneCause and the National Adoption Foundation . OneCause is a nontraditional fundraising program that will help us earn the funds we need through everyday opportunities, such as shopping on-line, in stores and catalogs, purchasing gift certificates, by using the OneCause credit card, or through a variety of other easy programs.

We're really excited about this program and wanted to let you know that you can participate and help us adopt by becoming a member of OneCause. There's absolutly no cost or hassle to you - just do what you do everyday and we will earn credit toward our adoption costs!

This Moment...

2008-01-31T16:55:00.000-06:00

This moment …this year…. is going to be a very special one and I’m feeling an anticipation in my spirit. I believe in the near future we will begin to see the houses of the Lord (Prayer Rooms) filled with young “samuels”.

I’m so encouraged by other IHOP Staff couples who have been stirred-up by the Spirit of Adoption in this season as well. This is a turning moment in history. In the history of these adopted precious lives. Lord give us wisdom.

Adoption Fundraiser

2008-01-29T15:22:00.000-06:00

As we continue to make appointments and get our fingerprints taken (for the third time) we are beginning our efforts toward a adoption fund-raiser. Our projected date, as of today, is the first Friday in March. I will keep you posted if this changes.

We would also welcome any gifts you may want to donate for a silent/live auction.

More information to come soon...

Going to Court Tomorrow

2008-01-23T23:18:00.001-06:00

A wonderful thing happened the day after we talked to Tracie Loux about adopting. Rusty received a letter in the mail for a settlement of $6,000 ! We are so thankful The money has come just as we have begun our home-study. We are now working through all the forms and making appointments to complete the ‘large’ binder of information. Our personal dead-line to have the binder complete is February 9th.

So, tomorrow we go to court and return with a check in hand! Praise God.

The Name

2008-01-23T23:01:00.000-06:00

Samual is a variation of Samuel

OriginHebrew

MeaningName of God

In the Old Testament, the prophet and judge who anointed Saul and David as kings of Israel. Listed among the top 100 names for 125 years. Revolutionary leader Samuel Adams is a historical namesake. Novelist Samuel Clemens, who wrote under the pen name, Mark Twain, also comes to mind.

Variations Samantha

Alternatives Samual

Nicknames Sam Sammy

Famous Samuel’s Samuel Goldwyn (movie mogul)
Samuel L. Jackson (actor)

Dreaming

2008-01-23T22:47:00.000-06:00

In November 2007, I had two dreams. The two were the same. I saw myself in a room, holding a newborn baby. I was just starring down at the baby’s little body - warm and wrapped up in a blanket in my arms. I was looking at the baby’s head - the hair was dark and there was lots of it. As I sat in the chair with the baby in my arms; I began to hear a voice saying, “Samuel….Samuel…..Samuel.” In a soft and gentle voice, over and over again the name was repeated. And the dream would end.

After I woke , I began to think ….why Samuel? Will our adopted baby be a boy? The next step I took was to read 1 Samuel and get revelation on it. As a started reading I got the understanding that it is in the spirit of Samuel that this baby will be raised. The heart of God for this child is to learn and grow in the House of The Lord. Jeremiah 1:4-5 “Before I shaped you in the womb, I knew all about you. Before you saw the light of day I had holy plans for you.” The plans of the Lord are perfect!
I’m sure that more clarity and understanding will come. For now I commit that this child will be with me daily and weekly in the Prayer Room, growing in prayer, hearing the voice of the Lord in the house of prayer and worship - at an early age.