Meet the Dixon Family!

The Dixon Adoption Blog: www.oneprayerlater.blogspot.com
Jenny's online card shoppe - Easy As 1-2-7 Digital Designs : www.jennydixon.etsy.com

Duane and Jenny Dixon live in Northport, Alabama. After meeting through their campus ministry student center at Tennessee Tech University, they were engaged 6 months later. After another 6 months, they married in 1997. Jenny is now a busy home-schooling mother to their 3 children - Noah (9), Micah (4) and Sophia (2). She recently started an online custom card shoppe in order to raise money for their upcoming adoption. After working in his field of civil engineering for nearly 4 years, Duane was called into full-time ministry. He continues in campus ministry at the University of Alabama working with the University Church in Tuscaloosa. Duane is also working to complete a graduate degree in Christian Ministry through Lipscomb University in Nashville.

Noah, 9, is always busy enjoying soccer in both the spring and fall seasons. He loves spending time with his friends, his cousins, his parents and his Nana & Grandy (Randy & Linda Forrest). When Noah grows up, he hopes to produce good movies for kids.

Micah, 4, is full of excitement and rarely slows down. He started his first season of soccer this season and we think he'll be really good once he figures out which goal is his! Micah enjoys playing outside, riding his battery-powered 4-wheeler, mischief and a good yogurt drink.

Sophia, 2, is our pretty little girl. She loves baby dolls, Dora the Explorer and gigling with her friends and family. She continues to bring great joy to the family!

Duane and Jenny are adopting a baby girl from Ethiopia. Here is their story according to Duane:

"Our second child did not come easy for us. It was a two year ordeal including infertility clinics, a tearful wife, a concerned husband, and countless prayers. They told us it would be virtually impossible without costly fertility treatments. We (especially Jenny) didn't buy it - not one bit!

Well, Micah turned 4 in September! And I think we're starting to understand a purpose behind the ordeal. Somewhere in there, God begin to plant seeds into Jenny's amazing heart. Crazy seeds. He cultivated in her an unrelenting desire to adopt. She'll admit, in the beginning, her desires were mixed with some self-serving purposes. Nonetheless, He was working on her, even then, through the broken circumstances.

Lately, we had both been feeling pretty good about stopping at 3 children. On those days when temper tantrums and fights over space and stuff rang out...we felt really good about stopping at 3!

But still, those crazy seeds weren't dying! Jenny would sweetly mention adoption from time to time. I just wasn't feeling it. Our garden was plenty big and farming here is plenty tough. The reluctance had nothing to do with adoption. The reluctance was about the number 4!

I was in Nashville in late March visiting with a friend who was in the midst of an international adoption. I related Jenny's feelings to him and expressed my reluctance. A couple of days of later, he and his wife sent an email pledging $500 to 'the Dixon adoption' fund. We were floored by the timing and the kindness and the spirit of it all!

We sighed a timid 'ok, God.' Jenny & I agreed to pray together every night for the month of April. I thought this casual and reluctant exploration couldn't turn out that bad. It was like sticking your toe in the pool to test its temperature...worse case scenario, you recoil in minor discomfort but there's no real commitment because you're still upright on the side of the pool, right?

So it's the first night of praying together! Went fine. 'God if you need us to walk through this door, just make that obvious. We love you...etc., etc.' I'm driving to work the next morning still with my proverbial toe in the water and in complete control of my destiny. I can remember where I was on Highway 69 when God took His forearm and planted it squarely on my back and SHOVED me in, head first into the pool!

It was amazing and funny and powerful and humbling all in one motion! I sheepishly confessed to Jenny that night my reluctance had been miraculously disassembled. She couldn't believe it. Over the next few weeks, I found my conviction growing exponentially!

One prayer later we found ourselves filled with awe, passion, and insatiable hunger. I know for sure it doesn't always happen that way. But it did this time! We finished praying through the month. Our convictions have grown inexplicably and wildly."

The Latest News:

Currently, we are wrapping up the home study process and assembling our dossier. Through various fund-raising efforts among church friends and family, we have raised approximately one-fifth of the funds necessary to bring home our baby girl. There is still a long way to go but we are confident that God will provide what is needed to complete His mission.

We have decided on the name Selah Evette. Selah is a Hebrew word said to be difficult to translate, but one translator writes: "Its precise meaning is mysterious, but it is interpreted as a pause to breathe and reflect on the important words just uttered." It's basically an instruction placed at the end of writings that tells the reader to stop and think about what they've just read. Reflect. Measure this against what you know. We thought this to be very appropriate, as we hope that bringing this precious little one from Ethiopa into our family will inspire others to do just that. To think about what they see when they see our family. To measure it against what they've always thought a family should look like. To reflect on their own families and how God may be calling them to follow Him. Selah.

Her middle name, Evette, is equally full of meaning for us. In January of 2008, our very dear friend, Evette, passed away in her sleep. She was 33 years old. She loved babies. Everything about them. She had to be there, at the hospital, when our babies were born. She would be so excited about our adoption. Evette was always looking out for the overlooked. There was no question that we wanted to honor and remember her by naming our baby girl after her.