God is the Great Provider!!

Praise God from Whom ALL blessing flows!! As of yesterday, we have the funds needed for our daughter's adoption!! If you would have told me a year and a half ago that God would provide over $29,000 to be able to complete our adoption, it would have been very hard to believe. Yet, that is EXACTLY what God has done! Saying "yes" to God's leading in our lives has been teaching us that He always follows through and equips for His calling. How much hope this gives us, and hopefully gives you as well! It has not been in the timing we've wanted, or the ways we thought...pretty much with all of our plans, God had other ideas in mind...BETTER ideas.

We got word yesterday (3 weeks ahead of when we expected to be notified one way or another), that we were being given a $10,000 grant towards our adoption from a local, Christian foundation. We are still in shock. There are no words to express our absolute gratitude to God, and to the grant foundations, our church family, and the many other people who have stood by us in this journey through prayer, financial gifts, friendship and support of all kinds. THANK YOU, THANK YOU. From the smallest gift of a child's dimes and pennies to the large gifts and grants, every penny has gone into helping us take one small step at a time on this journey.

Zechariah 4:10 "Do not despise small beginnings, for God loves to see His work begin."

Looking for Blessings in the Waiting.....

Wow, it's been so long since I've written on our blog. The main reason why? Waiting is hard. When you're waiting, it's hard to emotionally go where your heart longs to go...imagining who our precious daughter is. What is her name? Where is she from? What does she look like? What is her story? So many unanswered questions. So many "fill-in-the-blanks." It's just extremely hard to go there day after day, week-after-week, month-after-month....year-after-year. So sometimes, I chose just not to go there at all.

God placed adoption on our hearts over 8 years ago. We've been longing and praying for another child for nearly 5 years. We've been in this adoption process since early February 2010. On the waiting list for our referral since January 15, 2011. How much longer to wait? No idea.

There certainly are days when I want to lay down and wallow in self-pity and despair.  When that happens, and it does, I pray and ask God to help me actively CHOOSE TRUST. If I truly believe that GOD IS SOVEREIGN, than I need to reach out from the pit and grasp onto God's mighty hand to pull me up and out of doubt and darkness.

He KNOWS when, where, why, how, who, and any other question I throw at him. I praise Him for teaching me (some days kicking and screaming inside), to be still and TRUST Him. And to PRAISE Him. This is something He is starting to impress upon my heart more and more. Praise Him! If I choose to see them, there are many blessings in the waiting.

Here are some of the big ones God has been impressing on me the last week or so:

1.  God is using this time to prepare our family, in more ways than we are even aware of. Isaiah has gone from being afraid and nervous to just recently really wanting to know his new sister and praying regularly for her. This is a HUGE blessing that I can't do justice to express. God knew that Isaiah needed TIME.

2.  Recognizing how much of a blessing it is to have supportive friends and family to share the journey with.  I have found how rare a gift this is and truly pray for forgiveness for the times I've taken it for granted. I praise God for putting such amazing friends and family in our lives. God knew we needed FRIENDS and SUPPORT.

3.  God continues to provide for our financial needs with the adoption. We recently looked back over the last year and a half, and realized that God has provided over $19,000 towards bring his little child into our family. These blessings have come through family, friends, church family, a grant, garage sales, cd sales, coin collecting, saving, consigning, gifts, the list goes on and on. God knew we needed FUNDS.

4.  I have a wonderful child who is such a great gift from God. It is truly a privilege and blessing to be able to be Isaiah's mom and teacher. I count our time as just the 3 of us a real blessing. Even though we long for #4, I try to treasure each day as just us 3. God knows the plans he has for ISAIAH. God knows what preparation we need to honor Him more in our PARENTING.

5. We have so much. Often I wonder if it's all too much. I worry about what to cook for dinner, but never about if we can EAT dinner. There is an extreme famine spreading through the Horn of Africa right now as I write this. Our daughter's birth mom may right now not have enough to feed herself, much less her children. How can this even be??? Lord, please continue to break my heart for what breaks yours. I so often live in apathy. God knew we needed PERSPECTIVE.

...and many, many more. I look forward to the days where we can learn how our daughter needed this waiting as well.

So, as hard as it might be to say...humbly I thank you, thank you God. For what you have done and continue to do..... in the waiting.

Prayers for my Sister

Just look at this sweet face. We love our boy so much! He has been asking a lot more questions about his new sister this week. He usually doesn't like to talk about it very much (it's taking too long for her to be here in his opinion...we couldn't agree more, buddy!). But God's timing is perfect and we wait on Him. Yet, this week, Isaiah's heart is tender towards our little one. He has been praying for her several times a day. His honest and raw emotion are so special to witness. The other day, he was wondering if his sister feels lonely like he does sometimes. I could hardly contain my tears. On Sunday, driving home from our Life Group, he said,

"Mommy, what do the grown-ups talk about during life group?"
"Well, we read the Bible and/or a book and talk about God and how he wants us to live. We also pray with and for each other."
"Do you talk about adoption?"
"Sometimes we do. We pray for your sister almost every time we meet together. Why do you ask?"
"Because sometimes I think it's taking too long and sometimes I want it to take longer."
"Why's that?"
"Because I want her to come...just not right now. I'm not quite ready."
(meanwhile, I'm amazing that these profound, clear feelings are being expressed by our 5 year old!)
"I understand, buddy. It's OK to feel that way. God will make us all ready when the time is right. We don't have to be ready today."
"That's good. I'm hungry, can we get ice cream?:)"

Dear Jesus, how often I feel exactly that way. I'm so eager to be adopting and so anxious to see our daughter's face and to hold her and bring her home and begin life with her. Yet, in some ways we aren't quite ready and I feel you working in us and preparing us...preparing a family for your precious little girl.  Lord Jesus, you are the God of the universe and knit each of us together in our mother's wombs....I truly KNOW that YOU are IN this time of waiting. Prepare us Lord. Prepare us all and make us ready. Make our hearts tender and full of compassion and love for your precious child.  Work in each of our hearts and do the work within us that only you can do. Make us ALL ready for each other, Lord. We put our trust in you. You alone know the cry of our hearts.
Amen.

A Part of Us is In Ethiopia

We received some good news on the adoption front the past 2 weeks....

1) Our Dossier is now officially in Ethiopia! Hooray! We found this out on my birthday...what a special gift from God! It's becoming more and more real now. We can't wait to see the face of our beautiful daughter.

2) Since we've been on the waiting list for our referral, 22 families have been matched with their precious kiddos! We've received word that our wait for our referral may be quite a bit shorter than expected. We will just have to put all our trust in God's perfect time, as things could speed up/slow down many times between now and then.

3) We have officially applied to Show Hope...an adoption grant foundation that was founded by Steven Curtis Chapman. Please join us in praying for God's provision for the funds we still need to bring our sweet girl home. $18,000 left to raise/save/earn seems huge and insurmountable for us, but it is a drop in the bucket for God. He has lovingly provided every penny of the last $10,000. Every penny of that came in at just the right time.

This past week, we watched a documentary called "A Walk to Beautiful." We HIGHLY recommend this film. It opened our eyes even more to the suffering of women in Ethiopia (and in other places around the world) who have fistulas...preventable child birth injuries. We checked it out of the library and it was well worth watching.

People ask "Why Ethiopia?"

Because our daughter is there.

Immigration Approval & Dossier Sent Off Today!!

Today was an exciting day in our household...our Dossier has been FINALLY sent in to Holt!! Hooray! We've been working on all the documents for our dossier for 5 1/2 months....what a true joy to send it in! We received our last form yesterday evening....our immigration/visa approval....now we wait for our referral which could take up to a year. Sigh.
God knows and we wait and trust in him for our little one.
Right now, though, we praise His Holy name for bringing us this far and trust Him for the rest. Hopefully we will find out what place we have on the waiting list sometime this week. We'll write another update soon.