The Fight

I had such mixed feelings leading up to this trip… On one hand, I wanted to celebrate the good news that the adoption process was (finally) moving again AND the excitement of reuniting with our kids…

 

On the other hand, I was feeling fear and anxiety. I felt like I was preparing for battle. I was coming over here to fight for these kids - to ensure that all of the players were considering their best interests – to not allow ego or processes to hold them in an orphanage any longer. I worried about how I was going to get things done, knowing the challenges here. I’m not an assertive person by nature. I shy away from confrontation… I am not a “fighter”.

And yet I’ve been able to “fight” for these kids without stepping outside of my natural temperament. I’ve felt God’s prompting to remain quiet and compliant at times. I’ve tried to demonstrate humility, compassion and kindness in all of my interactions. I’ve been carrying a supernatural patience which I cannot even begin to claim as my own willpower because it has transcended some true chaos.  

Today, my attorney told me he liked and appreciated my disposition. That it worked in my favor within the culture here. And I just felt so overwhelmed with emotion when he made that one simple comment… because I had nothing to be fearful of. God is the one in control of all of this… and He has used my love for these kids and my quiet persistence to make things happen here. I am so beyond grateful…

  

Answers

We're a week into the trip and I've been postponing blogging about it... because to be honest, my head is swirling! My emotions are just running high. The things that we see, hear, feel over hear are just overwhelming and difficult to process at times.

I was looking back through past blogs last night, making a list of the things that we’ve asked you to be praying for over the past year… A year when we had little to no idea what was happening in our kids’ lives on a day-to-day basis... I’m so clearly seeing how God has been faithful to us and gone ahead of us here. He has been present with our children and is making a way for our family to be united.  

You collectively prayed with us that God would…

·       Protect our kids in Africa. Keep them safe and healthy. Use this time to grow their English skills. Prepare their hearts and minds for adoption… The kids are well and we're thrilled to be loving on them in person. They know enough English now to understand much of what we’re saying. They can ask us questions and express their needs... It's amazing to see how they come to us and are bonding with us. We're still getting to know them and I can't wait til we can tell you all about them... but where we are now feels like the first steps of trust and attachment. In some ways it seems incredible and in other ways it just seems so simple.
 

·       May God meet them where they are… make Himself known to them... Fill their little hearts with His peace… The best way to explain this in action is to tell you about the first meal we shared with the kids. We brought them to our hotel for lunch. When the waitress laid out the plates, Chad and I were distracted helping our daughter into her seat. We looked up to see our son, head bowed over his food, praying. Not a little, quiet grace. He was PRAYING. Fervently. Even the waitress stopped to watch him and said “do you see him praying?!” My heart overflowed! God is with our son. Our son knows Him and knows that all thanks are directed to Him!

 

 

·       Lift Asher’s anxieties from his mind so that he doesn’t carry the weight of worrying about their well-being… The message that we can take home to Asher from this trip is that the kids are alright. But more than that, it’s being able to tell Asher (and show him via photos and videos) that at the end of the day, they are just kids! They laugh. They play. They bicker. They hold our hands. They are easily distracted. They sing and dance. They go to school and church. They have favorite sport teams. They love taking selfies. They ask for phones and iPads. And on and on… J  

 

Thank you all so much for continuing to pray for our family. We are just overcome with support and so appreciate each of you! Please continue praying for the actual adoption proceedings. We're still wading through the steps, but feel confident and know God is walking this with us. More to share in the days to come...!

 

 

Court Date

It feels so good to have news to share! We have a court date! Hallelujah!

So, what does that mean? We will now have the opportunity to go before a judge, in our children’s birth country, to request that their adoption be finalized. This is the big next step that we’ve been waiting for…

… and it came at a totally unexpected time. It was our understanding that courts would be closed and no cases would be even scheduled til mid-late September at the earliest. So I have total confidence that our hearing over the “recess” period is God’s work!

This doesn’t mean the kids are coming home right away… we’ll still need to return to the US for additional paperwork (oh, the paperwork!) before making our third, and final, trip.

But this is by far the most movement that we have seen since we first met these kids 14 months ago. Another family was there visiting the orphanage this month and has sent numerous photos and videos that have just warmed our hearts. We’ve seen more of them and their sweet little personalities in the last 3-4 weeks than ever before. They remember us… they now know bits of English… they look healthy… but most importantly, they understand that we are coming soon.   

So we’re gearing up for travel. I have bags packed with clothes, shoes, cheeseballs, ring pops, and other random requests from our son. Chad is in research mode, ordering indestructible soccer balls (check them out! One World Play Project) and other goodies. We are SO ready!

Chad and I will be there, together, for about a week. We’re anticipating that I will stay longer, as needed, to ensure that the paperwork necessary for next steps is, at a minimum, moving in the right direction. However, my BOLD prayer is that the paperwork will all be COMPLETED while I’m there!   

The Unknown

We just got back from a trip to Cincinnati. It was so refreshing to be away!! We haven’t traveled for more than a day or two in quite awhile… always rationing money and vacation days in the hope that we’ll get some last minute news of travel back to Africa. I didn’t realize how much we needed the change of scenery until we were experiencing it. It was so good! 

While we were there we caught up with friends and relayed our adoption status multiple times… It gave us an opportunity to think about how to best frame where we are at the moment. And here’s where we are: THE UNKNOWN. Not at all somewhere I like to be. It’s my human nature to be uncomfortable here.

For awhile, our wait had a deadline. The light at the end of the tunnel was supposed to be last December. But for over 6 months now we’ve been living in ambiguity. We’ve had vague time frames, indistinct steps to follow, changing players. I feel like we have been living from one disappointing e-mail to the next, always hopeful for news that will come in the next e-mail. We can’t go into details… but there’s a whole web of a backstory that we will one day be able to share. Although I have a feeling that once the kids are with us, the backstory won’t even matter to us anymore!

Side Note: We bought these matching 4th of July dresses last year,
thinking Cora and her sister would be wearing them.
Hopeful they still fit in them next year?! 

I’ve felt unsettled. Emotionally rundown. Anxious that there’s not a clear path to finalization. Hesitant to make commitments (hence our lack of travel!).

But now that we realize this is truly the UNKNOWN, I’m finding myself moving to a new phase – a place of release. No more living wound up for the next message, deadline, bit of news. No more praying fervently from a state of worry. The joy of the true unknown is that it’s just that – UNKNOWN. I can’t even pretend to have control over any single piece of this. So why try? There’s no illusion of power or ability. It’s completely out of my hands. Acceptance. Peace.

I am reminding myself daily that nothing is unknown to the Lord and His peace is sustaining…

When doubts filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer. Psalm 94:19

 “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid. " John 14:27  

 
I will boast only in the Lord; let all who are helpless take heart…I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears.Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces.In my desperation I prayed, and the Lord listened; he saved me from all my troubles…Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!  Psalm 34: 2-8

Prayer Requests:

• Please pray for our continued state of peace and joy. When I am focused on God and resting in His promises, I feel no anxiety. But I find myself easily distracted and it can take only one e-mail for me to spiral into a negative mental state. Pray for my focus to be steadfast on the Lord.
• Please continue to pray for Asher. He wants his brother home so badly! He understands better than Cora that life in the orphanage isn't like life here. He recently shared with us that he wakes up in the middle of the night, scared for the kids - are they safe? healthy? etc. He said praying calms him down so he can go back to sleep. Love him! Prayers that he tangibly feels God's presence and that his sweet faith grows through this trial.  
• Continued prayers for health and safety of our kids. Their current caregivers are English-speaking Christians. Although this appears to be a "useless" wait in our human eyes, we are praying that growth in language skills and learning about Jesus are positives the kids draw from this time.
• PRAY FOR A SIGNATURE AND COURT DATE!!

Love, Like Rain

Oh, I wish I had news to share! The papers still sit without signatures... and our hearts still feel incomplete. 

The waiting is difficult, y'all! It feels like life is on hold in so many ways... yet it obviously keeps moving forward all around us. We're doing our best to live in the present and enjoy this phase... some days that's easier said than done... but everything else is out of our hands.  

We get photos every month or two... and the kids looks good! They seem healthy. They're growing. They're attending school and church. We're celebrating these things. We're appreciating what deep love we feel when we see their sweet faces. And when I see photos of them in clothes I've sent over or holding gifts from us, I am so overjoyed. I'm clinging to those images as proof that they feel loved and trust we're coming back. 

Our Boy... June 2015... I'm guessing he's
now a few inches taller based on
the latest pictures we received!

We would appreciate your continued prayers...

• Pray that we continue to trust God and actively turn over to Him our feelings of discontent, worry and fear. May we live in the present, not allowing this draining process to rob us of joy. 

• Pray for the continued health and welfare of the kids. We are so thankful that they are well cared for and are hoping that this time at the orphanage/school is helping them learn English to ease the transition here. Pray that God is also using this time to draw them close to Him - may they feel loved, valued, strong and courageous. 

• Pray for motivations to be changed regarding the signatures that we need. Pray for a sense of urgency within their government (and ours!) regarding moving these kids through the process with the end goal of giving these children a family. 

Thank you!!

Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently on the Lord. Psalm 27:14 

...God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope... Rom 15:13

How Can We Not?

I have been sitting on this article for a few days. I read bits and pieces and then just need to pause to process before I read more...

The Most Dangerous Place to Become a Mother

I wanted to share it with all of you… because so many ask us why we chose to adopt internationally… and why/how the children are orphaned… We have decided that as we move forward and collect information, we won’t share many details of our own children’s stories outside of our family, because it’s personal. None of us would want to wear our darkest losses on our sleeves. It’s their story to tell when they are ready... … But this article will paint a broad picture for you. 

While wading through this article, I read a quote in another book that has also stuck with me. The author, a foster mom, wrote about her initial awareness of the needs of impoverished and at-risk children. She described her journey as starting in a place of “can we” do anything? Then progressed to “how can we” help… and finally arrived at “how can we not” take action?

We’re obviously past the “how can we not” stage in adopting – we’re in the thick of it! But we’re back to “can we” in terms of doing more at another level. Our adoption is bringing precious children who have experienced great loss into the stability of our family. It is a way to shine love and hope into a tragic situation. But better yet would be to move towards a place where birth moms and their children could not be in danger, but could thrive... "Can we"? 

Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.  Isaiah 1:17

No News is Good News??

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has been supporting us through prayer over recent weeks. 

I was reminded today that absolutely everything that happens is either God-arranged or God-allowed. So while we continue to wait, I am trying not to question. We continue to trust that God is weaving together a beautiful testimony that we can not yet see.

As we mentioned previously, happenings and decisions made earlier this month were crucial to our adoption and have been weighing heavily on us. I wish we could say that we had fantastic news to report, but that’s not really the case. Insert your preferred sad emoji’s here. ;)

That’s not to say that we have bad news to report. We had a few big “wins” in the realm of paperwork issues which were a major relief. In addition, multiple changes have taken place regarding documentation, processes, etc. In theory all of these changes are positives and should help the process move forward with less potential for problems. However, our big hope was that the court date we are awaiting would be set… and that has not yet happened.

The biggest change taking place is that our children have been moved to a new residence. It’s been difficult because I saw where they were previously. Having a visual of their daily life and knowing the adults caring for them was reassuring to me. Now I have no point of reference – nothing to picture. It’s also difficult because we just don’t know what is in their sweet little heads. So many random questions run through my head: Do they understand why they are moving? Do they know the other kids moving with them? Are they scared? Did they get to bring the photo books I gave them? Is someone loving on them?

We had a moment of reassurance when a social worker from our adoption agency was visiting them recently. She gave them gifts from us and sent us photos of them. Our son told her that he had a mama who was coming back to take him to America. That one little statement from him is exactly what I needed. I am so thankful that he is remembering and holding on to the promise of me coming back!   

As we move forward, there are two specific prayer requests we’d like to share with you:

(1)  Please pray for the sweet little African boy and girl we call ours! Pray for their health and protection. Pray for their adjustment to a new place. Pray that the promise of family continues to solidify in their hearts. Most importantly, though, pray that they sense God with them and do not feel alone. (This morning I heard a story of someone relaying a very difficult childhood and her response to that difficulty was “don’t cry for me – God met me there.” I am now praying that fervently for these kiddos – may God be meeting them where they are.)

(2)  Pray for Asher. This wait has been challenging for Chad and I. In all honestly, it’s gotten exponentially worse over the past 1-2 months. But it’s now starting to be difficult on Asher. He loves these kids and considers them siblings already. He is starting to really question why it’s taking so long… and his sweet ability to empathize has him feeling worried and anxious for their well being. Please pray that he hears us when we tell him about how God works in all things, even when we don’t see it. Pray for peace in his anxious little mind.   

This sweet boy wants to meet his brother SO badly!