On my mind

I will warn you, this blog is full of some jumbled thoughts of mine...you were warned... ;)

So many things have been going through my mind over the last few weeks and months. Many people have been asking what's going on with our adoption-so I'll give you all the readers digest version (I suppose I really should write exactly how the process goes, but that'll have to wait for another blog) we have finished our home study and are waiting on America World to approve it, once they approve it, we'll submit our paperwork to be submitted to immigration and then we're almost done...well, with the paperwork part. Once we're fingerprinted with immigration we wait for a letter to come in saying that we're approved, that should be the last piece of paperwork for our dossier! It should take about 2 weeks or so for our agency to approve things, and then about another week for the official home study to be officially written up, copied and sent to us. Then, we go to immigration, wait for the results (2-4ish weeks) so hopefully about a month or so for everything to be finalized, and then...hopefully submit our dossier to Ethiopia! I'm praying a bold prayer to be able to submit our dossier by March sometime. After the dossier is submitted, we wait...about 10-16 months. What to do during the "waiting period" has been on my mind a lot, and here's why...

I want to do something to make a difference, to make an impact. My heart has been broken and my eyes have been opened to a crisis that is world wide..the orphan crisis. I find it odd that my heart can break for a country that I've never set foot in, Africa. But I am drawn to Africa, because I know that a part of my life will be Africa. My son will be from Africa, his birth family will be from Africa. I am excited to share with our son of his African heritage and about his country. But, I have been praying lately pretty boldly that God would make it clear how He wants to use me. I want to go to help the people of Africa. Don't get me wrong, I know that we have a orphan crisis worldwide-right here in Fairfield even there are children without homes, and I am SO thankful that God has called individuals here in Fairfield to help with the orphans locally, SO thankful that God calls us to different areas and gives us different passions. Because if we were all called to the same things-who would help elsewhere?

I used to say that I was thankful that I wasn't called to global missions, I was quite comfortable with my yearly missions trip to Tijuana, and serving in my church, but I've known for a while that God has been calling me to do more, it's been in the back of my head and I've been mentally filing that thought into my "think about later file" but somehow, God has placed it in my "how about right now" file. So I'm praying, praying about what to do next, because when we talk to our future son about his country and his story (whatever it may be) I don't want him to ask why didn't we do more? Why couldn't we try to help more people? Because in all honesty, I can't think of a reason that we can't. I'm ready to change the world for Jesus.

(ps, I found the picture below via Pinterest, my roots may not lie there, but a big part of my heart lives there :) )