I read it to Justin, we looked at some pictures of a sweet little boy on the other side of the world. I didn't feel anything like I thought I'd feel when we would see our child's face, what I felt, felt normal, but not overly emotional, I can't really put into words what I felt..I definitely felt a tug to advocate for the little guy but I remember thinking "God what they heck are you doing? We aren't supposed to be adopting from ******, we're supposed to be adopting from Ethiopia. We're doing what you asked, we widened our age, we widened our parameters, duh, we're doing what we're "supposed" to be doing. We felt like we needed to be ready to fill a need. Now what am I supposed to do now that I've seen this little face..how do I advocate for him...is his country even open to adoption (and then I check the country stats on the US Adoption website) ok yes I see it's open and oh yes I see that about 10 adoptions have come out of there since 2002, now that's definitely going to be a tough thing to advocate.."
So I responded back, pretty basic, and shut the computer. I literally had no idea where to start, google wasn't much help at all, and I remember thinking "what in the WORLD is God trying shake things up for?!"
...There's a little glimpse inside my head at this time last year.
This verse popped into my head a lot during that time.. “Once our eyes are opened, we can’t pretend we don’t know what to do. God who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows that we know and holds us responsible to act.” Proverbs 24:12
I knew it wasn't by accident that we saw little mans face and began to learn his story. I had no idea how to advocate for him, and so in my exploring on how adoption in his country works, it was obvious that WE were his family and WE were supposed to answer the call to fight for him. And once we knew that, everything changed. It just felt natural, and normal. We've looked at his pictures multiple times a day for the last 365 days. We've (ok me) may or may not have cried at the desk of the US State Department in Sacramento last summer when something was wrong with our paperwork and explained to the lady behind the counter that I will NOT leave until it's fixed because didn't she understand that's our son and every delay causes more of a delay?! (one day I'll go back up there with him and introduce them ;) )
God funded our Ethiopian adoption right before we saw our son (who was in a different country) so right when we wanted to take a deep breath and rest a little on the financial side God says.."Guess what?! It's time again!" And the provision poured in..through amazing ways..ask me about the email I messed up for a grant while we were in Rwanda, here's a little glimpse..I thought I blew it with this grant..I totally was typing this long email on my CELL phone in Africa (those of you who have been can laugh at that) then I sent it and realized my auto corrected totally messed up..which in turn sent an email to the organization that read this in the subject line "Grant HELL application" it was supposed to say "grant help application" and it was supposed to go to our social worker, but instead went to the grant organization reading hell. I died.
But we got the grant..that covered almost HALF of our West Africa adoption expenses. The lady at the organization was so gracious and told me my slip up made her laugh after a long day..well I'm glad one of us laughed..
Whenever I felt at the end this year, alone and unsure of what was going to happen next..we got news..big or little, any news is good news in West Africa. It was like little reminders of God tapping us on the shoulder and saying "I never said it was going to be easy, but I told you I'd be here." And He was (and still is). Even when we forgot.
...although there might not be lots of updates on here, things are progressing! Our paperwork is right where it needs to be right now, and we're (supposedly) waiting on one last letter to get our little guys docs sent over here and work on the US side. Slowly, but they are progressing none the less! It's like we're running a race with a finish line that gets pushed back further and futher as soon as we turn on what we think will be the last lap..but we're still running, dragging and gasping for breath at times, but we're still going. confident that God will finish what we started.
This has been one of my favorite songs in this journey, when I'm bummed and feel defeated I turn on some good old SCC and it reminds me why we started, and that HE will finish what He started.
Here's a link to an interview about what's behind the lyrics, so encouraging.
On February 14th, our little guy will turn 4! We're hoping and praying to have big news by his birthday..will you pray with us?
