Discouragement and Hope

Blogs are dangerous to read. Especially when you are in the process of adopting and are desperately looking for any shred of hope that you will see your new children before your current children have grown and left the house. Ok. That may be a little dramatic. I read on a blog yesterday that someone with a dossier number in the early teens has been waiting over a year now for their approval letter. Sigh. Over a year. Sigh. Bummer. We are number 137. How long will we wait?

I do have days when I wonder if this will ever happen. But I felt that way before we brought Isaac home too. The minute I met him those days, weeks, and months of waiting all disappeared. Well, maybe they didn't disappear, but they certainly didn't matter anymore. So now I wait for the day when these days of waiting will no longer be significant. Isaac came to us just at the right time. His timing is perfect and I trust that God knows what he is doing with these kids just as he knew what he was doing with Isaacs adoption.

Realized the other day that I haven't added a family picture yet. Enjoy our family Christmas picture.

Six Seats

There are six chairs at our table. We currently only have four bottoms to sit in those chairs, but I like to have the six chairs at our table. We used to leave two chairs against the wall, but recently we had some friends over for dinner and used the extra two chairs. After they left, the chairs remained at the table and we all decided we liked the two extra chairs at the table. Now we're just waiting for the two extra bottoms to fill the chairs.

There are rumors of movement, but I haven't heard of anyone actually getting a letter yet. Here's hoping and praying that something happens for someone sometime soon!

I know, pretty boring post considering I haven't posted for a very long while. Be patient, I'll get better.

Minor Hiccup

Our family is adopting again. Adoption is not for the faint of heart. There is a lot that is not in your control. Actually, beyond the decision to submit an application and gather paperwork, its all pretty much out of your control. Honestly, that is part of the fun for me. I love to see God work. I love to watch him move mountains and do things that only He can do.

This week we had our first not-in-control moment. We received our completed home study from our social worker. This was very exiting as it would allow us to move on to the next step, getting INS approval. However, when Sean was reading through the report, he realized that some sentences hadn't printed on the pages. Mind you, these were not just any sentences. They happened to contain the information about what children we are approved to adopt. This information is pretty critical. Panic set it. Our social worker is preparing to take a missions trip to China. She is leaving any day. I sent her an email. Nothing. No response. She is usually so good about replying to email. Big panic! Oops, wait, I should pray about this. I called her and all is well. She'll get it all taken care of before she leaves. Whew! I know better. Pray first.

The next steps in the process go like this, once we receive our complete homestudy we send it off to Texas. They will schedule our fingerprinting appointment for us. Isn't that sweet? Once we get our approval back on our fingerprints we can get the special pieces of paper attached to our documents (state approval), then send our documents with the special paper to the Rwanda consulate. They will also attach their special piece of paper to each document. Then our dossier can be sent to Rwanda where they will review our information and decide if we are fit to raise two of their children. Transparently, I'm a little nervous about this. I'm really hoping they don't say we're too old. But He is a big God. We've said from the beginning that it is His plan. So I go with the flow.

Thanks for joining us on our journey! Hopefully, soon I'll be able to post that we have sent our homestudy to Texas.

Cloud of Witnesses

Mark Schultz wrote a song with this title that describes the cloud of witnesses as people who go through life with you. Cheer your good times and pray you through bad times. At different times in my life I've been accutely aware of our cloud of witnesses. This blog is for our cloud. We are blessed to have amazing family and friends that support us in our crazy endeavors. Thank you.

This first post comes on the heels of a tough week. We've had friends bury their 13 year old daughter, another friend is burying his dad this weekend, another is planning his mom's services now. In our own home, as we pray for our friends and mourn their losses, we have experienced our own loss. Thursday our sweet dog, Sophie, passed away after spending 9 wonderful years with us. Her presence is really missed in our house. But we have seen God at work in so many ways this week. Events that only He could orchestrate. It has truly been amazing, very sad, but amazing.