Whew, I can't believe it was August the last time I updated our blog. Soooooo very much has happened in the last 3 months... So excited to update you on our progress and the changes in our family since August!
First of all, at the end of August, we adopted a puppy. He is an adorable Maltese/shihtzu named Otis. Our boys did not know we were going to get a dog, so waking them up that first morning to puppy kisses was truly an experience that my husband and I will never forget. It was so precious to see their truly surprised and excited faces. Otis, named by our boys, has been a wonderful addition to our family and has brought us much joy :) Otis eases our adoption wait a little, at least for the boys!
Here is a bit about the last few months of our adoption by the numbers...
Each month, we get an email from our adoption agency about where our family is on the agency's wait list to be referred a child. In August, we were #112 for a boy and #131 for a girl. In September, we moved up to #104 for a boy and #125 for a girl. We were making so much progress that excitement and spirits were high! We opened October's email to have that excitement fall a bit. Our move was very small, but it was movement none the less. We were still hopeful that it was movement forward. So, here we sat, moving into November at # 103 and #119.
We began to feel little nudges in our heart the beginning of November (after all, November is Adoption Awareness month, so we knew it would be a hard month for us, longing for our little one more than ever) - scripture began to leap off of the page, sermons were giving us restless feelings, conversations with just the right people were too amazing not to see God's leading, family devotions made us stop
and think... We were beginning to feel as though God was leading us in another direction in which to
adopt. Really??? We had so many conflicting questions. Why had we felt so lead to go with our current agency in the first place? Why had we not checked out other agencies? We loved our current agency, they said and did all the right things. Why would we leave them? We would lose a lot of money, if we broke our contract with our current agency. Were we really supposed to lose this
money to go to another agency? After all, adoption is expensive as it is... scary! This was a crazy new development.
We needed wisdom and prayed James 1:5 for many days in November, as we had when we were questioning whether we should adopt in the first place: "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without fault, and it will be given to him." We needed wisdom from
God to make this decision - couldn't do it alone...We got invited to a friend's church for Orphan
Sunday and heard from 3 families that adopted children, 2 families from Ethiopia and 1 family from
Haiti. The sermon, given by those 3 families through their adoption journeys, wasn't so much about
adoption, although that was the obvious theme, it was more about hearing God's will in whatever that
may be and choosing to follow Him in faith. Our hearts are not to be like the Dead Sea... lifeless, still, and have no outlet. Instead our hearts in faith to God are to be living in the word, moving on what we are charged to do, and, most importantly, spreading the word to others, creating that outlet for our spirit to flow over others in our life and whoever we meet. The family car conversation on the way home from that service and later into the afternoon was awesome. The verse that kept radiating, at least for me, like a little light was 1 John 3:18-20: 18. "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions in truth. 19. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence 20. whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything." Were we just to wait out the time to be matched with our child, or were we to move in whatever direction God was calling us - pursuing the truth of our calling which was to care for the orphan?
God was setting that foundation of wisdom that we had asked for! We were pointed in the right
direction to adopt, but we just needed to change direction a bit and really do this with faith... listen with faithful hearts and trust that God would fulfill more than our heart's desire, when we
follow Him. So we decided to, at the very least, check out other agencies that same week of that Adoption Sunday sermon. We called a local adoption agency, and, to our surprise, they only had a few families on their Ethiopian adoption wait list that wanted a child older than 3. Our age range is for a boy or girl age 3-6. Hmmmmmm! I talked to the adoption director for Ethiopia, and she broke down the costs for us, and she said many of the fees for their agency would not apply to us, as we were far enough along in the process. Hmmmmm! We wouldn't be out as much money as we thought. Then, she said the thing that turned on the lightbulb for us. Our wait to be matched with a child would only be 2-4 months after our paperwork got updated and sent to our new agency! WHAT?!! We could go from waiting 2-4 years to waiting only 2-4 MONTHS?! We had to pinch ourselves. Needless to say, we filled out the new application with the new agency and got the ball rolling this week :) Whoo Hoo!
We are so grateful for God's orchestrated plan in this change in direction. We can't hardly find the words! He gave us the wisdom to pursue this new direction, and we are excited to move along so quickly! God's plans for us are so much better than we could imagine for our lives.
Whew! That is a lot of change in just a few months! Keep praying for the orphaned and pray that the adoption process continues to move along swiftly - God bless!
