I Know Who Goes Before Me

Today in church we were singing a song that I have heard many times before. The God of Angel Armies.

There is a line that says, "I know Who goes before me, I know Who stands behind, the God of angel armies is always by my side."

These next coming weeks we are facing many unknowns. 

What will it be like? 

What will HE be like?

I always have wanted to KNOW. What. When. Why. My poor mother, whenever the phone would ring when I was a child, I was right on her, "Who is it?" When I was fifteen and in the hospital and the nurse was removing a surgical drain and said she would remove it on the count of three, "One, two" RIP! My arm felt like it was turned inside out. I was SO MAD! I felt like it wouldn't have hurt so much if she would have just done what she said. I could have been ready!

Today when we were singing that song I realized that I DON'T KNOW what is ahead, but I do know WHO is ahead of me. 

And that is the peace that passes understanding.

The Things We Do For Love

We are preparing to travel. 

I don't have the suit case out yet, but it will be soon. I laugh to think about how I used to bemoan the fact that my suitcases were better travelled than I. 

I have a growing pile of things to take with me. Things that people have requested be brought or requested me to take. Socks and underwear. Tooth brushes and tooth paste. Beanie babies.

We will leave Fort Wayne on June 15 at 8:42 am on United to Chicago. We will have a layover and then depart to Germany. Frankfurt to be precise. (I think that I will have to eat a hot dog there!) and from Frankfurt to Kyiv. We will arrive in Kyiv at 1:15 pm local time, which is 6:15 am EST.

We have made arrangements to stay with a missionary in Kyiv for the two nights that we will be there before we travel to our region.

That is next week. (gulp)

It struck me on Wednesday that in two weeks that I would meet my new son. Even typing this gives me a fluttery feeling. I am so excited. 

The journey will be long. We will come back after this first meeting and wait for court and then it will be back to Ukraine. Garth for 2-3 days, me for 3 weeks. I will probably miss sweet Claire's seventh birthday. That makes me sad. I have talked with her about this and she is all about having an early birthday. I told her that I would let her turn 7 a few weeks early. Hopefully to her it will be an adventure whereas to me there is an element of heartbreak. 

Right now please pray for reasonable travel fares, for safe transportation, for quick court dates and for resolve and peace for us. And for rest. It seems like whenever we are going to take a moment of quiet something else comes up. 

Whereas I STILL do not have stretch marks I believe that all of this travel will cause me to wear my braces longer. Awesome. Hence the title of this blog.

The things we do for love.

Please be praying

Please pray for us as we make our travel arrangements. The first set of (one-way) tickets that we have purchased were over our budgeted amount. If that continues to be the trend it is going to knock us over budget around $5000. I don't know if it would be better for me to just stay in Ukraine the whole time or if I should continue with my plan to go back and forth.

Pray for clarity and good deals!

His Eye Is On The Sparrow

I feel like the telling of this story is like the blooming of a peony. So many petals that it would be impossible to describe the full beauty. And the scent? I can't even begin.

We keep finding more and more people who are loving, praying for, fasting for and sacrificially giving for our boy.

And he has no idea.

On Sunday I spoke with one of our elders at church and asked him to pray at the elder's meeting on Monday that God would awesomely provide our funding. I mean, I BELIEVED that He would provide. I guess that I just kind of thought that He would through MY crazy grant writing skills.

I won't lie. I was really disappointed when we didn't get those last couple of grants. But the almost simultaneous realization along with the disappointment was that IF we had gotten those grants and been fully funded that I always would have felt like I had something to do with that. And I don't. Not even a little.

I have realized more and more through this journey how dependent that I am on God for His grace and His providence. I have realized how my children aren't MINE, they are God's and whereas I am easily generous with MY things, I do NOT feel that way about MY children. They are MINE MINE MINE.

Except they aren't. And there is nothing like having one of "YOUR" children whom you have never met but that you love SO MUCH, away from you, out of your reach but fully in HIS hands to make you understand that the ones you tuck in every night are every bit as much HIS. And not truly yours.

On Tuesday morning I awoke to the news that our appointment date had been set: June 17 at 10 am  Ukraine time (that is 3 am our time, I am sure that we will be at our best). Ha.

I got together with my friend Jackie later that day and we assembled some great freezer to the crock pot meals.

After Jackie left to take her son home for a nap, I was checking my messages and had received one from a friend that I have met on this journey. She told me that there had been a family who had wanted to adopt our boy a year and a half ago and that the mama would like to talk with me and pray for us, if that fine with me.

I really had to think about that because I wasn't sure what "the talk" was going to be about. After all, not all "talks" that we have had along this road have been uplifting and I am really to a point now where I want to focus on the Voice of Truth instead of the world. I prayed about it and asked God for guidance and really felt like He was leading me to reach out. And that, good or bad, I owed it, one mommy to another, to hear what was on her heart. I sent an email with my phone number in it and within minutes my phone was ringing.

I answered and met Kim.

Kim and her family had fallen in love with our little man some time ago and had worked so hard to try and bring him home but due to circumstances were not able to. I got to share with Kim things that I have learned about how D is progressing and how God has been answering her prayers. We both blubbered.

I am choking up writing this.

Kim asked if there was anything that we needed. I told her to pray (which I don't think she has stopped doing since she has known of D). She asked me how our funds were. I told her that we were still a little short, but trusting God that it would all work out.

She shared with me that she and her husband had been faithfully saving money for this boy. Even though they knew he wasn't theirs. And that they would donate it. For him.

What faithfulness!

Thanks to the generosity of Kim and family members we are now VERY CLOSE to being fully funded.

I was thinking, "This little boy must be someone VERY special, even more than we know, if God is moving mountains for him and putting him on so many people's hearts." And the thought that all of this is happening but that he is still sitting in the orphanage with NO IDEA what all is transpiring.

And then the Truth struck me. God is doing that for all of us. We have no idea the depth and breadth of God's love and compassion for us. And it is moments like this that we get a glimpse, through the mirror darkly, of His amazing heart. For orphans. For us.

State of the Adoption Address: (UPDATED!)

Hello Faithful Readers,

It has come to my attention that there is some misunderstanding about the state of our progress regarding our funding.

I am going to lay it all out for you.

We have received a lot of support through grants, private donations, our Give1Save1 campaign and selling lotion bars. We have also paid a significant portion ourselves. As of tonight we have reached a grand (and I do mean GRAND!) total of $20,916.49. We are so thankful for all the support that we have received and we are almost there. 

The total that we have to raise by the time that we travel is $27,000, which leaves us $6083.51 to gather in the next few weeks.

At this point we are waiting to hear back from one more grant (we have heard back from several in the last week that have been a "no"). This organization that we are waiting to hear from provides matching grants. We are praying that will come through. We know, though, if it doesn't, that GOD has a better way in mind.

All that to say, if you have been waiting for the last minute to help bring our son home, it is fast approaching. ; )

Here are things that you can be praying for at this point:

• That God will prepare our son's heart for the dramatic change that is coming his way.
• That our son will stay healthy.
• That our family will be prepared to welcome its newest member with kindness, love and patience.
• That the last grant will come through for us.
• That our garage sale this weekend will be a success.

Here are things that we are in need of to take for the children:

• Happy Meal toys
• Socks
• Underwear

Thank you so much for following our journey and for praying for us!

Blessings!

UPDATE: Since last evening I have received a call from the last organization that we had applied for a grant with. They said that they cannot help us at this time. We are disappointed, but trusting God to provide a way.

Plant Something

Yesterday we were working in the flowerbeds.

Garth and I are quite the team and we have enjoyed doing those projects since we have been married. I remember being pregnant with Grace, working by the glow of the headlights.

I know a lot of people who don't want to plant anything. They move into a house and rip it all out. They say that they don't want the maintenance.

Plant or don't plant. There is still going to be maintenance. It's up to you what you want to maintain.

Our preacher, when we were growing up, had an illustration,

"If you have a field and you plant nothing, what grows?"

I remember the first time I heard the question and my thought was, "Nothing! Nothing grows!"

Wrong.

Weeds grow.

Our flower beds are wonderful. To me they inspire imagination and fuel life.

We have tons of varieties of plants, a constant bloom cycle and VERY FEW weeds. We are to a point where we do very little "maintenance," the good things in our gardens choke the bad things out. 

Every other year or so we divide the plants and share them with friends.

We need to live our lives like that!

Let the good choke out the bad, share what is good and live gratefully!

And Now, What You've Been Waiting For

So, I got an email on Tuesday.

And I have been holding this inside, reveling in the bigness and the implications.

OUR DOSSIER WAS APPROVED. No re-do. No soft-reject. APPROVED!!!

In an earlier post I had said this:

And you know what? Our dossier still hasn't been rejected. It is like 99% positive that it will be, but I believe in a Big God. A God who knew where our missing dossier was all along. A God who blinded countless eyes to the wrong piece of paper. A God that has been putting this story together from the beginning.

We have been waiting. It was supposed to have been reviewed a week or so before it was. All of these things that make it look out of control.

We went on vacation this week to Turkey Run. Garth had to work and so we tagged along and enjoyed the beautiful weather and nature. (Check it out, if you ever get the chance).  We had been out on a hike, I came back to the room and checked my phone and there it was: glorious approval!

I literally fell on the floor thanking God.

It was not what I expected. It was better.

We do not have our specific appointment date yet, but it should be in the first half of June. We should hear next week specifically when. There are so many logistical things to do, money to raise, things to pack...

But right now, in this moment, I want to wallow in the wonder of it all.