Waiting......

What's been happening lately on the adoption front is just waiting.  Which is okay as you will see below in my writings.  We have our USCIS fingerprinting all done and we are just waiting on the approval so our dossier will be completed.  As if that paper work isn't enough we have been trying to find grants to fill out and send in to see if we can qualify for any grant money.  We have gotten rid of a few more numbers off the blog, which is awesome.  Even though our hopes of the number fundraiser haven't been met yet, you guys have surpassed our expectations.  I say it that way because we obviously hope for all the numbers to be gone, otherwise we wouldn't have done that many, but, we kept our expectations down so we don't get disappointed.  We thank you all for the generous donations, and the many prayers you have offered up for our family.  It's a hard thing to talk about money and ask for help.  It's also hard because we never know when the next big payment is coming.  We continue to trust in God.

So our church family wanted people to write a story about a time when they were waiting.  They then would be turned into little devotionals for everyone.  I started writing one.  When I was half way through it, Sarah said " You remember it needs to be limited to 250 words?".  Well that wasn't going to happen.  I'm terrible at saying what I think needs to be said in that amount of space, as you can all tell from this blog.  What ended up happening is I used mine for this blog and Sarah wrote one for the devotional.  Which by the way, Sarah's was way better for that style of writing, and I will include hers in here.

“Waiting on God isn't about the suspension of meaning and purpose. It's part of the meaning and purpose that God has brought into my life. Waiting on God isn't to be viewed as an obstruction in the way of the plan. Waiting is an essential part of the plan.” That is what Paul David Tripp wrote in his devotional based on Psalm 27. That is what we have learned along the way of our adoption journey.

Between June of 2010 and October 2011, we did a lot of waiting. What we thought would be just waiting for the arrival of our son, turned out to be a lot more waiting for little things and developing our character for the day of his arrival.

Waiting for the other things helped break up the time in between. Seeing these little goals being accomplished helped us see and trust that God is in control.

Once we heard that our dossier was in Ethiopia we wanted to look for another goal to wait for. That was our referral. We waited until March of 2011 to see a picture of our son for the first time. Once we saw his face we knew he was our son.  Another waiting period was over.

We then waited for our court date. That would be the first time we would travel to Ethiopia and go in front of the judge so that Judah would be officially our son.  It was also when we would be able to visit him for the first time. This was the moment that changed us in so many ways. It was also the first time we were able to play with all the other children who were waiting......waiting for their chance to have a forever family. It was the first time we could see one of our compassion children face to face, and give her a hug. We knew we would never be the same after visiting Ethiopia, and spending time with the wonderful people over there.

In the next few paragraphs Sarah describes how she felt during our next period of waiting. Our Embassy trip. That was the trip where he would officially be with us forever, and ready to travel back to our home.

“As we hugged and waved goodbye to our son, my heart ached. But, in my head I thought.....we can do this. It won't be long before he is back in my arms. He smiled at us as we pulled away in the blue van. The big, heavy door to the orphanage closed and we could no longer see his beautiful face. He was well taken care of there, it will be okay, I kept repeating to myself.

After arriving home we fell back into the rhythm of taking care of our other children. Summer was in full swing. Days were spent at the pool and evenings were spent enjoying ball games. I tried to keep myself busy, so my thoughts wouldn't wander. But, it was impossible. I would often pull up his sweet pictures, his eyes shining back at me. My arms ached to hold him again. Tears would often come to the surface.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. We received another update with more pictures. More time that was lost, time we couldn't get back. We were waiting for one email to tell us it was time to bring our son home. I would often wake up in the middle of the night, just hoping to see the words I longed to read. That one email held so much power.”

Finally the end was in sight.  We got the email and we hopped on a plane to go and bring our son home.  The waiting was finally over and the new journey was about to begin.  Those times of hard waiting grew both of us.  It wasn't always pretty (Sarah doesn't enjoy waiting for many things), but we came through each waiting stronger.  

 We know now that during these waiting periods, God help prepare us for this stage of our family.  We gathered as much information as we could from others that have traveled this road before, so we felt like we were prepared.  As we go on with this next adoption journey, we look back and welcome the waiting periods(to a certain extent) that are ahead of us.  Periods of time that we will be able to gather even more information, and be able to sit and reflect on God and what He is up to in this family He has so graciously allowed me to be part of. Thank-you.

Here is a song that was playing on the radio of one of our customer's cars the other week when i was pulling it into the paint booth.  It brings back childhood memories, and it's just kind of a fun song to sing.  I love it.

Rock on J