Two Paths

When Adam and I decided to change our focus to domestic adoption, I started to think about the new possibilities and the new people God would put on our path. The way God brings people into our lives is amazing, isn't it? We have seen Him work in pretty awesome ways in our own lives and we don't doubt that this will be any different.
A couple of nights after we made our decision, I started thinking about this certain young woman. This young woman who will be making the ultimate sacrifice of love which will allow us to become a mom and dad. My heart was heavy for her. Not knowing these thoughts, my sister-in-law brought her up in a recent conversation and said "Your paths are about to cross." Who knows where she is right now, but she is heading down a path that will bring her into crisis. Yet, the result of her crisis will become our greatest joy. As we sit here waiting, she is searching, wandering. How I wish I could tell her that we are on the other side waiting and there is hope. Kind of like how God is speaking to us right now. He knows the end of this story; we just need to trust. There is hope. Our stories are so similar. I'm starting a journal for her and am planning on giving it to her when we meet. My prayer is that through her own struggles and pain, the result will end in her finding contentment in Jesus, just as I have found.
Adam and I have shifted focus in not just praying for this baby but also for its' other mom. Will you pray for us as we continue on in deciding how we can reach out to her, whenever our paths are meant to cross?

"And we know that God causes everything

to work together for the good

of those who love God

 and are called according to His purpose for them.

Romans 8:28

Changes

It's been awhile since I had given an update. Over the last 2 weeks, things have changed quite a bit. 2 weeks ago, we received an e-mail from our agency in North Carolina stating that the Moldovan government is still dragging its' feet with changing and revising adoption laws. Currently there are 4 families in our agency who have been in limbo for a year and the social workers are working hard to get them moving. Unfortunately, they aren't even going to be looked at til May. Which means we still could not begin the paperwork we need to. Our program director has also said that it appears that the youngest children available will be 5 year olds and we had given a range of 2-4. She said we are looking at at least another 1 1/2 year wait. After much discussion and prayer, we feel God has closed this door for right now. This decision has been so hard to make. With it, has come alot of anger, sadness, and guilt. In our kitchen, I have a collage of pictures from our past trips and as I look at those pictures, I see Hope/Noah and I wonder if we are turning our back on a baby in Moldova. I know in reality that isn't true, but the feeling is still real. I am angry at Mother's Day and pregnancies and paperwork.
I share all of this to say, that despite all of that, God is faithful. I was writing that short statement out this morning and it reminded me greatly that YES, the Lord has been so faithful to us! I see His fingerprints over the last year in so many areas. I was tempted to sit and think of how much we wasted this last year and the Lord has reminded me this morning that this year was a gift, really. A year for growing our marriage, growing us as individuals and growing in our knowledge of who the Lord is to us. God's timing is never a waste. How thankful I am for the way He is active even in waiting periods. Adam and I trust Him; we believe in His promises to us; and we believe that His way is perfect.
Our plan is to move forward with a domestic adoption. We are praying for an infant and are so excited to see where God leads. My friend Noelle was saying how exciting it is to think that Hope/Noah are so close to us! Yes!:) Wherever this baby is, we love it so much already...we can't wait to see their cute face:)
The wait seems to still be long, between 1-2 years, but who knows, it could be shorter.

Our verse for 2012:

"Be still in the presence of the Lord

and wait patiently for Him to act." Psalm 37:7

Please continue to pray for us. We covet and treasure your prayers! We love you.

Glimmers

Have you ever been going through something and feel that you are in limbo..that how could possibly God be at work? Ah, the lesson of my life. :) God is making Himself known to me, and to you, every single day; unfortunately sometimes I fail to see Him because I am looking at life through my own eyes, not His. And, how He always brings me back to perspective. So thankful for His grace.
One of the things that I have shared with some of you that has been hard for me is to not have any physical reminders of our sweet baby..no pictures of ultrasounds, etc. Adam and I have to constantly remind ourselves that on the other side of our mountain of paperwork is Hope/Noah. One of my dear prayer partners  gave me a whole new way of viewing this struggle. She told me that each of the kids on my caseload represent Hope and Noah..that when I look at these children I can see my own children. What perspective!
I was assigned 2 1/2 week old twin girls to my caseload this week..I was able to help bring one of them home from the hospital to her new foster home. How beautiful are these little girls. I went to visit them yesterday and was helping feeding one of them. She fell asleep on my lap and I couldn't help think about where Hope/Noah is right now. Looking at this tiny baby helped me see our little one and just consumed me with love and happiness. Isn't God so faithful?



 

Last night, Adam and I received the pictures of the children that our church will be serving in Moldova in the fall. They, too, helped me see Hope/Noah...the children of Moldova who are forgotten and are desperately in need of families. Their eyes helped me see our kids. How I cannot wait for the fall for Adam and I to be in our second home:)  Adam and I are beyond excited for what God has in store for us.
Here are some of our favorite pictures from our past trips. We just love these kids:)

Praying your day is also filled with glimmers of God's goodness and faithfulness in your life...that you don't miss His Voice guiding you and His hands protecting you. He is a God of mercy, grace, and compassion. We have so much to be thankful for. 



Happy 2012!

It's hard to believe another year has past and we are in 2012. It was exactly this time last year that Adam and I decided to start our adoption process and research adoption agencies that would help us in Moldova. Time flies.

Where we are at:
As we have shared with many of you, adoptions in Moldova are still in limbo. The government agencies involved with adoption are "supposed" to be meeting "soon" (I'm using the word "soon" very loosely:) to discuss the guidelines for Moldova adoptions and make them more concrete. How does this affect us? We are not able to start any of our international paperwork because guidelines can change and our social workers do not want us to have redo paperwork if it is not necessary. Which, we can completely appreciate, as I am sure those of you have adopted internationally can too:)
We still need to send in our contract with Carolina Adoption Services. I think, subconsciously, we have been hesitant in doing this, because if Moldova adoptions close, we had no clear direction of what we would pursue instead. But God continues to give direction. Adam and I were talking about this yesterday and we both just had a peace that if the door to Moldova closes, we will pursue another country. What a weight lifted! We had talked about a domestic adoption, however CAS covers only international. So we had been torn for sometime. But now, international it is all the way! We want to stay in Eastern Europe, so we are starting to look into the countries CAS works with. But we continue to pray and wait for Moldova. That is where our heart is and we both said last night that we feel that our baby will come from there.
Our social worker is going to be starting to write up our homestudy report and then we need to wait for it to be approved by Homeland Security and then it's off to get fingerprinted. The homestudy should be written and completed by the end of this month.

Verse for 2012:
I like to pick a verse to pray through throughout the year and this year I chose Psalm 37:7a "Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for Him to act." (NLT) My first reaction is to cringe when I see the words "wait" and patiently" together...it is so convicting because I am not that patient! But God's ways are far greater than my ways and His thoughts are far greater than mine.
We are excited to see God's miracles unfold in 2012. This little child will truly be a miracle on so many levels. And we are hopeful. So we wait.

Thank you for checking in on us...we love each of you so much.

Hope/Noah's first Christmas..in our hearts:)

As we celebrated this Christmas, we did it with anticipation that it was our last one with just the two of us. We received the most precious gift from my brother Scott and sister-in-law Dana (or, sister-in-love, as Dana says.) They gave us a beautiful hope chest filled with gifts for Hope/Noah. I loved seeing the little dress for Hope and Spider Man pajamas for Noah. They also gave us the Jesus Storybook Bible with audio CD's to help them learn English faster. We just can't wait to read to them and share with them Jesus' love. And we can't wait to read our book "Orphanology" by Tony Merida, who is friends with Scott and Dana. Tony and his wife Kim adopted 4 children from the Ukraine and one boy from Ethiopia. We loved opening up the book and seeing their children's precious names written in the front cover...a reminder of the redemption of adoption.
These were our first baby gifts and they served as a great reminder to us that there is a precious child on the other side of our paperwork, there is someone waiting for us despite all the delays, and God's perfect plan will be revealed in His timing. I can't begin to describe how encouraging this gift was to us!

We pray you had a blessed Christmas with your family and friends. I know Adam and I enjoyed every moment with our family and are looking forward to the year ahead!

Where we are at today

Monday night, Adam and I met with Carol, our social worker to just catch up on where we stand in the adoption process. I thought I would just give you all a quick update on what's been done and what we are currently working on:

We are working on acquiring the last few forms we need to submit to Carol so that she can write up our home study. Our goal is to get these things done this weekend. I'm laughing as I type this because I am thinking of the five million things that need to be done the week before Christmas. Carol hopes that she will be able to have it written by sometime in January.

Next step will be for the home study to be handed off to US-CIS which is a branch of Immigration to be reviewed. They will then release it to Carolina Adoption Services. Then the real fun begins...putting together all of our international paperwork.
Could you pray for one specific thing right now?
1. My medical report: THANKFULLY it is current enough for Carol to write it for our home study (I just found out today) However, because of the date it was done, we only have 6 months for it to be valid with US-CIS so the home study can be approved. This brings us to March 1, 2012. I am fervently working on getting another doctors appointment ASAP, but right now the earliest one I have isn't until April 26. Please pray that I am able to get another appointment and/or that we can get the last of this paperwork done quickly so we can submit it for approval.

Update on Moldova:
A representative from Carolina Adoption just returned from Moldova in which she helped 2 families finalize their adoptions. These families had been in limbo for quite some time and CAS was able to help them bring their kids home! Such awesome news. Currently, a meeting is still waiting to be scheduled with the head department that runs the adoptions in Moldova. Unfortunately a date hasn't been set yet. This meeting is supposed to help smooth out all the kinks and finalize their regulations surrounding adoption. Knowing Moldova as we do, it could be awhile. So we continue to wait...and pray. Carol asked us how long we wanted to wait and asked what our next plan would be if we decided against Moldova. We just looked at each other and were honest: we don't have another plan. We told her very clearly that we have faith that God has placed us on this path and has brought us to Moldova. Right now neither of us have felt that God has closed this door for us so we will continue to press on. I know it sounds crazy. Those close to Adam and I know how much we desire a family and would do anything to have it happen right now. Yet, we truly believe we are on the path God has laid out for us. And He is requiring us to trust completely in HIS timing not our own. The Bible is full of examples in which God asks His followers to follow in complete faith, to listen to only HIS instructions, even if it didn't quite make sense to others.

So that's where are right now...walking in faith, trusting in God's voice to guide us, and enjoying what He's teaching us along the way.

I was reading this verse this morning:
Psalm 138:8~ "The Lord will work out His plans for my life- for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever. Don't abandon me, for you made me."
So comforting. Thanks for checking in :)

Joy

Joy vs. happiness. Two words often confused to have the same meaning. Happiness is fleeting, temporary because at any moment, somthing can happen to make us sad, mad, angry, etc. But "joy" is a matter of the heart..a heart filled with thanksgiving despite circumstances surrounding us. I am convinced that joy is not possible without Jesus. Through only His power, love and grace can He usher us into the spirit of joy.
This has been the journey of my own heart, really over the last several years...to be joyful despite circumstances and to give thanks no matter what. It has been a discipline because it is something that just does not come naturally!
So this lesson of joyfulness continues as we carry on in adoption. It has taken me up to a couple of weeks ago to get to this point.  I have so much joy in our adoption and so much joy that our babies are somewhere in Moldova (ok, i say "babies"...Adam just laughs and goes with it.) and so much joy that our family is being made by adoption. I haven't been able to say that honestly until recently. The Lord has been working on my heart to rid me of thoughts of jealousy of other families that get to have their family in a quick 9 months.
Our family is being made by adoption. Nothing sounds sweeter than that to me. Adam's sweet cousin, Heather, posted a link on my facebook page of a book called "Mommy's Heart Went Pop", a book about a mother adopting a child and how her heart grew through the whole process. As a woman who is physically pregnant "pops out" so it is in adoption with the mother's heart. It was at that moment, reading that link, that the Lord just filled me with so much love for babies I can't see or feel physically..but could feel in my heart. There is so much love...and so much joy that this is the calling God has placed over Adam and I. God is good. This is His "Plan A" for us..NOT "Plan B".  Adoption is the heart of God! So awesome. Thankful for turning points and lessons of God's grace and compassion.

" Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18