I just received an email from the director of our orphanage. One of the boys that we have been praying about adopting has become very ill. He is currently in the hospital dying. He got some kind of blood infection. If they can not find him blood for a transfusion very soon, he will die. Please pray for Calerbe! It breaks my heart!
Thank you dear prayer warriors!
Please pray for me...I am feeling really anxious today! I know it isn't from God and I am trying to fight it. I need your help! I can't even identify to you what exactly I am anxious about...it is just there!
Thanks!
I just have to tell you that I have been more driven to the two children idea than my husband. He was at first, but then became concerned about the financial aspect of everything. Our van only seats 7, etc. I have continued believing, but have been waiting for the Lord to show Matt what His will for us is. I have had fear too, don't get me wrong. I didn't want to be "convincing" him of what I thought we were to do. I wanted to submit to him as the leader in our home, and for him to make this decision. I have been praying for the Lord to reveal His will to Matt and allow him to lead us in this decision. Matt is a wonderful man, just a little more on the quiet side. :)
Last week I went up to my sisters house two hours away. Matt had the house all to himself. As I was driving, I was asking the Lord to just reveal His will to Matt. The next morning I called to tell him something I heard from the director about one of the kids at the orphanage. He has not cared that I pursued more information about these, because both of us were trying to figure everything out. Anyway, he said, "Well, we are for sure adopting two, so I guess we will just have to really pray about this!" I said, "What did you just say?" "What do you mean?" "How do you know?" He told me that he could explain it all to me later, but that some things happened last night to show him. I came home the next night to a beautiful letter from him explaining how the Lord spoke to him through a passage in Mark. Jesus was asking his disciples, "How many more miracles do you need?" That hit Matt because the Lord has performed sooo many miracles in this already. Then he went on to read about Jesus asking his disciples why do they worry about food, and then feeds the 5,000. Finally, Mark 11:22-25 was it..."If you believe, you can say to this mountain to move over there and it will..." He wrote, I Believe! He told me after he read that he prayed that the Lord will bring our two children home by the end of this year debt free...and he BELIEVES!!!
It is a letter that I will cherish forever! Not only does this letter represent the confirmation from the Lord that we are to adopt two, but because it is affirmation from the Lord as to what happens when I, as a wife, commit to praying for my husband and allow him to lead us the way the Lord intended. I am so grateful to be his wife and his partner! I will now wait on the Lord to confirm with Matt who the second child is that we are suppose to adopt. I just wanted to share with you what is happening in our lives!
PROCESS UPDATE---
We met with our social worker last week. She is just fabulous! I am so glad that we obeyed the Lord in going with her. She is working as hard as she can to get everything together for us as quickly as possible. She will come visit this Thursday to inspect the house.
Our Dr. called and the lab that they sent our blood to forgot to run one of the required tests. He was very apologetic. We went back in and had more blood taken. Hopefully by the end of this week we will receive our letters from him for our dossier.
We met with the physcologist last week. We started out feeling like he thought we didn't know what we were doing, but by the end we had his full support. In the beginning when I could sense him not approving of our decision (he said nothing like that, it was just a vibe I was getting) I began to sweat and started asking the Lord to please help us. The whole ton completely changed and he was incredibly supportive. Without us saying anything about having a relationship with the Lord, he said he found us to be very religious and asked what part that had in our decision to adopt. We explained that it is the foundation in everything that we are doing! It was amazing to literally feel the Lord move and change the tone of the meeting. We should be receiving our letter from him in the next couple of days.
We attended an adoption seminar over the weekend. We received all of the required credits needed for our homestudy by attending that. It was a very encouraging day! One of the ladies there spoke about how the Lord was asking them to adopt #6 and they said they couldn't because they didn't have room in their car. Well, the Lord being the Wonderful God we serve, provide this family a used van! I can not tell you how encouraging that was for Matt and I to sit and listen to their story of God's faithfulness in their lives.
Well, let me just say that I am very sorry for not posting an update lately. Things have been moving, moving, moving! We have been busy putting every piece of paperwork together. That is a huge task...to keep it all straight. I now have a notebook that I have everything in and I carry it with me. I shudder to think what would happen if I lost it. I have every account, every personal identification, Dr. notes, etc. in there! It just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
Speaking of Dr.'s notes...there is a funny story! We decided to go up to a walk-in clinic for our appointments. My dear friend had called a Christian Dr. to make sure this was something he would do for us. He told her when he was working and that he would do this. She told me he was working the next day. Matt went into work and wrapped some things up the next morning, then we loaded up the car and took off. I tried to explain to the girls that we are a "team" and we are doing this for Isaiah, so let's work together to make this a good afternoon. We find the clinic...we had not been there before. I ran inside to see if they had time to do our international adoption physicals. She said they were slow and they had time for us. She proceeded to ask, "How many will there be?" Thinking it was just Matt and I, I think. I said, "Six of us!" She laughed, and I laughed a nervous laugh hoping that she would not change her mind. She pulled out six "new patient" clip boards and asked me to fill them out. I ran back out to the car where my waiting family was to tell them that we could all come in. I am gathering my notebook with our "lives" documented in it. Matt came around the car to unbuckle the littlest from her seat. He looks at me with a look of disgust! The littlest had fallen asleep for about 15 minutes and managed to wet her pants in that time. (For what it is worth, she had called out that she had to go potty while we were driving, but we couldn't stop so we kept going hoping she would hold it.) I am usually a prepared mom and have extra clothes "just in case", well that day the extra clothes had a drink spill on them while we were pulling out of McDonald's. At this point, I run back in and tell the receptionist what has happened, and ask if they mind if we quick run to Kmart. I grab the clipboards and out the door I go again! We run to the store, I run in while Matt fills out his clipboard. I get some dry clothes for her, and back to the clinic we go. I bring the big girls in, Matt changes the littlest and we all sit down in the waiting room. I am still filling out our 3rd,4th,5th, and 6th clipboards! The receptionist tells me they are going to bring us back three at a time. Then the nurse calls me and one of the girls...they decided to just do two at a time (I can understand). The first thing the nurse does is take my blood pressure. Now if you review the story that I just told you, you can imagine that the series of events probably would raise a mom's blood pressure. I warned her that I things had just been a little crazy...to my surprise, my blood pressure was perfect! The nurse was amazed and said, "Wow, this lady can handle stress extremely well!" (I am writing this out so I can refer to it later when I am stressed and need proof that I have been told that I can handle it "well"!) Three and a half hours later, our family of six walked out of the clinic as fine specimens of health! And boy was I relieved to get that done!!! The girls were so well behaved. They read their books and played quietly together while they waited. Can you believe that we pretty much had the clinic to ourselves the whole time we were there? As we left, the waiting room it started to fill up. God answered our prayers! Thank you to those of you that were praying for us that day!
After the appointment we went to Walmart to have our passport photos taken...why are we getting them so early might you wonder!?!? Well, the Lord, in His amazing ways, has opened the door for Matt and I to join a missions trip to the orphanage at the end of May. We will get to hold little Isaiah in our arms and spend time bonding with him. They will allow us to bring him back with us to the hotel where he will spend the night with us while we are there. We will help with projects at the orphanage and get to experience our son's country first hand. Yes, the trip home will be extremely painful and heart-wrenching to leave, but we believe that this first step in bonding with him is of great importance. We also want to extend our most sincere appreciation to the nannies and staff of For His Glory while we are there. Please pray for us as we are preparing for this trip. Pray for the Lord to prepare our hearts to serve Him. Pray for Isaiah's heart to be prepared for us. And please, please pray that the Lord will put a hedge of protection around us and keep us safe while we are there. This is a huge step of faith for a girl like me that is quite content to stay close to home! I enjoy safety and security, but the Lord is once again increasing my belief in Him! We need people that are seriously committed to covering us in prayer while we are away. If you are willing to commit to praying for us, please send me an email. I just have to say one the biggest blessings in this...during Bible with the girls, they have been praying the most amazing prayers. I have been fretting about what our schooling will look like when we bring Isaiah home. Then I hear them pray and know that we are doing the right thing. I wouldn't want to miss this bonding experience for anything. The Holy Spirit puts things on their hearts to pray for that I have been concerned about but have not talked about with them. They pray the most sincere prayers for Isaiah, for his heart, for him to not only to be their brother on earth, but that he will become their brother in Christ. They pray for his heart to be prepared to bond with ours while we are there on the trip. God is just so amazing in how He works in our lives. Please join the girls in praying for our family!
There is a glimpse of what our days have looked like! Next week we will have our psychological exam and receive all of our vaccinations.
