Day by day

The last few days have been full of God's shower of provision for us.

On Sunday I was handed an envelope with my name on it, and soon after, someone else gave us a gift bag for Krassi (a stuffed Snoopy). After getting home, we opened the envelope and found a check for $500 with the memo "for Dondi's expenses" written on it. Wow. About an hour later another friend stopped by out of the blue with two big boxes of size 3 and 4 diapers.

On Monday I got a call from the person at our church who arranges meals asking if they could set up a semi-regular schedule for helping us out in the way (yes!!!) So it looks like many weeks on Wednesdays we will have a meal provided for our family.

Then on Tuesday we went to therapy, and Krassi had his evaluation with the PT (Lori) who will be working with him. It went really well. We found out that Krassi does NOT like the ball pit, but other than that, he took to the time very well. I think this is partly because PT was one of a few positive experiences for him in his orphanage, but also because Lori does what she does very well - she was very sensitive to how he was doing physically and emotionally during the whole hour. I also loved how even during the one hour evaluation she was already talking with me about things to be doing with him and ways to be handling him that will encourage the development we're hoping to see. I certainly learned more than I could take in in just an hour, but have a feeling that over the next months, it will stick. ;)

During the second half of our hour with Lori, Brian (Reuben's PT, who you will just have to learn by name because these people are a regular enough part of our lives that I can't always be saying "Reuben's PT" and because Brian has become more to our family than just "Reuben's PT"!) poked his head in to tell me that he had all four of the other kids outside with him. [I think I may have mentioned that our therapy center has arranged for us to have a small infrequently used room in the treatment area to spread out in so we don't have to just sit in the lobby - this is where Owen, Leah, and Rinnah spend their time while Reu is with his therapists and I am with Krassi and his. The rest of the morning Krassi and I spend with O, L, and Ri.] Toward the end of Krassi's time with Lori, she said that she would really like to see him twice a week, and thought she could arrange to change her schedule a bit to be able to get him in on Thursdays when we're already there with Reuben. Yay!

But the best moment yet of this week came as we were leaving therapy yesterday. As I'm getting everyone bundled up and talking with Kelsey about Reuben's OT session (that's another name that you've heard before and will likely hear again), Brian came out to help us to the van since the little guy he usually is with at that time didn't show up. As we were walking out, the PCA for one of the other families came running out saying she had a box of diapers in the van that was for us if we wanted them - I can't turn down diapers the way we're going through them these days! - so I opened up the trunk, and as I was putting Krassi into his seat from one side, Kelsey was buckling Rinnah in on the other side, and Brian was climbing up through the trunk to help Reuben get into his seat as Aleisha was putting a huge box of diapers and chux pads into the back and confirming with me that the wheelchair they had offered last week as their daughter was upgrading to a bigger one was going to be available next week. For us to keep. I was fighting back tears as I drove out of the parking lot overwhelmed by how many people in so many ways are being put into our lives to help us walk this road we've been called to.

And it didn't stop there. Today Krassi had an early morning appointment at the International Adoption Clinic that Matt and I wanted to both be at. Finding someone to watch the kids for an open-ended amount of time starting at 7am is a bit of a formidable task, but a friend from church said she was able and willing to do it. She homeschools her own three children, but they're old enough that she doesn't need to be there every moment.

Just tonight as I was in the middle of writing this post I got an email from a local adoptive mom I've met only via email offering us another special needs stroller, slightly narrower than the one that Dondi has given us. Since the stroller is Krassi's seat while he eats, and since we bring supper to Matt's mom's six nights of the week, having another stroller means that we will no longer need to be moving the one that we have in and out of the house for meals/walks/meals at Grandma's/errands, etc. I am so excited about having one less thing to cart around! We can just *keep* one at Grandma's house now! And to sweeten the whole deal, she also has extra size 4 diapers to offer us.

We are still smack in the middle of a very impossible seeming time. Reuben is always a challenge. Adding a new family member, as smoothly as that transition has been going, is a challenge. Knowing that as I get bigger and bigger over the next six months that those same six months are when we are expecting to see the biggest growth spurt in Krassi, and then the arrival of Baby! is something I just choose not to spend too much time thinking about. ;) Do not worry about tomorrow - each day has enough trouble of its own! Our current insurance for Krassi is going to still leave a big portion of these early medical bills in our court, and there is still a lot of work to be done on the house. And a lot of supplies for that work that still need to be purchased for the house. It all seems so impossible BUT, we believe it when the Bible says that what is impossible for man is possible with God. Barriers that seem huge to us are insignificant to him. So that's where we're choosing to rest.

And days like these are beautiful days of encouragement from him as we hear him saying, "Don't be afraid. I've got so much more than you can imagine in store for you. Trust in me, follow me, seek me, and I will take of everything else, often in ways that are completely outside of what you expect."