Spending Money

It feels good to be putting out big chunks of money this week and last! (When you total it, it's over $12,000 - probably the biggest two weeks of spending for the entire adoption. In all fairness, $2000 of that is a retainer that we will be refunded after completing all four of the post-placement reports that are due every six months after the girls get home, but it's still a chunk of money that has to all come out now.)

Mostly it's good because it means things are happening!

I think the single biggest reason I get from people that I talk to who have been interested in adopting, but don't, is the cost. I so badly wish I could get through to them that if God is telling them to go, He's already got the funds in place (somewhere!) for them to do it. There are so many ways He can provide - small gifts from friends, big gifts from strangers, acquaintances who have offered to pay for one of our plane tickets for trip one, in our case! - money we've been able to put into savings because there just happened to not be other things that came up to take that money away. Even the funds I wired to Bulgaria this morning - I'd been thinking from the general paperwork that I needed 5600 Euros - turns out some of T's fees in-country have been waived in an effort to find her a family, so we only needed to wire 5000 Euros. Sometimes just the timing of things has been one significant way we've seen God provide for both this adoption and Krassi's - when paperwork gets delayed, it gives us a little bit more time to accumulate and save up what is needed to pay for the next step.

Maybe that's another reason why it's so exciting to be spending this money - it's solid evidence that we're on the right track, and a real, tangible way to see God's provision for us as we walk forward on the path He's laid out for us.

If you're reading this, and think that God is directing you to expand your family this way, but you're just not sure how you'd come up with the tens of thousands of dollars it takes to get it done, there's only one thing to do - check it out and make sure that's what He's telling you. If it is, the money's already waiting for you - GO FOR IT!!!