Had a friend call tonight saying he had something to drop off for us. Twenty minutes later he shows up with soup so I don't have to think about cooking tomorrow (Tuesday).
About half an hour later another friend emails asking if we'd like a lasagna for this week Wednesday's supper.
Needs I didn't even know I had are being met. ;) These little bits are such a lovely encouragement to keep going.
AND, now someone has agreed to pick us up from the airport on Easter Sunday! All the pieces are coming together.
My lasagna friend reminded me tonight that if God is orchestrating everything that we're seeing him do for us to be able to GO to K, that he can also handle what's happening back here at home while we're gone. This is a good reminder, as every day that we get closer it gets harder for me to leave these four little ones behind to go after the one that is waiting for us.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Thursday, March 14, 2013
followup
After posting our new photo of K quickly in my excitement over seeing our boy, I realized how my attitude could come across as almost flippant. There has been a post outlined in my mind for weeks that I think needs to actually come out in words tonight.
My joy over seeing this boy I have grown to love sees past the bars of his crib and sees only for the sweet child with the big dark eyes behind those bars. But what is so striking as I step back is how very prominent the bars are - this cage that this boy has been kept in for so many long years. And for what crime? The same crime that so many many people in this world have committed - he is less than perfect. A world that defines a person's value by their beauty, and ability does not value brokenness. Brokenness is something to be hidden, covered up at all costs. The world inflicts serious consequences on those who can not hide their brokenness. One of those consequences is to hide them away in institutions where those on the outside never have to know that they exist, never have to look at them, never have to learn to love outside of what may be gained for oneself...and never have to face their own brokenness.
It would be easy to look disparagingly at the society that lets this happen to children, or at least at this particular institution (because K's country, to their credit, when they learned what had been happening for many long years to these children, took action to replace leadership and attempt to improve conditions for these children), but that would not be an accurate picture. Our older daughter commented angrily to me one day about what awful people K's birth parents must have to do this to their child. This anger is a natural reaction, I believe. What we see here in this precious little boy, and in so many many others who have lived under the same conditions for their whole lives, is just symptomatic of a much deeper far-reaching problem. But what I had to tell my daughter is that we ought not be so quick to place judgement on his birth parents. They may have been told they had no choice. They likely had not ever seen anyone raise a child with a severe handicap at home and may have even believed this was "best" for him. We don't know. I told my daughter that this is what selfishness looks like. This happens not merely because one person does an awful horrid thing, but because SIN is in the world. This is not a problem merely of his society, or his parents, or this institution, but it is much deeper than that - it is the problem of sin: of self-worship instead of a God-driven, God-empowered love for others above ourselves.
Because every society has their way of dealing with these kinds of imperfection; we have different ways of doing it, but they are all ugly. In K's country, children with handicaps are institutionalized. In ours, we simply kill many of them before they are born. The statistic that 90% of babies with down syndrome in the United States are aborted is horrifying to me. Our society has no right to judge K's for their treatment of children. K, for what it's worth (and I think it's worth plenty!) is alive and although he doesn't know it, his mommy and daddy have been working for months to jump through the hoops that will bring him home after what will have been over nine years of his "sentence" and in eleven days he is going to get to meet them for the first time, and even though he will not realize it even then, his life will never be the same! This boy is alive, and being redeemed, and will be able to spend the rest of his life as part of a family who loves him.
Matt has said many times how he's glad that he's going to be able to travel with me on this first trip. One reason, obviously, is to get to meet his son! But the other one he's mentioned a number of times: he believes that God is going to show us things over these 10 days that will change us forever. It's one thing to know things like this happen, and another to see it with your own eyes.
My joy over seeing this boy I have grown to love sees past the bars of his crib and sees only for the sweet child with the big dark eyes behind those bars. But what is so striking as I step back is how very prominent the bars are - this cage that this boy has been kept in for so many long years. And for what crime? The same crime that so many many people in this world have committed - he is less than perfect. A world that defines a person's value by their beauty, and ability does not value brokenness. Brokenness is something to be hidden, covered up at all costs. The world inflicts serious consequences on those who can not hide their brokenness. One of those consequences is to hide them away in institutions where those on the outside never have to know that they exist, never have to look at them, never have to learn to love outside of what may be gained for oneself...and never have to face their own brokenness.
It would be easy to look disparagingly at the society that lets this happen to children, or at least at this particular institution (because K's country, to their credit, when they learned what had been happening for many long years to these children, took action to replace leadership and attempt to improve conditions for these children), but that would not be an accurate picture. Our older daughter commented angrily to me one day about what awful people K's birth parents must have to do this to their child. This anger is a natural reaction, I believe. What we see here in this precious little boy, and in so many many others who have lived under the same conditions for their whole lives, is just symptomatic of a much deeper far-reaching problem. But what I had to tell my daughter is that we ought not be so quick to place judgement on his birth parents. They may have been told they had no choice. They likely had not ever seen anyone raise a child with a severe handicap at home and may have even believed this was "best" for him. We don't know. I told my daughter that this is what selfishness looks like. This happens not merely because one person does an awful horrid thing, but because SIN is in the world. This is not a problem merely of his society, or his parents, or this institution, but it is much deeper than that - it is the problem of sin: of self-worship instead of a God-driven, God-empowered love for others above ourselves.
Because every society has their way of dealing with these kinds of imperfection; we have different ways of doing it, but they are all ugly. In K's country, children with handicaps are institutionalized. In ours, we simply kill many of them before they are born. The statistic that 90% of babies with down syndrome in the United States are aborted is horrifying to me. Our society has no right to judge K's for their treatment of children. K, for what it's worth (and I think it's worth plenty!) is alive and although he doesn't know it, his mommy and daddy have been working for months to jump through the hoops that will bring him home after what will have been over nine years of his "sentence" and in eleven days he is going to get to meet them for the first time, and even though he will not realize it even then, his life will never be the same! This boy is alive, and being redeemed, and will be able to spend the rest of his life as part of a family who loves him.
Matt has said many times how he's glad that he's going to be able to travel with me on this first trip. One reason, obviously, is to get to meet his son! But the other one he's mentioned a number of times: he believes that God is going to show us things over these 10 days that will change us forever. It's one thing to know things like this happen, and another to see it with your own eyes.
A new photo!
This is purely coincidental (and at the same time, not at all coincidental - none of the happenings of the last months can be attributed to coincidence!), but a mom I know who has adopted from K's orphanage, and is a few months ahead of us in their second adoption from there happened to email this morning seeing how things were going (she didn't have my blog address yet) and forwarded on to us a new photo of K! Another adoptive family had shared some photos with her a while back, and she had forgotten to send it along to me until now - what a great day to get another view of our boy. In her words, "it makes me happy and sad at the same time." This is very much how I feel when I see his photo - so sad to see how this little boy has been neglected, and so happy to get another glimpse into the boy that we're hoping will soon be ours! It gave my heart a thrill as when I looked at this photo, I "recognized" him, not just because I've seen photos of him before, but there was a "that's my boy!" connection. I don't just know the picture, but I know that look on his face.
And in not much more than a week I will see that face with my own eyes, and he will see his mommy and daddy's faces for the first time in his life.
So much more to say, and so little time to do it, so I'll just end with the photo. This blog has been greatly lacking in photos lately. ;)
And in not much more than a week I will see that face with my own eyes, and he will see his mommy and daddy's faces for the first time in his life.
So much more to say, and so little time to do it, so I'll just end with the photo. This blog has been greatly lacking in photos lately. ;)
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
travel date!
We woke up to find this in an email from our agency:
"You have your written referral! Can you travel March 23-30?????"
Whirlwind in the head right now. ;) Lots to do in the next 10 days. ;)
More later.
If there's time.
Now off to scope airline prices, line up meals for my mom to feed the kids, etc, etc, etc.
"You have your written referral! Can you travel March 23-30?????"
Whirlwind in the head right now. ;) Lots to do in the next 10 days. ;)
More later.
If there's time.
Now off to scope airline prices, line up meals for my mom to feed the kids, etc, etc, etc.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Words
Waiting is never easy. And yet I read so much in the Bible about "waiting on the Lord" and have found that this is a place God likes for us to be, because it is here in the waiting that hope and faith are exercised and strengthened.
We are right now waiting for good news - waiting for our referral to become not just verbal, but a legitimate signature on paper so we can set our travel dates! Exciting! Good stuff! But there is So. Much. that this next season of our life holds. So many unknowns, and so many areas that are beyond us.
I want to use this post to record in one place some of the ways that God has been encouraging and strengthening us over the last week or two. Here they are in no particular order.
Isaiah 26:3-4
"You keep him in perfect peace
We are right now waiting for good news - waiting for our referral to become not just verbal, but a legitimate signature on paper so we can set our travel dates! Exciting! Good stuff! But there is So. Much. that this next season of our life holds. So many unknowns, and so many areas that are beyond us.
I want to use this post to record in one place some of the ways that God has been encouraging and strengthening us over the last week or two. Here they are in no particular order.
Isaiah 26:3-4
"You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.
Trust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord God is an everlasting rock."
One word in there stands out: perfect. This is not talking about "just enough peace to get by" or "enough to keep you from going crazy" but rather perfect peace. So I am reminded that whenever my peace is less than "perfect" that there is a simple answer - stay my mind on Him.
Isaiah 49:23
"Then you will know that I am the Lord;
those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.”
There's that "waiting" thing again! He promises that those who wait for him will not be put to shame.
[this post was going to be longer, but sometimes that doesn't happen!]
[this post was going to be longer, but sometimes that doesn't happen!]
Thursday, March 7, 2013
In the thick of it
Wow. What a last 24 hours we've had.
Last night, Matt got a nearly-complete set of the house drawings emailed off to the contractor who is going to help Matt with the large scale work (excavation, foundation, framing, windows, siding - that type of stuff). He's going to give us a sense of the cost of what we're looking at doing in a worst-case scenario. We're hoping that whatever number he comes back with will be higher than the actual cost because of time we can put in. This is one more of those steps that makes the whole thing seem more "real."
This afternoon, upon checking email after a dear friend was here all morning, we saw a very exciting email from our adoption agency; we have verbal approval of our application with the MOJ for K!!!! We still need to wait for the actual signature, but after emailing yesterday just to see if the dossier had even been translated yet (since we'd heard nothing, and it had been four weeks since it arrived over there), we were completely not expecting to hear today that it's been 1) translated 2) submitted to the MOJ and 3) verbally approved!! Our agency estimates (though no guarantees, for obvious reasons) that we will get the official signature on the referral and our travel date within the next two weeks. Hooray! Little boy, we're coming!
Less than an hour after that, Reu woke from his nap. Owen saw him waking on the visual monitor, and asked if he should run up to get him since I was occupied with Leah and math. He was back down rather quickly, telling me he thought Reuben was having a seizure. I ran up to find Reu in what definitely seems like the ending stages of what I'm guessing from Owen's description, was a tonic clonic seizure.
Reuben has been seizure free since November 27th (with the exception of one partial seizure in early December randomly in the middle of the afternoon.) This is BY FAR the longest seizure free stretch he's had since his seizures started when he was 14 months old. The previous record was 7 weeks seizure free; this was 14 weeks and 2 days. Reuben had been averaging one seizure a day for all of 2012 leading up to the "cease fire" in November. Matt has found it not coincidental that this long reprieve started soon after he expressed interest in K specifically, and a little over a week before we requested commitment documents for him. I haven't had a chance to write yet about some of those things that led us up to adopting K, but being Reuben's parents has been a critical part of that for both of us.
I can't help but notice the timing of Reuben having one, and possibly two, seizures an hour after we got this good news about K, and the day after we sent drawings to the contractor.
This is a thick time, and one in which we greatly cherish your prayers on our behalf. This is the first day that I've felt like we are in a serious battlefield. There is more that has happened in our lives in the last 24 hours, too, but it's of a nature that isn't relevant to this blog.
Oh. And Owen had the biggest splinter I've ever seen lodged in his foot. He took it like a real man, even though it took us nearly three hours on and off of digging and picking and pulling to get it out. And I can't help but think that this is part of the whole thing, too.
What a day. And yet I thrill knowing that God is in the thick of this with us - that it is his design, and I can't wait to see what tremendous things he is going to show us about himself through this time.
Last night, Matt got a nearly-complete set of the house drawings emailed off to the contractor who is going to help Matt with the large scale work (excavation, foundation, framing, windows, siding - that type of stuff). He's going to give us a sense of the cost of what we're looking at doing in a worst-case scenario. We're hoping that whatever number he comes back with will be higher than the actual cost because of time we can put in. This is one more of those steps that makes the whole thing seem more "real."
This afternoon, upon checking email after a dear friend was here all morning, we saw a very exciting email from our adoption agency; we have verbal approval of our application with the MOJ for K!!!! We still need to wait for the actual signature, but after emailing yesterday just to see if the dossier had even been translated yet (since we'd heard nothing, and it had been four weeks since it arrived over there), we were completely not expecting to hear today that it's been 1) translated 2) submitted to the MOJ and 3) verbally approved!! Our agency estimates (though no guarantees, for obvious reasons) that we will get the official signature on the referral and our travel date within the next two weeks. Hooray! Little boy, we're coming!
Less than an hour after that, Reu woke from his nap. Owen saw him waking on the visual monitor, and asked if he should run up to get him since I was occupied with Leah and math. He was back down rather quickly, telling me he thought Reuben was having a seizure. I ran up to find Reu in what definitely seems like the ending stages of what I'm guessing from Owen's description, was a tonic clonic seizure.
Reuben has been seizure free since November 27th (with the exception of one partial seizure in early December randomly in the middle of the afternoon.) This is BY FAR the longest seizure free stretch he's had since his seizures started when he was 14 months old. The previous record was 7 weeks seizure free; this was 14 weeks and 2 days. Reuben had been averaging one seizure a day for all of 2012 leading up to the "cease fire" in November. Matt has found it not coincidental that this long reprieve started soon after he expressed interest in K specifically, and a little over a week before we requested commitment documents for him. I haven't had a chance to write yet about some of those things that led us up to adopting K, but being Reuben's parents has been a critical part of that for both of us.
I can't help but notice the timing of Reuben having one, and possibly two, seizures an hour after we got this good news about K, and the day after we sent drawings to the contractor.
This is a thick time, and one in which we greatly cherish your prayers on our behalf. This is the first day that I've felt like we are in a serious battlefield. There is more that has happened in our lives in the last 24 hours, too, but it's of a nature that isn't relevant to this blog.
Oh. And Owen had the biggest splinter I've ever seen lodged in his foot. He took it like a real man, even though it took us nearly three hours on and off of digging and picking and pulling to get it out. And I can't help but think that this is part of the whole thing, too.
What a day. And yet I thrill knowing that God is in the thick of this with us - that it is his design, and I can't wait to see what tremendous things he is going to show us about himself through this time.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
A smile
Yesterday we had a wonderful day with friends of ours - the best kind of friends - the ones where you can hardly get settled in the living room before they're pulling their Bibles out, and we ours, and we spend the next three hours sharing words of encouragement from it with each other, where God is stretching us, and what we are seeing with fresh eyes, and we so thrive on those times. These are friends who understand with us our desire to build this addition and fund this adoption without incurring any debt, not simply because it would be "nice" to not have debt, but believing that God is specifically directing us to this as he pushes us forward into this year. Just this morning Matt and I were reading 1 Corinthians 7 with our Sunday School class, and this one tiny part is in there: "You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men." (v23) If you read the surrounding verses, it's clear that this isn't talking directly about debt, but there is a principal there that IS connected to debt - having a mortgage - debt - puts us in a position where we are bound to someone else - we owe something every month to someone other than God (the bank!) and we've gotten a few glimpses already of the freedom that we have to put this addition in particular completely into God's service if we are not bound to anyone else for it.
As we take on this seemingly impossible endeavor, it was good to be with people who are able to encourage us to continue trusting in God, trusting that if he is calling us to these things, he will provide us with what we need to accomplish them. As our friends were leaving (at 9:45pm!!!) I for some reason checked our email, and for some reason very rudely (since we had company!) read one of the emails that had come in over the seven hour time they'd been here, and 20 minutes earlier we'd received an email from a sweet young couple we know who said that although they know it is kind of weird, had both independently decided that they wanted to put some of their tithe every month toward helping to bring K home. The amount they're offering is nothing that's going to "solve" all of the needs that we will have this year, but it was such a clear, deliberate smile from God - a very tangible way for him to say that he has this all planned out, and that in little ways and big ways of all sorts he really is going to carry out what he has shown us! Wow!!
I am going to try to record as many of these kinds of things as I can on this blog so when this is all done (though the adventure of trusting God in this life is NEVER done!) our family has a way to look back and be amazed at all the pieces working together, and I hope that for those of you who read along that you will also be encouraged to follow him with undivided devotion (also from 1 Corinthians 7, this time verse 35) knowing that he is able to supply everything you need to do what he calls you to do.
~~~
On a more mundane note, Matt and Owen this afternoon picked up the sink for the new bathroom which we had ordered. Lowes had a decent "spend this much and get $25 off or spend that much and get $10 off" coupon, and since the sink we wanted was a little more than "this much" and the integral towel bar (sold separately) was "that much" we thought this was a sensible time to order those and spend $35 less than we would otherwise. We're slowly starting to accumulate some of these kinds of things. Menards had their "15% off everything in the bag" sale a while ago, and we used that to pick up electrical outlets and switches - the kind of thing that fits easily into a paper bag, and isn't the type of item that's going to have a big promotional sale on it! Every little bit makes it feels more real...
As we take on this seemingly impossible endeavor, it was good to be with people who are able to encourage us to continue trusting in God, trusting that if he is calling us to these things, he will provide us with what we need to accomplish them. As our friends were leaving (at 9:45pm!!!) I for some reason checked our email, and for some reason very rudely (since we had company!) read one of the emails that had come in over the seven hour time they'd been here, and 20 minutes earlier we'd received an email from a sweet young couple we know who said that although they know it is kind of weird, had both independently decided that they wanted to put some of their tithe every month toward helping to bring K home. The amount they're offering is nothing that's going to "solve" all of the needs that we will have this year, but it was such a clear, deliberate smile from God - a very tangible way for him to say that he has this all planned out, and that in little ways and big ways of all sorts he really is going to carry out what he has shown us! Wow!!
I am going to try to record as many of these kinds of things as I can on this blog so when this is all done (though the adventure of trusting God in this life is NEVER done!) our family has a way to look back and be amazed at all the pieces working together, and I hope that for those of you who read along that you will also be encouraged to follow him with undivided devotion (also from 1 Corinthians 7, this time verse 35) knowing that he is able to supply everything you need to do what he calls you to do.
~~~
On a more mundane note, Matt and Owen this afternoon picked up the sink for the new bathroom which we had ordered. Lowes had a decent "spend this much and get $25 off or spend that much and get $10 off" coupon, and since the sink we wanted was a little more than "this much" and the integral towel bar (sold separately) was "that much" we thought this was a sensible time to order those and spend $35 less than we would otherwise. We're slowly starting to accumulate some of these kinds of things. Menards had their "15% off everything in the bag" sale a while ago, and we used that to pick up electrical outlets and switches - the kind of thing that fits easily into a paper bag, and isn't the type of item that's going to have a big promotional sale on it! Every little bit makes it feels more real...
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