A Call to Prayer-Adoption Update!

One of the reasons I am introducing this new blog right now in our lives is because God is taking us on the journey of adopting a little girl from Haiti we are naming Nora! We needed a "place" where people could check in with our adoption progress and find out news when we had news to share. It seems a little odd filling you in on "news" today before I even got the chance to sit down and share the background story, but you know what? Sometimes God moves faster than us and we just have to go with His flow! (Not many times in life can I say that God moved faster than me, but this time He did--Praise Him!). So, for those of you who know our story...this is a MAJOR update and a call to prayer. For those of you who do not know our full story, I plan on also posting our background journey with you after this post, so read and pray with us NOW and then read more a little later on!

A few days ago I was feeling a little restless in "the wait". We sent down our dossier to Haiti on September 7th and it has been a long month with literally NO word from Haiti other than to say our dossier did arrive safely and the orphanage director at Rivers of Hope, Rachel, would be in contact with us when she had a girl available. *Side note--Yes, we feel strongly God is asking us to get a girl for various reasons. Unlike China, girls are actually harder to come by in Haiti these days because, sadly, they are used in slavery and sex trafficking to produce money for the family. So even though she had a few little boys available, she did not have any girls. *Now on with the story--When you are used to daily emails with many different people helping you gather and send off and stamp and such all of the paperwork to get it to Haiti, hearing nothing for a month is almost deafening. Some days have been easier than others because I have my other 3 kiddos to keep me on my toes, but most days feel like the last weeks of a pregnancy when you wonder all day long...will this be the day I have my child? Except, for us this time around it was "Will this be the day we find out Rachel has a little girl for us?" Imagine being in those last steps of pregnancy for over a month (okay, so I came close with Lily really, but that's beside the point). Anyway, all that to say, on Monday I hit my wall in the waiting of silence. I decided I would send Rachel an email inquiring if anything had progressed in finding Nora for us. I fully expected it to be met with more silence, but I just had to do it--my spirit said I had to do it.

Well, when your spirit says to do something, do it...there's my lesson of the day. Yesterday, I got a response from Rachel. She said she had not wanted to email me before she had any news to tell, but that this Friday she had a mother coming to meet with her who has a 30 month old girl. She said she would send us more information and a photo as soon as she could after that meeting. What!?!!?! I was instantly a big mess of tears of joy on my couch for a little while before forwarding the email to Micah at work. Friday. Friday! We obviously don't know for sure if this little girl will be our Nora or not, but for the first time, we have a potential match and we are so thrilled of this news. But, the news does not end there....God is even BIGGER than that.

As with all adoptions, added into the stress of waiting comes the stress of financial support building. We have been checking in with Lifesong every so often to see what amount of support has come in because we knew we would need $5000 (of the $25,000 total adoption expenses) to send down to Rachel as soon as she had a match for us. God was blessing us with funds, for sure, but it was a slow trickle. We were grateful--so grateful--for what was coming in, but there was this little part of my heart that said, "Really, God? What if we get this match really soon and then we are stuck waiting for the funds?" (So human and tiny picture focused, I know). I had a sense to have my knees hit the floor about this at church on Sunday so Micah and I did just that and prayed for God to be bigger than our minds could comprehend. When I got the email from Rachel, I was slightly afraid because I really doubted we would be anywhere close to the $5000 we would potentially need even next week to send to her. I emailed Lifesong yesterday afternoon and again, I found myself a big ole mess of tears...the money is there and ready for us to send down! Can I say that again--the money is THERE! *Pause for more tears* Praise God and THANK YOU to all who have contributed already--your support has just reaffirmed to us once again that we are so blessed to be answering this call. Granted, in the financial aspect of this adoption, we have a long way to go--we're not quite a third of the way to our total needs, but this was HUGE for us! And a HUGE affirmation that God knows what He's doing here, folks! (If you haven't donated yet and plan to or want to, I will share with you in the next post how to do that.)

So, FRIDAY. Friday needs covered in prayer, my friends! One one side, Friday is an amazing day where we could be one step closer to our future daughter. On the other side, we are also very heart-achingly aware that Friday is a day where a God-given bond is going to be severed. A mother, who for all we know, is WAY poorer than the poorest person you have ever met, is going to do the most sacrificial thing known to man for her daughter...she is going to give her up for someone else to care for her better than she can. Take a moment to let that sink in. It is something, as a mom, I can not even bring myself to imagining. On Friday, a little 2 1/2 year old girl is unfortunately going to have her world thrown upside down. If she only knew the ending--that she will be loved and cared for unconditionally and never-ending by a family way far away from her. But, on Friday she won't know that--she'll most likely just be scared. A mixture of sadness, pain, fear, rejection, guilt, anguish, peace, hope, acceptance, and gratitude will probably all be felt on Friday by this mother/daughter team and we--WE--have the privilege of knowing about it advance so we can be praying HARD for these two precious children of God.

So, join with us on Friday in praying for everything the day entails. For Micah and I and our bio kids as we get a little more excited for our match to be *hopefully* happening. For this mother and her little girl as they meet with Rachel in Haiti. For Rachel as she meets with them. Our prayers are for God's unexplainable peace to reign in all of the hearts involved and that His will would be made known to all of us. Thank you, friends, for your support financially as I said above, but also for your prayer support--it is vital and key and totally needed just as much!

I promise to post more when I know it, but please give patience to us once Friday is past. We have no guarantee we will actually hear from Rachel on Friday, or even for a little while past then. All we know is the meeting is supposed to take place on Friday. Haitian "time" is different than ours in the US--it's a slower pace for sure and nothing is set in stone, so as soon as we hear more, we will pass it along.

Thank you all!