And The War Continues...A Call for Prayer

This might just be the hardest post for me to wrap my brain around how to write.  Even figuring out the proper title has had me baffled.  There are so many directions I could go with it....

• Nora Is Not A Pawn
• Prayers Needed
• What You Never Want to Hear In An Adoption
• Claiming Peace Instead of Freaking Out
• I Want To Be On A Plane

But, in the end, I settled on "And The War Continues...A Call for Prayer" because ultimately that is what this all brings me back to, friends...adoption is a war in the Spiritual Realms and I have decided to keep on fighting.

The low down is that I sent our director, Rachel, an email a few days ago asking for any prayer requests she might have because I'm getting itchy to go see Nora and there is not much I can do about it right now.  I thought if I could spend my time praying for Rivers of Hope and Rachel's needs then at least I would feel a great connection to what all is happening around Nora and be praying for it all.  Last night I got a response from her.  There is so much to take in when reading this email that I thought it best to just copy and paste it right here for you all to read.  There is no doubt this will bring up the reason for this blog post and request for prayer when reading it...I will address the issues after you are done reading it, but for now, I will allow you to read this and get a sense of your own first reaction just as I had to do last night.

Dear Angie

I really realize that I didn't answer, maybe I was thinking about the needs but forgot to write them down.

First, I had a one year old baby at the hospital for ten days,  she had a general infection, she almost died, now I have another one year old boy right now at the hospital, he  has malnutrition and diarrhea, he just came to the orphanage. And one here with me with also malnutrition. The parents didn't even sign the relinquishment for ROH yet and they are already at the hospital. I pray that they feel much better and recover very quick.

Second, I am working now with AGCI who ask me to open a new branche at Laboule 15 not too far from Thomssin 32,. They would like me to  fill the house with children and I have only those 3 children. I pray that God will open doors to have lots of children at Laboule 15.

I also need somebody to help me as a secretaire. I have so many things to do and I am alone doing them. I pray that God will send me the right person

Last week Nora's father came to tell me that Nora's mother left him and went back to her parents. He wanted to take Nora with him.( I think it's a way to make her come back), when I talked to Nora's mother, she said there is no way that he will take her. He said he doesn't want to wait until she is 18 years old to see her again. I told him that you will come very often because of the help you giving to MTM. I hope it's true. I pray that Nora will stay with me until she leaves to the States in Jesus 's name, AMEN

That's what I need for the moment, if I have other requests, I will let you know.

Thank you so much for helping me that way, I feel like a burden leaving me already.

Lots of blessings to you and your family

Rachel

Breathe.  Yep.  Breathe.

First of all, I want to address the top portions of this email and then I will get to the "Nora issue" which is really what made me have to remember to breathe again.  I have to say I am continually thankful for being led to an orphanage and specifically to a director like Rachel who puts her everything into making the lives of these children all they were meant to be.  There are several things that get under my skin a bit about the communication issues I have had with the orphanage in general, but all of that is dull in comparison to the overwhelming gratitude I have for her heart.  She loves God and she loves these children.  She will do anything for them and I am a grateful mom on the other end of one of those children.

I don't know about you, but I was completely overwhelmed with the hints of frustration, desperation, and restlessness in her cries for help.  Her prayers for health for these children who are literally close to death, for more children to come who need families, and for a HUGELY needed secretary to help her handle everything on her plate...woah.  I get worked up just thinking about taking care of one child in a hospital for 10 days let alone doing that while all of the other things are going on around me as well.  This is one woman, friends, trying to do the work of many.  Of course she needs some prayer!  I spent a good portion of time last night after my children were in bed journaling and praying for Rachel, for the children at ROH, and for everyone under their care...including all of our adoption processes.  It was a prayer time where I felt myself go from deep concern and desperation to a sense of complete restoration and peace.  It was beautiful.

The summary of my many prayers would be this: That Satan would be banished from that place because he has no right, no authority, and no privilege to be there and that God's Authority, God's Peace, God's Love and God's Protection would be restored in Jesus' Name.  As I prayed those words, a tremendous feeling of peace came over myself.  I just know that God's Peace and Protection has been restored to Rachel, ROH, and everything under it's care.  I prayed for God to completely surround ROH and this new addition in Laboule as well as the hearts of all who reside and work there with His angels.  I prayed for those Holy and Awesome Angels to been seen in the Spiritual Realms brightly and distinctly.  That their presence alone would make any and all evil who even dared to approach that place run as fast as they could in the opposite direction.  That God's Presence would be KNOWN to all who come there and be seen as the Authority it rightfully is.

  
THIS IS WAR, friends, and I, as well as Rachel and all of these children and the adoptive families they represent, am thankfully on the side of the VICTOR!  Satan can not try his evil schemes to cause sickness, death, and destruction on those grounds...he has no right to do it.  For some reason I just felt that Truth needed to be reclaimed again last night in order to protect what all God is doing there.  Restoration was severely needed!  Please, please, please join me in praying for all the requests Rachel as spoken above.  She is not alone in this fight and I truly want her to feel that in the core of her being--we are a body of believers for a reason.  A body of warriors for a reason.

And now for Nora.  Obviously, when I sent a prayer request email to Rachel, I did not expect in the least to find out this news about Nora.  It came out of the blue and completely took me by surprise.  I felt an even 50/50 of emotion as I finished the email...50% fear, worry, and dread and 50% peace and complete trust in a God who has brought us this far.  By the end of the night my 50% of peace and trust had pretty much engulfed my 50% of fear and worry.  I would say now it is a good 90% peace and 10% fear.  Let me explain how that plays out...

  
90% peace and trust:

First and foremost, God has called us to this adoption.  This has never been an idea that originated with us.  If He has called us to this, He will see it to completion.  I 100% trust Him in that.  Everything throughout our adoption has been such a huge blessing and confirmation that God has this thing under His control.  He has brought us Nora, He has made a way for things to go through quickly (in Haitian standards) so far, and I have no doubt that He will not also deliver our little girl into our arms at the end of it all.  However, even with all of this unquestionable faith and belief in my heart, it does not mean I can simply sit back and watch it all unfold before me....I have to continue to fight for her.

Nora is the priority here, friends.  Not Micah and Angie, not her birth parents,  Not a Haitian government or a US home.  Not anything but Nora.  She is a precious child in the sight of God and I am fighting for her to have all of the abundant life God has meant for her to have.  I am humbled at the thought of our family being the best "plan B" God could think of for her.  What an honor, what a privilege, what a blessing.  Who are we that He is mindful of us (Ps. 8:3-5)?  Who are we to be blessed by Nora's presence in our family line?  I am so thankful today for even being chosen by God to give another child a Mama she needs...and I'm believing in faith that we are the ones God has chosen for Nora and Nora is the one He has chosen for us.  It is with this faith that we walk forward in this adoption in full confidence that God is right here with us.  Until we know anything different, Nora is our daughter, we are her parents, and we will fight with everything we have to get her home in our arms as soon as miraculously possible.  Remember...this is a war!

10% fear:

We are still human.  I am still human.  I will not lie and say my heart didn't jump out of my chest at the words, "He wanted to take Nora with him".  Those are the words no person in an adoption process ever wants to hear.  I will not be completely be at peace in this process until it is a done deal and we have cleared immigration on the US soil.  Until then, I have to literally CHOOSE to put my 10% fear under the 90% peace daily or I could easily be overwhelmed with "what if's" and unnecessary worries.  The fact is, Nora's birth parents have every right to still take Nora back into their care.  I pray for that to not happen...for Nora's sake.  They gave her up for adoption for a reason.  Out of a love for her to have a better life than what they can give her.  That reason has not changed for the better, in fact, according to this email, it just got worse.  Not only are these two people completely broken under poverty, they are also now separated.  Taking her back into those conditions out of a selfish desire is completely wrong in my book.  She would have no siblings, no consistent co-parent family life, no chance at a whole and loving family under one roof and probably not even enough food to feed her growing body.  I fear for her and for the life of a safe, secure, and loving home being potentially taken away from her based on a selfish need of a father.  I do not know his true meaning behind his desire to take Nora back home with him.  It could be that he loves her and wants her to be with him, but it could also be (as Rachel indicates) a ploy to get her mother to come back to him and take care of him.  (If you remember, he is somewhere around his 70's while she is in her late teens to early 20's).  To all of this potential, I want to scream, "NORA IS NOT A PAWN!!!!!!!  Do not use her to put a band-aid on your own issues.  She deserves better...so. much. better."

Oh brother, it is so very easy to let 10% creep up and up and up the scale until you are completely thinking about it more than the 90% peace God has also given.  When Micah got home last night I sat on the back porch discussing all of these things and more with him.  I exclaimed I would love to just jump on a plane tomorrow and go talk to Nora's birth father face to face to let him know our intentions are to never remove her completely from his life (nor her mother's) and never let her know they exist.  We do have full intentions of bringing her back to Haiti when she is old enough to remember the trip and understand the whole situation better.  We would love for her to meet them again one day and show God's love to them as best we can.  I would love to know if I flew down there tomorrow and told him this face-to-face, that it would guarantee our adoption to be 100% guaranteed, but I know I can never have that guarantee.  I have sent an email back to Rachel explaining some things we have thought of to help ease his mind, but beyond that we just don't think anything WE do will guarantee anything at this point.  This is where our 10% fear has to be given over and let go of to the overwhelming 90% peace.  This is where we have to, once again, run into the arms of Jesus instead of into a plane heading to Haiti.  We have to continue to trust that God is advocating for us and especially for Nora while we are separated.  That we can trust in Him to work out any and all details...the good, the bad, and the ugly details of every step along the way.  We have to trust His Goodness and His Control.  This is beyond us now...just as it was in the beginning...and just as it will be in the end.  It is ALL for His glory.

At the end of my prayer time I thought of the song "Forever Reigns".  I hope it will encourage you as it did me.  He is the Light of the World and even when things are not going quite as we expected, we can still trust in His Goodness because He is Good.  He is Love.  He is Light.  He is Hope.  He is Peace.  He is True.  He is Joy.  He is Life.  He is More.  He is Lord.  He is Here.  He is God!

P.S.  A cool side note:  Lately, God has been bringing so many different hawks to our yard this past week or two.  It's been very odd.  I posted about the neighborhood hawk on here and then about the other little guy who came.  Well, we have had at least one hawk on our swing set or somewhere in our yard every day since.  I have been curious to know what all God wanted me to learn from these hawk sightings as they were so unusual.  I just knew He was telling me something through them but I couldn't figure it out for the life of me.  Friends posted about the Native American meanings behind hawks being messengers, wisdom, protectors, visionaries, truth, etc.  As much as I appreciate the Native American culture and tradition, I was not comfortable taking their beliefs as Truth for myself--I wanted God to speak to my heart of hearts on this one.  Well, He did just that.

As I got that email from Rachel and had prayed and journalled, I saw the hawk had come back to the backyard again around 9:30-10 p.m.  I went out on the patio and just sat and watched him (while video tapping).  Low and behold I finally found out what he has been up to.  Our yard and trees have been infested and attacked by June Bugs.  I hate them.  We have put nets around our newly planted trees because they will eat them literally gone if we don't.  Well, our new little hawk friend was pouncing on these nasty bugs and eating them as they came up from the ground.  For a moment I thought, "Really?  I mean, really God?  Is that it?  That is the reason these hawks have been in our yard--to eat bugs?  I guess I was just expecting it to be something a bit more profound."

However, thanks to my friend, Shay, who commented on my facebook post about the ordeal, I have found that it was indeed a profound message from the Lord indeed.  Shay said, "It IS a God thing- He's giving you a natural pesticide :) He truly does care about us right down to the tiniest details of life :)"  Well, yes, Shay, you are right and I needed to hear that Truth in a way I never even dreamed of that night.  If God can care about the tiniest detail of sending a hawk to eat the bugs that are destroying our landscaping and trees then surely He will care for Nora in our absence as well.  God sent those hawks as an ever present reminder that He is with me, He is with Nora, and He cares about all the details of our lives.  It was refreshing and encouraging and everything my 10% fear needed to hear to remember the 90% peace instead.  The icing on the cake is that the little hawk who typically has only been coming in the evenings has been perched up on our swing set throughout this entire day.  I love the heart of the Lord knowing that on a day like today I would need that reminder to be constant.

Keep praying, friends, for Nora, for us, for her birth parents, for Rachel as she mediates for us, and for this adoption to continue on in miraculously quick time.  We need more than ever to get this little sweet spirit into our family!  The War continues...and we will pray our way to victory with Jesus on our side.