Frustrated... PLEASE PRAY!

Yeah, that's just one word that describes how I am feeling today. If you've been following some of my posts on facebook, then you already know some of the drama that has been going on. If not, well, let me fill ya in a little bit.

On Tuesday when I updated about being patient, I had no idea what the next few days would hold. This whole process has been long and hard and unlike anything we have ever been through, but this week has been an entirely different trial. We *thought* that the problem was that our agency's staff in Ethiopia was just not communicating with the staff in the U.S. We kept waiting and expecting to hear one of two things: 1) The judge approved our letter of exemption and we passed court. The kids are legally ours and we can hope to travel to bring them home in 6-8 weeks! {obviously this was our first choice} OR 2) The judge denied our letter and says that we have to show up for court on December 9th. We hope for a favorable decision on the 9th and if we pass, then the kids are legally ours and we wait 6-8 weeks from that approval. {our 2nd choice, but one we were prepared to face on Monday morning}

I called and emailed our agency repeatedly Monday and Tuesday, but got nothing. So Wednesday morning, I took it into my own hands. I had heard that one of the legal reps was in the hospital (which explains why he wasn't returning emails or phone calls), so I found the # of the other one and I got up at 5am to give her a call in Ethiopia. She said she knew exactly who I was and that she knew a little about our case. She said she was sorry, but she still hadn't heard from anyone who had actually been in court and so she was going to find out the next day and her words were "I hope to get confirmation from our staff that you do not have to travel. I will let you know tomorrow." So I got off the phone Wednesday morning frustrated again that we still had no official news, and that I can't wait for the U.S. staff to find these things out for me, but somewhat hopeful because she acted like we would for sure have an answer by early Thursday morning. One more day and we would hear that we would either be going or staying.

I hardly slept last night. Tossing and turning and worrying and praying. Checking the time every 10 minutes and figuring out what time it was in Ethiopia.

I got up at 3am, knowing that it was 1pm there and sent a quick email as a reminder that as soon as she found out to please let us know.

I went back to bed for a couple of hours and woke up abruptly. I was thinking: This is it. This is the day that God is going to answer this prayer and show us how great and wonderful and big He is. This is the day He is going to blow us away and we are going to shout to the world that 2 children are no longer orphans! I really expected to open my email and have this confirmed. I so wanted it to be true.

But instead of hearing this, I opened something completely unexpected. It was an email from the same gal in Ethiopia that I had talked to the day before and it read: I am sorry to say that the news is not promising, as we do not have any record in our office of having received your letter for the court, or the photos and passport copies that are required if you do not attend. I am so sorry about this and will be checking with Susan. As well the judge has not been taking too well to families coming on a different date or not coming at all, so I think you may have to make plans to be here next Friday.


My immediate reaction was a loud WHAT??!! What in the world was she talking about? No record of anything? Not only did we send everything the day after we heard about our court date, and were assured that it would be received in plenty of time, but we had also left it all with the legal rep (who was now in the hospital) way back when we were there in April. Not to mention that I had JUST talked to this same gal yesterday about our case! We have been told for two weeks that someone was going to take all of those documents to court and represent us. All of a sudden everything was "lost" and they had never even seen it?! Oh. my. goodness.


After many emails and phone calls back and forth today, (believe me, it wasn't pretty) we think we might have figured out what happened. It seems that because the one legal rep that we left all of our paperwork with is gone to the hospital, no one actually took his place and took over our case. Which means that no one actually showed up in court for us. Or if they did, they certainly did not present our letter, pictures, etc for the judge.
>insert MAD FACE here. !!!!


Seriously, as the day unfolded and we were being told that we should plan to be in Ethiopia next week because they "think" we should- I just wanted to scream. We don't want to hear what they think we should do, we want to hear that someone saw the judge and we want to know what she said! Why in the world is it so hard to confirm that SOMEONE was there and that they heard what the judge ruled?! Oh, maybe because no one was? After this, I told our agency point blank that we wish we could trust them but that they have shown us that we simply cannot. 


These are CHILDREN we are talking about here! God's heart beats and breaks for the least of these: the poor, the widow, the ORPHAN. Don't mess around with the LORD Almighty! It is clear that God must have an amazing plan for N and M's lives as we have been faced with attack after attack these past 14 months. Satan hates to see orphans gain families, but God WILL prevail and He WILL have the victory! HE places the lonely in families! 


We have one last glimmer of hope before we have to make our travel plans tomorrow. Someone is going to go to the court without an appointment and present our case to the judge tomorrow morning in Ethiopia. It sounds like this will be the first time she will read our letter. We are praying that by some MIRACLE, the judge says that we do not have to be there on Friday morning. That she would surprise everyone and make an exception because we have proven our love and commitment to N and M and spent a significant amount of time with them. 


If she says no, we will have to make plans to leave just four days later. Ugh. My stomach is in knots just thinking about it.


If you are reading this right now: PLEASE PRAY!!!! This is an impossible situation and our agency is positive that we are going to have to go. We would love to see God show up and prove them wrong! 


But even if the answer is no, we must cling to His promises that He has not left us or forsaken us. That He will work all things (even the hard, crazy things) together for the good of those who love Him... 

I cannot even pretend to imagine why the heck this would be a part of His plan, but maybe someday we will look back and see. Or maybe not. We will just know that He meant it to happen for His purpose and for His glory.


Join us tonight in coming before the throne for these two precious children. And as my sweet friend Heather always reminds me... even though it's so hard and the wait seems unbearable- we will continue to trust  Him while we wait. 







Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.   Hebrews 11:1

Tomorrow is the big day!!!

We are asking all of our family and friends to join us in praying today!There are two big things happening for our family Monday morning... 

The first is of course our court date in Ethiopia! While we are sleeping tonight (well, you will be sleeping- I probably won't be able to!) they will have family court in Ethiopia. We are asking for God to grant us favor with the judge and that she will accept our letter of exemption so that N and M can officially become our children. We are also praying for ALL of the necessary paperwork to be there too, as we have heard of many cases where 1 document was missing so they had to assign another court date. We are ready for this step to be completed and so please pray with us for God to do a miracle- that we would wake up tomorrow morning with the news that we passed court!!! My friend Erin has a court date this Thursday for their son who we met on our last trip and they are asking for the same miracle. Pray for them too!

The other news is that our little Elliana is having a small surgery tomorrow morning to have her adenoids removed. I  know that compared to most surgeries, this is so minimal. The whole procedure is like 20 minutes long. But, as her mama I still hate to see my baby put under anesthesia and in pain for any amount of time! She is too young to understand or even try to explain what is going to happen, so I have a feeling she might get a little freaked out when she goes in. Although no surgery is pleasant, I am actually looking forward to her having this and hoping that once she is recovered she will be feeling so much better! Poor girl has had so many problems that we didn't even know were related and she has been dealing with it all for quite some time now. The doctor says that once she is able to breathe, she will be so much happier and hopefully a lot less sick, no more drooling or gagging or snoring! Yes!

So if you are reading this, will you please say a prayer right now for our family? You are a part of our story and I want you to experience the blessing of seeing God answer prayers in crazy ways- cause that is what we are expecting Him to do! 

I will update tomorrow as soon as I am able, but it might be hard depending on how Elliana is doing. If we are friends on FB, you will most likely hear from me there first. :)

Have a great Sunday everyone!

My Birthday Prayer

Today is a special day at our house! Yes, it is my 31st birthday, but something even more special than that happened today!


Can you guess what this is???

Here's a little better clue:

Yes, this is our COMPLETED dossier all ready to be mailed off to our adoption agency TODAY, on my birthday!!!  :)

In case you don't know what in the world a dossier is, it is basically just a huge pile of paperwork that includes everything about us and will be sent to the Ethiopian government to begin processing our adoption on their side. Everything in it had to be notarized and it includes things like our home study, police backround checks, tax forms, bank statements, birth certificates, passport photos, dr's forms, employment and reference letters, etc. etc. etc! Phew- I am just glad to be done with our part and be sending it off finally! It was definitely a lot more work than anything we had to do for Korea!

There is ONLY ONE more thing we will have to wait for before it can actually be sent to Ethiopia and that is immigration approval. We should be getting our fingerprint notice really soon and then we wait for the USCIS to approve us. After we are approved, our dossier will be on it's way first to Washington D.C. and then to Ethiopia!
It  is a huge milestone in the adoption world and what a perfect day to send it off! Yes, even with all that is happening regarding Ethiopian adoptions, we are still walking by FAITH and continuing on this journey that GOD called us on. We will keep taking each step until He closes the door.

We took a short trip to the coast this past weekend to celebrate my birthday and to just get away for a few days. It was pretty low-key, we did some shopping, eating, and walking along the beach. It was a bit chilly so we didn't spend too much time by the water, but it was just good to be together as a family. I hardly took any photos but here are a few of our time away.

Elliana was NOT very excited about the freezing cold water so Daddy held her most of the time!

These guys just got back last weekend from an awesome time with their Papa and Grandma. They went on a very fun and exciting Disney Cruise and didn't seem to miss us one bit for the 11 days they were gone! What a blessing to have such fun and generous grandparents who love to make memories with all of their grandchildren. I'll have to post pictures soon.

Look what the boys found! Gross!

A far away picture of my family...

And of course always thinking of my family who is far away...

This year my birthday wish, or should I say prayer, is that our awesome God will move many more mountains  and work many more miracles in the lives of His people. He is the Father to the fatherless and the defender of widows and I pray that I would rest in that truth this year. NO MATTER WHAT. 

I pray that His glory would be revealed throughout all the world and all generations and that He would allow us to be a part of His awesome plan and purpose for the world. I pray that I would know and rely on the LOVE that He has given me through Jesus. And that He would use every single difficulty this year to mold me and shape me into the woman that He created me to be. A woman who although weary and broken, follows hard after Him and a woman who although has many regrets from past mistakes, lives freely in Christ and is clothed in righteousness that He has given.

And of course my biggest prayer is that our family will ALL be together on my 32nd birthday, one year from today. ALL 8 of us. 

It seems absolutely impossible at the moment as I look at all the circumstances, but I walk by FAITH not by sight. 

He is GOOD. ALL the time. 

Thank You Lord for 31 years of LIFE. 

Your love, LORD, reaches to the heavens,
   your faithfulness to the skies.
 Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,
   your justice like the great deep.
   You, LORD, preserve both people and animals.
 How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!
   People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
 They feast on the abundance of your house;
   you give them drink from your river of delights.
 For with you is the fountain of life;
   in your light we see light.

Continue your love to those who know you, 

                         your righteousness to the upright in heart. 

Psalm 36:5-10

Praying for India

The organization that we will be going to Ethiopia with, Children's Hope Chest, had a team in India right now. They have actually been there for a week and a half already and will be home in a few days. I have been so distracted these past few weeks that I have not even had a chance to catch up on the blogs that I normally stalk. I have been praying for those that are in India this past week, but I didn't have a moment to actually see what they were up to and read their posts  until this morning. Oh my. Please go to their blog Hopechest India Trip 2010 and read some of the posts right now. It is truly heartbreaking, yet amazing that the Lord has them there for such a time as this. I mentioned a few weeks ago about being excited to read the book Priceless. Well I read it in about 2 days and of course was even more broken for the victims that have been trafficked into sexual slavery and beyond. It is happening all over the world and the team in India is experiencing it as we speak. Talking to women in brothels who have been there for 10 or 15 years and don't even see a thread of hope, visiting the homes of lepers and praying with them,  advocating for slum children in need of food and an education. They are in the battle right now. And knowing them, they will continue to fight long after they have arrived home. Please pray with me for India, all of those who are ministering in the name of Christ there, the hopechest team that will be coming home soon and for the Light to shine in the darkness. We claim the promises of the One True God who is MIGHTY TO SAVE!

Prayers for our dear friends

I have been m.i.a. this entire week due to VBS, but I just wanted those of you reading this who have not heard to PRAY.

Pray for our dear friends who are in Ch*na right now adopting their little boy. They have had unspeakable tragedy and we must go to the Father on their behalf.

You can read the story for yourself HERE

Please lift them and their children up today.

Alone with God

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat.


Psalm 19:1-2, 4-6

Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. Psalm 36:5-6

The other day I was feeling very down. So I grabbed my camera and headed over the hill by our house. There was no one in sight and this was the view I had. I had a lot to say to the Lord so I was glad to be alone and it was a wonderful intimate time with Him. These pictures were in part His response to me...

Prayer...

Is any of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoit him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore pray for each other so that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

James 5:13-16

This scripture has been on my mind and heart a lot lately and has caused me to be on my knees much more. A lot of people will disagree with this, but I have learned that just praying accomplishes nothing. God requires us to be right with Him (which is the very definition of righteous) and it is only through Christ that this is possible. I am only just beginning to get into the habit of dealing with the Lord about everything- from the moment I wake up, to the time my head hits the pillow at night, and everything in between.

Oswald Chambers wrote:

"If you ask me to pray for you and I am not complete in Christ, my prayer accomplishes nothing. But if I am complete in Christ, my prayer brings victory all the time."

Even still, I won't ever fully know if my motives have been completely pure (which I don't think is actually even possible), but I do know that the wonderful thing about prayer is that it changes me in the process. I am learning to submit to this transformation, moving closer to the Father as I am transformed into the image of His son. There is still SO much to grasp and I long to be emptied of myself as I become more intimate with the Savior.

A book that Randy has read and one that I am hoping to go through together with him soon is Richard Foster's PRAYER: Finding the heart's true home. There are so many different kinds of prayer and this is one of those timeless books that impacts those who read and learn from it. I have seen the transformation in my husband's life by taking prayer seriously and I am so encouraged to follow his example.

"The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives- altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. Frankly, this side of eternity we will never unravel the good from the bad, the pure from the impure. But what I have come to see is that God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture. We do not have to be bright, or pure, or filled with faith, or anything. That is what grace means, and not only are we saved by grace, but we live by it as well. And we pray by it." -Richard J. Foster

"True, whole prayer is nothing but love."

-St. Augustine

"What we need is a desire to know the will of God, with a fixed resolution to do it."

-John Wesley

"To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world."

-Karl Barth

"I do not believe that one can earnestly seek and find the priceless treasure of God's call without a devout prayer life. That is where God speaks. The purpose of prayer and of God's call in your life is not to make you number one in the world's eyes, but to make Him number one in your life."

-Ravi Zacharias

"Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the Kingdom."

-C.H. Spurgeon

"Be joyful always; PRAY continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

-The Apostle Paul