Friday, August 30, 2013

It's Been A While

   Things have been busy in our lives lately, and I have neglected to document our adoption journey.  It can be summed up with this statement, "The Lord has been faithful."  We want nothing more than to bring home Emma as quickly as we can, but it the midst of the move, things had to slow down.  While in Hattiesburg, we were one step away from completing our home study process.  All we lacked was the home visit and we were ready to move on to Immigration and Dossier paperwork.  Well, one week before our scheduled home visit, the Lord opened the door to Christ United and our visit would have to wait almost 2 months! Ugh!!! We got settled as quickly as possible and scheduled our visit with our case worker for yesterday.  We are so blessed to be surrounded by such an amazing group of family and friends that covered us in prayer as our visit was taking place.  I was a nervous wreck as to how our kids would act, and how the entire visit would be, but things went as well as I think they could have!! Our case worker said she would have the home study complete in the next week or so even though she has 30 days to do so and then we will move on to the mountain of paperwork that is the Immigration and Dossier process.  She is hopeful that things will move quickly and smoothly and then we will FINALLY official be waiting on Emma!!!!  My heart hurts for her so much.  The thought that more than likely, she is already born and in an orphanage consumes my mind and thoughts.  I pray for her, her birth mother, her loss, and her place in this family often and I am confident that the Lord has his hands in all of this.  I absolutely am blown away as Ella Kate talks about Emma.  It is amazing to hear her heart break for the fatherless.  I think she talks about Emma and adoption more than me!!! She tells anybody and everybody, and it just makes my heart smile!!!
    Now, I said the Lord has been faithful and I want to share some of those ways.  He has been so faithful in the waiting.  He has given me patience when that is not my strength at all!!  I guess because this adoption has been 16 years in the making, I am just anxious to expedite the process as much as I can.  But, this is not about me and what I can do...thank goodness!!!  He has been so good to us by providing an amazing community to support us through the process.  One of the questions our case worker asked us was about our families and if they were on board with our adoption.  We immediately responded with absolutely!!!! We are so lucky to have support and encouragement given from our families.  We have amazing friends as well.  It is so great to be able to talk with other adoptive families who "get" what we are going through!!! It is such a comfort!!!! Another way that God has been at work is through the financial aspect of the adoption.  We have been BLOWN AWAY by the generous giving that has been shown to us!!! We are getting close to completing Emma's puzzle which has been such a cool thing to watch come together.  Through the garage sale, Emma's puzzle, and people's generous gifts, we are a little over 2/3 of the way to being completely funded!!! Y'all!!!! That is INCREDIBLE!!!!!!  Thank you so very much to all who have supported us along the way, because we could not do this without you!!! We are so very thankful and we can't wait to tell Emma about all the people that made it possible for her to become part of our family.
   Thank you for your prayers for our family.  We are forever grateful!