Wednesday, September 18, 2013

It all begins....

We saw their faces almost five weeks ago.  Two sweet sisters living in an eastern European orphanage.  One with pigtails, and one handing a dandelion to the photographer.  Beautiful blue eyes.  Two treasures whose profiles have a lot of "does not/can not"s.  But to us, two girls fearfully and wonderfully made, made in His image.

We decided to pray.  God has placed a heart for orphans in us thirteen years ago after having Joe.  We seriously considered adoption then, given my long bedrest and comment by my OB that any further pregnancies would result in longer and more restrictive bedrest.  We considered adopting a 2+ year old from Guatamela, feeling we would be open to physical needs (having been involved with those with Dad) but not developmental needs.


A move to a fixer upper and some major medical issues for Dad resulted in our lives being stirred up and adoption being put on the backburner for a bit.  When we considered it again, we felt we should trust God with future children and ended up having two more, with no bedrest.  And God blessed us with one of those two having developmental needs.


For six years we have prayed many times for His wisdom, asking Him to show us what Nate needs.  He has been so faithful and our faith has grown so much through this walk.  We have met some amazing people who have done so much to empower us to become better parents to Nate.  Our bookshelves have been filled with many books on all kinds of things--gluten free cookbooks, nutritional ideas, speech books, auditory processing, sensory processing, brain development.  I wonder what people would think of my google searches at times!  But how thankful we are to live in a time when we can educate ourselves and through what we learn, help our children to grow and blossom.  And how thankful we are to have a great music and speech therapist!


The words "speech, language, and developmental delays" didn't sound scary or undoable to us---instead we thought and continue to think of different things we could do to help these sweet sisters to grow into the workmanship God created them to be---truly treasures!


Bill struggled with the thought of adoption, actually telling me when he saw the picture of the girls that his heart was hard to adoption.  We agreed to pray.  In three weeks or so, I saw a huge change come over him.  After much time in prayer and the Word, he told me he didn't want to lose the girls.  


On September 1st, we decided to jump into the world of adoption and bring the girls home!  All of us were so thrilled---Jenny offering to help in any way she can, Jack happy about the decision as long as a 15 passenger van doesn't become the vehicle of choice, Joe excited about the possibility of traveling with us, Nate spending ten minutes telling us all the things he will teach the girls ("I will teach them to talk" was his first statement---too sweet! ), and Ellie just thrilled to be a big sister.


As Christians, we feel that something God wants us to do is to take care of the fatherless, in whatever way we can at the point of life we are in.  We have both traveled to Ethiopia to serve in orphanages, including a teen orphanage and a HIV+ orphanage. When we met the precious children living there, we saw each one of them as a child of God, fearfully and wonderfully made—each child with potential and uniqueness, each with their own story and each with worth.  Not a statistic, but a child.  A child with a past, many of them a past that contained a lot of pain and trauma.  A child with a "diagnosis" that may limit them forever.  But we knew them as wonderful children, filled with smiles and laughter, thrilled to spend time playing and laughing, talented beyond belief considering their "school" and activities.  



We see our girls as just that---not just two of the 147 million orphans, but two precious girls who, by no fault of their own, find themselves living in an orphanage and not understanding the words mother or father.  Two girls that God sees as just as special as all of our kids.  Two girls, who despite their "codes" for their "disabilities" have so much to offer a family---the beauty of seeing a child truly blossom and become the work of art God designed them to be.  
We would love your prayers as we continue down the path to bring them home.  Prayers for their safety, protection and health.  Prayers that someone in the orphanage is teaching them about their true Father.  Prayers that our paperwork will all come together quickly.  Prayers for financial needs.  Prayers for travel as quickly as possible.  
We are blessed beyond belief to be on this journey and know we will come to understand God's heart for the fatherless in ways we couldn't imagine while on this journey.  God is so good!
Two areas of Scripture I read while we were in prayer (they were just in my daily readings) were:




Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless;
Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.
Rescue the weak and needy;
Deliver them from the hand of the wicked. 
     Psalm 82:3-4

Enlarge the place of your tent,
Stretch your tent curtains wide,
Do not hold back. 
      Isaiah 54:2

So we move forward in our walk to rescue the needy and defend the cause of the fatherless, enlarging the place of our tent and not holding back.  We are excited to see what He reveals on this journey!