Thursday, July 29, 2010
Happy Birthday from the FBI
I had been told that the FBI Clearance takes between 8-13 weeks to receive. I was expecting to still be waiting in early September for it to come in. However, I discovered the FBI decided to send me a birthday present yesterday when I received the clearance in the mail. It took less than even the 8 weeks that I was told was the minimum. Woo-Hoo! The visit to the house on Tuesday went great and now I have just one more meeting with the homestudy agency at their office before I can submit my dossier to my placing agency.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Going a Little Deeper
Trees have always been one of my favorite parts of nature. Today during worship one of the songs we sang was Oh how He loves us which has a verse in it, "He loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy." I love the picture of God's work in my life being that of a storm and I'm bending to His will. However, there is a strong distinction that must be drawn in that I do have a choice. I am consciously choosing to have my world turned upside down by the one that rules this planet and I'm loving it.
The past couple weeks have all been about growth for me. I found myself back in a country which in some ways started my adoption process. The opportunity of going back to Haiti itself was God's confirmation to me that my decision to adopt two Ethiopians was the right one. He continues to blow me away with the supportive people He has put in my path.
Experiencing Haiti is not something that one can put into words or capture with a picture. It is safe to say that I found myself face to face with children that continually stole my heart. I fell in love with all of them. I even saw one of the kids that I had hung out with in my previous trip at the work site 6 years ago. He is now 10 years old. This is a picture of Watson and me.
Something that God was teaching me through this trip is the importance to continually grow. A quote from a book I read on the flight down said, "I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago." Our lives are like one big story that God is writing and the changes that He brings our way are what make our stories exciting. Being as this is a time in my life when I am continually changing, it is exciting. Even knowing that I am going to be a mom has transformed my way of seeing the world. I am becoming more emotional by the day and for those of you who know me well this is a big change. God wants us to constantly transform us into His likeness.
There are a couple of other things God has been teaching me the past several weeks. One has to do with the concept of caring for some of the world's orphans. I wish I could save all the orphans out there but I realize that God has only called me to love the two little boys whose mother I will be honored to be. I read something online this week about caring for orphans being a perfect image of our relationship with God. "In our inability to please God with our own efforts, in our utter helplessness to initiate a relationship with him, we are more like orphans and strangers than we like to admit." The world doesn't see Christ in the signs that are held on street corners or the condemning words that are screamed from pulpits. The world sees Christ when his people serve and help the helpless.
A month or so ago I stumbled across a passage from Isaiah 58 and I've been chewing on it ever since. This chapter talks about true fasting (from The Message), "This is the kind of fast day I'm after: break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I'm interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once." This passage just blew me away. I'm sure I had read over it before but I saw it in a completely new light and it has really challenged me.
God is changing me through this process. I hope that I am open and continue to allow my life to be transformed and refined as I move forward. Tomorrow is home study day. They are coming to my house at 9:30 in the morning to make sure that I have all the proper safety equipment, etc. I am confident that it will go well and it will be another step closer to bringing my sons home.
Here are a few more pictures of the beautiful children from Haiti:
The past couple weeks have all been about growth for me. I found myself back in a country which in some ways started my adoption process. The opportunity of going back to Haiti itself was God's confirmation to me that my decision to adopt two Ethiopians was the right one. He continues to blow me away with the supportive people He has put in my path.
Experiencing Haiti is not something that one can put into words or capture with a picture. It is safe to say that I found myself face to face with children that continually stole my heart. I fell in love with all of them. I even saw one of the kids that I had hung out with in my previous trip at the work site 6 years ago. He is now 10 years old. This is a picture of Watson and me.Something that God was teaching me through this trip is the importance to continually grow. A quote from a book I read on the flight down said, "I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago." Our lives are like one big story that God is writing and the changes that He brings our way are what make our stories exciting. Being as this is a time in my life when I am continually changing, it is exciting. Even knowing that I am going to be a mom has transformed my way of seeing the world. I am becoming more emotional by the day and for those of you who know me well this is a big change. God wants us to constantly transform us into His likeness.
There are a couple of other things God has been teaching me the past several weeks. One has to do with the concept of caring for some of the world's orphans. I wish I could save all the orphans out there but I realize that God has only called me to love the two little boys whose mother I will be honored to be. I read something online this week about caring for orphans being a perfect image of our relationship with God. "In our inability to please God with our own efforts, in our utter helplessness to initiate a relationship with him, we are more like orphans and strangers than we like to admit." The world doesn't see Christ in the signs that are held on street corners or the condemning words that are screamed from pulpits. The world sees Christ when his people serve and help the helpless.
A month or so ago I stumbled across a passage from Isaiah 58 and I've been chewing on it ever since. This chapter talks about true fasting (from The Message), "This is the kind of fast day I'm after: break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I'm interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once." This passage just blew me away. I'm sure I had read over it before but I saw it in a completely new light and it has really challenged me.
God is changing me through this process. I hope that I am open and continue to allow my life to be transformed and refined as I move forward. Tomorrow is home study day. They are coming to my house at 9:30 in the morning to make sure that I have all the proper safety equipment, etc. I am confident that it will go well and it will be another step closer to bringing my sons home.
Here are a few more pictures of the beautiful children from Haiti:
Friday, July 2, 2010
2 down, 2 to go
The past two weeks I have been working diligently on getting some of the paperwork out of the way. This included a trip to my bank as well as a trip to the doctor's office; both of which could not have gone better. I have gotten several items signed off on from my placing agency and I am encouraged by the help I have received from all those involved in each step. I have realized that in all of this I can't obsess about the details. It is one of the things I'm gradually letting go and allowing God to have. On Wednesday I had my second home study meeting to go over some more things and discuss the various articles that I have been reading over the past two weeks. Once again we had very natural and comfortable conversation. We scheduled the actual home visit for July 26th. Until then I will stay busy reading a couple books, "Raising Adopted Children" and "Toddler Adoption" and continuing to chip away at gathering the required documents for my dossier. I will also be taking a mission trip to Haiti during that time where our team will be doing VBS in the mornings for about 200 kids and installing a couple kitchens for a feeding program in the afternoons. I'm excited about this opportunity and believe that God is going to continue to transform my heart during this trip.
Couple Fun Things -
-It is very hard for me to not buy lots of stuff for my kids but so far I've been very good. I did breakdown the other day when I saw this super cool fighter jet pool float for $15 on woot.com. I can picture my boys playing on it on a summer's afternoon now. I also found a dancing Cincinnati Bengals dinosaur at goodwill the other day that I couldn't pass up.
-I stumbled across this site the other day - http://www.amharickids.com/. It was started by a family that adopted children born in Ethiopia and has some pretty cool Ethiopian things on it.
Couple Fun Things -
-It is very hard for me to not buy lots of stuff for my kids but so far I've been very good. I did breakdown the other day when I saw this super cool fighter jet pool float for $15 on woot.com. I can picture my boys playing on it on a summer's afternoon now. I also found a dancing Cincinnati Bengals dinosaur at goodwill the other day that I couldn't pass up.
-I stumbled across this site the other day - http://www.amharickids.com/. It was started by a family that adopted children born in Ethiopia and has some pretty cool Ethiopian things on it.
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