Created for Care!

Well, I am SUPER excited about this event this year.  Last year, when registration opened, we had not yet started the adoption process.  However, a few months later, we were in the thick of paperwork and I remembered this retreat, only to find out that it had filled up within 48 hours, so it just wasn't going to happen, and I was kicking myself the whole time for not signing up.  This year, I am ready for it! Registration opens at 12:01 am tonight!! We are leaving out early in the morning for a trip to pray about church planting, so I can't decided if I should stay up and register at midnight or wait and do it right before we leave bright and early.  Either way, I could not be more excited!! For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, this is an event for adoption mama's(although you don't have to be, you can just be interested in adoption, or want to support a friend who is adopting).  It's a weekend long retreat at an awesome lodge in GA, spent meeting hundreds of other women who are right where we are, have already been where we are, or want to learn more.  A weekend spent learning more about the Father, from the Father, learning from each other, and just sharing our hearts with other women who have the same passion.  To see the orphan become orphan no more.  Seriously, it's going to be an amazing weekend and I can't wait!!  I'm also excited to get to meet lots of my bloggy "friends" in person!!  So, if you want more info, check out the website here, and there's a list of the awesome breakouts over on Andrea's blog.  You really don't want to miss this!! Who's in??

August Numbers!

Well, Friday afternoon we got our official August numbers!  We were excited to see more movement this month.  With the courts closed it helps to at least keep seeing a little progress during these slow months.  Withour further ado we are, for a girl:

And for a boy:

We moved 4 spots on both lists this month! Pretty exciting!  My hubby is convinced that he's going to get a son, it's pretty cute :)  We'll see if he's right or not, but it's looking pretty promising!

What are we waiting for?

Now that I am not in the habit of blogging regularly I randomly have thoughts float through my head that I think would make a good blog post, but I rarely take the time to sit down and actually write it.  I've been thinking about this post for about a week now.  I've been listening to this awesome CD:

This is the new CD of one of the awesome worship leaders at our church.  Everyone needs to get this CD!! There is so much truth and so much Gospel in this one album, it's amazing!  Definitely a nice change from some of the fluff that's on Christian radio right now.  The premise of the CD is that the Gospel changes everything and asks the questions, are we living as though Jesus is alive? and what are we waiting for?  Jesus has called us all to go, he has called us all to care for orphans in some way.  That along with this video(pause the music at the bottom of the page first):



have just really gotten me thinking lately.What are we waiting for? As Matt's song says, "a message in the sky? a sign from up above? is not His Word enough?"  God's word clearly tells us to care for the poor, the orphan, the widow, as Katie says in her video "it's not an option."  Us adopting should not be viewed as us doing something noble, or "super christian", we are just obeying God's word. Not to say that everyone should adopt, but we are all called to care for the orphan in some capacity.   
We are also all called to make disciples and take His Word to the nations. And yet so many times we don't, myself included.  My prayer lately has been,taken from  another line in the song, that I would not become to comfortable with amazing grace, and to familiar with the empty grave. We cannot wait to have this baby home so that we can share the love of our amazing Father with him/her.We have so much to celebrate, and so much to tell the world about.  So what are we waiting for? 

It's that time

Well, it's that time.  The dreaded time involved in Ethiopia adoption.  Friday, the Ethiopian courts closed for the rainy season and will not reopen until mid-October.  I have not been looking forward to this since we started the process.  Things will slow down a good deal over the next two months.  Referrals can still happen, and the Embassy will keep scheduling dates, but with the courts closed, things will be pretty slow.  On the other hand, this will be a blessing because the people are in desperate need of rain right now, so we are praying the God sends lots of it!  Focusing on that blessing will hopefully make this time a little easier. I start back to work at the preschool tomorrow so that should help move things along too!  We are praying for all of the families caught in the middle of this closure.  I can only imagine how hard it would be to have seen our baby's face and then get stuck in this closure, waiting extra months to be able to hold them. 

There have also been several orphanage closures in the southern region of Ethiopia recently.  No one is quite sure of the reason for this yet, but this is also causing several families with our agency to be in a limbo of sorts, not knowing what will happen next or when they will get their babies home even though they have already been approved by the courts.  Our hearts are hurting for them and we are constantly lifting them up before the Father.  We ask that you would pray with us, and that these little ones would get home to their families as quickly as possible!  It's still amazing to me how quickly things can change in this world of International Adoption, but I am thankful that we have a Father who holds us all in the palm of His hand, and has ordained all of this from the beginning of time, so amazing!

Longing

We are close to hitting the 2 month mark of "officially" waiting for our baby!  Some days this is extremely exciting, and others it just reminds me of the long road ahead we still have to travel.  Some days I can't believe that 2 months have already flown by, and other it seems like we have been waiting forever.  I still have to remind myself that we are actually making progress now.  Before we were on the list, I would hear of a referall, but it wouldn't be nearly as exciting because we weren't on the list and weren't slowly creeping towards that #1 spot with every referral.  So it's taken me a little bit to get used the the fact that we really are on the list, and every referral does mean we are closer to seeing that sweet face!  It does my heart good to hear of referral news and see "Gotcha Day" videos, because even though I cry like a baby every time I watch one, it is a reminder that we will get there one day, that one day it will be us rejoicing over seeing a first glimpse of that face, it will be us walking up those stairs and into the room of our precious child. 


This week I have been reading a lot of blogs about people's trips to Ethiopia, or Africa in general, and hearing about the devastating drought going on in the horn right now.  Sometimes my heart longs to be in Africa, longs to be able to do something to help these people.  Longs to see our baby's face and know that he/she is being taken care of, that he/she is safe and has plenty of food and water.  I find it odd that my heart longs to be in a place that I've never been before, and I can only explain it as God preparing my heart for the hard things our baby will experience, tying me to a country that holds more beauty than most of the world knows.  Our baby's home is hurting, this last sentence from the article above broke my heart:
                     

"'We are supposed to have an early warning system, but what is the point of warning the rest of the world when it doesn't listen?'"

 

I pray that we will listen, that our hearts will be broken for those who are hurting, and that we will be moved to help. 

July Numbers!

Well, we finally got our official July Numbers!  There was a lot of movement this month and the exciting part is that these numbers are already lower!! These are official, but our unofficial numbers(a list kept by another AGCI mom) have dropped a few spots of both lists!  Here they are:

For a Girl

For a Boy

Here's our little countdown at home, love looking at these every day!



Time

Well, I can't think of a better time to post this then after the incredibly busy week we've just had, thus my lack of blogging.  Let me set it up for you, last weekend the hubby and I headed to TN for a weekend in a cabin with my brother and sister in law, Tuesday night we left TN and arrived home at 1:30am Wednesday morning.  Hubs worked Wed and Thurs, then we got up bright and early at 4:30am Friday morning to head home to GA for the wedding of one of my girlfriends.  This weekend was a big mix of family and wedding related events, and Sunday morning after a quick breakfast with my parents we were on the road again with 7 hours between us and home.  Needless to say, we crashed when we finally hit the bed last night.  I was thinking of writing another blog post from One Thousand Gifts and this post just fits perfectly so here we go!

Time is something we all think we need more of.  The one thing we revolve our schedules around and always wish there were more hours in the day.  At least I know I do sometimes.  How do we get to be so busy?  I look at our life now, without kids, and see how busy we are, and can only imagine what's going to happen when we add a little one to the mix!  This thought from the book really hit me hard, is "Is the busyness of your life leaving little room for the source of your life?" Yikes! That was convicting for me.  Among all the busyness, am I leaving room and prioritizing for the only thing that gets me through the busyness?  Honestly, a lot of times I really fail at this, and it has been one of my goals this summer, while I'm somewhat less busy, to really prioritize this.  To really make the source of my life the SOURCE of my life.  How else am I going to make it through this whirlwind? 

Voskamp quoted another woman in this chapter saying "On every level of life,  from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgment and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are the sure marks of an amateur."  I do not want to be an amateur.  I want to really soak in the bits of life and not wish away my weeks and months.  Right now it's very hard not to do this, all I want is for our waitlist numbers to get smaller and smaller and for me to snap my fingers and us be fast forwarded a year to be at the top of the list.  But if I do that, I miss what God is trying to do right now.  I miss all the little blessings he's giving us along the way.  Voskamp says that "hurry empties the soul."  A good friend of mine emailed this to me last week and it was so encouraging.
                        "Waiting on God isn't about the suspension of meaning and purpose. It's part of the meaning and purpose that God has brought into my life.  Waiting on God isn't to be viewed as an obstruction in the way of the plan.  Waiting is an essential part of the plan. For the child of God, waiting isn't simply about what I'll receive at the end of my wait.  No, waiting is much more purposeful, efficient, and practical than that. Waiting is fundamentally about what I'll become as I wait.  God is using the wait to do in and through me exactly what He's promised. Through the wait He's changing me.  By means of the wait He's altering the fabric of my thoughts and desires.  Through the wait He's causing me to see and experience new things about Him and His kingdom.  And all of this sharpens me, enabling me to be a more useful tool in His redemptive hands" (emphasis mine).  Paul Tripp

I have essentially been given the gift of time in this wait, as Voskamp puts it "God Himself framed in a moment."  That is amazing to think about.  In this waiting, God is giving me more of Himself and preparing me for this journey of motherhood.  Preparing me by teaching me that "The real problem of life is never a lack of time....it's a lack of thanksgiving"  and that I "redeem time from neglect and apathy and inattentiveness when I swell with thanks and weigh the moment down and it's giving thanks to God for this moment that multiplies the moments, time made enough."  Such great encouragment and perspective for me amidst the busyness of life.  I am trying my hardest to put these things into practice and allow myself to be prepared by my Father, to be made ready for the journey, and to no longer hurry through as an amateur.  I'm making my list longer every day, soaking in these gifts and attempting to learn. 

**On another note, there has been lots of good news and movement on the list lately, we should be getting new numbers for July any day now and I'm excited to post them!