Hopefully waiting

May 25, 2015 – a Monday. Oh, I have needed to write for so long. Waiting, waiting, waiting. What does this feel like? It is boring. Sometimes it feels like you are forgotten.  Often, it is lonely. I call our adoption agent every 2-3 weeks just to “check in”. She knows that we are here and that we are still waiting on a placement; however, I do this for me and she is gracious enough to share her time. It is hard. We still pray for Sister and our probable other Sister. The boys get confused; things are weird, just so hard to explain. However, I can say that while this is still painful, and I still cry, it is getting easier. 

Recently, it was explained to us how we can begin sponsoring our first Sister! We are excited about this as it is SOMETHING that we can do for her. We are also waiting to see where she will stay. The wonderful Baby Home that she is currently in is a temporary option at this point. We are waiting and watching – I hate to be vague again; however, we still are unable to share too much information about this at this point. So, that is movement, I guess.

Now, we are waiting on another placement – this means another sweet child to love on. This is hard but also something to look forward to. Another little one to love, another hope, another heartbreak, another chance……..just a big ball of emotions.

There have been many times during this past month that I have told God, “I do not like this.” There have been times that I have questioned why He would allow this to happen. It is great that a family can be potentially reunited but why does this have to hurt so much? Is He aware of empty I feel? How awful this pain is? I feel certain that He does. He knows.  I am reminded that this pain is small in comparison to how Jesus must have felt after being rejected by so many who claimed to love him, as he hung on that cross. It keeps me close to Him. He who knows, who understands – that is where I put my trust. He comforts me as no human can. Oh, yes, He knows. 

As often as I tell him that I do not like this, I feel him responding to me, telling me simply, “I know.” You see, we do not have to like our circumstances, but we must trust Him through the storm. This God of ours is into character-building as much as He is into any other good thing that he does. He is molding our characters to look more like His Son – and this is no easy task, I assure you.  

And, so we wait. Patiently waiting on news and a photo that will capture our hearts again. Fully hoping to bring a precious person home, knowing that circumstances could dictate a different ending again. We wait. Heads held high. Hearts joyful. Enjoying every day while anxiously awaiting THAT day when the daydreaming of our girl begins anew. 

Thank you for praying for our family and our Ugandan daughters. We are so thankful.

Hope Deferred

April 30, 2015 – a Thursday. It’s been just over a year since we began this journey. So, while the waiting part takes forever, it also has not really been that long. Today we received answered prayer. I have been praying for God to make it obvious as to what will happen next. 

Today, we learned that there are too many unknowns in play at this time to further pursue our little girl. We have asked our lawyer in Uganda to try to assist in setting her up with an international aid organization so that we may sponsor her. She is our Ugandan daughter – legal or not. We want to care for her as best as we can while being so far apart. This does not mean that she will not be ours one day, but for today, she is not. 

I feel kind of numb. A great advantage, I am sure, is that we may have known this was coming. After reading her case report, we identified a few red flags ourselves. We are so grateful to our adoption agent and our Ugandan lawyer for looking out for the best interest of our sweet girl and our family. It was something that no one could have known until that report – the one that I had waited so long for – was in our hands. 

Praises: that our girl is still being so well taken care of and that she is too young to understand the situation that she is in at this time. We are grateful to work with such an ethical adoption agency and to have a lawyer with such high standards to represent us.

We are thankful that God has walked us through this, step by step; allowing us to process and grieve, yet still give us hope. We are astounded by all the prayers and well-wishes that people send our way. Those of you who have reached out to us, to say that you are praying or to encourage us, this helps! I am usually crying on the other side of the screen but they are tears of thanksgiving and appreciation. We can feel your prayers and God uses them to carry us through. He is carrying us once again. We are doing better than we should be at this time. 

It is our hope to sponsor our daughter in order to insure that she can continue to receive nourishment, access to medicine and an education. We do not know what the future holds; perhaps one day we can bring her home. Maybe not. But, we will hope this great hope anyway. We love her and want her to know it. 

As far as our adoption process, our agency is looking to match us with another little girl who is in need of a family. Our family was only approved to adopt one child. So, when they see little girls who meet our profile they also look to see if they have siblings. If siblings are there, we are not qualified. I truly LOVE how our agency fights to keep families together. Yet, it is a bummer to hear of children who need a home and we cannot offer one. I was told that the one child thing had to do with the fact that our Little Olaf has Cystic Fibrosis, a special need, and adopting one extra may be a lot more work than I could imagine. However, we were promised that if we adopted one child and later wanted another, we could. 

What’s next? Come on, you know the answer, we will WAIT. We will pray for a match to come our way in God’s perfect timing. All of the hoop jumping has been done at this point. Once a match is identified, we will order another social report to try to learn any background information that we can. What happens if this happens again? We will grieve and sponsor another. If not, we will bring home another precious daughter. 

Painful? Yes. Worth it? Yes. For some reason God planned for us to take this path.  We do not know how it will end, but we choose to trust Him. 

Here is the song that is helping me through this right now. It is called, “Shoulders” by For King & Contry. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfiYWaeAcRw