Adoption Update

Not many things make me furious. I mean, it's easy to get me a little riled, but seeing-red-furious is reserved for a few things very close to my heart. 

Sometimes our adoption makes me steaming, foaming, seething, furious.

When organizations like UNICEF and the blasted UN essentially admit that they're anti-international adoption. I get furious. When groups in Africa have the gall to state that orphans are better off languishing in horribly underfunded orphanages instead of losing their nation's culture, my claws come out. You don't have to read too many posts about the majority of children in an orphanage dying from dysentery (which is much, much too common in the DRC and is caused by unclean water), before you can't help but be furious.

Who cares about these children? Is it only God? Is God the only one? Does any lawmaker or political person care about the welfare of these children, or if they even live to be an adult? Or reach the age of 5!

I believe wholeheartedly in seeking ethical means to adopt, but there are other ways to make your system more ethical than shutting down all international adoptions for longer than a year while you frustrate every claim of people who even meet your cutoff time. Especially when you have NO system to care for these children who will not be adopted while the suspension is in place.

We have no choice but to continue in the hope that the Congo will open up instead of shut completely down. These children have been abandoned by their government at every turn; these recent actions are no different. If we do not care for them, who will?

Right now I'm persevering without the light of hope in my heart. I spent a few days trying to figure out why our adoption is so draining, even though nothing is happening. It feels like waiting for a miscarriage I have good reason to think will certainly come but hasn't yet. Would you pray that God would place in me His heart of love? Love always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. I need more, I need it.

Family Update

WELL, SURPRISE! We're pregnant. No, this bundle of joy was not premeditated and, while it was no "immaculate conception," I believe God's hand was quite at work in making it come about. I went to the doctor before Christmas and saw little baby's heartbeat at 6 weeks 1 day! Babies (and women) are amazing.

We were hoping to have more concrete news about our adoption to share before we made the news public, but I shared with the whole world that I was expecting Ezra about an hour after I found out, and I didn't want anyone to think we were ashamed of this child. How could we be? What a blessing.

That being said, I sure hope we are twice blessed this year, but we have not yet received clear direction on whether to wait on the Congo and hope we can adopt H, or to search out a waiting child we can adopt this year. Before we received our last update, we were thinking we would be able to travel and bring home H in November, with a little baby in tow - not ideal, but you do what you have to for your kids. With the likely extenuation of the suspension, that no longer seems likely, and the future of Congolese adoptions for quite some time is in question. Trust me, we are not making this decision lightly, as H is very important to us, but we were never guaranteed by God that she was meant to be our daughter, and I have been guilty of putting my hopes in her instead of in the Lord, a lesson He has been teaching me with a firm but merciful hand.

All that being said, our next bio child and our next adopted child are two different children. Thus pregnancy does not annul or diminish our desire, nor possibly even delay our adoption. We wait on the Lord for His guidance and would appreciate your prayers. In the meantime, I start my prenatal appointments with our midwife next week and am happy to have a new life to look forward to!

P.S. You know your adoption "journey" has been crazy when you sigh with relief at the stability of pregnancy! A due date is a beautiful thing.

Adoption Update-ish

I won't write anything morose on here, though those feelings do come and go right now.  But I did want to update for two reasons:

1) Our city approval came for our Trot for a Tot 5k - if you know a runner, a group of runners, a member of a fraternity or sorority, a member of a FLO, or any other member of a group of people with whom announcements are made in College Station, I'd love to make the connection to spread the word about our run. Also, if you know any business that would like to advertise or to donate in a tax-deductible way, there are plenty of opportunities to do so!

2) Please be in prayer as we consider what God would want for our family with regards to our adoption. There are so many things always happening (especially at the beginning of the semester and at the beginning stages of planning a church plant); it can be easy to push to the back things that aren't in front of our faces and clamoring for attention. We don't want to miss God's whisper to change direction, nor to remain steadfast.

2013 was not my favorite year of my life, but I know it was a year that produced much fruit in my life, and much of that has to do with the difficulties of our adoption. Two months ago, I was certain 2014 would be the year we brought home our child, but now I cannot be. What I am certain of, however, is God's ability to use our circumstances to make me more like Jesus, and in that hope I can trust and be secure.