.A Year Ago Today.

It was exactly a year ago that I was prompted to visit, for the first time, our agency's waiting child list. This was a list of children that met no one's referral requests because of specific special needs or the age of the child - usually over three.

To my complete amazement, the very last child on the list was my son. I knew it as soon as I opened his photo. He had not been born from my womb, but in that moment he was born from my heart.

He was 8 months old at the time. He had spent his entire life (minus two weeks in institutions). He was listed as baby boy Yonas, and he was diagnosed with chronic severe malnutrition, and bilateral blindness. He was the son we had been waiting and praying for.

Today Jamesy who was once fatherless, motherless - familyless, now -a year later at 20 months - has a family who loves and adores him. A daddy and a mommy, a sister and a brother who have been blessed beyond measure by this beautiful bright-eyed little boy from Ethiopia. I never planned this for my life. I never guessed it.

But I would not change a single thing.

I will never ever understand why God chose me to be his mommy. I feel inadequate and undeserving, as I do of all of my children. There is no doubt in my mind that God orchestrated Jamesy to be in our family, though. Not a day goes by that I do not rejoice and marvel at this picture of the gospel running crazily around my home.

While orphan care is definitely for every believer, adoption is definitely not, but it was for our family.

And I cannot imagine our family any other way.

What a difference a year makes.

To read the full version of "finding" Jamesy read here, here, and here.

To see all of Jamesy's 20 month portraits simply like my blog's facebook page.

.God Works in Amazing, Mysterious Ways.

If I had taken the pen to write my story, it would never have looked like this. I would never have chosen to leave a ministry we felt secure in, and I certainly would never have chosen something as risky as adopting a child from Africa. Choosing a child that looked so different from our family and my other children, would never have been on my radar. I would not have chosen to be a pastor's wife, and I definitely would not write openly about my new role or our adoption. By nature I am a private person. I am a mouse. I like to hide in the shadows. I like to have very few close friends that I can still keep at a "safe" distance, and I do not like people knowing "my business".

You laugh.

I know. The story being written for me is so opposite of what I would have written. I can barely wrap my head around the fact that I will be boarding a plane for Africa shortly to kiss the sweet cheeks of a little boy, who doesn't know my name, who doesn't look like me, but who is permanently lodged in my heart. But I would change not a word of this story - even the hard, scary parts - for they all have landed me at the feet of Jesus. All of this life change in the past year has not pointed me to a baby - it has pointed me to the face of God. This is so much better than anything I could ever write.

Only God.

God works in amazing, mysterious ways, and he uses ordinary people.

I want to share another story today, but it is not all mine to tell. So I will just tell it with light brushstrokes. For ten years, almost eleven, Jim and I (and many others I am sure) have been praying that God would allow Jim's brother-in-law, Roy, to accept Jesus as His Savior. Roy is married to Jim's oldest sister, Jill. They have a beautiful relationship, and are exceptionally close. Even before I was married into the family I loved Jill. She is much like Jim - fun. They know how to make every situation fun. Jill is not my sister-in-law, she is the big sister that I did not grow up with.

I love her, and I love her husband, and oh how we prayed. We shared the gospel with Roy a few times, but mostly we just tried to live out our faith in front of him - authentically. I am sure we failed at times, and I am sure we were hypocritical at others. But God didn't need us anyway. A few months back now, we received a phone call that we had prayed for and hoped for - after finding a church to attend as a family, Roy received Jesus as His Savior! And let me tell you that his life is changed as well as his family. I have never before been able to see a transformation like this in an adult whom we love so . It's amazing to visibilly see God at work. There is much more to this story, but it is not mine.

Then we received another phone call. God has been very busy in our family! God placed a desire on Roy and Jill's heart to add to their family. Can you guess what direction He pointed them to??? Yes, Ethiopia!! Again, this is only a story that God could write! Roy and Jill have been accepted into AWAA's Ethiopia program and are requesting twin infants! The likelyhood of actually receiving a referral for twins is slim, but we serve an amazing God who excells in unlikely circumstances. So our sweet Jamesy is going to have, possibly two, Ethiopian cousins!

I am not sure what God has in store next, but I know new chapters are coming and instead of being fearful I am excited! Roy and Jill are in the early stages of this adoption. I pray they find the love, support, and encouragement that we have found through the blog world. Please check them out here and follow their story to Ethiopia!

Only our amazing God could write stories like this.

.Playing It Safe No More.

Psalm 37:7 - Be still in the presence of the Lord and wait patiently for Him to act.

Today is a day that we have waited for, anticipated, dreamed about, talked about, and anxiously expected to happen much further down the road.

Today, September 9, 2010 at 12:45 PM our world was permanently changed. We officially have a referral for our son! Let me back up, as this will come as an unexpected shock to many.

In order to really understand I need to back way up.

Remember me? The girl who likes to play it safe, not rock the boat? I would rather hide out in my home and day after day go through sameness just to feel safe, secure. I am the girl who was always scared of her own shadow, the girl in high school that the boys loved to tease because I screamed whenever I was so easily frightened. The thought of something new, the thought of an adventure makes my stomach back flip and cartwheel and cavort around like nothing else can.

Then, almost a year ago, God grabbed a hold of my heart and rocked my world upside down by leading our family out of our very safe cocoon inside of camping ministry. It was basically all I had known my whole married life, and it was all my children had ever known. I clung to my Savior like no other time in my life, and I learned to relinquish my futile hold on this make-believe control I thought I had over my family and my plans for our future. It was freeing. It was scary. But for once in my life, I was allowing God to truly be Lord - Leader. I felt a peace that passed all human reason. God surprised us and blessed us with an amazing ministry position at our home church where my husband is now the Associate Pastor. That situation looked impossible by all human standards, there were so many reasons it shouldn't have worked out, but it was, and is, a total God-thing. His hand was all over the situation, weaving and molding our story. I see His fingerprints now so vividly.

Just as I had settled into our new normal, just as I was starting to allow myself to feel a little bit safe again, just as I was trying to get my pinkie finger back on those fake reigns of control, God pricked our heart and ripped the blinders from our eyes focusing them in on Africa - Ethiopia, and to the belief that we had a son waiting to be brought home to our family. Nothing feels safe with adoption. We took a leap of faith without the finances to back the adoption up. We looked foolish to many, careless even. We have had to put our heart on the line, we have had to be vulnerable and humble ourselves enough to let other people bless us financially. It has been hard. Much harder than I anticipated. We have felt lonely at times, wishing to be surrounded by people who get it - God's heart for orphans, but finally understanding that it doesn't all happen at once. We continue to pray that God would use us as the catalyst in our church, our families, our community.

Through the hard parts of this journey, God has made it impossible for us not to cling to Him. We have poured out our hearts, our fears, our desires, to our Father like probably never before. Daily I have been praying that God would break my heart for what breaks His, that I would live with eternity in mind, and not this futile, empty, vanishing world. And little by little God is changing me. Some of it is small changes that may seem silly, like finally relinquishing all of my COACH items. Because carrying them around made me feel like a hypocrite when I was constantly "preaching" about how little those in third world countries have, and how I was willing to surrender it all for the sake of Christ. And some of it is big changes, and that is ultimately where this story leads. Please hang on for a bit longer.

It happened on a Thursday. It was mid afternoon, Cadi and Scotty were napping, my house was clean, we were having dinner at a friends' home and I had nothing to prepare, so I hopped on the computer and logged into AWAA's yahoo group. I scrolled through the newest messages. I saw once again someone mention the Waiting Child List. People had been mentioning it all week, praying that by the time Court reopened in Ethiopia (it closes for a month every year) the list could be cleared out. I remember thinking how great that would be, and how special those people were to be able to accept one of these children. The list is full of children who have special needs - sometimes the special need is simply that the child is older and less likely to be adopted because there are very few requests for older children. Others of the children have varying degrees of special needs. I finally felt curious about this list. I wanted to join in praying for these children, but I want to put faces to them. I requested the password and entered the site.

What sweet, beautiful children popped up on the screen. I slowly scrolled through them reading the little description written about each one and then quickly praying for the child and his or her forever family. I then scrolled to the very last child. My heart kind of skipped a beat and I felt a gentle tug because the child was a baby and a boy, and then I read his description. I knew that God would never call us to that special need, though, I clearly remember thinking and feeling relief wash over me. That would be too hard, and we had already requested a healthy baby boy and were nearly done with our home study based on that request.

Then I opened his picture.

I do not know how to describe what happened next without sounding like a crazy person, and I guess I have just resolved myself to the fact that unless you have walked this road before this is going to sound crazy. I am okay with that. {grin}

Immediately upon the photo popping up on my screen I burst into sobs, deep gut-wrenching, shoulder shaking, ugly sobs. Because I knew that he was my son. The only thing I can liken it to is having Scotty laid on my chest after birth (I say Scotty because this did not happen with Cadi due to her traumatic birth), locking eyes with him and knowing that he belonged with me. It was the exact same thing with this baby on my screen. He belonged with us!

I could write for days probably of all God has brought us through since then. My husband will have to tell his side of the story, as it was not so instantaneous for him, although now (because of the Spirit's gentle gracious leading) he feels the same as I initially did and still do. After prayerful consideration and seeking counsel from godly people and after God made it clear in Jim's heart as well, we called AWAA and found out what we had to do before we could accept this baby's referral. We had to have a completed and approved home study. Our home study was approved this morning. And today, September 9, 2010 at 12:45 PM our world was permanently changed as we officially received the referral for our son!! We must respect the confidentiality of this referral and our child and at this time we cannot disclose any details about him or his special need. We have ten days to accept this referral, and we are working on going over his medical history with a physician. We then have to pay a large chunk of money to be able to accept his referral - which we have all of!! But let me just say that he is gorgeous, and just looks so very sweet.

What's next for us?

Next we submit our I-600A. This is our application for advance processing of an orphan petition. We will also need to submit just shy of $1000 with this. Once that is approved we wait for our final fingerprinting to be scheduled. Then we once again wait - this time for the I-171H form which allows us to bring a child into the US. After that we can send our dossier to Ethiopia (and submit more money), and we wait for our court date and first trip to Ethiopia!! I am hopeful our first trip will take place before the end of this year, and that we will be bringing our son home very soon into the new year!! Wow.

So things are expedited at this point. Please pray for us. Please pray for discernment and wisdom in preparing for our son to come home and in preparing Cadi and Scotty for our future. Please pray that God would pull the finances together for all of this to happen at the quicker pace that it needs to. Please pray for continued peace, and please, please pray for our precious baby who is half way around the world waiting for his Daddy and Mommy to bring him home. Oh how I wish I could tell him that we are coming!

This is not how we planned it. We had planned it much safer. A healthy baby boy. But God's plan is perfect, and He planned for this baby to be in our family. He will equip us. I have no doubt. He has already enlarged my heart and opened my eyes.

I'm playing it safe no more. I'm only a shadow of that timid girl I once was, and it's all because of Him.

The safety net has been completely yanked away.

But I am free-falling in the best way possible - in the arms of Jesus. {grin}

Psalm 68:6 God sets the lonely in families....

We are claiming you, sweet boy. We are claiming you as our own - no longer an orphan, no longer lonely, but rather a son. We are doing this because God has claimed us as His own, and we are orphans no more - lonely no longer. We are already praying that someday you will call God your Daddy in heaven, too. That is where your true adoption will take place.

Daddy and Mommy are coming. We love you. We want you.

God has changed us already because of you.

Your Mommy Always~
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