Orphan Sunday was a little different for our church today. Ben decided not to just do an "Orphan Sunday" but more like an "Orphan Month"! He started this by speaking on our spiritual adoption. This morning he spoke about God being our Father. Sadly I missed it. But I had Children's Church with two first graders and used that time to have a little Orphan Sunday of our very own. Just the three of us. It was awesome and challenging to talk with these two kids who are blessed with great families about the plight of the orphan and how even they as first graders can love orphans. These two kids now know how they can pray for the millions of orphans all around the world. This is a huge deal. Our kids today do not even know what it means to be without closets full of clothes, every type of food imaginable, baths every night, night night hugs and kisses from Mommy and Daddy, etc. Prayer is powerful. Let us not underestimate the power of a first grader's prayer. I am going to put a familiar verse on here to remind us all that God didn't suggest we care for the orphan and widow but COMMANDED us to care for the orphan and widow. "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans an widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27 We are to be caring for the "lease of these". I hope everyone was touched by however your church did Orphan Sunday, but let us not leave what we learned in our pew but "do" what we have been commanded to do.
We are still working on getting our homestudy finalized. We should be hearing something this week. I am very anxious (I know I'm not supposed to be!) to get this done. It will be a HUGE check on my list of to do's. I am getting more and more anxious to get our dossier done and sent to Ethiopia. This wonderful day will be called DTE. I thought I would go ahead and tell you that because you will be seeing that a lot in my blog. I am SO ready for that day. But I am also dreading that day. That day will officially begin the longest wait of our lives. I will go ahead and tell you right now how you can pray for us (especially me, the worrier). I am apart of a yahoo chat group for my agency for people in the Ethiopia program. It is wonderful and mostly encouraging and informational. Truly a place to make long life friends with people you may never ever meet! This chat group can also be discouraging as well. Let me explain. A lot of people on the chat group are already DTE or have already received a referral (meaning they know who their child is and are awaiting a court date). Because of changes in the adoption process in Ethiopia wait times have slowly increased and if things continue as they are then those wait times will only increase some more. I have read heartbreaking messages from Mamas longing to know who their child is after waiting over a year, knowing who their child is but waiting for a court date, waiting for embassy to clear their child so they can finally come home. It tears me apart and I don't even know them, but I know my day is coming and what is so scary is I don't know what our path will look like. That is life though. As my friend Cole ( who is also starting the process of adoption from Ethiopia) put it in a recent blog, we don't know what the end result is going to be but we can trust and know that God is with us through it all. That blog post encouraged me so. I know that God is going to refine us and mold us and I know when that happens that it can be tough and even painful. I have a lot of growing to do. I still ask that you pray because I have really been struggling with this and other things that I will leave unspoken. Just pray, please please pray for me. Continue to pray that God would truly be leading every step of this process and that we would follow. Continue to pray for us financially as well. God has provided thus far and I know He will continue to do so but again worrier here!!! Pray that the funds would be made available through whatever means God chooses. I know that not everyone is called to adopt but maybe God is calling you to care for orphans through helping us bring our baby home. I want to insert a fellow adoptive mother's blog post here. I posted it on my facebook page the other day but said I would put it on my blog also. If you want to know how you can help support us in this adoption before the baby gets home and after please read this. I PROMISE it is well worth your time. (I only wish I could blog like her!)
Thanks to everyone for your support! http://www.jenhatmaker.com/blog/2011/11/02/how-to-be-the-village
