The body of Christ "visiting" orphans

We have three sets of friends, Christian families, who are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia (more than that actually, but here are three):

• Tim and Heidi Brown live nearby and are moving quickly up the waiting list...they have one young home grown child and are hoping, by God's grace, to graft a fatherless one into their family.   
  

• Joseph and Rachel Walser live in Florida. They have four homegrown kids and a heart for sharing Jesus daily with a little one from Ethiopia.  Joseph is the lead church planter of Lifebridge Church, which is where Dave and Erica Shubin go to church (for those of you who know the Shubins).  Rachel has been chronicling their adoption journey at  Walser Adoption Adventures.

• Josh and Christy Waulk also live in Florida and are highly involved at Lifebridge Church.  They have one homegrown child and would love to add to their number via adoption. They've just begun the process and you can follow their story at Waulk to Ethiopia.

We want to invite you to join us in praying for them, giving if you're able to help with the expenses, and any other way the Lord may lead you.  I know some of you have been setting some money aside with the hopes of helping us adopt again...bless you!

Here are three wonderful opportunities, among others you may know about already, to "visit orphans."

The Walsers and Waulks have PayPal Donation buttons on their blogs, and I'm confident they would heartily welcome your interaction/encouragements.  Heidi doesn't have a blog set up, but I see her regularly if you'd like me to pass funds and/or notes of encouragement through me to her.

Now you have a choice to make...
will you do something?   

Where the Lord leads, we will follow

Good morning friends in Blog-ville.  I learned a valuable lesson via the years of what I thought was a "death" of a dream...I learned it was more of a redirecting.  I'd like to move in the next number of posts from infertility to our experiences along the adoption road, but before I do, I'd like to take today to jump into the present and update you on where things are regarding my "dreams" to adopt once more, this time from Ethiopia.

About 8 months ago, I began dreaming vividly of a little fellow in Ethiopia, about 3-4 years old.  For months I wrestled with the idea of adopting again in my head.  I had all kinds of ammo against the idea.  Yes, I said against.  If you know me at all, you know that I want to do whatever I can to help the fatherless get united with Christian families.  You would also know that I believe children are blessings, gifts from the Lord. Yet, these being true, I wrestled...the present economy, our own economic situation, the size of our house (5 of us in approximately 1,000 sq. ft is different than making it 6), the adoption wouldn't be the only expense as we'd outgrow our car and need a van, our ages (me, 43 and hubby, 47), fears that would require conquering, challenges with homeschooling, and on and on.  I had made comments over the course of a few months to my husband and a few friends, but nothing denoting a seriousness on my part.

By June I found that my fears had been eased, my trust in God's ability to provide had grown, and my desire to do what it would take to pursue a little fellow in Ethiopia had increased.  Not wrestling any more, I asked Mike to pray with me daily through the summer about it.  I was hopeful, and excited to see where God would lead.  Mike defined our positions in missionary terms:  He was willing to go, should the Lord lead, but planning to stay and I was wanting to go, should the Lord lead, but willing to stay.  We were and are 100% united in wanting to follow the Lord wherever He leads.  I am SOOOOO grateful for that! 

Mike gave me freedom to talk with others, to gather information, to share with him all I came across.  I've watched hours of Ethiopian adoption related videos, talked with our social worker, and hunted down blogs through which I have made a few new friends (bless you, all who've taken the time to answer my questions about transitional issues with 3-4 year olds and all the other things I've interacted with you about).  We talked with some of our close friends to get their input.  We prayed daily and had a few lengthy discussions over the summer.  It has been a really good summer for us seeking the Lord and His direction for our family together, and I have known peace as I trust my God to lead through Mike.

I want to thank all of you who have been praying alongside us through the summer.  The reality is, God has NOT given Mike a desire to adopt again at this point.  So though I still have desires, I am realigning myself with the help of God this week to think in terms of "planning to stay." 

One of the fruits of this summer has been that our desire to help others along their adoption journeys via financial gifts as we're able, via encouragements, etc., has grown...we're thankful for the connections that have been made with you, and for the new friendships that have been formed this side of glory. We will continue to pray for those of you we know who are in the process and help you where we can...we look forward to rejoicing with you as God grafts His fatherless ones into your families. 

Just wanted you all to know where things stand...we look forward to living out the good works God has prepared for us to walk in, as He leads.  God bless you as you do the same, keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus!

ALL things for good (Death of a dream, Pt 3)

Thomas Watson wrote a book titled All Things for Good, in which he wrote this:  "If it is good for us, we shall have it; if it is not good for us, then the withholding of it is good."  This quote became a guard for me in those days of battling the blues of infertility, and often afterward regarding other matters.  I recommend the whole book. 

More recently, I read a section about warfare in Ed Welch's book titled Depression: A Stubborn Darkness.  Regarding lies that attempt to focus our attention on temporal realities, and away from the God of all glory, he wrote the following:  

This popular deception is underway even before suffering begins. During the better times, Satan happily encourages us to see the goodness of God all around us.

"You have a strong marriage?  Isn't God good!"

"Your health is fine?  Isn't God good!"

"Your bills are paid and there is some money in the bank?  Isn't God good!"

"Train your eye on these earthly blessings, and gauge God's goodness by what you see, because life will not always be an accumulation of good things.  Then, when the hardships come, you will look out and have no evidence of God's goodness."

This is what Satan tried, albeit unsuccessfully, with Job.  Job had all the best things in life, and Satan assumed that once they were gone, Job would turn his back on God.  But Job trusted in God throughout, causing Satan to flee.

When sorrowing so profusely over not having something I want, I have to stop and ask myself what exactly is going on here?  Have I misplaced my affections?  Do I trust God is good, as He declares Himself to be, both in giving and withholding?  Or do I have my idea of good and project that upon God, then doubt His goodness when He doesn't deliver according to my agenda?  Ouch!  

I found myself repenting often in this season as God made it clear to me that the desire for children is a good desire, rightly placed in submission to Him, but when that desire becomes paramount it has become an idol of worship.  I wish I could say I have learned that lesson once and for all, but I find myself seeking His mercy time and time again.  I know I am not alone and hence I share this with you, so together we might grow in our love for God as He gives and withholds according to His sovereign wisdom and goodness.  

He promises us to be our God, to never leave nor forsake us...the Lord Himself is our portion and He is good.  Psalm 37:3-4 encouraged and encourages me still greatly: "Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and feed on His faithfulness.  Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart."  Where is our delight supposed to be found? In the Lord.  

When we delight in Him, we are indeed satisfied more than if we were to have every earthly pleasure available.  We were made for His glory...as we glory in Him, we know the joy we were made for.  That is why I can say NOW, I am so glad God did not open my womb in those days.  He has since granted children, three beautiful, milk-spilling, laughing, demanding, smiling, knee-scraping, delightful children...good gifts from His hand.  And I love them best by loving God most. 

His appointment (Death of a dream, Pt 2)

Knowing that it is the LORD who opens and closes wombs, I went on hoping that He would open mine.  I rode the roller coaster of hopes and hopes crushed.  I made use of more pregnancy tests than I care to admit.  And cycle after cycle, this poem by Edith Lillian Young was one of the tools in God's hands to move me, little by little, to the place where I laid my wish list down and clung to Him alone for my joy.  How grateful I am for His grace which leads me into His arms of love!  He is good, all the time. 

Disappointment - His appointment, change one letter, then I see

that the thwarting of my purpose is God's better choice for me.

His appointment must be blessing, though it may come in disguise,

for the end from the beginning, open to His wisdom lies.

Disappointment - His appointment, Whose? The Lord's who loves me best,

understands and knows me fully, who my faith and love would test.

For like a loving, earthly parent, He rejoices when He knows,

that His child accepts unquestioned all that from His wisdom flows.

Disappointment - His appointment...Lord I take it then as such,

like the clay in hands of a Potter, yielding wholly to Thy touch.

All my life's plan is Thy molding; not one single choice is mine.

Let me answer unrepining, Father not my will but Thine.

Death of a dream, Pt. 1

Mike and I were married in 1993.  I grew up wanting and planning and preparing for children so after 3 years of marriage and "trying", we began to walk more formally the path that I recorded in my journal as "the death of a dream."  I have to admit, I have a different perspective with hindsight than I did at the time...now I can see how God was directing our path to delights in Him and in life that I had never imagined.  BUT, at the time, I felt broken and disheartened, to put it mildly.  We both went through an infertility workup and were given options to consider, most of which were either discounted ethically or financially, some of which we tried.  That took one sentence to write, but it took about two years to live.  King David had a different scenario than me when he wrote Psalm 38 (obviously), but I borrowed some of his words as I cried out to the Lord in that season:  "I am troubled, I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long...I am feeble and severely broken; I groan because of the turmoil of my heart.  Lord, my desire is before You; and my sighing is not hidden from You.  My heart pants, my strength fails me; as for the light of my eyes, it also has gone from me.  My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague, and my relatives stand afar off" (Psalm 38:6-11).

There were wrestlings unlike any I had known to that point in my life...What now?  If not children, what do we do, where do we go from here?  My life seemed shattered.  I felt very alone as people all around me multiplied like rabbits. I fought anger over teenage girls getting pregnant in backseats of cars who kill their babies when I couldn't get pregnant and wanted to so badly...I wrongly charged God of injustice. Confusion and weightiness of heart was the fog I walked in for awhile, but God in His mercy began to lift the fog and help me begin to see more clearly His hand of love in this.  As horrible as they were in many ways, I wouldn't trade those days.  When God takes you through refining fires, He knows exactly what He is doing...He is worthy to be trusted at all times.  Quotes and thoughts from that season will be the focus of the next few posts.  Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.

Chariots of Fire

In the movie “Chariots of Fire,” the runner says he runs because when he does “he feels God’s pleasure.”   That is how I feel about helping my husband raise the three children God has brought into our family...with all the joys and challenges and responsibilities and tears and laughter, I know without a doubt God has knit these three precious children into our lives and as I welcome them to each new day I feel His pleasure.    

The comment has been made to me more than once while in the process of adoption that "you're getting your children the easy way."  I don't want to get into a bunch of comparisons, but I will say this:  Every child joins its family with a labor all his/her own.  For the next couple of weeks, I'd like to share blips from our story and how God brought us to where we are today.  I'll be using notes from my journals and hopefully you will be encouraged along the way to trust God more deeply in your own life, which I'm sure has its own sets of labor.  I also hope that as you take hold of whatever God has put into your hand to do for His glory, that you will "feel His pleasure" as you fix your eyes on Him.  I would love your feedback along the way. 

One at a time

Just how big of a number is 143,000,000?

"One" at a time is doable.

What can WE do to make a difference?

What CAN we do?

What can we DO?

I'd love to hear your ideas and hear your stories!