Meeting God

This morning at the Created for Care retreat, I went to an 8:00 A.M. "Date with God" organized by the conference. There were several stations set up around the room, and we had 45 to go to any stations we wanted and follow the instructions for each station. I stayed for some time at the painting table, where we were to ask God for an image of the way he sees us. There were tears rolling down my cheeks before I even picked up a brush.

I prayed and heard the still, small voice in my spirit say, "Frolic. Flip. You do not carry this life." I painted a child doing a back flip barefooted in tall, green grass. I wrote beside her, "You do not carry this life." When I finished, I walked over to a huge world map that was spread out on the floor, stood on Uganda, and prayed. As I was walking away from that station, the session leader stopped me and said, "Before each session, I pray and ask God to direct me and show me people he wants me to pray for. I believe he showed me you." We wrapped out arms around each other, and she said, "He wants to be the strength in your weakness. He sees you." We prayed, and I picked up a scroll of scriptures they were giving out, and these are the scriptures on the scroll:

2 Corinthians 12:9 "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
Psalm 33:20 "We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield.
Isaiah 26: 3-4 "You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal."
Romans 8:28 "And we know that in all things God works for the good of t hose who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."
1 John 5:14 "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us."

Created for Care

I am at a retreat for adoptive moms at a lodge on Lake Lanier. The organizers seated us at dinner by country, and I was with five women who already adopted from various children's homes in Uganda. Their stories are so varied, including one who ended up staying in country for 11 months waiting on the resolution of a legal glitch. I heard two stories of children dying of asthma attacks because of lack of access to medical facilities that could give them breathing treatments.

I found myself angry today when I saw pregnant women who had also adopted. I have to say to myself, "Our road is not their road." God has not forgotten us.

Almost There

Our home visit on Friday went really well, and now we're on the home stretch . . . maybe just rounding a base . . . maybe just getting up to bat. Pick your metaphor. Within a week, we'll have all of our paperwork ready to send to the Ugandan orphanage and start the international part of this adventure.

For review, we are requesting a single child (either gender) ages 0 to 7 or a sibling group within that range. If our referral is a sibling group, we are required to have one parent at home full time for the year following the beginning of the guardianship.

Interviews

It's interview week! We had our couple interview with the assistant director of Carolina Adoption Services. We talked mostly about awareness of the issues we'll face with international adoption, specifically attachment. Stan will have his individual interview on Thursday, and mine is Friday after the home visit. After all of that is done, we'll wrap up the home study and get all the paperwork to Good Shepherd's Fold so that we can get on the waiting list.

Tidbits

We have turned in our paperwork and paid for the home study update. (That puts our total adoption spending at $6650.) On the Uganda end, things are a bit slow, but it is our hope that we will be there this summer for about a month to hit two court dates.

I (Angie) have been reading John Piper's Bloodlines and another interesting book of transracial adoption stories, In Their Own Voices. Both books have opened my eyes to the issues we will deal with in our family.

Our Next Move

After much prayer and counsel, we have decided to pursue adoption from Uganda. For about ten years, we have been financially supporting Good Shepherd's Fold, a large orphanage in East Africa. Very good friends of ours, Jimmy and Gayla Renslow, have adopted two little sweet peas from there and are involved now in helping other families to do the same. We have applied to GSF, and we began our second home study on Friday, January 13.

We are very thankful for all we have learned working with Bethany Christian Services, but our contract with them has ended, and we have come to the conclusion that we should go in a different direction. The need is great in Uganda, which has over 2,000,000 orphans due to warfare and the AIDS epidemic.

Please pray as we transition, educate ourselves on transracial adoption, and make big decisions. Here's a link to a short video about Good Shepherd's Fold. Click on the third blue link.

feeling hopeful again

We had coffee yesterday with a couple who are currently on furlough from work in the Philippines. They have been serving for the past year at an orphanage that is caring for 22 children, most of whom were placed there because their large,impoverished families could not handle one more mouth to feed. We learned today that our adoption agency works in that region, and we excited once again to be back on the path toward adoption. We find ourselves much more open to adopting a sibling group, and there is one (girl, 4 and boy, 6) at this orphanage. There are also two babies (newborn and three months), so that's exciting as well.

Pray with us for direction and for doors to open and close as is God's will.