What's up in COL?

We have been together for 4 days now and it's hard to describe all that is transpiring here.

God is good

ALL THE TIME

I'm thankful.  I'm amazed.  I'm at a loss sometimes.  We are adjusting really well, and when I send an email or skype with family I say, "Yes, we are well."

But doing really well includes grief.  It includes discipline.  It includes trying and trying again.

As hard as it is to see my kids grieve, I'm thankful they ARE expressing their grief and not bottling it up or ignoring it.  And in the midst of it, they receive love and they give love.  How humbled we are with this blessing. 

Thank you - thank you - thank you for your prayers.  I know your prayers are carrying us right now.  Here are a few pics from our first days together.

Gotcha Day!

 BEFORE

 ANTICIPATING

 FINALLY

 REUNITED

BEAR HUG

HOLA NANA

LUNCH

 PLAYING

DOWN TIME

 BROTHERS

 ACTIVIDADES

 FRISBEE!

 GOTCHA DAY!!!!!!

Bienvenidos!

We made it!  We are actually here!  We THANKFULLY checked all six 50 lb (maybe ONE was 50.0001 lbs) and then proceded to carry-on, yes carry-on 12 maximum sized pieces of luggage. 

When we were filling the overhead bins, the flight assistent said, "I'm surprised they let you get all these carried on."  As we loaded the last one up high, I passed her and said, "Me too."

My goal this first day was to get settled in the guest house and go grocery shopping. 

We are settling and we went shopping.

The kids will have to get used to carrying groceries home.

mom too! :-)

It's about a 20 minute walk but they got to tour the mall connected to the grocery store.

We met with our agency rep and lawyer tonight and they went over details for tomorrow and the following weeks.

TOMORROW! 

Our family will look totally different TOMORROW!

How are we doing?  Pretty good! 

Excited, ready, emotional, and at PEACE.

Thank you for the prayers!!

(And I have to give a shout out to my mother in law who is here with us a few days...she has already been so helpful!) 

We are blessed.

Multitude of anxieties within me

Here we are a couple days before we leave to reunite with the kids and it seems strangely unreal.  I have been packing and as I had finished packing the 4th kid out of 7, I realized I would need 2 more bags.

That did it. 

Until then, I had been fine.  Really calm.  Excited.  Looking forward to our departure.  Then all of a sudden the anxieties flooded my chest and I started feeling stressed.

And I look at that now and think,

Really--THAT got you? 
Caused you to stumble?

Oh boy am I in trouble. 

But God is so good.

One of the verses I came across this weekend
(actually the morning before I realized I needed more luggage)
was Psalm 94:19

"In the multitude of my anxieties within me,

your comforts delight my soul."

And I started thinking and delighting in His comforts.

He will never leave me.
He will never forsake me.
His mercy is new every morning.
His grace is sufficient.
His power is made perfect in my weakness.

And I called a couple friends to borrow that luggage.

Almost packed.

Love ya blue

So I have been praying for a new ride for our growing family...

What do you think?





I was hoping to find something that didn't look like we are

running a daycare,

transporting tourists to a hotel,

or on a church road trip.

The motorcycle kind of fits my wish list.

;-)

But my wish list also included

15 seats

low mileage

and anything but white.

The first two things are pretty easy to find,

 but finding something that's not

white, white, or white

is pretty slim.

We put the swagger wagon up for sale in our front yard and it sold in 3 days.

Bye-bye, swagger.

No turning back now. 

The next day I called the guys at FindMeAVan.com

and they had a "Summit White" 2009 15 passenger

coming in town that was kinda close to our price range. 

The "Summit White" looked like a silver so I was definitely interested.

It's the little things, ya know.

So we looked at pictures,

we checked out some vans here in town,

we prayed about it,

and waited. 

We could have purchased it, and we probably would have been completely happy with the van.

But for some reason, we just hesitated...

and hesitated....

and hesitated a bit more.

Then the guys emailed us back and

said they had a 2008 coming in

that was exactly the same as the 2009

and even the same mileage,

but it wasn't the same color.

AND it would be a couple thousand dollars less.

We were interested.

We prayed about it,

talked about it,

and thought it's probably a better decision for us to get the cheaper one.

So I email him back and ask if it's white and he says....

dark blue

and I say

SOLD!

Welcome to the family, Big Blue.

When do you get the kids??

We are getting closer to travel!  This week we received immigration approvals so they say we travel within 3-4 weeks from now.  That puts us at the first or second week in August--it will be here before we know it!

I have been pondering God's blessings over the last year.  In Acts 3:26 its says

God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you

by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.

Did you get that?  Read it again. 

We are blessed by our salvation.

We are blessed by what He did to cover our sin.

We are blessed by new life in Christ.

By how He removes our sins from us as far as the east is from the west.

If He did NOTHING else for us, we are BLESSED.

But He has done so much more for us. 

We are exceedingly blessed.

 

We are abundantly blessed.

I'm not boasting--when I say WE I mean you too.  Think about it.

What other blessings do you have beyond your salvation? 

(Ok, I have narrowed my conversation with those who are followers of Jesus, so if you don't follow Him, I think it is interesting you are even parking yourself at my blog for any amount of time.  Interesting.)

Carry on.

So I have been pondering His blessings in our adoption over the last year.  And I want to be very careful about how I say what I say because I do NOT believe if you follow Jesus you will be blessed with health, wealth, and happiness.  I also don't believe that if you follow Jesus everything will be fine. 

(well, I take that back a little because when Jesus comes back, everything will be fine, but I'm talking about here and now before He comes back.) 

Sometimes things are not fine.

When we started out almost a year ago, we had no idea how we were going to pay for this adoption.  We also did not know if we would even make it this far....there are so many approvals you have to get along the way.  We just knew we had to start walking in this direction in order to follow Jesus.

Approvals required along the way....
Finding an agency that is accepted by Colombia and that would accept our unique situation---I knew going into it I needed to work with people that would come behind us and support us as well as lead us in the process.

Homestudy--approval received at the end of October.  REALLY? These people find out everything and they STILL approved us.

Next is the Dossier which included a Psychological Evaluation for both Jeremy and myself.  If the homestudy people missed anything it sure comes out in the psych eval!

Approved. 

AMAZING.

And yes it did confirm that we are in fact, crazy.

After our Dossier is approved, we get the next one....the Referrals.
EASY PEASY. ....how quickly can we say YES to these kids??

Immigration--approved.  YAY.

That brings us to the present.  You would think that after all that, it's smooth sailing from here.  There are more hoops even when we get to Colombia---bonding week and court.

That means....keep praying.

 
So last August, we decided to move forward.  God is big enough (sovereign) to shut any door along the way if these are not our kids.

(oh my, the wheels are turning in my brain---

another post about God's heart for the fatherless

and our response as followers of Jesus....um, that may be a long one.)

So back to how He has provided for this adoption in very tangible ways...Honestly we didn't have all the money in the bank to say, "Sure, let us adopt these 4 kids and get them home. No problem."

But God....

...and His heart for the fatherless.

I am not saying that He only cares for the fatherless,

but if WE don't care for them like He does,

we miss out on some of the "exceedingly" part of being blessed.

Exceedingly blessed means we have the privilege to know and love and care for these kids and introduce them to their Heavenly Father.

Exceedingly blessed means dear friends join us in bringing these kids home by their generous financial gifts.

Exceedingly blessed means clients who we have worked with share generously with us out of their abundance to help us grow our family.

Exceedingly blessed means complete strangers who we have never met, spoken to, or even know their names give to our family in a way that we can ONLY give GOD THE CREDIT.  How else is this possible but only for God's glory?

Exceedingly blessed means the God of the universe who made heaven and earth and knows the number of stars in the sky and the very number of hairs on my head, allows and even asks us to join Him in His work.

We are exceedingly blessed.

We've grown by 8 feet!

We found this poster along with balloons and flip-flops hanging at our door on
Approval Day--sweet surprise from a sweet friend!!

I will meditate on all Your work,

and talk of Your deeds...

You are the God who does wonders!

(Ps 77:12,14)

Moms, you know that anticipation you have when you are waiting to find out whether you are having

a boy or girl?

Well just over a week ago we received our REFERRALS and guess what....

It's a GIRL

It's ANOTHER GIRL

It's a BOY

It's ANOTHER BOY!!

Yeah, we kinda already knew that, but it is just a little more official and we are one step closer to bringing these kids home....

and AGAIN we are humbled that God

would entrust them to us.

We were so eager to get the referral paperwork--

if you are not really sure what that means,

it is all the information on each child--

their history, medical, social, as much info they can give us.

We were so excited to have it in our hands--

or inbox really--and printed and read through each one.

Then we are sad again.

Because we read about the loss

that brought them to this point.

And we are reminded that as wonderful and lovely adoption is, it exists because of some loss or tradegy.

And with the joy, excitement, and blessing, also comes grief, pain, loss.

Pray for us as we join our kids on their journey. 

We desire healing for

all of us.

So the question we are getting is

"When do you go get your kids??"