It is hard to believe that it has been more than a month since I have written here! The past month has seemed to speed by and crawl along all at the same time! We continue to grieve over the loss of Susanna, yet we are finding more and more peace and daily are choosing to put our focus on getting Will home!
Today we had our biometric fingerprinting done and that means that all we are waiting on now is approval from US immigration and then our dossier goes to Will's government to await our official referral. Right now his country's government is experiencing some major unrest and upheaval and it has seriously stalled many families in their adoption process. We pray that peace and stability will come and that these sweet children will start getting home!
We have received requests to provide a tax deductible donation option for our fundraising. Tax deductible donations can be made by clicking on the yellow button on the right side of our blog. We are currently unable to get updates from Project Hopeful when donations are made. We are so sorry that we are unable to directly thank people as they donate.....but please know that we are so utterly grateful for every dollar that comes in. We have been humbled by those desiring to help get Will home, both through donations and prayer support! You are the very hands and feet of Jesus and are a very real part of providing for him a real future and giving him hope!
Adoption is such an opportunity for God to refine our hearts. Some days it can be very painful and overwhelming. How the enemy would love for us to believe that it is just too much to enter in to the stories of these hurting children that have been hidden away from the rest of the world. Right now I know that the tactic is to get me to feel hopeless because of the wait that lies ahead. Thinking of our Will as he lays there, missing Susanna, confused, alone. Not knowing how long the governmental delays will be. I fight the desire to question how God can allow it to take SO long. Each day I must choose to rest in truth and to recognize the battle vs. getting swept away in the facade that it doesn't exist. That is such a dangerous place to be.....forgetting that there is an enemy who is actively opposing the redemption of these children. If we forget then the temptation is to give up......to let someone else take care of it.....to deceive ourselves that the doors that we have to fight to open are God's way of telling us to move on. I read this quote a couple of weeks ago on one of my discouraged days. It shook me right out of my focus on self and got it back where it belonged.....how we need to encourage each other to remember this!!!
“When you say YES to adoption, you are saying YES to enter the suffering of the orphan, and that suffering includes WAITING FOR YOU TO GET TO THEM. I promise you, their suffering is worse than yours. We say YES to the tears, YES to the longing, YES to the maddening process, YES to the money, YES to hope, YES to the screaming frustration of it all, YES to going the distance through every unforeseen discouragement and delay. Do not imagine that something outside of “your perfect plan” means you heard God wrong. There is NO perfect adoption. EVERY adoption has snags. We Americans invented the “show me a sign” or “this is a sign” or “this must mean God is closing a door” or “God must not be in this because it is hard,” but all that is garbage. You know what’s hard? Being an orphan. They need us to be champions and heroes for them, fighting like hell to get them home. So we will. We may cry and rage and scream and wail in the process, but get them home we will.”
–Jen Hatmaker
