with a heavy heart

Today were our individual interviews with our home study provider and everything on that front is going swimmingly.  We should have a finalized home study just after the new year and move on to the immigration piece of this process.  The other benefit of the home study being finalized is that we can now start working on grants and fundraising because all of them that I have seen require a finalized home study.  That being said, my heart is very heavy as I write this.

There are some people who have let us peek into their lives as they have stepped through this adoption process in Uganda and they have come to a tragic place.  J&T have three children (and one on the way) and took their family to Uganda for 8 weeks to finalize the adoption of their new little girl.  Just yesterday, T and all the kids had to come home without J and their daughter.  Unfortunately, red tape has caused them to be denied a visa from the US Embassy and based on what I have read from their blog, it is not very promising that they will get one...possibly ever.  As I read through their situation and Justin and I talk about it, it scares us to know that this is nothing that they could have planned for and there is nothing they could have done differently to prevent this.  This means, we could end up in this exact same situation and that scares me to death.  And yet, it doesn't keep us from moving forward in the process.  We have to know and trust that we are where we are doing exactly what we should be doing knowing the risk but trusting the One who brought us to this point.

So much has happened in the last few weeks...I went to Japan and back, Jack has two teeth cutting through, and he's up on his hands and knees trying to crawl!  Dad was here with us while Justin's dad is doing his job as Santa.  Dad will be back after Thanksgiving for a few more weeks while Justin finishes student teaching!  I am so proud of him for working so hard through his masters.  He will be done and a full fledged teacher in less than a month!  And then we leave for Christmas vacation!

slow and steady

back from travel, back into our whirlwind life, and things are just slow and steady.  i get these bursts of energy with regards to adoption and then I sit back and think how much longer we have and I just want to stop.  Of course I don't want to stop the adoption, I just want to stop the back and forth of now and then...whenever "then" is.

In the meantime, things are in a bit of transition in our household.  Our primary childcare (Justin's dad) has very important duties as Santa Claus for the next few months and so my dad has come from Illinois to be our manny until mid-December.  We are excited that he is here with us but always miss Santa as he is away from home for two months.  Obviously this transition means some changes for how we've been doing business.  While I don't have to get up at 6am to get Jack out the door with Justin, I now feel that if he wakes in the night I should be the go-to girl since I get to sleep in a little later.  Unfortunately I have the same problem I had when I was preggers, once I'm up, it's everything I can do to go back to sleep.  So we'll have to figure something out here.  Although in another week it won't matter anyway because I'm headed off to Japan for a week for work (last international work trip of the year).

I realize after writing a bit that this all seems kinda down in the dumps.  But let me share some awesome that is happening soon or very soon.  My endocrine appointment is the week I get back from Japan.  This may not seem like a big deal to anyone else but when you're living with hypothyroidism and your medication is off and no one can seem to fix it, this is a HUGE deal.  Our next homestudy appointment is on the 9th.  And, at church this last week I met a new friend.  There was this beautiful family just over from us in service with three little towhead kids and a baby carrier with a blanket over it (oh yeah, and the mom was a ginger :).  Mid service, the baby gets restless and comes out of the carrier.  Inside is the most beautiful little African American baby boy.  I am almost moved to tears in the service and immediately when it was finished I went to them to talk and share.  I will spare you all the details but after much asking as to where my "place" is in our church, already putting the wheels in motion to meet with our ministers about adoption awareness and fundraising, and hearing my new friend's story of what they did for orphan care in their previous church, I am excited about what is to come!  We meet with the ministers today and are excited to just really live out our command to look after the orphans and we can do that in so many ways!

I'm going to save the details for another post and after we have a little more direction.  Suffice it to say that I feel very blessed but also a deep responsibility for this new calling.  I am realizing that as much as I love working with college age girls that maybe that was just that time of my life and now God is moving me to a different phase "for such a time as this."

now if only my 6 month old would go back to sleeping through the night...