Praise the Lord!

We received our approved home study in the mail today!

God is so Good!

I really am having trouble finding words for what a blessing the last two weeks have been. The Lord has richly blessed us in all things. I have been blessed to be a part of the birth of one of my dearest friend's third child. How can anyone ever get over the wonder of new life? I got to rejoice with our church body Sunday morning, when our friends arrived, just home from China with their new beautiful daughter. I enjoyed a lovely holiday with my parents, after not seeing them for a year. We have an approved home study in the mail and on it's way in record time. I received my passport in only nine days...yes NINE days! The Lord has provided for the first $10.000.00 of this adoption, in one month (for those of you keeping track, only about $13,000.00 to go)! I really am having a hard time wrapping my mind around how fast all this is going. A little over a month ago I was sure I was never going to have any more children. Sure the Lord had closed the door to both my womb and adoption. In just four short weeks He has shown us our new children, bound our hearts to theirs, provided for over a third of the need funds, encouraged and blessed me richly. His plan truly is best. I think about my friends who just got back from China, with their newest daughter Ellie. After many devastating losses and an excruciating two year wait for Ellie, what a joy it was to see her in the arms of her mother. It was no difficult task praising our Lord, when it was all said and done. Well worth the wait and the struggle. Oh, how I long to be in the place when I can praise Him in the midst of the heartache. I have been pleading with Him for nearly four years to give us more children. Many tears have been shed over the last four years. Tears of repentance, tears of heartache, tears only a barren woman can know, tears of anger, tears of loss and grief. Now, I cry tears of joy. Nothing has changed really, I still am not pregnant, I still do not have Melissa and William in my arms. We still have many mountains to climb before they are. To top it all off, we are painfully aware, that they may never be in our arms. This one thing I know...I serve an awesome, good, sovereign God. No plan of His can be thwarted. If He has ordained that these children be ours, then no power on earth can stop it. If has ordained this to be yet another trial, that ends in seeming loss, I pray He will give the grace for me to say, even still, I serve an awesome, good, and sovereign God...may His name alone be forever praised! Blessings to you all, we love you all dearly. Thank you for your friendship, love, and prayers.

Whirlwind

Wow! So it has been three weeks since I posted an update. Rest assured it is not for lack of updates. As you can see by the BEAUTIFUL pictures that have been added, the Lord has shown us our children. Needless to say we are hopelessly in love (can you really blame us??? Look at those smiles) William is four years old, and is described as Mr. Rogers. He is said to be sweet, steady, and very loving. Melissa is 2 1/2, we hear she is strong willed and has a very captivating personality. The kids are so excited. Grace has been waiting for a sister for so long. She asked me if I could dye her hair black and put beads in it, just like Melissa's.

We had our home visit for our home study this past Saturday. Way less difficult, than I had built it up to be. We have a wonderful christian social worker, she spent about five hours in our home. It will be nice to have a believer walk through this with us. It helps knowing that if we face struggles after the children come home, she will offer help from a biblical perspective. All we are waiting for is the proof of insurance and medical exams (which we will be doing on the 12th) then she should have our finished home study to us with in two weeks. So here is my "to do list" for this week

1. Medical exams for the 5 of us, including TB tests
2. Get my passport
3. File our i600a
4. Get vaccinations: Hep A & B, Yellow Fever, Typhoid, and Polio booster (for me, Richard is good to go)
5. Get started on scrapbook to send William and Melissa

I need to get everything sent out to Mandy (the woman who runs the orphanage) but we are about $3,000 short of the $7,300 we need to get things rolling. So please pray that the Lord will bring this in soon. Please also pray that our i600a gets approved quickly. We are told that as soon as that is approved we are 3/4 of the way there. I think this is also when they will tell the kids about us and start showing the the scrapbook of us.

One last prayer request: Our associate pastor, Jake, will be returning to Uganda for mission work. First and foremost, please keep him in your prayers. Both for his safety and fruitful proclamation of the Gospel. Also, he is going to try and get to the Orphanage. Oh, how I want him to be able to see William and Melissa. Somehow, it just seems as if he could just hug them and touch them for me, if he could just pass on a little of the love that is growing in my heart, then just maybe, I can make to April.

Pearl's From Africa

Welcome to our first (and probably only) BLOG. I really don't know what makes me think I have the time to keep this thing going, but it has been nagging me for quite some time now. So here I am, thinking I've got something to say, and that people will listen. Perhaps I should stop long enough to repent of this heinous sin of pride before I continue???? Really I just want a place to chronicle this journey and a way to keep friends and family informed. Of course those who know me well, will expect some soap boxing once in a while :)

Well here are officially one week into our adoption process, and already I feel as if it is taking too long. I can see this will be a very sanctifying process. Richard seems to have his heart set on Uganda as our country of choice, the more I see these children the more I agree. Last night I was crying like a baby over the video of the children in the Jinja orphanage, not out of pity but out of love. How on earth can I have such a love for people I have never met? A friend from church has already been in contact with the woman that runs this orphanage, and says this is a very stable program. YEAH!!! I will be contacting her later today, to find out any particulars that we might need to know. We will also be scheduling the home study for early December. God willing, all the paperwork on our side will be in Jinja by mid January. Then we should be able to travel to bring them home in May or June.

We have been brainstorming for ways to start saving and paying for this. Ultimately we know the Lord is the one who will graciously provide, but we know we must do our part too. It will take Him moving in a mighty way to make this happen. We have been given a cost of approximately $27000.00 to bring our two pearl's home. That is a lot of money to be raised in six months or less. We know our God is able, and we believe He will. I figure we need about $3000.00 to get us through December for the home study, vaccinations for me, our I600 and fingerprinting, my passport, doctors visits for us all, and installing a fence around the swimming pool. Our social worker says that will need to be done in order to get our home study approved. Thankfully the Lord has provided the fence panels, we just need to buy the 4x4 posts and the cement to get it up. I will find out later the schedule of payment for the overseas fees. Please keep us in your prayers, we know that this is impossible with out our Lord!