A Reminder to me..of His Faithfulness

Adoption is an expensive endeavor (as was our adoption, I might add...it cost Jesus dearly) We have already put about $12,000 toward bringing William and Melissa home. This was given, by the grace of God, in the form of work for Richard, given during our slowest time of the year. When we called Mandy and Cathie to move forward with this, we did not have any money. The week before we had taken all we had saved for our "slow season" and paid off our debt. We were going into a season when there is traditionally no work (grass doesn't grow in the winter...even in Texas)with no saved money...but no consumer debt. Then, after two years, Richard finally says it's time to adopt. We did not have the money for our home study, but I scheduled it any way. I had to send Cathie $800 on Friday, Thursday we had just enough to get us through the week, but not the money for our hs. Friday, we received a check for $880.00. When I talked to Mandy about getting things started on their end, she told me it would cost $7290, of which we had none. Add to that doctor visits, vaccinations, passports, USCIS fees, and we were looking at nearly $10,000 needed to move forward. During our home visit with the sw, she told us we would have to install a fence around the swimming pool, before the children came home. Great I thought...another couple thousand dollars we don't have, and need now. [For those of you who don't know us, Richard has been working with a major home builder for over a year now...DRH] Around this time we received a couple of phone calls from our supervisors at DRH. They were trying to cut costs, so in doing so the construction trailers had to go. They wanted us to come and remove the porches, building materials, and fence. In doing these jobs we made enough money to cover what we needed to move forward...and collected enough fence from the jobs to fence around the pool. God is so good to us. He put it in our hearts to adopt, He opened closed doors in Uganda, He provided everything we needed: right when we needed it. He is indeed faithful.

Why then do I doubt? As I sit here I wonder how in the world are we ever going to have enough money to pull this off. Air fare alone is going to reach nearly $7000. In addition we need $9500 for various fees and such in Uganda, plus around $3000 to complete the adoption here in Texas. Any day now we could receive that last piece of precious paperwork from USCIS, and we have only a tiny fraction of the money we need saved. Nevertheless, His truth still stands, He is faithful. Is He not able to do all things? Is He not able to do exceedingly more than all we can ask or even imagine? Has He not already done the impossible, just two short months ago? In providing what is normally a full quarters worth of income for us in just one month?
Pray for me, that I would keep my eyes on Jesus, trusting fully in Him. Pray for our family as we wait upon the Lord. Pray for William and Melissa, that the Lord would prepare their hearts to receive us, just as His Spirit, prepares our hearts to receive Him. Pray for the Lord's provision, because with out Him, we can do nothing.

Greek Feast

We had a Greek feast with four other families on Monday. The kids have been studying ancient Greece in school, as has my friend J. and her son. She had a great idea to have a feast with the kids, complete with Olympic games. I love to go to actvities that she plans. When J. plans a party, she goes all out. I love this about her. God has given her a gift for hospitality. She made signs, torches, gold medals and more. She also planned a wonderful meal of Greek foods for us all to sample.

Nope, that is not a Greek goddess, that is my friend J, all decked out in her Grecian best.



Most the children were willing to try all the strange food, except for the rice in grape leaves. The adults however, loved those.



After dinner, we began our Olypmic games. Couldn't have the games with out the passing of the torch. We had Javelin, Discus, Relay, and Chariot Racing.









N. only five years old, and an expert with the javelin. Check out Noah's form with the discus.
I didn't get any pictures of the chariot races, but rest assured they were every bit as exciting as the famous scene from Ben Hur. It was a great time for us all. Thanks J. for pulling it all together!

YouTube - John Piper on the prosperity gospel

YouTube - John Piper on the prosperity gospel

Levi

Levi will have another surgery in the morning. Please keep him in your prayers. I know this will probably seem strange to some, but he seems like William and Melissa's brother to me. They spent a long time together at the orphanage. I feel this connection to him, so for me this is more than praying for some little boy to pull through a lengthy surgery. I feel as though I am praying for someone very dear to our family.
http://www.levisheart.blogspot.com/

GRRR! What's up blog spot??? Spell check still not working...see previous disclaimer

Spurgeon

This is from Spurgeon's Morning and Evening Devotional. It is from January 16. When I read it this morning I thought I was reading todays. Both Richard and I thought it was wonderfully encouraging and wanted to share. I did not realize until I went to look it up, so I could copy and paste it on here, that I read the wrong days devontional. God is so good. I love Him.

“I will help thee, saith the Lord.”
Isaiah 41:14

This morning let us hear the Lord Jesus speak to each one of us: “I will help thee.” “It is but a small thing for me, thy God, to help thee. Consider what I have done already. What! not help thee? Why, I bought thee with my blood. What! not help thee? I have died for thee; and if I have done the greater, will I not do the less? Help thee! It is the least thing I will ever do for thee; I have done more, and will do more. Before the world began I chose thee. I made the covenant for thee. I laid aside my glory and became a man for thee; I gave up my life for thee; and if I did all this, I will surely help thee now. In helping thee, I am giving thee what I have bought for thee already. If thou hadst need of a thousand times as much help, I would give it thee; thou requirest little compared with what I am ready to give. 'Tis much for thee to need, but it is nothing for me to bestow. ‘Help thee?’ Fear not! If there were an ant at the door of thy granary asking for help, it would not ruin thee to give him a handful of thy wheat; and thou art nothing but a tiny insect at the door of my all-sufficiency. ‘I will help thee.’”

O my soul, is not this enough? Dost thou need more strength than the omnipotence of the United Trinity? Dost thou want more wisdom than exists in the Father, more love than displays itself in the Son, or more power than is manifest in the influences of the Spirit? Bring hither thine empty pitcher! Surely this well will fill it. Haste, gather up thy wants, and bring them here—thine emptiness, thy woes, thy needs. Behold, this river of God is full for thy supply; what canst thou desire beside? Go forth, my soul, in this thy might. The Eternal God is thine helper!

“Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismay'd!

I, I am thy God, and will still give thee aid.”

Prayer for a little one please

This little guy, Levi, is from the same orphanage as William and Melissa. He has been home for about six months I think. Please pray for him and his family.
http://www.levisheart.blogspot.com/

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines day to all! There are many people in my life that I love dearly and I am so thankful for their love. While their love is a blessing in my life, it pales in comparison to the one who loves me most of all:

Thank you my Heavenly Father for your love. For first loving me, so that I may love you. For drawing me to yourself, in grace, by your spirit. For devising the plan that brought me redemption, through your son, My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I praise you Lord for my reconciliation to you and my adoption as your child. Your love is amazing, deep, extravagant. I praise you, the lover of my soul, for your love and everlasting kindness toward me.

"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays his life down for his friends"
John 15:13
Thank you Lord, for there is no greater love than yours.

Lazy Blogger

I have a confession to make: I am a lazy blogger. There, it's out in the open now. Perhaps this will be the first step in in changing my lack of posts. I want to post, really I do. I think of all sorts of things I want to share, and then I don't. Since I am sure there will be no new updates on the adoption for a while, I will have to fill my time and this blog with other thoughts. Our fingerprint appoinment went well...I guess. The computer was malfunctioning during Richard's prints and it kept rejecting them. After several tries they finally got good prints...we think. So in 14-120 days we should have permission from the US government to bring William and Melissa home. As soon as we receive the approval from them, our court date will be scheduled, and the kids will be told about us and given their scrapbook. We will travel about thirty days after this approval comes.

I spoke to Mandy last week. She said the kids are doing well and all is well in Jinja. I told her of all the fears and concerns I have had over money and the paperwork with USCIS. She was so sweet, she said "During the first adoption we did, I was very carnal. I worried about all those things too, wondering how God could ever pull it off. He always does though, everytime things come together at the perfect time." I think she was gently rebuking me, telling me to repent from my lack of faith and from being carnal...what do you think?

Well that is all for now. For some reason the spell check is not working so please read the following disclaimer:

Yes I am a home school mom. However, spelling has never been my strong suit. I am a perfect example of how spell check will ruin you and your children. I thought that a good way to avoid this pitfall in my own children was to have them do all their writing by hand...no spell check for them! Then I realized while grading a paper one day, there was no spell check for me either. I digress. Any and all spelling mistakes in this blog are the responsibility of the teacher who pushed spell check on me in the seventh grade :)