What is your passion?

Defend the weak and the fatherless Psalm 82:3a

Yes, I was bit by the adoption bug. It bit a long time ago and now it has grown into a passion—a passion that I believe God has put there for his purpose. I think God wants to give all of us a passion to change this world for him. Some will change the world in small ways—like bringing a hurting child into a home full of love, and for some it will be in big ways—you know, like the Billy Graham sort of big. But, I think when considering the passion that God has placed in your heart, it can’t be measured by human standards. To God each calling has significance, big or small, and each serves to further his kingdom here on earth.

Regardless of what your passion is, I can say with almost complete certainty that it probably isn’t an easy thing. He rarely calls us to easy things. He usually calls

Getting Closer…

As many of you know, we submitted our paperwork (our dossier) to Micah and Aubrey’s country at the end of May. Our dossier needed to be translated and then authenticated. After that it would be sent off to be reviewed by the Vice Minister at a meeting in which we would receive a verbal referral for our children. The problem was that there was not VM in place at that time and over the last two months none has been assigned. So, we waited, and waited, and waited some more. Then, last week we heard that the meeting would be held regardless of not having a VM to run it. Our hopes were up that we would get the verbal referral that we were waiting for. The meeting took place on Tuesday and we waited all day for news (despite the fact that we were told that we wouldn’t hear until Wednesday), because it’s just too hard not to check our emails a million times in hope! Wednesday we got word that our dossier had been approved, and we had our verbal referral for Aubrey and Micah! We are so excited!

From here we will wait for another official to sign off on our dossier (called the written referral). We have been told that this typically happens within three weeks of the verbal referral, but the timeline is variable because of all that is happening politically over there. Once we have the signature we will be invited over to meet our children for the first time. So, we are getting closer and closer all the time to meeting our son and daughter for the first time!

Twiddling our Thumbs…

We have not posted in a while because things are at a stand-still on the adoption front for us. Our dossier was submitted in Aubrey and Micah’s country on May 23^rd. That means that by now we should have gone through several steps within the adoption system there, and we would either already be traveling to meet them, or we would at least know our travel dates by now (we’ll need to go over twice—once for a week to meet them and then another week  to bring them home). Unfortunately, their country of origin is facing some changes politically, and the official who signs off on this step of our adoption process has not been assigned.