open doors

The adoption paperwork process is moving right along. Faster than we even hoped. God has been so good to us. He is opening doors and clearing the path ahead of us. We knew when we started that this adoption was what God wanted us to do. But he is showing me on a daily basis that we are on the right track. Now I know that if I were a more "mature" Christian I would have the faith to follow Him even if things were crashing down in front of us and the path was unclear. But God knows me, and He knows my heart, and He knows that every time He makes this proceed smoothly - He is encouraging me and loving me as only He can. So I just have to share with you some of the ways He has shown himself BIG in our adoption so far.

• His timing was perfect - we had just completed our school work in the spring on a Friday and that following Monday - two gigantic adoption binders arrived in the mail. They were filled with requirements, documents, instructions, etc. - and they were overwhelming! But He was so good to me to wait until I had closed one chapter (homeschooling) before I opened another.
• The financial piece of an international adoption is daunting. We have about half of what we need in savings and we are trusting Him to work out the rest. We owed our first large adoption payment back in June. That same week, our friends held a benefit garage sale for us and raised $980. They worked SO hard, donated so much great stuff - and gave it all to us. It was incredible. And then a few weeks later some good friends handed us an envelope with $1,000 in it. A gift we never could have imagined. Given because they love us and they love our Ethiopian daughter, and they felt that this was what God wanted them to do. We were blown away. Already - He is providing. Beyond what we could have imagined.
• Through a totally random, round-about blog connection - I met a new friend who is also adopting from Ethiopia. Her name is Jess and although we've never met, she has been such an encouragement to me. She reached out via e-mail and we regularly encourage and pray for one another. What a blessing!
• When Patrick and I had our FBI fingerprints taken, the woman at the police station who was doing them took one look at my hands and said, "Whoa - those are some cracked fingers. I highly doubt they will be able to read these prints." Cracked fingers? Who knew? Too many dishes and hand sanitizer perhaps? A normal timeline for reading these fingerprints is six weeks and a delay in FBI fingerprinting could have held up this whole process. I was nervous. But I told friends about what was going on and we had many people praying. My fingerprints came back from the FBI in THREE weeks and were read the first time. Amazing!
• The home study is a strange piece. You submit tons of paperwork and then have a social worker come to your home to interview you and discuss everything about your life from birth on. A little nerve wracking, to say the least. We were assigned a social worker from Olympia and we were going to have to pay for her to travel up here and Patrick would have to take time off work. So I was anxious about how all of that would work out and how much it would cost. We were assigned the most wonderful social worker! She agreed to do our entire home study (six hours of interviews) in ONE day. Meaning just one trip for us to pay for. And just one day that Patrick would need off. And she was wonderful. Put us at ease right away. Such a blessing!
• We were told that the social worker would need about 4-6 weeks to complete our report. She got it back to us in 48 hours. And she somehow turned our unflattering teen years and rambling answers into a well-written testimony of God's grace in our lives. Let me tell you - we should not be where we are today. But that's another post. Let me just say - God is good.

His hand print is all over this adoption. I don't believe in luck. I don't believe in chance. I believe in providence. And I can't wait to share with our daughter how God flung open doors to bring her home.