This Little House: July 2011

I am up late because Mary is at Karate RIGHT NOW taking her black-belt test!!!! (That actually makes me chuckle. Can you imagine Mary from Little House doing karate?) Yes, you heard me right!! The reason she is there right now? The idea is that they are supposed to be physically exhausted and then they are supposed to remember all they have been taught. She is currently running 5 miles, doing 500 jumping jacks and pushups, 1,500 kicks per leg and I can't remember what else. She is supposed to be finished around 3:00 A.M. but goes back at 1:00 P.M. to finish. She doesn't look like she could take ya down, but I have to tell her to go easy on me when she wants to practice her newest moves!! Yes, she's my violin playin, animal lovin, book worm, karate kid.

I couldn't sleep!! My 8 year old said she heard howling and was fightened and so I can't sleep!!! So I prayed and prayed some more about anything that came to mind. My mommy mind was going to all the worst case senarios. You know, we have all kinds of wildlife behind our house despite the fact that we live in a development!! I kid you not, we have foxes, many many deer (one winter we counted 45!!), birds of prey, balimore orioles and all kinds of wild birds that we truly need to start identifying. We LOVE the wildlife but you know, I watched a show (or two) and when your 8 year old comes to you in the middle of the night telling you she has heard howling and is frightened, my mind quickly went back to all those rare circumstances that one hears about!!! My imagination is ALWAYS more vivid in the middle of the night. So I prayed and prayed and now I have given up going back to sleep!!

All this to say.......That is when I came downstairs and decided to check my email!!! I immediately saw an email from our agency!!!!! They think our TA is on the way!!!!!!!!! She gave me some dates for our consulate appointment!!!! I have to verify them with my hubby!!!! I received our luggage last week, but didn't pack yet!!!! It looks like we have beat the Aug. 1 deadline!!!

We serve an awesome God!! He is so much bigger than timeframes and deadlines!!! He is able to orchestrate ALL things for the good of those who love Him!! Every step of the way, He has walked beside us and carried us!!! Some may say that it is a cooincidence our TA came before Aug 1 or the result of a lot of hard work on my part, but I KNOW the truth!! I have sent a lot of prayers up to our God in heaven and I know many who have walked this path with us have too. Do I believe that God did this!! Absolutely!!! He alone can speak to the hearts of government workers impelling them to process paperwork!! All is in His hands!!! Even a little piece of paper that says in effect, "You may now travel to China to pick up the little one that GOD has chosen for you!!!!!!!!"

The hardest part of this journey??? There is a lot that is hard.....but.....I think one of the hardest parts is that some adoptive parents wind up waiting for unknown reasons. Steps that we breezed through others remain stuck and that to me is frustrating. It goes against the sense of fairness we all need. I am continuing to pray for my comrads waiting MUCH more gracefully that I would be. If you think about it, please pray for these families waiting without any knowledge as to why they wait while others zoom ahead. Please pray that the government workers feel compelled to pick up their paperwork and process the approvals right now so they can go get their little ones waiting wherever they may be!!!

It is so hard to believe that this is actually happening!! It's hard to express all I am thinking and feeling at the moment!

Please pray for our journey to China, the day we meet Jianna for the first time, our transition afterward, and that we would keep our focus on God!!! Our world is about to change but more importantly Jianna's world is about to change. She doesn't know this truth like we know this!! She is almost 17 months old and while I know God is giving her a family to love her and care for her, she will be taken from the only people she has ever known. This will not be an easy transition BUT it will be one that has been planned!! It has been planned since before this little one was knit together in her birth mother's womb!! It was planned by the ultimate loving Father, who knows what's best for us, even when we don't know what is going on. He knew she had sisters, a brother, a father and a mother!!!