Karl and I have known for some time that we would someday adopt older children, probably a sibling group. It is something that has been on my heart for years and that God has placed on Karl's heart over time. I have always told him that until we both felt called, I would not be willing to move forward. I didn't want him to make the choice to adopt out of a desire to please me; I wanted it to happen out of our mutual desire to obey God's call. We had come to the conclusion that we would adopt U.S. children because of the cost of international adoption, but sometimes we underestimate God's ability to make a way where there seem to be no way.
Karl and I both felt that we were supposed to pursue D & K, and we contacted Buckner. Then we got word of Karl's deployment. One week later, we sent our pre-application and questionnaire to them and have waited for approval, wondering how on earth this will happen when he can't be here for the home study. That's the catch, I guess. It's not about "how on earth" at all; it's about how in heaven. We don't have to be bound by the seeming limitations of earth!
Yesterday, our pastors spoke about the abundance of God's spiritual blessings that we don't even tap into. We live in spiritual poverty when all we have to do is jump into that "stream of living water," the abundance that we have through Christ and the Holy Spirit. Hello! And then one of the verses that popped up on the screen, mid-sermon, was from John 14:16-18: "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." As you can imagine, something inside me broke....broke in a wonderful way....and I knew that this was meant to encourage us. As the service ended, I prayed and told God that I knew He could do this and that all of the glory would be His because there was nothing we could do about the obstacles in our way.
After calling a number of home study agencies, I found one this morning that was willing to work with our situation, to do home visits with us before we had all of our paperwork complete (which is a 2-3 month process), so that they could do the necessary interviews with Karl before he leaves and complete our home study in his absence. Then this afternoon we received word that we had been approved by Buckner. So here we go....Final approval will not come until our home study is approved and we have traveled to Russia to declare our intention to adopt them. Then there will be another wait before we can go back and finalize the adoption.
God has the power to move, and move quickly, when we get out of His way! I am so thankful for the way that He has reminded us of His faithfulness. We are so blessed and ask that you continue to pray with us throughout the months ahead, that God will accomplish His will for us and for these children, and that He will give us strength through this process and the deployment.
And always, in all things......
PRAISE GOD!
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