I am absolutely humbled that God would allow me to be a part of her story. As I tell her story time and again, I am so in awe of what He is doing and cannot figure out for the life of me why He’d want to involve me—us—our family!
Probably the hardest people to share her story with are those that instantly place us into sainthood upon hearing it. Please let me be clear. We are no heroes. We are simply passionate about joining God in the work of placing orphans in families and are obedient when He has asked us to be willing. That is all.
Just simply willing.
We have a family. There are children who need one. Why not us? As I have explained it to a few people along the way, I only have one life to live and I do not intend to waste it. I do not desire to live comfortably and without risk. After all, this is not my life to live. It is His.
Every time I think to ask you to lift us up in a specific prayer, by the time I get to the computer to write, it has been answered already. This is going at such a crazy, fast pace that it practically leaves my head spinning. When I am tempted to worry about some part of the journey, I merely have to look back at how many impossible things have become possible in the past few weeks that I cannot help but hear Him whispering in my ear, “I’ve got your back. No need to fear that I will not come through.”
This past week alone, I have barely been able to keep up what He is doing. Can you believe that we modified our homestudy for a new agency, prepared a dossier, had it apostilled and out the door to Russia in one week? Impossible. Think again.
Can you believe that before I’ve even had time to think about changing around the child care arrangements for my other kids since we are lengthening our original trip a bit, I have had people come to me and ask if they can fill in the gap for me? Our child care modifications were ready before I was!
Even the tiny things have been taken care of. For example, I normally work in our Connection Center at church on the first Sunday of the month. I hadn’t even thought about getting someone to fill in for me yet. No sweat. He’s got my back again. Another volunteer contacted me this week and wondered if I could work for her this week and switch my June date. Well, since I’ll be on a plane to EE, that will work just fine!
Did I ever tell you the other tiny detail that was not tiny to us? Back in February, when we first discovered her, we found out that her birth name is the same as the very best friend of DOP—the one she had to leave behind. Of all the names…really? Daughter of Purpose has grieved that loss and always wanted us to go back for her friend. When we investigated the possibility, we learned that her friend had already been adopted. God knew that name was special to us and has used it as a confirming piece in her story. Of all the names…I still can’t get over it!
All of the pieces seem to be falling into place without me even doing anything. I have never experienced anything like this before! At this point, we are simply waiting on the official word from EE that all of our hard work to get our paperwork done so quickly has paid off. We are waiting to hear if we have an appointment with the DOE in 2 weeks.
Thanks for praying for us, especially those that don’t even know us, but just know Anika’s story. It’s clear to me that He’s got some seriously big plans for her. I can’t wait to be a part!
Wow – ONE WEEK?!?! Incredible! Meant to be for sure 🙂
I loved reading your story and can’t wait to see pictures of your newest daughter in your arms. Such a beautiful story:)
i LOVE this. i have heard story after story like this in adoption…including our own. SO amazing how confirming, loving, gracious He is to be in even the smallest of details. God LOVES adoption. LOVES.