Motivation

Isn’t it funny the things that motivate us? We have several projects around the house that needed to be done, but we have been putting off. Well with the home study coming up this weekend we were motivated to finally get some of these projects done. They weren’t things that had to be done for the home study, but we just wanted them to be done for it. I worked mainly in the house painting our bathroom and bedroom. My mom was here for the day and helped me a lot with the paint jobs.  Abby even got in on the action and helped us paint, then at lunch time she went around and took lunch orders for McDonalds. Painting is not a job I enjoy, but I just thought of that sweet little girl half way around the world with every stroke. My son, Matt, and I rescreened our back porch.  My sister and a friend worked in our back yard and did a lot of trimming of bushes and trees. I can’t thank them enough for all they did in our backyard. I was overwhelmed by what needed to be done, but they knew where to start and had a vision. My dad and my husband hauled 1500 pounds of yard brush to the County landfill, which by the way is A LOT of brush. Katie was also home for the weekend and did several jobs around the house. Thank you mom, dad, Debbie, Nola, Katie, Matt, and Abby for helping us get so much accomplished in one day.

Friday night David, Matt, and I attended a play at the Highlands County Little Theatre with some special friends of ours, Bernie and Irene Golde. It was the Diary of Anne Frank with Anne Frank being played by Rebecca Luepschen. Rebecca is Matt’s girlfriend and she did an awesome job. If you live in or close to Highlands County, I highly recommend you go see this play.

Again I ask for your prayers for our home study this weekend. If any of you that have been through this process have any suggestions or information you’d like to share with me about what a home study is like, please send me a message.

Another prayer request I have is for a friend, Karen Rapp and her family. They are also adopting a little girl from China. They are a little further along in the process than us, so right now they are waiting to get their LOA (letter of acceptance) and then their travel dates to go get there little girl Julia. Pray that all of this would happen quickly.  I have attached a picture of their little girl and she is beautiful.

While I'm Waiting...

We are progressing along in our adoption process. We sent 11 documents to the Secretary of State to be Certified (this is done to all of our notarized documents) this week. The Secretary of State office has to certify that the person that notarized our documents is a real notary, and once they do that the documents are certified and mailed back to us. Later the documents will be authenticated. For authentication we send our documents to the Chinese Embassy and they verify that the documents that were certified were done so legitimately.  Does all of this sound confusing?  Yeah it is, but what I am excited about is that we are making real progress. Our home study is scheduled for next Friday and Saturday, January 20 and 21. Please pray for our family. It is a little nerve wracking to have a stranger come into your home and ask you a lot of personal questions, not that we have anything to hide. We’ve been working around the house getting some things done that we had been putting off, so that is a good thing. With the help of my son we put new screen up on our back porch and it looks pretty good Painting is on the agenda for Saturday. I know this isn’t stuff we have to do, but it is a good motivation to get it done.

We are waiting any day now for a call from Colorado that will tell us that we can be officially matched with our little girl. A couple of things keep me going while waiting for that call. Most importantly is God’s Sovereignty, knowing that God’s timing is perfect and that God is in control, even when I don’t understand why I didn’t get the call yesterday. Secondly, as I wake up each morning I say to myself, “I am one day closer to flying to China to meet and bring home my little girl.” Then my mind wanders and I think of all the other things I am one day closer to, like watching her play with her brother and sisters and hearing them laugh together, taking her on her first trip to Disney World, our first Christmas together, teaching her about Jesus and taking her to Sunday School.            

So until we get “that call” from Colorado, I want to be obedient to the one making all of this possible and let him continue to work in me so I can be the best wife & mom I can be.