My father recently gave us a book entitled "Orphanology" Awakening to Gospel-Centered Adoption and Orphan Care by Tony Merida and Rick Morton. Even just on the first chapter, I can say it is a book that I recommend everyone read. Let me share with you the first paragraph of the first chapter:
"Our prayer as we begin this journey together is for you to experience 1 John 3:1, "see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we would be called children of God; and so we are." And if you are a Christian already, please consider afresh God the Father's personal, particular, and persevering love for you, His adopted child. May your consideration of this love God gives create in you a desire to reflect His love to orphans."
That is our prayer too! We want our journey to reflect God's love...God's love for us as His children and God's love for the fatherless, abandoned, lonely. To look back, already, and think that this adoption may have already led people to Him or that it has already opened one or more persons eyes to the fact that God has called us all to care (in some way) for the fatherless, abandoned, lonely, the orphaned is so exciting for us!
We originally created this blog so that we could allow a window into our journey of adoption, whether it be to aid another family in an adoption to Malawi, help us to raise money for our adoption, to raise awareness of the fatherless and orphaned around the world, or just to provide a way for friends, family, and/or even strangers to know how to pray for us. Whatever the reason we first started this blog, it has become so much more for us...it is more than a window into our journey, it is a window in our hearts. We have shared our tears, smiles, laughter, dreams and frustration with you and with Thanksgiving soon approaching, we want this month to be focused on the thanksgiving we have in our hearts for all the things in our lives (including you, yes you who are reading this). So, let me take this time now to say "Thank you". Thank you for reading this post, for following our blog, for learning about us and walking alongside us on this journey, for giving your time to pray for us, for being willing to be used by God to help fund our adoption to bring our babies home! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!
This past month a lot has transpired, so I want to share some updates with you:
We are excited to announce that our home study is DONE! Yup! If you haven't already heard via facebook, we finished up our home study and received our report around the second week of October. We are now working on sending out applications for grants (things have taken a bit longer with that since we have recently joined a new church and so our new pastor will have to fill out all of our applications-we will be meeting with him this next week about that). We know, however, that God's timing is absolutely prefect! We have sent in our i600a form (along with $890) to homeland security to be approved to bring orphans into the United States. That document is the last (for now) that stands between us bringing our babies home. After Malawi officials have given us a "for sure" "ok" on children there, we can then file our i600 form to approve those particular children as orphans (that doesn't take as long to be approved). Right now, though, we could be waiting up to 75 days from the date our documents were received which was October 24th. So roughly around Christmas or a little after is about the longest we'll have to wait, but AGAIN God's timing is prefect and if He wants it processed next week it will be and honestly we are anxious but we are also okay with waiting because we know that He has called us to wait upon Him! In the meantime, Hyacinth Kulemeka (the head social worker in Malawi) has told us to wait on her. She had been asking us to call her every week for an update on her end, but she has since asked us to email her our information and wait on a response from her. She has sent a team to the hospital where the triplets were born and to the village to get written permission from their family members for adoption, so we are waiting on her response. We have known all along that the triplets could possibly not be found eligible, or that another family could be working just as hard to adopt them and maybe even get to take them home instead of us, which has honestly been rough on us, but we know that God has the right children for us. He has led us to the triplets for some reason, whether that be to bring them into our home, whether it be to pray for them, whether that be to support their Aunt (who is caring for 3 of her own children and 3 of their older brothers and sisters), whatever the reason we want what God wants for us!
So, in short: we are waiting...on a lot of things...but still we are waiting and we know that God can and will be glorified even in waiting!
Blessed to be waiting upon the Lord,
Ashley
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