Alright, so here I go. I'm finally making time to let it out (to those people who even still read this blog).
We have started the process of adoption. We were notified last week that we've been pre-approved to adopt from Mongolia (the country that's just north of China).
It has been a long and arduous road so far, in taking this step. Gary and I both have so many questions, fears, doubts, hopes, and dreams floating around in our heads. It's hard enough communicating to each other, that we wanted to make sure we were sure about this before we announced it to anyone.
It's hard to explain the way I feel right now. If I were to describe myself in a particular setting, it would be as if I was on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, looking out at the water and seeing a HUMONGOUS tidal wave rushing at me. In the negative, it would knock me off my feet and drag me around a little before I could come up for air again. But in the positive, it would be refreshing to come up for air, with a new perspective, a new life, and a child in my arms. There are days that I just want to run for cover and hope and pray that it all just happens and that it just gets over with. But then there are days that I want to go grab my surfboard and ride the wave all the way over to Mongolia to reach our child. Thank the Lord that He is so much bigger than this tidal wave. He calms the storms and our hearts.
We found and chose an agency in Tennessee called Small World Adoption Programs. It's an extremely pro-life agency, which adopts to only Christian families. Everything that we've read and corresponded with them has been extremely positive and so clear. Their website is on the sidebar of our blog, in case you want to check it out.
I guess, from what we've read, the process will take around about a year (give or take) for us to have a child in our arms. There are lots of forms, interviews, trips, classes, and phone calls that we need to make, and it seems dauntingly overwhelming right now, to a couple who just knows that we want a child.
It's interesting how the Lord reveals His plan for us. Through painful experiences, and questions of why things are the way they are, He reveals his perfection and His almighty omniscience. He has told us in His word to care for the orphans and widows, and this is how He has decided for us to, in our small way, meet that need in the world. By making Gary and me infertile, for now. He has placed such a strong desire in our hearts to parent a child, that we feel it is necessary to adopt an orphan. It fills that hole in our lives, and more importantly, it gives parents to a motherless and fatherless child.
On that note, I can't imagine being born and not having a mom or a dad. Having grown up in a household with both parents (something that is becoming less and less common), I can't imagine any other childhood. The same people that took me home from the hospital still call me their family. I anxiously await the day that I can give that same privilege to a child - to have two people to call "Mommy and Daddy."
I found it really interesting when, in talking with my older sister Annie, who has two extremely adorable and beautiful children, what she said to me. I was lamenting over the fact that Gary and I have been unable to have our own children and will I feel like if I adopt, will that child truly be my own...?, and she replied simply that, "No matter what we may think, our children are, in fact, NEVER our own." That kind of put me in my place. Kind of like, *blink, blink* "Really?" I mean, that might be easy for someone to say who has not been in my place...poor, pitiful me... But for someone to say that about two children that she bore herself...? Unthinkable. Or...do I really even know what I'm talking about? "Aww, quit yer whinin', Krissy. I have amazing plans for you that you will never be able to fully comprehend." That's what I hear God my Father saying to me right now. Praise His holy Name!!
So, in ending this blog (that was cut short the first time I tried to publish it), I humbly ask anyone reading this to join us in prayer.
1. Pray, first and foremost, for the orphans. Millions and millions of fatherless out there are being overlooked, and living in horrifying conditions. Pray for their health, life, and salvation.
2. Pray for our child(ren). Pray that, even if he or she may not even be born - or conceived - at the time that I post this, that the Lord would keep him or her safe in His loving arms, and when we receive him or her, that we would do justice to being the parents that God has planned us to be.
3. Pray for Gary and me, as we wade through the paperwork to make this all happen. Pray for our emotional and mental stamina, as I know this can be a very long and tedious process. Pray for our finances. In a time that is so uncertain, economically, we don't have any idea where a good portion of the funding will come from. But God Does!!
4. Pray for our agency, Small World. Their website and newsletters blew me away, with how amazingly pro-life they are. Pray for all the families that will be using them to adopt.
I will try my hardest to keep things up on the blog. Please please pray.
Love,
Krissy
