Through the First Trimester

Krissy writes:

A very close friend of mine yesterday put it that way. I was talking with her about the adoption process, and she asked me where we are on the timeline. There are 26 steps, and we just completed step number 8. She exclaimed, "Well, that means you're through your first trimester!!" Couldn't have put it better myself! We've been at this since January when we chose Small World as our agency, applied in February, had our homestudy done in April, and then have since been collecting all the needed documents for our dossier, which we just sent off yesterday!! YAY!

Here's a list of stuff that we had to collect (doesn't seem like a lot, but in the grand scheme of things, making all the appointments and applying for things with the government agencies takes a LOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGGG time.

1. Application letter

2. Copies of passports

3. Birth certificates

4. Marriage certificate

5. Autobiographies

6. Pictures of us and family members and our home

7. Certificate of Residence

8. Economic status form

9. 2008 Tax Return statement

10. Physicals

11. Criminal Record Inquiries

12. Copy of Homestudy

13. Copy of the approval from from the USCIS (immigration services)

And had to get them all notarized. We got my physical form from the doctor yesterday, and sent it all off!! Yay. It's just so relieving to be done with that step. Now it's just a matter of keeping all of these applications/documents updated over the next couple of years while we wait for our child. From this point, our agency says it will be about 2-3 years of waiting (good time to try to save up the money it will take us to complete the adoption). Long time... :( But we are hopeful, and are resting assured that it will ALL be worth it when we can wrap our arms around the beautiful child God has picked out for us.

Here are some pictures and events that have happened in the meantime.

We attended the commencement at Dallas Christian College in May (don't know if I posted any pictures about that). Congrats, Gary.

For our fourth anniversary this summer, July 23, we went to Galveston for two nights and two days. Spent some time on the beach, went to Schlitterbahn, had a fancy dinner at Willies and an amazing lunch at Luigi's on the Strand. It was a wonderful weekend.

We had the opportunity to go to Venezuela in September to visit some missionary friends. We had a wonderful time, and look forward to possibly making it back in the future.

Here's our little guy. Not that dogs grow much bigger, but I just couldn't post after such a long time without putting something about Moses on here. When we went to Venezuela, Gary's parents watched him for us. He is such a precious dog, and both Gary and I are so extremely thankful for him.

A couple of weekends ago, we went to the Houston Zoo. Just decided to go, out of the blue. (That does NOT happen very often around here - I am a PLANNER!) But it was such a great day. We got there at around 1 in the afternoon, and all the animals were out, it was overcast (sprinkled a little on us, but nothing that drenched us). Just a perfect day to spend together, just the two of us - and a couple of cute fuzzy animals. Here's a picture of a giraffe. He was trying so hard to get to the trees and bushes that were outside of their cage. So funny. I'm always fascinated with the monkeys.

Last weekend, I flew up to Omaha, Nebraska for a much-needed family reunion. It was so wonderful to see everyone there, and great to spend time laughing our heads off with each other. Here's a picture of a long-lost cousin, Jess, and her mother, Cay. Cay and her husband Dennis adopted Jess from my aunt Suzy (far right) back in 1978. In this picture: Cay, Jess, Annie, Grandma, Suzy. Everyone is astounded at how similar Annie and Jess look. They were born only months apart, but they're both just as pretty as the other one. When I first saw her, I really had to do a double-take. My mom brought baby pictures of Annie to show to Jess and Cay. They were also astounded at how much their baby pictures looked alike.

Here's Grandma (4'10") cuttin' a rug with my cousin Ryan (6 feet something). Just had to get a shot of this.

Here's my cousin Katie with her husband Chris and their newborn girl, Ella. Precious family. I had a marvelous time holding the 3-week-old baby.

Here's the three girl cousins, Katie, me, and Annie, holding the babies, Ella, Mollie, and Luke.

And here's cute little Mollie with her "goggie" she recently named Moses. She was getting ready for bed in preparation for the long ride back home to Texas with her Bubba and Nana.

August is not over yet!

(Gary Writing)
So Krissy wrote about how time flies, and I kind of wish it would fly faster this month. With small groups beginning next month, I have a lot of stuff to do: getting people plugged in, organizing groups, training new leaders, and on and on. Then add to that that I am gearing up to do a special small group with a few select couples in the church, I am going to start learning Greek this fall, and I am preaching on Sept. 6th, and it makes for a crazy next few weeks and months. Nonetheless, I am very excited about the opportunities that have presented themselves for the fall. Doors are opening that I have been praying to open for a while. Thank you, Lord!

I so look forward to the upcoming sermon series and small group series on the book of Ephesians. I think it is going to be so good for our church. Hopefully we can really capitalize on this series to really help people grow in their understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, and what Christ calls us to do because we are in Him. To the praise of his glorious grace!

I find myself learning how to hear the Lord. I have really heard his voice lately, and it makes me wonder why I haven't heard him so clearly before. I heard him tell me to pray for one of my good friends the other day. I don't know what was going on with him, if anything, but it was clear to me that God was telling me to pray for him. It is good to hear his voice like that. Then again, it gets really scary when you want to hear from God on something important, and you are not sure if you heard him right. I guess that's why they say to wait on the Lord...

As I have been studying this week, it has been really challenging to find a clear and concise command from the Lord to be in Christian community. Though it may not be commanded, it is surely implied that everyone in the early church was in community. It may not have been called a small group, but it was tight-knit fellowship and accountability as each person learned to walk with the Lord. How can we miss this? How can we become so infatuated with ourselves that we don't submit to other believers like Paul told us to (Eph. 5:21)? It is a problem in our culture, and we really need to wake up and snap out of it. We were saved for the body, not ourselves.

Sorry for the rant. Maybe I should get some sleep. Again, to the praise of his glory!

My, Time Flies!

(Krissy writing)
Alright, all you avid readers of our blog (the one or two of you out there...)...It's time, yet again, for another blog posting.
First things first, we have made progress on our adoption. We got our homestudy approved, and received the full-out contract in the mail from our adoption agency (with an invoice, of course, for $4,950). We'll be sending that in here in the next day or two, once we hear from them on a couple of questions we had about the contract. Jimbo (our correspondent and liaison for the Mongolia adoptions) made up a schedule of events necessary to occur during the course of the Mongolian adoption. It was about three pages long, and very detailed, but I'm so glad we have it now, because instead of twiddling our thumbs and listening to the crickets chirp when people ask us "What comes next?" we can actually have a ready answer! Yay! So, now that our homestudy has been done and approved by the agency, we will sign the contract, and send it and the agency fee to Small World, and they will in turn send us the Mongolia Dossier Guide. We'll have to complete all of the necessary documents and send it back in, and they will review it and send it to Mongolia. They say that from that point, the process takes about 2-3 years to get our child. Yikes - a long time, but it will definitely be worth the wait!

Next, we are leaving on Sunday for our 3rd Annual Luedecke Road Trip. Fun times. This year's schedule will be:
June 21 - 24 San Antonio for Renovare conference
June 24 - 25 Breckenridge (TX) for visit with Anna and Jimmy
June 25 - 27 Colorado camping in Pike Nat'l Forest
June 27 - 29 visit with our friends the Vorhees' in Longmont
June 29 - July 3 camping in the Grand Tetons and exploring all of Yellowstone/Jackson Hole, WY
July 3 - 4 long drive back home via Amarillo.

Gonna be a lot of driving, but honestly, that's what Gary and I are excited about - we LOVE road trips and camping. Perhaps that will change with kids, but hopefully not.

Let's see...what else can I tell you about our lives since our last blog at the beginning of April??? So much has occurred, but hard to remember it all... I'll go by the weekends:
April 3 - 5 Gary's surprise 30th birthday, my family here for the party and for the weekend
April 10-12 camping with friends for my 29th birthday
April 17-18 my family here (including Grandma and cousin Kyle and his wife Nicole) for Bri's amazing senior voice recital
April 25 adoption homestudy
May 2-3 Gary's grandmother had a stroke, so we spent the majority of several days at the hospital
May 8-10 went with Gary's folks to Dallas for Gary's graduation from DCC
May 14-15 my family here for Briana's graduation from UH
May 22-23 in San Antonio for Mallory and Dan Weise's wedding
May 29 church staff pool party get-together (way fun - not done often enough!)
June 4-6 visiting friends Don & Dottie @ Lake Conroe for the weekend
June 12-13 replacing back fence and painting the living room/hallway (both look GREAT!)

In the midst of it all, we managed to maintain some semblance of sanity (that one is up for debate, but humor me now and just grin and nod) and continue with the normal lives of a minister and voice teacher. We never know what actually hit us when all is said and done, but are just thankful that God is always still sovereign and we still manage to spend real quality time with Him throughout each day.
I would agree with myself and all others that agree with me that we are ready for a vacation. (Did that even make any sense?) And that's what we're doing...FINally.
I'm excited to spend some time at home with my Mom and Dad and sister and neice and nephew.
Mom's in Arizona currently caring for my grandma who has pneumonia right now. Please keep that in your prayers, as she regains health and strength.

I also just have to be vulnerable for a minute and put this in: Recently at the beginning of May, I started attending the morning ladies' bible study, which was started back up after a long break (several years). Then that stopped for the summer, and I have been attending the "Frazzled Females" bible study on Tuesday evenings at our church. I have been SO blessed by this group of women, and have been hitting myself upside the head asking myself, "Why did I not do this SOONER?!" We have been making our way through a book called "The Modern Girl's Guide to Bible Study" by Jen Hatmaker, and it has really opened my eyes to the wonderful (and do-able) world of STUDYING the Bible and journaling. I never have considered myself much of a journaler, but it has been so fulfilling to be able to converse with the Holy Spirit by reading His written Word, and then responding with my written words. The funny thing about this book is that she is basically writing herself out of a job (probably not really) by suggesting that we don't need a guided Bible study, in order to have that personal quiet time every day. We just need to be open to the Holy Spirit's guiding and direction and made familiar to the study tools available in most Bibles nowadays (ie. footnotes, cross-references, book introductions, concordances, topical indexes, etc.). I know that most of you reading this are like, well, duh...I've always known that...and believe me, I have! But it's a completely different world when you're actually, on a consistent basis, putting to use these study tools and the concept of journaling about what you're reading. There's something to be said about writing down your thoughts and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide and direct you as you're writing. For instance, just to give testimony to the fact that the Word is living and active, I read the 1 Corinthians 13 chapter three days in a row, journaled about it all three days, and discovered three completely different amazing truths each day. That is a passage that you hear quoted all the time, but actually sit down and study it, piece by piece, and there's a mountain of treasure there!!
If you can't tell, I'm excited about this whole study/journaling thing, and have looked forward to it every day. I honestly considered just reading the Bible to be "studying" it. And while there's value to reading straight through, there's so much more to be found when you actually roll up your sleeves and dig into it!
So that's a personal thought. I don't necessarily feel so comfortable at this point sharing those morsels that God has brought to light through His Word lately, but eventually, perhaps I will share what He lays on my heart through my obedience to really studying. Please pray for me in this "journ"ey.

That said, I'm going to go be productive for the day. Hopefully it won't be two and a half months before we post again, but no promises. :)

Picture Update

(Krissy)

It's been a while since we've posted any pictures. Thank you to all who faithfully read through all of our ramblings, with nothing interesting, like pictures to look at. :) We've been busy busy busy lately with all the things we're involved in. But it's all been so great, and we wouldn't have it any other way.

Kaylyn found these reindeer antlers at Garden Ridge Pottery, and gave them to Moses as a Christmas gift. He did so well in posing for these pictures. It was so hard to keep it together, we were both laughing our heads off at it.

Moses had crawled up into Gary's sweatshirt, so we decided it needed to be documented. Cute dog!

In February we made a trip to Cuero to visit Mom and Dad Luedecke. Moses spent some time with the cows and made some friends.

Here's a picture of our family away from family. Our small group. L-R Sandy, Randy, Mitzi, Justin, Allison, Peggy, Gary, Krissy, Ron, Randy, Cindi. An amazing group - we're missing Lela, but she'll be back soon.

I threw Gary a surprise party on Friday night. It was so great. More pictures are posted on Facebook. He was so surprised. I had told him that Rebecca (whose house it was at) had asked to borrow my heavy duty sewing machine. So we were taking it on our way to "pick up Richard and Kaylyn to make a late night trip to College Station." It was such a great night and an awesome tribute to my main man.

Speaking of my main man, here he is with a Fireman hat on and a chip up his nose...what a hunk!

Here's dorky me, in the middle of all the gals at the party. This is just after we arrived, and everyone was all smiles.

My family came in town. I had purchased tickets for Gary to the Houston Museum of Natural Science's exhibit on "The Birth of Christianity: A Jewish Story." I had invited Annie and Travis to come because I know that would have been of great interest to them, and then my parents ended up deciding to come because Briana was in an opera this weekend. It was a whirlwind of a weekend, but such a blessing to Gary and me to have them all here. We missed having his parents, but we were able to see them the weekend before for a birthday lunch.

Homestudy Update

(This is Krissy writing)
Praise the Lord! We've got a date set for our homestudy! We're so excited about this fact because it's a step toward the goal! AND it's been such a headache trying to find a date that would work for both us and the social worker. We'll be meeting with her on Saturday, April 25 at 4:00pm. It seems as though every single Saturday this spring is jam-packed with stuff, and I hate the fact that I have another big event scheduled for the same day. But I know that it's that day and time for a reason.
It's so amazing how God works His hand in our lives, weaving and connecting all the threads together, writing His story. This morning was one of those GOD MOMENTS that I need to document, so I can remember it. The last few days, I've had a hard time just getting up and getting going, for several reasons that I won't go into. I've just been tired, and stressed about all that's going on, and waking up in the mornings has just been weighty, so to speak. I've just woken up "bummed" every morning for the last 5-6 days, for whatever reason. Well, this morning was no different, and after I had gotten ready for the day, I went into the kitchen to scrounge for breakfast. Lo and behold, I had received a text message from a number that I didn't recognize. The text message was a scripture verse from Deuteronomy 2:7, "For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand. *He knows* your TRUDGING through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked NOTHING." (The asterisks and capitalization were in the text.) Now I thought, "Who would have texted me this scripture? It speaks exactly what I needed to hear at this exact moment..." thinking that it might be someone I had shared with recently about what was going on in my life, or someone who at least had a clue that I might be stressed about something. I had NO clue who's cell phone number that was. I looked through all my contacts in outlook, in our church directory, I called Gary to see if he recognized the number, and he searched as well, and neither of us could find it. So I decided to just text back and said, "Who is this? You have no idea how perfectly timed this text was. Thank you so much for following the Holy Spirit's leading."
It turns out that it was a former student of mine, Sandra, who I haven't talked to or heard from in several years (an absolutely amazing girl!!) who was just totally following the Lord's leading to text me that particular scripture this morning. Praise You, Lord. The weird thing is that she doesn't know what's been going on in my life at all - has no clue that we're adopting, that I left Klein (well, she may know that - but not what I'm doing now), that I've been waking up not wanting to get up in the mornings lately... and yet this scripture - God's Word - is so living and active that whatever it meant to her today, and prompted her to text it to me, touched my heart in such an awesome way.
So, I just thought I'd share this moment, and just rejoice that God is so good. Thank you, Jesus.