We just sent in our official contract to the new agency in Washington so we can officially go forward with this adoption.  I have been dragging my feet for the last month and a half, wondering how I can handle one more child etc... etc...and a special needs one at that. Over and over, God gives us whisperings that we are to move forward. I finally realized that God is not going to remove every shred of doubt...because then no faith would be needed.  The bottom line is that we can't get our girl out of our minds and hearts.  We already feel like we love her as one of our own. 
   If one of our biological children were stuck in another country,  we would do everything in order to go get them and bring them home.  We would do whatever footwork, we would wade through whatever red tape, we would empty our savings, we would face fears, we wouldn't worry about what we would need to do once we were home.  If their language had been stripped from them and they had had a disability inflicted upon them, if they would need therapy and medical attention upon arriving home, we would do it in a heartbeat.   We must do the same for Rebekah.  We feel empty when we talk of not getting her.  That in itself can be taken as God's direction.  But He has been gracious to give us many more confirmations then just that.  I take my eyes off of God so easily. Sigh.
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An Unexpected Turn of Events

I only have energy to post a copy of the email we sent out this evening.....

Hi Everyone,

A  new level of faith for us that we are trying to process.  It took us months of praying, and thinking and going back and forth about this adoption.  We finally felt we were to go forward.  We did. We drug our feet some. We went forward again and finally we are close to the end of all the paperwork.  We have told God over and over again that we will drop this all at the 11th hour if He tells us to.  Our Agency has been incredible.  They have emailed us or called us multiple times during every week of this process.  They are organized, their programs run smoothly, they have just been wonderful.  They have been around since 2003 and have done over 1,000 adoptions.

Because our agency's main income is from Russian adoptions, and those adoptions can no longer happen,  our entire agency has found it necessary to CLOSE!  We just got an official email telling us this, offering us an appointment with them to ask questions and to process.  They need our permission to transfer our paperwork to a different agency.  We don't WANT a different agency. What is God doing?  Tony is trying to teach, I am here crying, and what is God doing????  Is this a sign to stop, is it God saying we have to step it up faith wise? The money we have put into it has brought us as far as our home study, which can still go in next week to be approved.  We've put nothing into Hungary itself.  Is God calling us instead to do something else with this homestudy?  Or are we to let it all go completely?  Ugh....  Not all agencies are good.  We already "know" all the people we are working with.... Even our travel coordinator over in Hungary, who now will  not be the same.  Will things go as smoothy with new agency?  Will we be some of the first guinea pigs now with a new place? We are totally confused.  Did God just want to know we were willing?  Did He just want our hearts?  Is He asking us to go forward in faith or to stop in faith????!!!!!!!!!!!  Wow...this was totally unexpected!  Totally. But isn't that often God's way.

Thank you for any prayers or input,
We only want God's will in this....
We truly need wisdom....We realize God sees the whole picture
and we don't.  We are willing to continue.  We are willing to stop.
In the meantime, our girl still needs a home.


Karen and Tony

Sweeping Away the Crumbs

   More then a month has gone by since my last post.  It is amazing how fast time flies!  We have been working on our paperwork pretty much non stop for the past weeks, getting ready for today.  Our home study.  I suppose it should have been stressful, logically speaking.  After all, the social worker was here to interview us about our relationships, our views on parenting, our upbringings, our dreams, goals and hopes for our children...pretty big stuff.  She was here also to go over paperwork...medical forms, fire safety plans, financial stuff, insurance...And to also go through our house.  Is it safe to bring a child into?  Well, I sure hope so, since we have raised 5 of our own here!  So yeah-seems like it should have been stressful.  But God showed up again, surprise, surprise!  With His peace, presence and yes, even His sense of order.  Things could not have flowed more smoothly.  Even with the stickiness of the table that we forgot to wipe off!  Yep, even the stickiness could not stop God's plan, imagine that!  We laughed with "A" (the Social Worker), actually, about how we had cleaned the whole house like crazy people for 2 days.  Cleaned it top to bottom.  Places we maybe have never cleaned before (yes, Anna, like that crazy spin around soap thing in the bathroom wall that we never use...you wouldn't recognize it), and yet, we forgot to wipe down the table where we would be sitting this morning with all this paperwork.  "A" laughed and swiped some crumbs off the table onto the floor, plopped down her paperwork, and from there on out we all just "clicked".  Why does that amaze me?  Why am I surprised?  Over and over and over again, God has shown us that this is His plan for us.  I am thankful that He has assured us of this and has affirmed it over and over...because then the little crumbs don't bother us...and we can actually even laugh about them.  Because He has this whole thing under control.  And He sees the entire picture!

  That isn't saying that the fear doesn't try to creep in. We are well aware that bringing an older child  into the family is a lot different then bringing in an infant or even a toddler.  We've gone through training, classes, seminars.  Online and in person with social workers.  We've heard the best...we've heard the worst.... We realize that our girl most likely comes from a not so good background.  That this in itself will bring a whole new realm of challenges into our lives and into the lives of our own children.  This is something we discuss...something we are open about with each other and with the kids....It's something that has caused us to hesitate, to reconsider...and yet there is .... something.....someone.... who pushes us onward...I would even say compels us.  All of us.  And so we move forward, even though we know that we could stop at any time, and the fear would dissolve,  relief would wash over us, and we could just continue on with every day life.  We move forward...because we know that that feeling of relief would be temporary.  Very short lived.  We move forward....Because we know.  We know that if we stop, we would always wonder, what if we hadn't let fear stop us?   What if we hadn't let the crumbs trip us up?   We know that if we stop, we would always wonder.... did our girl ever get a home?  Did she get a family? Opportunity?
We would always wonder.... what would God have had for us if we hadn't given in to logic and fear but instead had listened to that still small voice in our hearts?   We would always wonder..

    ...what did we miss out on.....
           
                  ....what did we lose?

                      ...what would the whole picture have looked like....

                                   ......If we had just swept the crumbs away?