Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west.
Isaiah 43:5
Last night we really believed the Lord was showing us clearly what our next move should be. We have taken a few days to pray about purchasing tickets or waiting until we had the clear approval for his visa.
The thought process I was having was....we should just fly over there now and adopt him in faith believing his visa will be issued before we need to come home. So we began crunching numbers and after paying all our necessary fees being able to stay for only 12 nights we would have nine dollars left over. Yeah I know what you're thinking that is not enough extra money when you're traveling internationally....are you crazy!!! And yes, yes we are crazy sometimes. I was just trying to figure out if that was having reckless faith (what we had when the Lord first called us to adopt him) or just being stupid and not using the brain God gave us.
So then I thought well if we have enough faith to travel before he gets his visa believing it will be issued in time....isn't it just as much faith to wait until we get the approval even if we pass the 60 day deadline that N*p*l gave us and trust they will still allow us to adopt him and pray the Lord provides a little more money to put in the bank in the event we might run into an unexpected cost or emergency (like would if our dinner is like 10 extra bucks??).
What to do????
Last night we 'met' another family, one of the 80 in the 'pipeline' and she and I talk for a long time last night. It was a wonderful conversation and she mentioned to me some things that I believe were from the Lord (thanks Jen). She and her hubby are Christians so it was refreshing connecting with someone who serves the Lord and literally is in the same place we are.
I will add that all day yesterday we were in contact with our travel agent working on pricing tickets and so on....we even had her put a travel itinerary on hold for us until Friday at 6PM.
Anyway...after hanging up, Mike and I talked some more. We felt like the Lord was clearly telling us what to do in the morning. This was the plan for today....
We have a connection through our church (I won't go into details).... but we most likely would have a home that our son could live at while we wait for his visa approval. So our plan was to contact our friends in N*p*l and make sure that they were willing to help in this capacity and once we heard from them we would book/purchase our tickets and head over to adopt our son before the 60 day window. That way he would be legally our son! At that point IF we still didn't have his approval for a visa we would have to leave him with this wonderful group of people and wait until this mess get's straightened out then Mike would fly back over and bring him home.
So this morning I woke up early on a mission but wanted to start my day by sending a dear friend (one of my prayer warriors) a message letting her know what we were doing and share with her the good news that we finally had a plan!
No kidding as I was a sentence in my email I was interrupted with a ding that I had just received an email. I decided to stop mid sentence, for that matter mid word, and look to see who was it. It was the embassy in Kathmandu! They told us that finally they have in writing (we have a copy) that the government will extend the 60 days to 120 days! This means we now have until Feb. 4, 2011 to adopt him, not Dec 4. So what about my great plans for the day???? Now what??
This really is good news but also sad to think we may have to wait a couple more months before we hold our baby boy that we love so much already!
We did pray last night in bed before we rolled over to sleep that if we weren't suppose to make these travel plans for some unknown reason that He would clearly show us. I can be thick sometimes, but I'm thinking this is a sign :0) So today we hold off on booking plan tickets and do some housework instead. I was so excited to think that in 5 short weeks we would see our son's face and be able to hold him!
We are still praying of course that this whole visa situation will clear up ASAP and all 80 families will get approval and we can bring all our children home! So don't stop praying!!!
Prayer is what moves the heart of God!!
So for today, I can rest and not stress out about making all these travel plans and rest that the Lord has this all under His control.
Believing for a birthday/Christmas miracle (we prayer for a Christmas miracle last year and He answered it....remember)!!!! We want nothing more than to have our son home before his second birthday or at least before Christmas.
He is able!!
Keep praying!!
I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west.
Isaiah 43:5
Last night we really believed the Lord was showing us clearly what our next move should be. We have taken a few days to pray about purchasing tickets or waiting until we had the clear approval for his visa.
The thought process I was having was....we should just fly over there now and adopt him in faith believing his visa will be issued before we need to come home. So we began crunching numbers and after paying all our necessary fees being able to stay for only 12 nights we would have nine dollars left over. Yeah I know what you're thinking that is not enough extra money when you're traveling internationally....are you crazy!!! And yes, yes we are crazy sometimes. I was just trying to figure out if that was having reckless faith (what we had when the Lord first called us to adopt him) or just being stupid and not using the brain God gave us.
So then I thought well if we have enough faith to travel before he gets his visa believing it will be issued in time....isn't it just as much faith to wait until we get the approval even if we pass the 60 day deadline that N*p*l gave us and trust they will still allow us to adopt him and pray the Lord provides a little more money to put in the bank in the event we might run into an unexpected cost or emergency (like would if our dinner is like 10 extra bucks??).
What to do????
Last night we 'met' another family, one of the 80 in the 'pipeline' and she and I talk for a long time last night. It was a wonderful conversation and she mentioned to me some things that I believe were from the Lord (thanks Jen). She and her hubby are Christians so it was refreshing connecting with someone who serves the Lord and literally is in the same place we are.
I will add that all day yesterday we were in contact with our travel agent working on pricing tickets and so on....we even had her put a travel itinerary on hold for us until Friday at 6PM.
Anyway...after hanging up, Mike and I talked some more. We felt like the Lord was clearly telling us what to do in the morning. This was the plan for today....
We have a connection through our church (I won't go into details).... but we most likely would have a home that our son could live at while we wait for his visa approval. So our plan was to contact our friends in N*p*l and make sure that they were willing to help in this capacity and once we heard from them we would book/purchase our tickets and head over to adopt our son before the 60 day window. That way he would be legally our son! At that point IF we still didn't have his approval for a visa we would have to leave him with this wonderful group of people and wait until this mess get's straightened out then Mike would fly back over and bring him home.
So this morning I woke up early on a mission but wanted to start my day by sending a dear friend (one of my prayer warriors) a message letting her know what we were doing and share with her the good news that we finally had a plan!
No kidding as I was a sentence in my email I was interrupted with a ding that I had just received an email. I decided to stop mid sentence, for that matter mid word, and look to see who was it. It was the embassy in Kathmandu! They told us that finally they have in writing (we have a copy) that the government will extend the 60 days to 120 days! This means we now have until Feb. 4, 2011 to adopt him, not Dec 4. So what about my great plans for the day???? Now what??
This really is good news but also sad to think we may have to wait a couple more months before we hold our baby boy that we love so much already!
We did pray last night in bed before we rolled over to sleep that if we weren't suppose to make these travel plans for some unknown reason that He would clearly show us. I can be thick sometimes, but I'm thinking this is a sign :0) So today we hold off on booking plan tickets and do some housework instead. I was so excited to think that in 5 short weeks we would see our son's face and be able to hold him!
We are still praying of course that this whole visa situation will clear up ASAP and all 80 families will get approval and we can bring all our children home! So don't stop praying!!!
Prayer is what moves the heart of God!!
So for today, I can rest and not stress out about making all these travel plans and rest that the Lord has this all under His control.
Believing for a birthday/Christmas miracle (we prayer for a Christmas miracle last year and He answered it....remember)!!!! We want nothing more than to have our son home before his second birthday or at least before Christmas.
He is able!!
Keep praying!!
I like how you've really put emphasis on the faith that is required to do what feels like standing still. I know God knows the exact moment you will hold your son, and we are praying for grace as you wait and for abundant provision for each need, exceeding abundangly!!!!
ReplyDeleteOh Tonya,
ReplyDeleteI have been following along these last few weeks and Jenny has been keeping me updated too! Isn't she great? I am so glad that God has extended the date but I know how hard this must be for you all as you wait. "He waits that He may be gracious to you" Is 30:18
I shall continue to pray for you. You are sincerely seeking His will and God will honour that! BTW, we really enjoyed Ken Graves teaching at our church a few weeks ago and I hope you enjoyed our Pastor that day too!!
Blessings to you,
Naomi