When fear shapes our lives, safety becomes our god. when safety becomes our god, we worship the risk-free life. Can the safety-lover do anything great? Can the risk-averse accomplish noble deeds? for God? for others? No.
The fear-filled cannot love deeply. Love is risky.
They cannot give to the poor. Benevolence has no guarantee of return.
The fear-filled cannot dream wildly. What if their dreams sputter and fall from the sky?
The worship of safety emasculates greatness. No wonder Jesus wages such a war against fear.
{Jesus} said to them, "Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold My hand and My feet, that it is I Myself. Luke 24:38-39
The LORD spoke his word to Abram in a vision: "Abram, don't be afraid. I will defend you, and I will give you a great reward." Genesis 15:1
"Am I a God near at hand", says the LORD, "and not a God afar off?" Jeremiah 23:23
It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:13
The fear-filled cannot love deeply. Love is risky.
They cannot give to the poor. Benevolence has no guarantee of return.
The fear-filled cannot dream wildly. What if their dreams sputter and fall from the sky?
The worship of safety emasculates greatness. No wonder Jesus wages such a war against fear.
{Jesus} said to them, "Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold My hand and My feet, that it is I Myself. Luke 24:38-39
The LORD spoke his word to Abram in a vision: "Abram, don't be afraid. I will defend you, and I will give you a great reward." Genesis 15:1
"Am I a God near at hand", says the LORD, "and not a God afar off?" Jeremiah 23:23
It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:13
Update on orphanage. Out of the $3600.00 that was given for the children at the orphanage, we were only able to get our hands on $1200.00 while we were there. Leaving $2400.00 left to be spent on them. We took care of the needs of the baby room and purchased food, bought emergency lighting for when they don't have electricity. $500.00 was used to give to a different children's home that was in need of blankets. We also brought Maya, Trek and the orphan girl to the hospital for their checkups.
We will be going back soon and will be reassessing the needs. We plan to purchase shoes and jackets for all the children (something very needed). We know they have a huge need there, but at this point do not feel comfortable with giving cash to them. So if anyone wanted to give to help the children still can do so by contacting us (the Chip In has expired). We are looking forward to going back and blessing them in the name and love of Jesus!
Okay now that, that is out of the way let me update you on Trek and what is happening. First of all, he is doing wonderful! I know we have said it a hundred times, but we are soo thankful for PUMA and Mary and Fran and Padam and just the group of believers there! Trek is happy and getting into a good daily routine, for his playtime, eating great, napping and he sleeps great at night. Praise the Lord for a strong little man! So he's doing wonderful and we miss him terrible! We can't wait to have him in our care, which brings me to the update on his visa.
Still don't have the visa. We (group of parents & supporters) continue to send letters, make phone calls, try to get local and national attention to this issue, but still have not seen anything happen on a government level. Very frustrating! So we will continue this fight, but in the meantime we need to work towards our RFE (request for evidence). We were issued our RFE on Dec 3 (our adoption day) and have 87 days to send in a rebuttal. Up to now we had not gotten a lawyer because of two reasons....1. we truly believed that the Lord would intervene before we got to this point, 2. we don't have the money...again another reason we believed the Lord would work this out before we got to this point. But here we are and we are faced with some major decisions to make. We did contact a lawyer and she is working with lots of other Nepal families...and seems to be having success. She sent us a very encouraging email letting us know how she could help us and it was refreshing to read because of her optimism. I called the office to get the fees and about lost it. I guess I shouldn't have been shocked, but I've never needed a lawyer for anything and had no idea what kind of fees we'd be looking at. I have no idea who reads this and you may read this and think we're crazy and that her fees are fair and inexpensive....and you may be right, but we don't have a 'rainy day' account, we don't have retirement money being set aside, we don't have stocks and so on. We live week to week and that's just where the Lord has us right now and we will choose to be happy and rest in Him. So the lawyer is asking for a $6000.00 retainer. $250.00 for that is for our initial meeting to find out who to use for an investigator(an additional expense) and what our next steps would be. She needs the money ASAP! I told the office lady that we would love to have her work on our case, but we don't have the money. She said if we couldn't get the money then our only option would be to move to Nepal for the two years required. At that point we would pull our case and live in Nepal for the two years and then come home on a 'family visa' vs. 'orphan visa'. So as you can imagine my mind is racing wondering what we are suppose to do. My choice would be to not have to move, but we are willing to do whatever the Lord leads us. But if we were to move, there is still a ton that would have to happen to make that possible! We can't just leave when we have bills and things to take care of here. To work in Nepal one would have to purchase a working visa of some sort and that is $25,000.00 so if we don't have 6 thousand, how do we find 25 thousand??? Anyway...that's what is going on with the visa issue. We still pray for the Lords intervention and that we get word that the US government will just issue these and let these children come home.
We will be going back soon and will be reassessing the needs. We plan to purchase shoes and jackets for all the children (something very needed). We know they have a huge need there, but at this point do not feel comfortable with giving cash to them. So if anyone wanted to give to help the children still can do so by contacting us (the Chip In has expired). We are looking forward to going back and blessing them in the name and love of Jesus!
Okay now that, that is out of the way let me update you on Trek and what is happening. First of all, he is doing wonderful! I know we have said it a hundred times, but we are soo thankful for PUMA and Mary and Fran and Padam and just the group of believers there! Trek is happy and getting into a good daily routine, for his playtime, eating great, napping and he sleeps great at night. Praise the Lord for a strong little man! So he's doing wonderful and we miss him terrible! We can't wait to have him in our care, which brings me to the update on his visa.
Still don't have the visa. We (group of parents & supporters) continue to send letters, make phone calls, try to get local and national attention to this issue, but still have not seen anything happen on a government level. Very frustrating! So we will continue this fight, but in the meantime we need to work towards our RFE (request for evidence). We were issued our RFE on Dec 3 (our adoption day) and have 87 days to send in a rebuttal. Up to now we had not gotten a lawyer because of two reasons....1. we truly believed that the Lord would intervene before we got to this point, 2. we don't have the money...again another reason we believed the Lord would work this out before we got to this point. But here we are and we are faced with some major decisions to make. We did contact a lawyer and she is working with lots of other Nepal families...and seems to be having success. She sent us a very encouraging email letting us know how she could help us and it was refreshing to read because of her optimism. I called the office to get the fees and about lost it. I guess I shouldn't have been shocked, but I've never needed a lawyer for anything and had no idea what kind of fees we'd be looking at. I have no idea who reads this and you may read this and think we're crazy and that her fees are fair and inexpensive....and you may be right, but we don't have a 'rainy day' account, we don't have retirement money being set aside, we don't have stocks and so on. We live week to week and that's just where the Lord has us right now and we will choose to be happy and rest in Him. So the lawyer is asking for a $6000.00 retainer. $250.00 for that is for our initial meeting to find out who to use for an investigator(an additional expense) and what our next steps would be. She needs the money ASAP! I told the office lady that we would love to have her work on our case, but we don't have the money. She said if we couldn't get the money then our only option would be to move to Nepal for the two years required. At that point we would pull our case and live in Nepal for the two years and then come home on a 'family visa' vs. 'orphan visa'. So as you can imagine my mind is racing wondering what we are suppose to do. My choice would be to not have to move, but we are willing to do whatever the Lord leads us. But if we were to move, there is still a ton that would have to happen to make that possible! We can't just leave when we have bills and things to take care of here. To work in Nepal one would have to purchase a working visa of some sort and that is $25,000.00 so if we don't have 6 thousand, how do we find 25 thousand??? Anyway...that's what is going on with the visa issue. We still pray for the Lords intervention and that we get word that the US government will just issue these and let these children come home.
God is good all the time! All the time, God is good!
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