Waiting….waiting….waiting

"My soul wait in silence for God only; 

From Him is my salvation.  He

only is my rock and my salvation,

My stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken."

Psalm 62:1-2

Waiting.  Something I've NEVER been good at.  I'm always looking for the quickest way to get something done.  The fastest check-out line, the shortest route to my destination.  I think there should be tickets given for driving under the speed limit.  I absolutely hate stoplights.  I think they should all be converted to traffic circles so we could keep moving and not have to sit still.  So now that I find myself in a waiting period in my life, with an indefinite end, I have struggled to continue trusting my Good Father.  

In the last week we have had numerous people ask us for news about our adoption and I realized it had been over a month since we updated our blog.  There is news to report…some discouraging…some that gives a ray of hope…and some that speaks to the refining God is doing in my heart.  

When last I wrote we asked you to pray about the possibility of hosting Igor through a different hosting organization.  Well, a couple weeks later we found out that because Igor's paperwork is stuck in Lugansk, it was impossible for us to host him with any organization.  

Shortly after that, I heard from a family who is also trying to adopt a child from the Lugansk region.  We met them at the airport at the winter hosting with NHFC.  They were the last ones to receive their referral before Ukraine shut down adoptions in our region.  They are also stuck waiting for the unrest to settle down so they can go to their court appointment.  Well, Ashley contacted me the last weekend of June and told me that she had gotten permission to visit her hopeful child at camp.  She wanted to know if I knew what camp Igor was in.  We had been trying to find out exactly where Igor was, but hadn't been able to obtain that information from our facilitator in Ukraine.  She told me to send her a picture of Igor and maybe she'd see him at camp.  When she found out what orphanage he is from, she didn't think it would be likely for him to be at the same camp as her child.  Well, after her first day of visiting, she was being escorted to the gate by a security guard and she passed a boy who looked like Igor.  She said his name and he looked at her and smiled.  Then she said my name and he got all excited!  She sent me a picture of him that she had quickly snapped with the caption, "He's here!!!"  When I saw the picture I began to weep, crying, "Oh thank you Jesus!  Thank you Thank you Jesus!"  To see his precious, smiling face and to know that he was safe and happy relieved such a burden from my heart.  Throughout the week of Ashley's visit, she would send us pictures of Igor and the camp grounds.  We were able to send emails to her, translated into Russian, for Igor to read.  We were able to communicate to him that we had been ready to travel when Ukraine put a hold on adoptions.  We were able to tell him how much we love him and that we have not given up.  It relieved so many of our worries to find out that the camp was a wonderful facility.  There are lots of activities.  They go to the Black Sea twice a week.  They are well fed and well cared for.  Igor seemed very happy.  We are praising God for this gift of assurance that He's got Igor in His hand.  

While Ashley was there we finally heard back from the facilitator in Ukraine.  She shared the name and location of the camp with us.  We asked her if it would be possible for me to visit for a week.  It looked like this could be arranged so Nastya and her team began to work on getting the paperwork needed for me and another mom to visit our children.  We were hoping that this could be arranged for early August.  About a week and a half ago we received disappointing news from Nastya.  There had been another family visiting the camp who had permission and the official paperwork needed for their visit.  Without telling anyone, they took another family with them.  This made the camp director very angry.  She had a meeting with many of the officials in her area and it has been decided that no more Americans will be allowed to visit camp, for any reason.   And so, another door felt like it was being slammed in our face.  No adopting…no hosting…no visiting.  On the day I heard this news I took it well, knowing it had been a bit of a long shot.  But last week I could feel some of my old doubts and questions festering in my heart.  I know God is my Good Father, but this didn't seem like a way a Good Father should treat His child.  I reminded God that last fall I had come to the point where I had completely surrendered this dream of adoption to Him.  I had laid it at His feet, believing that He had said no and that I needed to focus on the work before me that He had called me to.  I had given it up.  HE was the one that brought all of this back into my life.  HE was the one who moved Jim's heart for adoption.  HE was the one who began this process all back up again when I had laid it at His feet.  And now what was He doing?  Nothing!  (as far as my finite eyes could see)  

Ahh…but that is so far from the truth.  He has been working all throughout the last 3 years.  Perhaps we don't have the child we long to have, the one who already feels like ours.  But some greater things are occurring as we Wait on God.  I came to realize this summer that without this trial I would not have come to know God in the way I know Him now.  This struggle has refined my faith.  It has revealed to me more of the depths of God.  It has taught me more about His faithfulness, His sovereignty, and yes, His goodness.  It has reminded me that a Good father disciplines his children.  A Good father wants to see His children grow and mature and He will use pain in our lives to build that maturity and endurance.  I have been reading "Knowing God" by J I Packer and I want to share a quote from him, 

"'Wait on the Lord' is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for

God often keeps us waiting.  He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way 

to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide

us more than one step at a time.  When in doubt, do nothing, but continue

to wait on God.  When action is needed, light will come."

"Sooner or later, God's guidance, which brings us out of darkness into light,

will also bring us out of light into darkness.  

It is part of the way of the cross."

"Wait on the Lord."  I can't tell you how many times God has been hammering that message into my head in the last three years.  I have been studying the book of Exodus lately and been challenged by the truths there.  As I read about God's calling of Moses, how He promised to equip Moses to lead His people to freedom, how He promised that He would work wonders and free His children I was struck by Moses' frustrations and accusations in Exodus 5:22-23.  Moses told Pharaoh everything God told him to say, and did all the signs God told him to do and what happened?  The Israelites bondage got harsher, more severe, unbearable.  I love Moses' candor with God…"Why did you ever send me??  Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak your name, he has done harm to this people and you have not delivered Your people AT ALL!"

Exactly how I had been feeling towards God…"Why did you call us to begin this adoption?  Ever since we began you have closed one door after another and you have not delivered this child to us AT ALL!"  

As I reread the plagues and how God continued to harden Pharaoh's heart these phrases kept jumping out at me…

"The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD….

        But indeed I have allowed you to remain, in order to show you My power and in order to proclaim          My name through all the earth…

                     that you may know that the earth is the LORD's….

                                 I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may perform these signs of Mine among them and that you may tell in the hearing of your son, and of your grandson how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I performed My signs among them, that you may know that I am the LORD."

God was not in a hurry to free the Israelites.  God was not concerned about how quickly they could get to the promised land.  He WAS concerned about the glory of His name.  He had a lot to teach His people about His power, His provision, His protection…and that would require 10 plagues and the long way around the wilderness.   

So for now we wait.  We trust that God will finish what He started, because He promises in His word that He does.  Will that finished product be another sweet boy added to the Jacobs' household?  We don't know.  Will the finished product be stronger faith, deeper love for God?  Most assuredly.  But what else it will entail….we will have to wait and see.  

We are so very thankful for those who partner with us regularly in praying for Igor.  Please continue to lift him up.  We did hear from Nastya a few weeks ago, that because Eastern Ukraine continues to be volatile, the orphans will most likely be permanently transferred to Odessa for the school year.  At that time they will have to move their paperwork.  When the paperwork is moved, we can request another SDA appointment and begin our adoption again.  The moving of the paperwork, as I said in a previous blog, will require many signatures and approvals and could be a long process.  We ask that you pray with us for the paperwork to be safely (you notice I did not say 'quickly'…even though I wanted to) moved, so that all of these waiting children can be united with their forever families.  We don't expect to hear anymore about this process until the beginning of September.  

Good news….and bad news

Habakkuk 3:17-19

"Though the fig tree should not blossom 

And there be no fruit on the vines,

Though the yield of the olive should fail

and the fields produce no food,

Though the flock should be cut off from the fold

And there be no cattle in the stalls,

Yet I will exult in the Lord,

I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.

The Lord God is my strength,

And He has made my feet like hinds' feet,

And makes me walk on my high places."

So which do you want to hear first?  The good news?  or the bad news?  How about if we sandwich the bad news in between the good news?

On Thursday this week, after several weeks of waiting with no news at all, I received this text from Monica, the sweet mom who hosted Igor last summer:

                     "I just heard that they are allowing evacuation of orphans from Igor's region…"

After several messages back and forth it was confirmed that her New Horizons for Children coordinator had heard directly from Nastya, the facilitator in Ukraine, that 500 orphans from the region of Lugansk were being evacuated by train to Odessa.  I was overwhelmed with praise to God!  Surely, Igor would be one of those children being transported to a safer place!  And then later that afternoon, after two and a half months of silence, the teacher at his orphanage, finally replied to my email with this short message:

Hello Kimmy. Sorry for the late reply to your letter. We very dangerous. There is a war, kill women and children. Today all of our school children were evacuated to a safer place in the city Odessa.

Just that morning I had been reading the headlines on Kyivpost.com and was very discouraged to see that the violence in Lugansk was only escalating.  There seems to be no hope of peace on the horizon.  

We are overwhelmed with gratitude to God, that he has transported these sweet children to a safe place for the time being!  And we began to get our hopes up that now, perhaps we could reopen the discussion of continuing our adoption, now that Igor was in a safer region of Ukraine.  I had already arranged to talk to Nastya on the phone on Friday morning, because I had many questions that were not being answered and I thought it would be helpful to talk to the facilitator in Ukraine directly.  As we spoke, it became very clear that she held no hope at all that our adoption would be able to be completed.   She informed me that just because Igor was now in Odessa, that did not mean that we could continue the adoption from there.  Igor would have to be officially transferred to another orphanage in a different region for us to be given permission from the SDA to continue the adoption.  Nastya was very clear that this had NEVER been done before.  In order for this to happen, first the orphanage director would have to ask for the transfer, then it would have to be approved by the children's services and education department in his region.  She said this would take months to do.  She also gave very little hope of peace being restored to Lugansk.  She told me that the people there want to be a part of Russia.  She said it's very dangerous there now.  Bombings, fires, shootings, bridges being blown up.  Even if we were given permission from the SDA to go into Lugansk, travel would be very difficult.  She compared Lugansk to Crimea and told me that many families were unable to complete their adoptions after Russia took over and she felt that we were probably in the same situation.  

     I also asked her if there was anyway she could bend the rules and allow us to host Igor with NHFC this summer, even though we were way past the deadline to sign up.  She informed me that that would be impossible.  Bad news and more bad news.  This adoption is quite impossible and we can't host Igor this summer.  

     But while this is by far the worst news we have heard in this adoption process, I was not discouraged after this conversation with Nastya.  I had an unexplainable peace.  A peace that seemed to be very elusive to me over the last few weeks.  Ever since May 16th, when our dreams of traveling to Ukraine to bring our boy home were put on an indefinite hold, I have struggled daily to hold onto truth.  I would have good days where I was believing the promises of God and filling my mind with His truth, followed by days of desperate despair where I felt like screaming at God,  "I can't do this anymore!!!"  At one point I even told Jim,  "God has obviously said no to this dream, so I'm not going to pray about this anymore.  You can keep praying if you want to, but I'm done."  Only a day or two later, God gently chided me for this attitude through the encouraging words of our daughter, Ellie.  She had recently read a book about persevering through prayer and she gave me these two illustrations to remind me that we "should always pray and not give up".  

     Imagine a family, who lives in Raleigh, decides to go on vacation to Disney Land in California.  They spend 5 days driving, traversing thousands of miles.  5 miles before they reach Disney Land they become extremely discouraged with how long the trip is taking and they decide to give up and just go home.

     Or imagine a football player just received a pass from the quarterback and he dodges tackle after tackle and runs 58 yards towards the end zone.  When he's just 2 yards from a touchdown he suddenly stops, sits down and decides he can't do it.  

    Pretty silly, huh?  At the same time, in my own Bible study, God was showing me where I was getting off track.  As I was waiting on God, I was confusing His ways with His will.  Remember the story of Joseph in the Bible?  God revealed to Joseph in a dream that he would one day be a great ruler.  But what was the next thing that happened?  He was betrayed by his brothers, thrown into a pit and sold into slavery….and from there ended up in prison!  For 20 years!!  Slavery and prison??  You have to believe Joseph must have questioned God about this during those 20 years.  He must have wondered at some point if he had heard God wrong.  How could this be carrying out God's will??  Let me quote from "Live a Praying Life" by Jennifer Kennedy Dean:

     When you treat prayer as if you have the right to tell God how to do His work you will be disappointed.  When you realize God's ways are not your ways you will not be thrown off balance when circumstances seem to be leading away from God's will.  You can trust that God is steadily moving forward in the direction of his will……God's delays are loving, purposeful, profitable and deliberate.  God wants to do more than we can think or imagine and sometimes that requires a waiting period.  He wants us to see the Lordship of Jesus in areas that never occurred to us before.  When God builds a waiting period into your life it means that what He is doing requires it.  He is working out circumstances so that his power and glory will be on display.  

I realized that my faith had shifted from God Himself, to the works of God.  When the ways of God were beyond my understanding my faith began to crumble.  And so in repentance, this became my only prayer….Father, not my will, but yours be done.  Father, glorify your name…whatever it takes….glorify your name.  And as that became my only prayer….peace returned.   So when Nastya told us that this adoption was virtually impossible….I was not discouraged.  Because hasn't that been our prayer all along?…that God would move in a way to accomplish this so that all would know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that ONLY GOD could have done this.  So now we are in a perfect position.  A position for God to magnificently and powerfully work out His will.  A position to give God all the glory.  No matter what.  And that's the best news!  

But even as Nastya shared these hard words with me on Friday, she did give me a bit of hope that there may still be a way to host Igor this summer.  There is another hosting organization that brings children to the US in August instead of July.  She gave me the name of this group and encouraged me to contact them.  I did, and the director was very encouraging that he might be able to work this out.  We are checking into that now.  

So prayer warriors, here are some ways you can be praying for us in the next few weeks:

- Praise God!  He has moved Igor and the other children to a safe place!

- Continued protection for Igor and the children

- God to do His will in His way in His timing

- God to glorify his name

- Protection for us from the onslaughts and lies of the enemy

- God to work out the details for us to be able to host Igor through a different hosting organization

- God to move mountains, to do a new work that has never been done, to do the impossible.

- That we would be bold to share the gospel through the "glorious unfolding" of this story

For those of you who are local, our dear youth pastor has asked if they can have a short time of prayer for our family and this adoption in the youth service on Sunday (June 8th).  It will begin at 9:30 in the chapel and we'd love to have your join us.  It shouldn't be more than 15 minutes.

I close with this verse that God led me to yesterday,

Revelation 3:7-8

…He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and

no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says this:  "I know your deeds, 

Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut, because you

have a little power, and have kept My word, and have not denied My name."

If God has closed this door…No one can open it…and if God has OPENED this door…
NO ONE can shut it!

Roadblocks, Detours, and Disappointments

This is not a posting I was ever wanting to make on this blog.   And I won't spend a lot of time trying to be creative in my writing.  Today we hit a major road block in this adoption process and as I try to write this post, I'm heartbroken and numb, trying to adjust, trying to trust, trying to remind myself who is in control here.
On Tuesday morning the call that we had been hoping for, longing for, praying for....finally came!  Our adoption coordinator called that morning to tell us that our SDA appointment was May 27th in Kiev and we would be flying to Ukraine on May 25th.  I was elated!  Full of joy and thankfulness!  Wanting to tell everyone about this exciting news! Ellie, Josiah, Ashley and I rejoiced together and I asked Ellie to quickly  construct a poster for me to take to Jim's office.   After I dropped Josiah off at school I drove over to Jim's office and walked into the receptionist area with a huge grin on my face.  Jim's staff could tell something was up.   Fortunately, Jim wasn't with a patient...he was standing in the hall.  So I held up my sign and burst into tears.

Finally!  After months of waiting...we had our travel dates!  And it was less then two weeks away!!  For two days we excitedly began making plans to travel.  Jim's schedule was cleared of appointments, shopping lists and packing lists were made out, childcare arrangements were put in place, weekend trips that had been planned were cancelled, thoughts of hugging my son before the end of the month filled my head.  But Thursday afternoon that all came to a screeching halt....

There is a family that we met during our hosting time last Christmas who has been tracking along at about the same pace as us in the adoption process.  Their approval and SDA appointment came a couple weeks before ours and this week they have been in Ukraine.  It's been a rough week for them.  They arrived in Kiev, only to hear that the Orphan Services Director did not want to give them a referral to travel to Lugansk for their daughter.  After much prayer, the director reluctantly granted them permission and their referral, but made them sign a form saying they were not holding Orphan Services or the American Embassy responsible for any danger that they would encounter on the journey.  Yesterday, we saw their blog with this update:

They closed adoptions to our region today.

My heart sunk as I read this and I immediately tried to contact our adoption coordinator to see if this was true.  Igor is in the same region as their daughter.  What would this mean for us?  Although I repeatedly tried, I couldn't get a response from our coordinator.  But this morning I received the dreaded phone call.  Yes.  It's true.  Effective immediately today, all adoptions in the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk have been closed.  Orphan services feels it's too dangerous to allow American families to travel there.  NO exceptions will be made.  Now instead of calling the travel agent who had reserved our flights to pay for our plane tickets...I would call him and tell him to cancel the reservation.  We could not travel.  

So what does that mean for us going forward?  Tonya did give us a smidgen of hope to hang onto when we spoke this morning.  She said that the SDA is going to wait and see what happens with the election on May 25th (Yes, we had been scheduled to travel on election day....of all days...)  If things get messy after the election they are going to try and get the children who are in the process of being adopted out of those regions to a safe place.  Right now, that's all the information we have.  We don't know if the region will open back up for adoption.  We don't know what would happen if they moved Igor to a safe place.  But today, even as we reel from this news we will choose not to hang our hope on man and his abilities, but on God who is Sovereign in all things.  God.  Who moves mountains.  God.  Who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or think.  God.  Who is our only stronghold and strength when everything else crumbles around us.  God.  Who says,

Do not call to mind the former things,

Or ponder things of the past.

Behold, I will do something new,

Now it will spring forth;

Will you not be aware of it?

I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,

Rivers in the desert.

God is fully capable of rescuing Igor and bringing him home to us.  He is fully capable of accomplishing this adoption in a way we couldn't have imagined and has never been done before.  But we will declare, just as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego declared...

"If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire (the Ukrainian unrest)  and He will deliver us out of your hand,

O King.  But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O King,

That we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that 

you have set up."

"But even is He does not....."  Even if He does not fulfill this dream....We will still praise Him.  We will still love Him.  And we will still trust that His plan is best.  

So please pray with us....

 - for healing of our broken hearts

- for renewed trust in God's sovereign and perfect plan

- for protection for Igor

- for God to be glorified

- for God to bring about Igor's rescue

- for safety for the family in Ukraine right now.  They are in a very dangerous place.

Jim told me yesterday, that when I texted him the news that Igor's region may be closed for adoption, He immediately began to pray and He was reminded of the story of Abraham and Isaac.  Abraham was asked to offer his only son on an altar as a sacrifice to God.  To prove that Abraham trusted God's plan even when he didn't understand it.  To show that he loved God more than anything else.  Jim was reminded that Igor (and all of our children for that matter) is God's.  He doesn't belong to us and he never will.  God will work out His best plan for Igor... in His timing...in His way.

"what Thou wilt; as Thou wilt; when Thou wilt." - Thomas a Kempis

Mile 20

"Why are you in despair, O my soul?

And why have you become disturbed within me?

Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him,

The help of my countenance and my God." 

Psalm 42:11

I have been putting off updating our blog for several days now because I was unsure of just what to communicate.  I wanted to wait until we found out our travel dates for Ukraine.  For the past couple weeks I have been on pins and needles, expecting every phone call to be from our adoption coordinator telling us the exciting news that we would be heading to Ukraine this month.  But that call hasn't come. In fact, because of three different holidays in Ukraine in the last two weeks, it seems like things have slowed down to a snail's pace.  Thursday, when I spoke to our coordinator and found out that it could very well be another 3 weeks before we travel I was completely deflated and full of frustration and questions.  I feel like my prayers have been bouncing off the ceiling lately.  There are some specific things I am praying for that have gone unanswered or God has said no to.  As we pray for mountains to move, for Igor to be rescued, for God to be glorified….He seems to remain silent.   And Thursday I hit the wall.  Forgive my running analogy for those of you who aren't runners, but that day felt very much like mile 20 in a marathon.  The wall, in a marathon, happens somewhere around mile 20.  When you hit the wall you feel like you can't possibly go another step.  Everything hurts, you strength is zapped and 6 more miles seems like an impossible feat.  You just want to sit down and quit.  It's TOO hard to go on…what were you possibly thinking when you thought you could do this?  And that was Thursday for me.  I was angry with God for not answering.  I was so very worn with the waiting.  My faith was crumbling.  I felt like I couldn't ask God for anything big, because He wouldn't come through.  This whole adoption journey for us has been going on for 2 1/2 years now and I'm so ready for the happy ending.  Thursday, as I heard more discouraging and frightening news of unrest in Ukraine, in areas so very close to Igor, the question that has been nagging at me in the very back recesses of my mind came spewing out.  God, are you really going to put us through this whole ordeal and not rescue Igor?  Are you planning to break my heart all over again?  I can't take this anymore!  I had hit the wall.

     How do runner's finish a marathon after they've hit the wall?  They refuel, rehydrate, and refocus their eyes back on the goal.  So after sulking for more of the day than I care to admit, I finally, though skeptically, opened my bible to seek nourishment for my depleted soul.  And as I looked to refuel with the "Bread of Life" and rehydrate with the "Living Water," God turned my eyes to Psalm 118.

Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good;

For His lovingkindness is everlasting.

Oh let Israel say,

His lovingkindness is everlasting.

Oh let the house of Aaron say

His lovingkindness is everlasting

Oh let those who fear the LORD say,

His lovingkindness is everlasting.

From my distress I called upon the LORD;

The LORD answered me and set me in a large place.

The LORD is for me; I will not fear;

What can man do to me?

The word for lovingkindness here is chesed which means goodness, kindness, deeds of devotion, faithfulness, mercies, unchanging love.  The lies that were weighing me down were, "God doesn't love you as much as others, He's not always good, He can't be trusted.  He won't come through."  The truth is God is only good.  His love for me never changes.  He is full of goodness, kindness, faithfulness and deeds of devotion.  He is completely in control of this whole situation and He is working out His perfect plan.  His plan….not my plan.  His timing…. not my timing.  His glory…which will be my happy ending…no matter what happens.  So we continue to wait, and trust….and wait….and trust.  Please continue to pray for Igor's safety during all this unrest in Ukraine.  Click here for a recent story on Donetsk.  Continue to pray that God will keep the doors of adoption open and bring Igor home.  

On a lighter note…we have two new ways you can partner with us to raise funds to bring Igor home.  We have decided to relaunch our T-shirt sales.  Because of some problems with our original company, we are using a different printer and handling sales ourselves.  Our dear friend, Chris Harrell, came up with a wonderful design.  We think you'll love this new shirt!  You can click on the picture on the right to be taken to a page that explains how the sale will work this time.    

The second way you can help us raise money is simply by doing something  most of you do regularly anyways….Drink lots of coffee!!  We have set up a fundraiser with Just Love Coffee Roasters.  JLCR has a variety of products…12 oz. bags, 8 oz. bags, Individual cups, mugs, t-shirts….  You simply need to click on the link on the right to be taken to our storefront, and from there, shop for products.  Be sure to use our link, otherwise we won't get credit for the sales.  Feel free to share our link with all your coffee drinking friends!  

Psalm 118: 15-17

The sound of joyful shouting and salvation is in the tents of the righteous;

The right hand of the LORD does valiantly.

the right hand of the LORD is exalted;

The right hand of the LORD does valiantly.

I will not die but live,

And tell of the works of the LORD.

Prayers Please!!

Well, it's been a little while since we updated our blog.  There really has not been much to report on.  We have been in the waiting stage as all our paper work is done, our dossier is in Ukraine and we wait anxiously for that phone call from our adoption coordinator telling us our travel dates.  My heart did a flip flop one day last week when I did receive a call from our adoption coordinator.  As I shakily answered the phone, hoping to hear her say we'd be traveling in two weeks, I was a little disappointed to find out she was calling to tell us we needed to redo one piece of our paperwork.  Ukraine changed the rules on the petition for adopting a specific child and it now needs to be submitted separately from the dossier.  So that meant taking another form to our very sweet notary (Jim's nurse!) and then another trip into downtown Raleigh to the Secretary of State to have the document apostilled.  (two actually, one to drop it off and one to pick it up).  Boy am I thankful we live in close proximity to the NC Secretary of State!  Then another trip to Kinkos to FedEx our form to Tonya our coordinator.  Tonya assures us that this little hiccup will not delay our approval at all.  I hope and pray she's right.  Truthfully, it was actually nice to have something tangible to do during this long stage of waiting and praying.
But what motivated me to blog today was some not so good news from an acquaintance of ours who is currently in Ukraine.  Hearing daily news reports has made my prayer life very active and vibrant.  The recent takeover of one government building after another in Donetsk has been frighteningly close to Igor's town.  This news story is a good summary of how unstable things are in Igor's region.  These unsettling reports along with the fact that we have not been able to connect with the teacher at Igor's school in the last four weeks causes us great concern.  Today we asked our friend in Ukraine to give us a realistic perspective of what is going on there and to give us his opinion of whether it would be safe to travel to that area in the next few weeks.  Here was his response:

" (Igor's Town) is right in between Donetsk and Luhansk.  It is a dangerous zone, because Donetsk is the bed of insurrection right now.  Situation is changing very quickly, but our organization will not let workers come anywhere near there at this time.  This region is currently saturated with a myth that USA is going to invade any day now and that there are US spies and mercenaries under every rock.  For that reason I would personally advise not to go there at least until after Ukrainian elections (May 25).  Russia is trying to get those elections cancelled by fermenting a violent uprising."

So, friends, we are asking you to "devote yourselves to prayer" (Rom. 12:12) with us.  Please pray for Igor's protection.  Please pray that when the time comes for us to travel, that God would protect us and that He would give us wisdom and peace to know that if He calls us to go, he will be with us and move all the mountains out of the way to bring this boy home.  Daily it seems like the mountains are getting bigger and more insurmountable.  But we have a Great God!  We want to see His power on display and his name glorified.  And so, while the daily reports would try to shake our faith, we will declare with the psalmist:

     My soul wait in silence for God ONLY, for my HOPE is from HIM.
     He ONLY is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold;
     I will not be shaken!  On God my salvation and my glory rest;
     the rock of my strength, my refuge is in God.
     TRUST in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him.
     GOD is our REFUGE for us.    ---Psalm 62:5-8

UPS??

On February 28th, Jim, Ellie and I headed to the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) building in Durham to do our biometrics fingerprinting.  This was the last hurdle we needed to jump in order to obtain our approval from the US government for the adoption.  This event was surrounded by many answered prayers so I wanted to journal about how we saw God working.  (Hopefully, for Igor to read one day).  Getting the appointment itself, on the day it was scheduled for, was a blessing.  We knew that once the USCIS office in MO received our homestudy they would assign us a date to be fingerprinted.  This could potentially be a challenge, as we would need to pick up Ellie from Liberty University in order to have her fingerprinted as well.  When I called the USCIS office, I found out that Jim and I were scheduled for February 28th, and Ellie was scheduled for March 4th.  I asked if they would be willing to move Ellie to February 28th and they were very happy to do that for us.  This date was perfect for our family for many reasons...Ellie doesn't have classes on Fridays, so I could pick her up Thursday night and she wouldn't miss class.  February 27th was Daniel's birthday so Ellie was able to come home on his birthday.  On Feb. 28th we had plans to head to the beach that afternoon to celebrate Daniel and Ashley's birthdays and now Ellie would be home and able to come with us.  Thank you Jesus, for all those little blessings!  Our adoption coordinator, Tonya, told us to call USCIS a few hours after we were fingerprinted and ask if they would be willing to FedEx our approval to us.  This would allow us to receive it 2-3 weeks sooner.  Tonya told us that about 60% of the time her clients are assigned to an officer who is willing to do this.  So we had friends and family praying with us that week that God would show us grace and give us a sympathetic officer.

I called USCIS on Friday afternoon and asked to speak to our officer.  I had my list of reasons ready for why it was imperative to move quickly and get our dossier to Ukraine ASAP.  When I was connected to our officer I simply said, "I was wondering if you would be willing to FedEx our approval to us if I give you our FedEx account number."  And right away the kind gentleman said, "Sure, that shouldn't be a problem."  No begging, no pleading, no long list of reasons necessary!  I was ecstatic when I got off the phone!  Yay God!  Thank you Thank you Thank you!!  Now we should hopefully have our approval on Saturday, or Monday March 3rd at the latest.  But when we got home from the beach on Sunday afternoon....no package.  All day Monday...no package.  I called back to USCIS late Monday afternoon to speak to our officer again and see if he had been able to turn in our approval.  He told us he turned it in Friday afternoon.  He also mentioned that they were having a bad snow storm there and only half the staff was working.  So hopefully we would receive our FedEx package on Tuesday.  Tuesday came....no package.  By now we were checking our FedEx account online and could see no record of anything being shipped.  I even called FedEx to speak to a live person and see if they could locate it.  No package.  I called back to USCIS and spoke to our officer two more times that day.  He told me that he had put a search on it.  He also said that he has to speak to his supervisor, who then speaks to the mail room.  The mail room reports back to the supervisor who then reports back to our officer.  He told us that usually, by the time he hears anything, the package has arrived.  By 5pm Tuesday there was still no package.  I was getting worried, frustrated, questioning what God was up to.  I asked a few friends to pray with us that the package would show up.  They started praying.  I continued praying.  As I was sitting in the living room praying and agonizing over what had happened to that package I heard a truck rumbling down the street.  I looked out the front window, hoping and praying it was the FedEx truck, but it was the UPS truck instead.  UPS??  We need the FedEx truck!  Please God, send the FedEx truck!  I think I would have run out and hugged the FedEx driver if he had showed up at that moment.  I remembered Ephesians 6 and tried to pray with my armor on.  I took up the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit.  I went over verses in my mind about God's character.  He's sovereign, He's powerful, He omniscient...He knew where that package was and He would deliver it in His way and in His timing.  Later that night after dinner, I headed out to the garage for something and stepped on an envelope that had been left on our mat.  I bent down to pick it up and noticed it was a UPS envelope.  My heart began to beat faster as I read the return address...Department of Homeland Security!!  What??!!  Could this really be our approval?!  I tore open the envelope and sure enough....It was!!  God, in His sovereignty, had delivered our approval.  But he wasn't bound by the means I had been praying for.  He answered my prayer, but He decided to use UPS instead of FedEx so it would be unmistakable that He was in control here.  I am still mystified as to how UPS made that delivery instead of FedEx, but it fills my heart with joy to know that my Savior hears my heart cry and answers the deeper desire...not just the prayer of the moment.
So last Wednesday, March 5th our dossier was FedExed to Ukraine.  We heard from our adoption coordinator today that it has been received and will be translated, hopefully this week.  And then we wait and pray, asking God to keep the doors of adoption open throughout the unrest in Ukraine until Igor can be rescued!  As we continue to pray for this process to move swiftly, our deepest desire is to know Jesus more through this.  To see His power and glory on display.  Thank you for praying with us!

Prepare for battle and Pray! What did you say?

Written by Jim:
The other night Kimmie ran upstairs saying "I have to watch the news."  By my memory this happens about once a decade.  West of the international attention in Sochi, Russia the pictures on the news captured turmoil in Ukraine. "How is the violence in Ukraine affecting Igor and your adoption process?"  That is the question we have received and wondered ourselves this week.  We process this question against a backdrop of a decade of significant decline in international adoptions.  Regulations and geopolitical factors have definitely played a role in this trend.  This week's violence has transformed a beautiful Independence Square into devastation as portrayed by this "before and now" composite CNN picture.

True, if our adoption moves forward then government workers in Kiev need to be able to get back to work.  Our plan this week was for a packet of 32 apostilled documents to be delivered to a family traveling to Ukraine to be translated for processing.  (I inserted the link because a month ago I had no idea what that even meant.)  The snow and ice across the South fortunately delayed the delivery of those papers.  I say "fortunately" because it appeared for a few days the delivery may have been lost.  Delayed is better than lost.  As it turns out we are not sure the family travelled this week to Ukraine anyway.

It may seem natural that Kimmie and I have been challenged to pray.  However, our challenge to pray started before this week's events and has opened our hearts to consider this mystery of God's design. Prayer seems both incredibly simple and yet amazingly puzzling.  Does our Sovereign God command and use prayer to move our will in line with His or is it more that God responds to us in granting our petitions? Does God use prayer to remind us where our strength comes from or as a vehicle to provide strength to us? Does God direct us to pray in order to draw wisdom and direction from Him before we do His work or is prayer a key part of the work he has called us to do?  As we meditate on examples in scripture and reflect on our lives we see all of these statements as being true inclusive of their apparent contradictions.

This month I have been challenged to pray by layering the messages of my favorite radio program, Family Life Today. Stephen_Mansfield challenged me that "Manly men do manly things" including "tending their field" and looking after the well being of those in it.  Dr. Larry Crabb describes the essence of manhood as stepping up and moving into the situations that are difficult.  Regarding our wives this means "moving toward" their wives in love.  Sam Ingrassia challenged men to move toward your wife by praying for and with your wife although through 37 years of his ministry that was not a routine he and his wife shared.  According to his statistics I have been in the majority where this has been difficult for me and I long for that to change.  These last two weeks have given me opportunity to pray for and even a few times with my wife.  It has been a real joy to me.

Kimmie was challenged to pray this week reading through Ephesians 6.  Here we get a description of a Roman soldier preparing for battle.  Tradition says after meticulously securing each piece of armor, grabbing a helmet and taking up a sword the Roman soldiers would line up for inspection, hit their breastplate and shout "integritas" to signify to their commander "I am as ready on the inside as I appear to be on the outside."  They proclaimed their integrity as a soldier prepared for battle. Today we might picture Drew Brees getting his team fired up before a game.  What we don't expect is how the sentence continues in Ephesians 6:18.  "Take up the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, PRAYING at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.  Our first action as a soldier is to PRAY?!

We are thankful that God encourages us to bring our petitions to him recognizing that we are His soldiers and that He is the one who fights the battle and secures the victory.  Because of our human limitation the darkness of the unknown and physically distant is intimidating for us and yet we celebrate that it is no challenge to God.  We are motivated to pray out of His love for us and Igor knowing that it is in Him that we have cause for hope.

This week we have rejoiced that Igor resides in an Eastern provence of Ukraine away from the fighting in Kiev. Yesterday we celebrated Ukraine's parliament calling for new elections in a couple months.  Today we read in the newspaper the President has been granted refuge in Ukraine's Russian speaking Eastern territory.  Igor lives in this region.  So as I close we have three prayer requests.
1.  Please pray that the ongoing tensions in Ukraine will not interfere with Igor's wellbeing or the adoption process.
2.  On Friday, Kimmie, Ellie, and I will be fingerprinted by the FBI, which is the final step that must be done before our dossier can be sent to the Ukraine for approval.  It also signifies the last hurdle in obtaining US approval.  We will be calling the USCIS office on Friday to plead with them to FedEX our approval to us instead of mailing it out.  This could allow us to send our dossier to the Ukraine 2-3 weeks earlier.  Please pray that they will be sympathetic to our request.
3.  Pray that the name of God would be lifted higher in our lives.

From "Stronger" written by David Garcia, Benjamin Glover and Christopher Stevens and performed by Hillsong:

No beginning and no end
You're my hope and my defense
You came to seek and save the lost
You paid it all upon the cross

You are stronger, You are stronger
Sin is broken, You have saved me
It is written, Christ is risen
Jesus, You are Lord of all

So let your name be lifted higher