Hope

I'm amazed that a month has passed since our last post! At that time, we had just sent our dossier overseas to have it translated. It was submitted to our girl's government on Oct. 14th, so we should hear within the next two weeks whether or not we've been approved to adopt in her country. Then, we wait another month for an invitation with an actual appointment date, at which point, we'll make our first trip. It is so hard to wait!!

Here we are with our completed dossier packet - the kids were troopers!!

Patience is such a tricky thing. We want it and we want it now. We ask the Lord to help us be patient, and what happens? We are made to wait!! The wonderful thing about learning to be patient is the opportunity to find contentment, and even excitement, in the waiting. As we wait to be reunited with our girl, the Lord is growing our faith in Him (and He is so faithful!!), our contentment in the midst of our circumstances and our hope in what the future may hold for our family.

The idea of hope is not generally nurtured in orphanages. Why would it be? What do most orphans have to look forward to? A life of crime on the street? Prostitution? Drugs and alcohol? Sadly, that is a reality for the majority of orphans in our girl's country. Yet, in the midst of such cruel prospects, hope shines through when a child is told she is wanted. 


At the airport, meeting "A" for the first time

A caregiver, Svitlana, who chaperoned the orphans during their travels to and from America, recalled to me an ongoing discussion she had with our girl, "A", during the flight here. Svitlana said that when she read our introduction letter to "A" ("A" cannot read or write) and showed her our family picture, "A" just kept repeating, 'They want me? Do they really want me?'. In the airport, after being reassured of this repeatedly on the flight, she ran to us and started hugging us and pulling her friends over to meet our kids. She was so proud and so full of hope because someone wanted her!

We have been given an even greater hope than that which an orphan desiring a family could ever imagine. We have the hope that we can become the eternally adopted sons and daughters of the living God, who loved us before the foundations of the earth were laid and who gave His Son as a sacrifice for our sins. "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace by which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Romans 5:1-5

Hope is a product of God's great love for us. It is because of that hope that we are able to extend grace and love to a child in need of a family...and that fills her with hope. What a beautiful thing!



At the Adventure Science Center in Nashville