Caught

I have been up since 3:55 and I couldn't go back to sleep. I have had no problem sleeping the last 3 weeks, mainly because I have been emotionally exhausted. I feel caught. What I mean is that I feel caught between my everyday life and the future.

Three weeks ago Jeremy came home from a missions trip to Haiti and the rest of my life will never be the same. He showed me a picture of a beautiful 5 year old girl and said "I think she should be in our family". I honestly had to ask him if he was serious a million times over. It turns out he was.

Jeremy and I went to a conference about a year and half ago and that is where I first started feeling God opening up my heart to adoption. I have always thought adoption was so amazing for someone else to do, but not me! I knew I wanted four or five kids since I was young. I have four, stair step, beautiful, blonde boys. We were good. Our plate was full and overflowing! I looked at Jeremy at that conference with tears rolling down my face and said "You need to get me one of those babies from Haiti!" Guess what he said? "No!" He wasn't being mean, but I know at that moment he was seeing dollar signs. He's logical, I am emotional. I get it.

God's timing is perfect and He is showing me this everyday because He knows I need to be reminded. For two years now we have been digging our way out of debt. We are huge Dave Ramsey fans, not because we love his financial knowledge (even though we do), but because his principles which are God's principles on money have CHANGED our lives. This Fall we will be debt free. My point is that we weren't ready a year and a half ago when I was all for it.

Jeremy and I have talked about it every few months since that conference. He struggled with it. He full heartily wanted to be an advocate for the orphan and the widow and he wants our church to be advocates for the orphan and the widow, but actually being on the front lines of that was hard for him. He told his story at Free Chapel a few weeks ago and you can listen to it here: www.freechapelaustin.com.

In January our church does 21 days of prayer and fasting and Jeremy prayed about adoption everyday during that time. At the end of that he still didn't know. I honestly kind of thought adoption for us was a door that closed. Our youngest was turning four and I just felt that we were coming into a new stage of our life with our boys. For some reason I never pushed Jeremy about adopting. I can be pushy about stuff, but not this. I have learned over the last 12 years of being married that if we both aren't on board, then it isn't going to work. Having a child or adopting a child is way too big of a decision to be trying to rope my spouse into.

Back to being caught.

The morning after Jeremy and Tyler got back from Haiti he shows me her picture. He also didn't know her name or anything about her.

Let's pause right there. Does my husband even know me?!? I love details. I asked him a million questions which he had no answer to. Just a picture. (Oh, by the way, the little boy in the picture above is from the same orphanage Alexandra is in. For now, we aren't posting any pictures of her online).

Ok...Now, the whole week after that all we did was try to find out more information about her, tell my family, find an adoption agency, and research more information than I ever thought I wanted to know about adoption and the country of Haiti. I have never seen Jeremy like this. I keep looking at him like "What did you do with my husband?" I say that just because I can't believe how his heart has changed specifically about adopting. God has changed it! I have no other explanation.

It is so cool how God uses the body of Christ to do His work for His glory. We have some close connections to the orphanage that Alexandra (that is her name by the way) is at. I am really jealous that Jeremy and Tyler have both gotten to meet her, but I am thankful for that as well. Anyway, we have a friend that is a missionary in Haiti that has been helping us communicate with the pastor that runs the orphanage. The pastor only speaks Creole and our friend speaks English and Creole and several other languages. Slowly, but surely we are finding out more information about her.

In the mean time, we have started our journey with an adoption agency. Again, God is so good. We had no idea how to go about picking an adoption agency. I follow a girl's blog that has adopted from Haiti and I emailed her and she referred me to another girl that is in the middle of getting her son from Haiti. We are using the same adoption agency. This agency only does adoptions for Texas families who are adopting in Texas or from Haiti. How awesome is that? And, they just started the agency in October (remember God's timing). We love them already. They have been so encouraging, sweet, and helpful.

Jeremy and I feel like it is Christmas morning everyday. I personally have been an emotional wreck. If you know me at all, I am not a crier, but I will cry over just about anything lately. It's all good, happy, thankful tears. The support of our family, friends, and church family has been undeserved. Our boys are excited to say the least. When we found out Alexandra is 5 years old, Sam said "We will be twins!!" with every ounce of excitement he could muster. It was hilarious and sweet!

We are pursing Alexandra with everything in us and we hope and pray that she will be ours one day, but she isn't ours right now. I am anxious to get to the point in our adoption that she is ours, even if that means having to wait to bring her home. And of course, we are praying-praying-praying that she will be able to come home quickly. The adoption process in Haiti can take from 24-30 months. I pray for Haiti's new President everyday. He has the ability to make adopting from Haiti shorter. There are many families that are waiting to bring their children home. I will never understand why it takes two years to adopt children from one of the poorest countries in the world.

I hope you can understand a little bit by what I mean by feeling caught. I am actually okay with it. I know God has so many things he is going to show us through this faith walk.

James 1:27

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:

to look after orphans and windows in their distress."

*This is by far the longest post I have ever done on my blog and I am sure I forgot a lot of things. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me. I will be trying to update the blog through our adoption journey.

**Please excuse my grammar and how I write. I am not a writer, but I did want to share our story so far.

***This post is dedicated to Kelly. Thanks for being such an amazing friend and for encouraging me to write the beginning of our adoption story on this blog. I love you.