Going In Circles

Today as I'm watching the Indianapolis 500, I started thinking about how the race is like our adoption process.  Right now we are in our first few laps of the race. No doubt there will be pit stops, cautions, fast speeds and slow speeds along the way.  We hope we don't encounter any accidents, red flags or black flags.  Our goal is to finish the race strong and bring home the prize.  Just like the Indy drivers, we feel like the adopion process just goes in circles, repeating similar actions over and over.  Then, just when you feel you are making progress, another large envelop of forms to be completed arrives.  We did know that it would be this way - we were prepared - or so we thought.  Just like those drivers, we've done our homework, we've prepared our hearts & minds, but that still does not prevent the feeling of being on the race track going in circles and getting no where.

What I think I'm learning is that even when we don't think that we see any progress, the miles are clicking by.  The race is progessing.  Before long, we'll be at 100 miles, then 200 miles and so on.  While the adoption process will take longer than 3 - 4 hours, unlike an Indy race, we need to run our adoption race by taking it 1 mile, 1 day at a time.  We need to let things happen in God's time, not our time.  We need to remember to run this race with God as our coach and with God's plan.

So you may be wondering how our race is progressing.  Here's where we are today.  Our Home Study should be officially starting this week.  We have submitted the first set of
required paper to our SC agency that will be doing our home study and also initial application paperwork to our agency in NC that will handle the Philippines adoption process.  I spoke with our case worker and we are very excited to get started.

A week ago, Brian & I went on a 5 day cruise for our 20th anniversary - that Brian planned for us last summer.  It was a wonderful time for us to reconnect and refresh.  The adoption process will be long so we really needed that time away to recharge our batteries for the long haul ahead.  On the trip, God provided us with a nice confirmation of our journey.  Our cabin steward was a wonderful guy from the Philippines names Marvin.  He was such a wonderful guy, so helpful and nice.  Of all the cabins on the ship, of all the passengers and all the cabin stewards - Marvin was ours.  That's just how God works - giving you little signs of His plan in the most unusual ways and places.  As my good friend Nanci would say "That's just how Big My God is".

I think our next steps will be filing out more paperwork, meeting with our case worker, waiting, waiting and waiting.  In the meantime, I'll also begin to work on grant applications (which cannot be filed until after the home study is done & approved), fundraising ideas and being in prayer.  We are still searching for our child.  The 2 girls that originally sparked our interest are not available at this time so we are waiting and watching for God to bring us our child.  Really at this point in the process, knowing our child would not make much difference in what we need to do but it would just give us a face for the process.  For now, we'll just have to keep our eyes on God and keep Him as our focus.

Thanks for all of your support, love, prayers and encouragement during this process.  We cannot even begin to express how much it means to us.  Now it is time to get back to the race and back to the paperwork.

For His Glory!!