In the meantime...

Y’all, if waiting were an Olympic sport, all the qualifying participants would be parents adopting internationally. We continue to offer praise for another agency’s willingness to take on our case, but now we are back to waiting to see what paperwork the branch of the Ethiopian government that deals with adoption (MOWA) and the orphanage will require of us as a result of an agency transfer. We expect to receive word from the new agency sometime during the week of August 28^th. This will give the agency officials on the ground in Ethiopia time to collect all the information the agency needs to help us proceed.

We have received so much good news already from this new agency, and everyone has been so responsive, competent, compassionate, and proactive. After so many peaks and valleys, though, it’s becoming almost impossible to trust the good news - to trust that it will stick. To trust that bad news isn’t going to be on the other end of the next call. In the midst of all the good new, a worst-case-scenario can be mentioned in passing, and my mind perseverates on it for days. DAYS, y’all. All of the good news becomes white noise, while the mere possibility of the bad news rings through loud and clear.

As badly as I want to…Why can’t I quiet this down? Why are the worst-case scenarios rattling around in there so loudly? Why can’t I calm my spirit? Why can’t I just be a “good Christian” right now and not wrestle with trust?

For the sake of transparency, you should know I have, like, zero credible theological or spiritual training. I’ve never been to seminary or taken a formal course in theology or Bible. But I do have a Bible. And I do have a husband who has encouraged me to dig in to and cling to the Psalms so many times during our marriage that I finally got desperate and gave it a try. And, friends, the Psalms are AMAZING. They literally say what you can’t or won’t or don’t know how to. Take Psalm 43, for example.

Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause

against an ungodly people;

from those who are deceitful and unjust

deliver me!

For you are the God in whom I take refuge;

why have you cast me off?

Why must I walk about mournfully

because of the oppression of the enemy?

O send out your light and your truth;

let them lead me;

let them bring me to your holy hill

and to your dwelling.

Then I will go to the altar of God,

to God my exceeding joy;

and I will praise you with the harp,

O God, my God.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my help and my God.

Now, I’m not actually at odds with an ungodly, deceitful, and unjust enemy. But I don’t have to take that literally. I am, however, at odds with paperwork, and waiting, and fear of the unknown and all of the other scary things that come with your adoption agency closing and you being at the mercy of another country’s government. That’s why I love this Psalm: God, I feel like you’ve left me to fend for myself and I don’t know where you are. Send out a light for me to follow, because I will do it. I will follow that light straight to where you want me to go. And when I get there, I will praise you. Really loudly.

In the meantime, though, you need to get a grip, Soul. Calm the heck down. Because God is near, and God will help, and I will praise him for it soon.

Sometimes, I have to read a Psalm aloud over and over, until my spirit is literally pulled out of a dark place and temporarily retrained to hope. And sometimes, it takes longer than it should to hope again, and I have to practically yell at my soul to stop being disquieted. But, eventually, my Soul find hope and rest.

For a few hours at least.

While we are waiting and Psalming, would you pray with us for a few things?

1.     Our case is in order and in good standing for an agency transfer

2.     MOWA and the orphanage will not request additional paperwork from us as a result of the agency change

3.     We will hear positive news from the new agency during the week of August 28^th

4.     The agency change will not significantly delay our timeline for bringing our daughter home

5.     Our daughter’s heart and mind and body will be guarded and protected in the meantime

Thank you for continuing to bear with us in prayer. May all of our disquieted souls find hope in God this day.

In God’s Grace,

Kameron, Nathan, J. Henry, Amelia and our New Little Girl!