In just days, we will no longer have just two children, but we will have FOUR! Everyone in the States was so polite and controlled in their responses when we would tell them our adoption story. This morning we met a man from Portugal and shared a bit of our story and he exclaimed, "THAT'S CRAZY! Honorable of you, but WOW! That's going to be HARD!" He's right! It IS going to be hard. I, Amy, can figure out a lot of things linguistically and culturally when traveling, but I am able to go home and be ME, the English-speaking American who likes to joke and then have some quiet time. I am not going to be able to close the door on it any longer. Reality is, it will be hard, but we are ready to face that challenge. And we are ready to ask for help when we need it!
On this journey to China, we have discovered at least three things:
1) We said that every dollar matters in these adoptions and we were not joking. After our first fundraiser --a huge yard sale where so many people donated things and time and baked goods-- where we raised about $3,000, we received a card in the mail simply addressed to our house. The card stated that while they wanted to purchase something at the yard sale, they didn't have any money, but they were touched by what we were doing and wanted to give what they could until November. In the card was a $10 bill. We both looked at the card with no return address and realized we were holding what was equivalent to the widow's mite in the Bible. We praised God, held the card and cash and just wept. This small gift mattered! We prayed that God would work mightily through that extremely generous and heartfelt gift.
1) We said that every dollar matters in these adoptions and we were not joking. After our first fundraiser --a huge yard sale where so many people donated things and time and baked goods-- where we raised about $3,000, we received a card in the mail simply addressed to our house. The card stated that while they wanted to purchase something at the yard sale, they didn't have any money, but they were touched by what we were doing and wanted to give what they could until November. In the card was a $10 bill. We both looked at the card with no return address and realized we were holding what was equivalent to the widow's mite in the Bible. We praised God, held the card and cash and just wept. This small gift mattered! We prayed that God would work mightily through that extremely generous and heartfelt gift.
2) Curve balls come, but God is often waiting for us to fully trust Him so He can hit a home run! Curve ball #1: our remodel we had been planning for the last three years kept getting delayed, changed, stalled and then it finally gets off the ground when we decide to adopt. The curve ball is: Of course it was postponed due to us actually needing an extra bedroom, but WILL IT FINISH IN TIME? Curve ball #2: the paperwork glitch with USCIS (see below). Curve ball #3: the $7,000 bill we weren't expecting from our agency right before leaving. So many people gave far more than we anticipated or thought possible and we were blown away. While $7,000 did not come in, we decided to trust it would and leave for China. Curve ball #4: while in China, we received another invoice from our agency stating we owed yet $6,000 more as their initial estimates for travel and hotel were off. While we were saddened and frustrated to hear this, we prayed and asked God to make a way. With difficulty getting through on the internet, we prayed that somehow the right emails would get through. Kimmer had received an email from someone saying they had heard of our adoption story and wanted to make a donation. Kimmer replied and shared more. The individual replied saying they wanted to donate $12,000 to us. Are you kidding me??? We had JUST received the $6,000 invoice and now it is covered in full? HOME RUN, GOD! Now, all of our adoption expenses will be covered leaving us able to go home debt-free and get the medical help for our kids without any lingering debt! What an incredibly huge blessing!!!
3) Let God handle the details and trust the officials working your case! We can only do what we can do when we can do it. But our infinite Provider is overseeing all the details and we truly believe He wants NO child to be without a family. Time was passing and our son ages out on November 8. We needed a paper to arrive from USCIS (US immigration) and we needed to get it back to them in a SHORT time frame. So short that it seemed impossible with the time it takes for things to get processed. We graciously contacted our officer who ended up being a miracle worker. He got us the necessary paper in record time. He followed up on the payment to make sure it was processed and he then processed our paperwork to get it moved to the next step THAT DAY before he left for vacation! That officer was amazing and we were SO thankful he was assigned to our case! We believe that was God working out the details all along!!!
I said we have learned at least three things. Those are the big things. The small things have to do with being flexible and allowing ourselves to experience the people and the culture of China. We will share more about that another time. It is now 1am here and everyone is asleep but me (Amy). It's time to sleep for we awake early to head to Hepu, Guangxi, Kathleen's home town!
