Finally...An Update

Two months? Really? Has it seriously been two months since our roller coaster ride with Lil Oklahoma? Wow! I sincerely apologize for not updating sooner. I’m sure many of you who follow us on our blog have assumed the outcome of our previous entry. Here’s a quick update… After the birth mother had the evening to think about everything, our agency thought it might be a good idea if I wrote her a letter. They asked me to include in the letter an explanation of how we would make sure this lil guy’s culture and identity as an African American would be incorporated in our lives. They asked me to identify any African American family friends who would be influencing our son as we raised him as our own. I have often thought about all of this, but I had never put it into words. We have several good friends from different races and cultures who already pray for our boys on a regular basis. I have always known that they will be an important part of our boys’ lives, but I had never thought about the impact this information could make on a birth mom. I was at work when our agency requested the letter so I locked myself in my office, prayed that God would move my fingers on the keyboard in order to write what He wanted me to write in the letter. 30 minutes later I was emailing our agency the letter God inspired and hoped it would be enough to convey my heart to this precious woman in OK. Hours passed and we still hadn’t heard anything. I had a peace about it all day, but I was still so anxious to hear her official decision. Part of me was ready to get on a plane that afternoon and yet another part of me knew he was not meant to be my son. Even with all of these feelings, nothing could have prepared me for the phone call I received right at the end of the school day. My cell phone rang and it was Denise from our agency. She informed me that the birth mother had chosen the other couple. My heart sank and for a brief second I had to tell myself to breath. I needed to get out of there as soon as possible. Where was Steve? Where were the girls? These were the thoughts going through my head as I walked straight to my office, grabbed my stuff and told Steve & the girls we needed to leave immediately. Steve was at the school for the middle school Bible Study and asked someone else to cover for him so we could leave. When we got to the van I told them that the birth mother had chosen the other family and instantly the grieving began. The next few hours were spent crying, praying, talking, and crying some more. The girls had so many questions and unfortunately some of them we didn’t have answers for. However, throughout it all, Jesus was glorified. Even though the girls had questions and there were moments of being mad & confused, their faith in the Lord never moved. He was and IS our ROCK. His peace truly does pass all earthly understanding. The rest of the evening consisted of going to dinner at a fun restaurant with my mom and praying for “Lil Oklahoma”. We may never know exactly why he was brought into our life for such a brief moment, but we do know that we have the distinct honor to pray for him, his chosen family, and his birth parents. He will never know it, but he has played an important part of our amazing journey. Since then a lot has happened. In an earlier post, I talked about “preparing for rain”. Well, the Lord provided miraculously through some very generous people and through our tax return. In a matter of weeks, we have finished the basement and turned it into our family room, put the walls up in the old family room and made it our master bedroom, and started the final touches in order to move all of the furniture around. We are hoping to have everything finished by the end of April. We’ve said for 2 years now that we were “ready for the boys whenever God wanted to send them to us.” However, we really didn’t have a space ready for them at our house. Sure…we had plans for their room, but we hadn’t started anything. I am proud to say, that in a matter of weeks we will be officially ready for them whenever He decides it’s time for them to come home. Since the time of Lil Oklahoma we also had a brief encounter with a situation that involved “Lil Florida.” This situation wasn’t nearly as emotional as Lil Oklahoma, but it taught us a lot. First of all, it taught us not to submit our profile unless we knew we could act right away. I’m not going to go into all of the details because it is so frustrating. This precious little guy was a preemie and desperately needed someone to come to his rescue. Although we jumped at it initially, the Lord made it clear to us that this was not our Josiah or our Jeremiah. Regardless, he is now on our list of “lil” ones to pray for along with his birth mom. This situation definitely opened our eyes even more to one of the major problems with US domestic adoptions…the outrageous cost. I’m going to resist the temptation to get on my soap box at this moment, but I will say that this is not the last time I will be talking about this issue. I am determined, through our experiences and our journey, to bring national attention to the insanely high cost of private adoptions in the US. Pray that God will allow me to make divine connections and direction. So here’s your prayer list for the time being…Josiah, Jeremiah, “Lil California” & his chosen family as well as his birth family (he was the first lil on our agency called us about, but we were never really involved in anything with him), “Lil Oklahoma” and his chosen family & birth family, “Lil Florida” and his chosen family & birth family, “Lil Sinclair” & his birth mommy (I might explain later…waiting on the Lord’s direction), Lil Dayton (again I might explain later…waiting on the Lord’s direction), and continued favor in our fundraising. We held a pancake breakfast shortly after Lil Oklahoma and we raised over $1000. Praise Jesus! We plan on having a spaghetti dinner soon & we will update about that as well. Our heart’s desire is to raise enough money that we can start a scholarship fund for future families who want to adopt. If you would be interested in investing in this please contact us. The last thing on the prayer list is that Jesus would be glorified in EVERY moment of our journey and every second of our lives. He truly is our ROCK & we know that His promises are true! Thank you for taking a few moments and sharing in our journey. I promise not to wait 2 months before the next update.