Christmas in the Congo

Adam was able to take TEN days off for Christmas this year!  This has never happened before in our house so the kids and I were very excited!  We were able to start his vacation by taking a trip to Jackson, Tenn. to attend Joshua and Carolyn Beard's wedding...ALONE!  Yep...that's right, Adam and I left the kiddos with Nana Lou and traveled nine hours away for three days!  Most people would probably dread a nine hour car trip but Adam and I were excited to have that time alone to talk and just catch up.  The wedding was one of the most beautiful weddings I have ever been to...I just love Christmas weddings and it was in a barn.  Picture an evening wedding with the entire barn lit by candle light and white Christmas lights, Christmas trees...oh I could go on and on!  The decorations were beautiful but the ceremony was amazing.  There are few things more exciting that seeing two young people who love God and love each other vow before their friends and family to love each other forever.  I cannot wait to see what the Lord has in store for these two!  Now having said all of that, it was also a wedding I will never forget for another reason.  The bride and groom had just danced their first dance and Joshua invited all the married couples to join them on the dance floor and then announced there had been a change of plans.  There was a tornado warning and we needed to evacuate the barn and head next door to the basement of a bed and breakfast.  Okay, so now picture, darkness, pelting rain, wind, and tornado sirens.  Most of the people there seemed completely calm but I am from Roanoke where we do not have tornadoes (Thank God) and I was a praying mess!  In the end, we were all safe and we were able to watch them cut the cake by cell phone light...it was a wonderful night I will not soon forget! 
 

 

 

The next morning we were able to go Englewood Baptist Church to praise Jesus the Sunday before Christmas with Travis Cottrell and a few of my dearest friends.  I could not have been more excited (ok...maybe if Beth Moore was there but other than that, I could not have been more excited)!

  

After a couple of days of excitement my mood was quickly changed when on the way home, Adam and I got the following message from the state department website,

 

"On December 19, the Congolese Minister of Justice, Minister of Interior and Security, and the General Direction of Migration (DGM) confirmed to members of the diplomatic corps, including the U.S. Ambassador, that the current suspension on the issuance of exit permits continues. This announcement confirmed information reported in the Department of State's October 23 adoption alert regarding the suspension of issuance of exit permits to adopted Congolese children seeking to depart the country with their adoptive parents.

(Continued) The DGM continues to estimate that the suspension will last a year. Adoptive families, prospective adoptive families, and adoption service providers are cautioned that the DGM has not committed to processing applications for exit permits within a given timeframe once the suspension ends." 

 

The difference that stuck out right away in this announcement from the one in September was "the suspension will last a year."  I started to immediately go through the things that could happen...

 

"If the suspension lasts a year, she probably wont be home for NEXT Christmas.  What if she doesn't get to come here at all?" 

 

I started to panic and then I remembered what the message was on at Englewood church that morning...

 

FEAR

 

"There is no reason to fear ANYTHING because God is in control of EVERYTHING."  God knew that was exactly what I needed to hear.  On a side note, the message at our church this past Sunday was on fear too...I think God is trying to tell me something.

 

Isaiah 41

“But you, Israel, my servant,
    Jacob, whom I have chosen,
    you descendants of Abraham my friend,
⁹ I took you from the ends of the earth,
    from its farthest corners I called you.
I said, ‘You are my servant’;
    I have chosen you and have not rejected you.
¹⁰ So do not fear, for I am with you;
    do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
    I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

 

I have decided, yet again, that I cannot trust God and have fear in my heart about what may or may not happen at the same time.  Please pray with me that I would trust him more and fear the unknown less.  I need your prayers.

 

The Lord gave us some encouragement on the way home too that brightened our moods :-)  The children at the orphanage that I blogged about here got their Christmas presents!  The gentleman that delivered the gifts to the children said that it was the best day of his whole year!

 

I am so thankful to God for letting us be a small part in the work he is doing there. 

"Little E" had a Christmas celebration and received her gifts that we sent too!


When Adam and I got home on Sunday night, Eva was waiting up to make sure we got there!  Eva and Eli had a wonderful time with their Nana and we were very excited to get home and hug on them for a bit! 

The next day started our marathon of Christmas celebration!  We visited with lots of family and friends over the next four days!  We decided this year to do something we have never done in the past.  We purchased gifts for our family that benefited someone else in some way.  Each person received a card with "Little E's" picture on it that said, "In honor of E, we have given you a gift that gives back."  We purchased gifts from Serrv, Global Goods Partners, Just Love Coffee, Funky Fish Designs, Land of a Thousand Hills (a fair trade coffee shop in Daleville), Rafiki, and Ten Thousand Villages.  On the inside of each card, we printed information about where the gift was from, who made it and how it benefited them.  Eva helped to wrap each gift this year and Eli helped to unwrap them! 

All in all, it was a wonderful week celebrating the birth of our Savior.  The Lord has taught us many things over the last eighteen months one of which is to give him praise through everything!  I had a couple of rough moments celebrating Christmas without her but God is still God and he is still good...no matter what lies ahead. 

Please continue to pray that the Congo would lift the suspension, that God would give us the strength to endure this process and for complete healing and protection for our daughter. 

Lynsey

Bittersweet

The last couple of weeks have been bittersweet.  I love the change of the seasons and I especially LOVE the holidays that are coming up so quickly but it seems like each day that goes by, I think "why isn't she here yet, Lord?" 

This year, Eva and Eli were so excited to dress up for Halloween.  Eva wanted to be Rapunzel.  Her Nana made her a Rapunzel dress complete with long braided hair for Christmas last year and Eva wears it at least three times a week so that was the natural choice for her.  Much to Eva's dismay, Eli was a fireman this year.  She REALLY wanted him to be Rapunzel's lizard from the movie but he was not having it! 

As silly as it seems, I was getting both of the kids dressed that evening and I was overcome with sadness that little "E" wasn't here to dress up with us.  I started to think about all the things I was sure she would be here to celebrate this year that have come and gone.  I thought she would be here for our first day of preschool.  I thought she would be here for our annual family beach trip.  I thought she would be here to dress up on Halloween.  Each day that goes by, I don't understand why she has to be there without a family when we are here desperately waiting here for her arrival.

Earlier this week our adoption agency called and said that they would be sending a shipment of Christmas packages to the Congo and that they would be delivered to the transition home that little "E" is staying in on Christmas Day.  Adam was really excited to tell me this news because he knew that it would bring me great joy to pick her our a Christmas present and to know that she would receive our gift on Christmas.  I will have to admit my first reaction was not joy.  I think my response to Adam was something along the lines of, "I really wanted her to be here this Christmas."  You see, I was sure that she would be here for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year but now we know that she will not and this too has been really hard.  Anyways... as the day went on, I decided that I needed to "choose JOY" and be thankful that we could send her a present and I started to get really excited to go shopping with Adam, Eva and Eli to pick out her gift!  On Thursday of this week, I was up early praying and I always include the little boy that we received a referral for back in March along with his older sister in my prayers.  All of the sudden, it occurred to me that maybe we could send them a Christmas present too so I asked Adam that morning if it would be okay to contact our agency and see if we would be allowed to send them something and he of course said, "yes".  So I e-mailed our agency and asked if we could send those two children a Christmas present too.

 

About an hour later, I received an e-mail back saying that we could not.  She said that they would have to send fifty-five other presents for the other children in that orphanage if we did that. 

 

After reading her reply, I was so upset.  I just sat on the couch and cried.  I know that sounds silly but I just needed to send these kids something.  The thought of the two of them without a family just breaks my heart, the thought of any child without a family is just overwhelming to me.  Anyways, I cried and cried and then I had to pull it together and get on with our day.  A couple of hours later, I received a phone call from someone and it started out as most phone calls do, with the person asking, "How are you?"  Well, instead of giving the normal, "fine,"  I was truthful and told them I was having a rough morning.  I explained the e-mail that I sent asking if we could send those two children a present and that the agency said we could not because they would have to send fifty-five other presents and then the coolest thing happened!  The person on the phone said, "Go ahead and tell them we will send all the presents to the orphanage."  I went on to explain that it would be very expensive to send that many presents, that we would have to buy all the presents which I guessed would be around $1,200 and then we would have to ship them which I would guess would be another $300 or more and I certainly did not have that kind of money and the person on the phone just said, "I have the money.  Just tell them we will send the presents."  Well, you can imagine what I did, I am crying so hard at that point that I can barely tell Adam what happened so he called the lady we had been speaking with at our agency and she could not believe it! She actually asked Adam if he was serious!  She was astonished and overjoyed that a person would do that!  She told Adam how appreciative she was and that this would be a huge blessing to these children. 

 

A couple hours later, it occurred to me that if our agency had said "yes," that we could send those two children a present, there would have been fifty-five other children there without one.  I feel like the Lord reminded me that He is sovereign.  That even when it looks like he is saying "no," sometimes the "no" is because he sees the big picture and he knows what will happen if we are just patient.  Sometimes the "no" is because he has something much better planned!  This was a message I need to hear right now.  I don't know why little "E" is not here yet but I know our God is sovereign and He is STILL working all of this for our good and His glory!

 

So in 24 hours, I have gone to five stores (some of them, twice!)  and we have enough to fill sixty gallon zip lock bags to send to the Congo!  Praise God! 

 

Keep Praying!!!

I want to thank everyone who took the time to read the post last night and pray for us.  I read about the closure on the state departments website last night, wrote the information on the blog and then cried for a couple of hours.   I cried while Adam bathed our kids, I cried while we put them to bed and then I cried some more in the kitchen while my sweet husband gave me lots of hugs. 

We were devastated. 

I told Adam that I was upset and mad that God brought us to this place and then shut the door.  I was mostly mad because I KNOW that God is in control and that he allowed this to happen.  Just this past Monday I was reminded at Bible study that everything in my life is either God arranged or God allowed.

EVERYTHING

Whether He arranged this or allowed this, He will use this. I believe that.

I was really mad last night and I told God.  He can handle that. 

At 10:30pm last night we got a phone call from our agency and they talked to us about what the closure means and what they hope will happen.  She also told us some really great news about little E and we got some more pictures....bittersweet.  I have no idea what is going to happen.  I don't know if we will ever get to bring her home or if the country will re-open and things will go along as planned but right in the middle of my pity party, God reminded me of something. 

Mark 4:40

This past Wednesday, I was listening to a sermon online and the guy was talking about the story where Jesus calms the storm...

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” ³⁶ Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. ³⁷ A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. ³⁸ Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
³⁹ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

⁴⁰ He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

When I was listening to this, the word STILL really stuck out to me and last night I felt the Lord say to me, "Why are you so afraid?  Do you STILL have no faith? 

I looked over at Adam on the couch and I told him about Mark 4:40 and that I had listened to a sermon on that verse just this week and Adam started laughing....he said, "that is really funny because I just did a Sunday school lesson on that exact verse." 

God was not surprised by the closure. 

He knew so far in advance about it that he prepared Adam and I both for what was coming.

We serve a God who is completely sovereign and who loves us more than we can imagine.  God never promised that we would have an easy, happy life with no problems.  He did promise that WHEN we face problems, He would be with us. 

I STILL believe God is with us and that He will use this for our good and His glory.  I STILL believe that God is with little E and all of the other orphans in the world.  I STILL believe that He hears our prayers so keep praying! Pray for the families who are are there and cannot bring their children home. I know he is working on our behalf. 


Love,
Lynsey 

Here we go again...

Well...we got some really great news this week and then I saw this on the state departments website tonight...

On September 27, the Congolese Ministry of Interior and Security, General Direction of Migration (Direction Generale d'Immigration, DGM) informed the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa that effective September 25, 2013, the DGM suspended issuance of exit permits to adopted Congolese children seeking to depart the country with their adoptive parents. The DGM reports the suspension will last up to 12 months. This suspension is due to concerns over reports that children adopted from the Democratic Republic of the Congo may be either abused by adoptive families or adopted by a second set of parents once in their receiving countries.

This is devastating...

Please start praying that God would perform a miracle.

Lynsey

WOW!

Sorry it's been so long! Summer began at our house and our days have been filled with swimming, swinging and softball games! The summer is flying by and although I am excited that it means we are a little closer to bringing our newest addition home, I am also trying to slow down and savor the moments I have with my two little guys already here!

So on the adoption front, this is where we are...

The DR of Congo began issuing exit visa's again on June 27th...PRAISE GOD! That was a great day in our house! Adam called me around 10 pm to let me know that our adoption agency had just sent an e-mail letting us know...thank you so much for praying for this!

Our paperwork has been submitted to the DR of Congo government and we are waiting, again :-) I am not allowed to give any more details about little "E" on the blog until she officially becomes ours so I will let you know more when I am allowed. Stay tuned....

This is a funny little thing that happened recently...

So we went to see our financial advisor for our "yearly checkup" last week. He always sends us a list of things we need to bring with us, bank statements, retirement account statements, mortgage statement, any other debt statements, last year's tax return, etc. We gave him the information as soon as we sat down in his office and he said, "Let me take a look for a minute..." The first sheet of paper was our checking and savings account statement and he said, "Ok, this is your checking and your emergency fund, I guess?" We said, "It’s our checking and savings account, we have another money market account that we use as our emergency fund and we also have our adoption money in there." He said, "Oh" and he flipped to the next page which was the money market statement and his eyes got really big and he looked up at us and then looked back down at the statement and then looked back up at us and said, "How on earth did YOU GUYS save up that much money?!?!" This struck me as really funny! We laughed and then said, "People gave it to us! Then we quickly corrected that to, God gave it to us!" He really just kept staring at us...he actually put his hand on top of his head at one point and shook his head! He said, "People just gave it to you?" We responded with a couple of examples..."God gave us an extra $8,000 this year in various ways, we made over $5,000 in yard sales with stuff people donated to us, people from high school and college sent us money and donated things for the yard sale, friends, family, acquaintances, people we barely knew sent us money...it has been AMAZING to see God work it all out!" He sat there for a few seconds and then just said, "Wow!"

Wow is right! I have decided that although this past year has been difficult with all of the ups and downs and stress of the adoption, I would not ask for anything to have happened any differently. I have been able to see miracle after miracle after miracle performed by God and this process has increased my faith tremendously. There are things that I do not understand but I trust that God is in control and he knows how all of this will work out. I pray this same thing will happen for every person that reads this. If you feel like God is asking you to do something much bigger than you are capable of doing, DO IT ANYWAYS!!! And then stand back and watch how He works it out :-)

We have GREAT news!

Last Wednesday I was heading out of our last day of Bible Study Fellowship with both kids.  We were on our way to eat lunch with my mom and then Adam was meeting us at the house to go camping for the rest of the week.  I noticed when I got in the car that I had a missed call from Adam and I thought it was kind of weird but just assumed that meant that he wanted to meet us for lunch so I waited until I got the kids all buckled in and then called him back. He answered the phone immediately and said,

"Robin just called with a referral of a two year old little girl!" 

I just kind of sat there for a minute...in shock. 

"WOW!"  "Do you have any other information on her?" 

"Yes!  I just sent you pictures, medical information and the referral report." 

So there I sat, in the car with both kids listening to every detail Adam could remember about his conversation with our agency representative.  I got off the phone and sat there looking at pictures of our little girl sitting in an orphanage half way around the world giving God praise for answering my prayers yet again.  And then, the coolest thing happened!  I looked at the referral report and I saw her name...."E".  People asked us after we named Eli if we were going to keep the "E" theme going.  I laughed and said, we just really liked the names, Eva and Eli, we didn't really think about both of them starting with an "E" but I guess we probably should....we wouldn't want the next one to feel left out.  And God gave us a little girl with an "E" name. 

We headed out of town on our camping trip so excited about all that lay ahead...in the next few days and the next few months.  We decided to tell Eva and Eli over breakfast the next morning and their reactions were so funny!  Eva just kind of looked at her picture and said, "oh good," kind of indifferent at first but then I said, "Eva, aren't you excited you are getting a sister?"  And she said, "Yes, but now Eli will need a little brother."  She cracks me up!  Keep on praying, Eva!

Eli looked at her picture and said, "Sissy!" and Adam and I both just smiled at each other. 

God is good, all the time....ALL the time.  I have repeated this to myself a lot lately.  I am not sure why everything happened the way that it did.  I may never know, but I am trusting God and believing that he has a better plan for us than I could every imagine, Ephesians 3:20.   I have been thinking lately about all that God has done for me.  He saved me in every way.  He has blessed me with a godly husband, two healthy precious children, a home, cars, food in the refrigerator, wonderful family and friends, the promise of eternal life with Him...who am I that he would allow me to have all of this and then selfishly ask him for more?  But for whatever reason, he has blessed us with more... one more little girl. 

In awe,

Lynsey

A Quick Update...

I have so much to write and not much time to do it!!  

We had our yard sale on Saturday and it went great!  I want to thank my mom, Bruce, Roxanne Staufer, Jessica Crumpacker, Elaine & Jim Wymer, Richard Beard, Cindy Jones, Kathy Walker and her daughter's, Emily, Carly and Audry for helping to set everything up, selling it, and cleaning it up when it was all over and my mother in law, Susan for watching the kiddos!  The generosity of our friends and family never ceases to amaze me and I want to thank everyone who donated stuff for us to sell!  We had a ton of stuff again and ended up making $1,906!!!  So we exceeded our goal which I think means that God knows something is going to cost more than estimated :-) 

We are still waiting for a referral and in the meantime we received this e-mail from our adoption agency,

"Dear EAC Congo Families,

As many of you are aware, the Democratic Republic of the Congo Ministry of Interior and Security, General Direction of Migration (Direction Generale d’Immigration, DGM) (DRC) has "temporarily suspended issuance of exit permits to adopted Congolese children seeking to depart the country with their adoptive parents."

We believe, after consultation with our Congolese attorney and other U.S. based adoption agencies which provide services in the DRC, this temporary suspension relates to the investigation of one case and should be resolved shortly.  This current temporary suspension should not affect any current EAC families."

I would really appreciate prayer for this matter to be resolved quickly.  I have seen God work miracles throughout this process and I am praying for him to do this again!

I went to the Christian Alliance for Orphans conference called Summit 9 a week and a half ago and hope to write about that experience very soon.  I learned so much and I need to take a minute to write it all down to share....it was a wonderful experience.  Stay tuned...


Lynsey