provision & practicality

God provides. i believe this.

i believe that when God calls you to do something -- when he asks you to obey him -- he will give you what you need to accomplish the task.

but somewhere in our little brains, i think we often assume this means that God provides all that we think we need. and all that we think we need is really a nice way of saying what we want.

throughout our adoption, i have wished that God would provide a generous donor who would magically write a check for our expenses. i still hold out hope for this because we're looking at spending another $12-15,000 before this is over and done. in my mind, what we need is a huge fundraiser or a really nice rich person. we need God to compel people to pity us.

and then it hit me last night. all this waiting we are doing, the waiting i complain a lot about because it is hard...well, what if that is God providing us with money through the waiting? if the process speeds up a lot (which, certainly would be awesome and we would be fine because our credit cards are a last resort), i have to quit working. and the moment i quit working, we are down to one income. and none of that income is budgeted to go towards our adoption. you get the picture.

when i started thinking about waiting from this perspective, i felt more at peace. i didn't have a huge knot in my stomach at work today. i didn't compulsively check blogs to see if any referrals had gone out. i could rest in knowing that even in the waiting -- something i would rather not be doing -- God is providing for us. it is not the way i would've done things, nor is it the way i want (or think i need) things to be done. nonetheless, it is his provision, and he is being faithful to us as he promised.

i wanted to mention for practical purposes the next few steps of the adoption process. we've had several people ask us what the future will hold, so here's a summary:

1. get a referral. this is where we are matched with our kids and receive pictures and medical information. it is possible that we could be matched with one child first and then a few weeks later be matched with our second child, but i haven't seen that happen before.
2. after we accept the referral (and there are few if any reasons why we wouldn't accept), our children will undergo a second round of medical testing that can take several weeks. i know a family recently got theirs back in 3 weeks, so we would hope for quickness like that.
3. after the medical tests are completed and all the documents are in place, our cases would be submitted to court (i say cases because we will likely get unrelated kids and they are considered separate cases as opposed to siblings being considered one case).
4. receive a court date. ethiopia just made some significant (and very positive changes) to the court dates. i won't go into those changes, but the court date will involve a biological relative (or other witness) appearing in court in the morning to consent to the adoption, and us appearing in the afternoon. if everything goes well, we would be granted legal custody of our children at this hearing.
5. after a successful court date, most families come back home and wait for an embassy date (where our children will get passports and visas). the wait for an embassay date is about 4-8 weeks right now. since i'm not planning to work after our kids come home, my current plan is to remain in ethiopia during the time between passing court and appearing at the embassy. we have friends who did this recently, and it is actually cheaper to stay than to fly back and forth twice.
6. embassy appointment. once our kids have their visas (they will also get birth certificates with "dean" as their last name!), we will be able to come home.

timeline for all of this? i have no clue. but i'm really, really hoping our kids are home by my sister's wedding on july 2. keep praying, people!