5 Million Minus 1

RECAP

I just wanted to take a minute to really give God the glory for our adoption and give a re-cap of the process since we started. I know many have started reading the blog later so I wanted to give our story:....

This time last year JT and I were trying to get pregnant. Our plan was to get pregnant during my third year of med school, have the baby near the end of my fourth year so I could have this time off with the baby before residency.... again it was OUR PLAN. We did not conceive after a year of trying, painfully trying. We used clomid for four months with no results. We were not happy with ourselves, in our marriage, and honestly, with God. We were angry with news of our friends' pregnancies. It was a dark season for me personally and our marriage.

One day in August I met Paul Maynard (Maynard Mayhem blog) who introduced me to Ethiopia through his two sons adopted from there. The boys are adorable but still unable to see my past my pain, I did not see the window God wanted me to jump through. Over the following months, adoption was more and more on my mind. One day in October in the car outside of JT's mamaw's house, he looked at me and said, "I know it will be difficult for you to be pregnant or try to get pregnant during residency. Would you want to consider moving forward with adoption?" We talked about adoption early in our marriage but not since trying to conceive. His words opened a new world in me and I do not think he thought I would jump on it. I was in touch with Paul the next week.

More and more things came together....Paul introduced us to his agency, Arise for Children. JT reconnected with two friends from junior/high school, one of which was friends with the director and one who had also adopted with Arise. God was opening a world to us we never knew we would a part of....a world that would change our world.

In November, we joined Arise and began our adoption of "one or two children under the age of five, boy or girl" planning on a year at the least. We were unsure of the funding, even fretted and sweated it...still not trusting God despite his guidance. We could not fathom how to raise the money to even pay for the required home study. We sold Christmas ornaments and watched God show off....our goal was to sell 150 ornaments. Over 500 ornaments and several large gifts later, we had paid for the home study, a large agency fee, and several other fees. We were blown away by God's provision. We continued our fundraising with t-shirts sales and have raised $5000-$6000 more in fees. Now, we do not even question what God can do.... We expect Him to blow us away.

We accepted the referral for a three year old little boy named Tedi in late January in the middle of our t-shirt sales. Seeing his face changed our lives. Now, this was not a process, but OUR mission. Not just for Tedi, but for orphaned, hungry and sick children everywhere. We now realize that Tedi, though he will be our son, is our catalyst for our marriage and lifes' mission.....to "care for the least of these.." for indeed they are the greatest.

We now wait for a court date for our son. We could learn of this date tomorrow or months from now. Wait...we must wait. We long to hold him, to love him, to read to him, to tuck into bed. But if we have learned anything through this process, it is that God is in every detail of our lives....from the large, seemingly insurmountable cost of adoption to a court date to my husband already having job interviews after five days of finding out where we will move. We may not know and want rush life.....but I am learning the joy in the waiting, the change in the waiting, and what God can do in the waiting.

I have posted this quote before and I am sure to do it again....but it says so much.

"Waiting is one of God's most powerful tools of grace. God doesn't just give us grace for the wait. The wait itself is a gift of grace. You see, waiting is not only about what you will receive at the end of the wait. Waiting is about what you will become as you wait." Paul David Tripp

All I can do now is pray for our son and give thanks for the blessings we have been given!