Hi Friends!
Thanks for all of your kind words and encouragement about our news that we are welcome to travel to Ug*nda at any point. We've contacted a couple of attorneys, and are waiting to hear back from our babies home with the answers to some questions we have about what is next, and about our potential child.
I would SO appreciate your prayers for us...
* For my heart... the reality has really set in that there is a child on the other side of the world who needs a family, and who, Lord willing, is for our family. It's very hard not to want to just jump on a plane and go RESCUE. But that is not the way it works, and while some of the hoops we have to jump through are annoying, many of them are necessary for the protection of children and families. I can also hear the Lord saying to me that this waiting process is good for me too. But I feel like I did during the first trimester I was pregnant with Tobin: Hopeful for the future, anxious to meet this little person the Lord had made for us, but also fearful about all of the unknowns and potentials.
Please pray in all of this that I would remember that we are waiting on the LORD. Not for Him to do what we want, but for HIM. I want Him to be our (my) focus, not the future, decisions, unknowns, or even our sweet little boy. I am trying to allow all of these thoughts to drive me into Him, rather than distract me from Him.
* For wisdom... We contacted a couple of Ug*ndan attorneys who are very highly recommended, and have heard back from both of them. Now we have some decisions to make. In an independent adoption, your attorney is really the lynchpin for your whole experience. I don't think there's a bad choice between these two firms, but we'd like to make the best choice.
We also have some decisions to make about when we travel, and whether we will both go on this first trip, thinking through how we will work the second, longer trip (will Matt go with me for the first week or two, to appear in court; or will I do the entire 3-5 weeks by myself?) We've been thinking this through all along, but now we actually have to start making decisions.
* Because we were taken by surprise by the invitation to travel and meet our child whenever we're ready, we are not financially ready. We totally recognize that if we don't have the funds to travel, then it's not God's plan for us to travel yet. But we'd sure love to go as soon as we can (and this summer would be ideal, since it works so much better for Matt's work schedule.)
* It is a TOTAL longshot.... But because we have not heard back from our babies home in answer to some of our questions, I am holding out hope that they might be considering letting us do a referral. This means they would select a child they think is the best fit for our family (they already have a child in mind for us anyway), and we would begin the process from home rather than making the first of the two trips. This would mean that we would be able to adopt with only one trip to Ug*nda. I don't mind going twice (and would love to go as many times as we can! I can't wait to see this place that has so been on my heart and in my prayers!) But making only one trip potentially shaves $4K off of our total cost. It also allows us to get started on the process sooner, without needing money for airfare quite so soon.
Thanks for loving our family and for praying for us! Even typing all of this out is such a good reminder that our hope is in Him!
