...next week...

I was explaining to my students that I would not be here during the 3 weeks between our turkey eating vacation and our Santa vacation...keep in mind they are all pre~k age.  In a simple way, I explained that I would be flying on a plane next week to China to adopt my second daughter.  When I said that out loud, I literally gasped and got chills!  I looked at my teaching assistant and said..."Did you hear that?? I am actually leaving NEXT WEEK!"  I don't think I had processed how soon that is until I said those words in a sentence! 

We are making packing progress, but I just ran out to get some of those space bag thingies to help squish everything in!  I am almost to the point of telling everyone in my home they can only wear things they are NOT taking to China from this point forward so we can be DONE with all this packing business!  Once you pack all of the gifts for nannies and officials, along with all the medicine you may possibly need, toiletry items, electronics, paperwork...etc, the space left for clothes is...uhhh...limited!

In closing, my friend, and Mia's kindergarten teacher, invited us to her church on Sunday.  It is a new church, meeting in a school.  Pretty small, very unlike the huge church we are members of.  I have known the pastor since we were both young teens attending the same summer church camp.  He spoke at my beloved grandfather's funeral in January.

Anyhow...at the end of the service, he called us on stage for the whole church to pray for us and for Kennedy.  We can SURELY use all the prayer we can get!  Then, they took a special offering to help us with the overwhelming mountain of adoption expenses we are facing!  We were completely surprised!  I want you to know that small group of gracious, generous people contributed $450 to our adoption expenses!  We are so grateful!  We love the church we attend, don't get me wrong!  But when we asked if they could help us financially in any way, they said NO!  We are regular, tithing members, and they did not help us.  Then, this small church of people who do not even know us stepped forward to help.  That, my friends, is God in action!  As stressed as we are right now trying to figure out how we will find several thousand dollars in the next few days, we have to believe that God will provide!  He put it in the hearts of those kind church members to help, so we have to believe more will do the same.

God commands us in the Bible to care for the widows and the orphans.  Period.  He does not ask us to, He tells us to.  Now of course not everyone can ADOPT an orphan.  However, when people like that gracious church contribute to a family's effort to adopt an orphan, THAT is certainly caring for the orphan!  They will be richly blessed for their kindness.

I do not have permission to use names, so I will just publicly say THANK YOU to the sweet church who reached out to help us on our incredible adoption journey that will kick in to high gear...NEXT WEEK!  Boy, do I love those two magic words!