Paperwork Submitted!

YEAH! This is a great morning already! We got an email from our case manager this morning that our paperwork will be submitted to the courts on Tuesday morning. Guess when the courts open? TUESDAY!

Since we got our referral 5 1/2 weeks ago, we've been praying that our paperwork would be completed and on the judge's desk when the courts re-open! God's answered that prayer plus one: the courts were scheduled to open on the 30th, but are now opening on the 28th. THANK YOU JESUS!

This paperwork includes our dossier [huge stack of paperwork that we submitted to Ethiopia on 10/20/09] AND all of Lil' A and Baby T's paperwork. Our paperwork is together, submitted to the Ethiopian courts to officially, legally join their lives to ours. MIRACULOUS!

I'm beyond convinced and compelled that it's your prayers that are moving mountains and expediting our process. We've been praying that prayer - EXPEDITE - for over a year. It seems like God is answering that specific request these days. Please keep praying these babies home!

In the upper left-hand corner of the blog I'm posting the most important and current prayer requests. This is the request God answered this morning:

Our paperwork would be waiting on the judge's desk
when the courts re-open on September 30th [9/7/10].

NEXT?

2 court dates scheduled by the first week of October [requested on 9/24/10]
2 successful, Ethiopian court dates before the end of 2010! [requested on 9/7/10]

He Is...

A couple months ago, my dear friend, Amena Brown, came to Newsong and did this spoken word piece for our Sunday services. She is a passionate preacher and a worship leader through spoken word. That day [9+ months into our wait for a referral] I needed to hear that God is so much more than I can wrap my mind around, fill my heart with, or contain in words.

Enjoy! He is...



Amena travels the country doing spoken word. She'd be an amazing woman to have come to your church, event, or gathering. She's the real deal and an artist of true, gigantic proportions!

Adoption and Galatians 5

The past 3 years of life and marriage and trying to have a family have taught me a few things. One of the [many] passages that I've studied, meditated on, leaned into has been Galatians 5.

All along this journey, I've longed for freedom. Freedom from my expectations, pain, time lines, sin, disappointments, and control issues. Galatians 5 has taught me a lot about what God's heart is for us when it comes to freedom and how we find it. In fact, I preached on this chapter at Newsong on July 4th with my friend, Frances.Galatians 5:5 identifies how we find a life of freedom:

But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope.

I'm no theologian, but I've learned more about the context and meaning of this passage from a few theologians. Here are some bullet point thoughts...

• Faith + Waiting = Righteousness. Righteousness is gained through faith and waiting. I wish it was gained through comfort and instant gratification, but clearly God's ways are not my ways [for good reasons!].
• In the Greek [original language of the New Testament] the word for FAITH is "pistis". Throughout the New Testament, "pistis" is translated into 3 different words: faith, belief, or trust. Read Galatians 5 three times exchanging those words with each other. It gives it much more depth and profundity.
  
• The goal of our faith, belief, and trust is about bring alignment of my will to God's will. Do I trust him? That's where the rubber meets the road. I want to trust him more. Perhaps that's WHAT he's been desiring to do throughout these past 3 years.
  
• Waiting is God-initiated as we trust in him; he will act. Waiting is a catalyst of sorts to deepen our faith, trust, and belief in God. Of course, it can also cultivate disbelief, mistrust, and doubt, but it's through waiting that our character is revealed and developed.
• Righteousness produces hope. There is a good end to waiting! God wants to instill hope for him - not our desired outcome - into the fibers of our soul. I have found my hope transferring more and more over the past few years from a baby to knowing God, finding myself falling in love with him more and more.
  

His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than my thoughts. Beautiful. God's so cool like that. How gracious he is to us!

This song has been a comfort and director for my waiting. Enjoy...