Nine Months DTE

We have moved up the unofficial waiting list (in the "siblings 0-4 years" category) to number............

 That means we have moved up THREE places this month!!!  Each day brings us closer to the day we can happily announce that we have received our referral!!!!

(btw.  When we DO receive our referral, we will not be able to give specifics here on our blog.  We will not be able to post pictures or their names until we pass court [which will prayerfully happen within a couple months of receiving our referral].  If you live close to us, you will just have to pay us a visit to hear those details and see those photos :-)

A "Wait" Answer

Pam ~ Have you ever had one of those moments where God reminds you of something so strongly that you just want to stop everything and cry?  I had one of those moments today while I was teaching our Bible lesson at school.

I have a roomful of 23 four/five year old children.  Our daily Bible lesson consists of singing lots of Bible songs, memorizing/reviewing our Bible verses, a doctrinal drill exercise and a Bible story.  Today I continued telling the story of Abram/Abraham.

A couple of days ago, we learned the story of God calling Abram to leave his home and travel to a place that God would show him.  Abram uprooted himself and his family and left, trusting that God would take care of him.  Our story continued to tell how Abram let his nephew Lot choose the best piece of ground for him and his family without Abram getting mad and telling Lot that it was "not fair" for him to have the best.  (I teach four/five year olds.  The lessons are kept fairly simple!! :-)  Abram trusted that God would take care of him.

Our lesson today focused the promise that God had given to Abram that He would make of Abram a great nation.  Obviously for Abram's descendents to become a great nation, Abram needed to have a son.  But he and Sarai didn't have ANY children yet.  So how was God going to accomplish this "making a great nation" thing???

Many (if not most) of you reading this blog already know the rest of this story.  God continued to tell Abraham (God had changed his name from Abram to Abraham) many times throughout the years that he was going to be the father of many nations.  But Abraham and Sarah grew too old to have children.  Had God forgotten His promise to Abraham?  Had God lied?  (I ask my students this question with the most HORRIFIED look on my face!!!  They know how I feel about lying!!!!)

Of course not!!!!!  God would NEVER tell a lie.  He just had a wonderful plan in mind!!!

Here is the part of the story that got to me today.

God ALWAYS answers our prayers!!!  He often answers our prayers with a "Yes".  We like these answers :-).  We have asked God for something and He gives it to us.

Sometimes God answers our prayers with a "No".  These are not the fun answers to get, but God knows what is best for us.  He knows that sometimes what we ask for is not what HE wants for us, and HE always wants the best.  Make sense???

The third way that God answers our prayers is with a "Wait" answer.  I think that this answer is probably the hardest one for me to accept.  At least if the answer is "No" I can process and deal with that.  It's done and over, time to forget about it.  But when God tells me to "Wait", I have to do just that............wait.

I told my students today that God made Abraham and Sarah wait to have their son Isaac because that is what was the PERFECT plan for them.  God showed everyone how powerful HE is when he gave them Isaac.  If they had had children before, no one would have seen God's power!!!!

I told them that God makes us wait sometimes because He wants to give us what is PERFECT for us.  If He gave us everything we wanted, we wouldn't learn how GREAT and POWERFUL He is.

I had to stop for a minute and breathe so that I wouldn't break down in tears right then.

Who am I to question why God is having us wait to meet our children?  MY plan would be to already have them at home with me.  GOD'S plan is different.  I want to have HIS plan accomplished in my life.

Stagnate

1) to cease to run or flow, as water, air, etc.
2) to be or become stale or foul from standing, as a pool of water
3) to stop developing, growing, progressing, or advancing
4) to be or become sluggish and dull

Pam ~ How do I get past this block?  I want to keep everyone updated on how our adoption is progressing, what we are doing, the crazy dreams I have been having...................and on it goes.

But I don't.  I plan to.  I think about it.  I get an idea to share.  I say I'm going to.

But then life happens.  I work a long day.  Physical therapy wears me out.  I have to get the dishes done, laundry washed, Facebook checked {grin}.

Honestly???

Maybe I'm just feeling a little down about not yet having our referral.  I don't even expect the call right now.  Things are moving slowly in Ethiopia.  Referrals from our agency are slow.  (Although we have had a couple in the past week!!!!)  I don't really have anything to update you readers on.  Maybe you're tired of hearing from me.  Maybe my updates aren't even that interesting to you.

Nathan and I are watching episodes of Columbo during our evenings together at home.  Alone.  By ourselves Which we are enjoying.  Honestly.  But it reminds me that there are no kids running around the house screaming for our attention.  I know that one day I will probably look back to these quiet evenings at home and miss them (at times).  But right now they just hurt.

Eight Months DTE

Eight months on the waiting list as of today.  If I were pregnant, we would be KNOWING that we would be meeting our new little family members SOON.  But, I'm not physically pregnant, so there is less excitment as we enter this next month of waiting and more "tired of waiting" feelings.

But God is good, and we are continually reminding ourselves that His timing is perfect.

We did move up a spot on the unofficial waiting list during this past month, but we also moved back down a spot last week (a family above us changed their request to include the possibility of siblings) so we are still at number

Please continue to keep us in your prayers!!!!!

Wait

 Wait

by Russell Kelfer

Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried.

Quietly, patiently, lovingly God replied.

I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate,

And the Master so gently said, "Child, you must wait."

"Wait? You say, wait!" my indignant reply.

"Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!

Is your hand shortened?  Or have you not heard?

By Faith, I have asked, and am claiming your Word.

My future and all to which I can relate

hangs in the balance, and YOU tell me to WAIT?

I'm needing a 'yes', a go-ahead sign,

or even a 'no' to which I can resign.

And Lord, You promised that if we believe

we need but to ask, and we shall receive.

And Lord, I've been asking, and this is my cry:

I'm weary of asking!  I need a reply!

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate

As my Master replied once again, "You must wait."

So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut and grumbled to God,

"So, I'm waiting....for what?"  He seemed, then, to kneel,

and His eyes wept with mine,

And He tenderly said, "I could give you a sign.

I could shake the heavens, and darken the sun.

I could raise the dead, and cause mountains to run.

All you seek, I could give, and pleased you would be.

You would have what you want - but you wouldn't know Me.

You'd not know the depth of My love for each saint;

You'd not know the power that I give to the faint;

You'd not learn to see through the clouds of despair;

You'd not learn to trust just by knowing I'm there;

You'd not learn the joy of resting in Me

When darkness and silence were all you could see.

You'd never experience that fullness of love

As the peace of My Spirit descends like a dove;

You'd know that I give and I save....(for a start),

But you'd not know the depth of the beat of My heart.

The glow of My comfort late into the night,

The faith that I give when you walk without sight,

The depth that's beyond getting just what you asked

Of an infinite God, who makes what you have LAST.

You'd never know, should your pain quickly flee,

what it means that "My grace is sufficient for Thee."

Yes, your dreams of your loved one overnight would come true,

But, Oh, the Loss!  If I lost what I'm doing in you!

So, be silent, My Child, and in time you will see

that the greatest of gifts is to get to know Me.

And though oft' may My answers seem terribly late,

My most precious answer of all is still, "WAIT."

Travel Expenses Trip #1 Thermometer

Pam ~ We have just passed the 50% mark on our thermometer marking our savings for the travel expenses for our first trip to Ethiopia!!!!  Praise the Lord for His goodness and provision!!!!

Handmade Birthday Cards

You may remember way back last September (almost a year ago now) we started a fundraiser selling handmade cards.  In the last year, we have sold a few packets of cards, but not very many.  So we are revamping this fundraiser and are going to try again.

Here are the Birthday Cards we have for sale.  We are asking for $2.50 per card, OR you may purchase 5 cards for $10 ($2 per card).  Just leave a comment or e-mail me (hearts1982@gmail.com) with the number(s) of the card(s) you would like.  If you are local to the Des Moines area, we can arrange drop-off / pick-up of the cards/payment.  If you would like to have the cards mailed to you, we are asking for an extra $1 to help with shipping costs and you may pay via a mailed check OR using our PayPal button located on the right sidebar.  If you choose to pay via PayPal, please be sure to include a note that it is for our handmade card fundraiser (and e-mail me the numbers of the cards you would like to purchase).

In addition to numbering each birthday card, I have also included how many of each card we have available.  #15 is available in green, yellow, pink & orange.  #16 is available in blue, yellow, orange, green & pink.  #21 is available in pink, blue & yellow.

Sold Out!!                                    #2 (1x)

#3 (3x)                                       #4 (1x)

#5 (1x)                                      #6 (4x)

#7 (1x)                                    #8 (1x)

Sold Out!!                                #10 (2x)

Sold Out!!                              Sold Out!!

Sold Out!!                         Sold Out!!

#15 (7x)                                  #16 (11x)

#17 (5x)                                         #18 (1x)

#19 (8x)                                            #20 (2x)

#21 (11x)

Our Busy Lives

Pam ~ Yes, we're still here.  We're still waiting for a referral phone call.  We're still living our lives one day at a time.  We're still thankful for God's blessings.

I thought that I would update you readers on what we have been doing these past few weeks :-).

Surgery Update ~ I got to take my brace off on July 12th, just shy of six weeks after my hip surgery.  Two weeks later I started physical therapy.  My PT is having me come 3 times a week until school starts and then we will drop down to 2 times a week.  My poor leg is WEAK!!!!  I am doing strengthening exercises when I go for my appointments and some stretches at home.  Things are going well, and will hopefully continue to improve since I have 10 more weeks of PT!!!!  I am walking normal again (for the most part) but still have lots of moments of stiffness and even pain when I move in certain ways.  Slowly and surely things are getting better.

Walking to the 4th of July Parade w/my nephews.  Isn't my brace fashionable?!?!

Summer Enrichment ~ I went back to working part-time on July 7th.  During past 3 summers, I have worked part-time at my school's Summer Enrichment Program (SEP).  Think of it as a summer day camp.  We have different themes each week and do activities that relate to the week's theme.  This week is "Poppin' Around with Popcorn" and we made a popcorn volcano yesterday :-).  My fellow teacher (and fellow SEP worker) just had her baby last week!!!!  The kids were sooooooo excited to see the tiny picture on my phone of her new little girl!!!!

Garage Sale ~ We did have our fundraising garage sale the weekend of July 22 & 23.  It went VERY well!!!!!  We raised just under $600 to put toward our adoption travel expenses!!!!!  (Which reminds me.  I still haven't gone to the bank to make that deposit.  Whoops!!!)  But when we looked around our garage, we still saw LOTS of good things that hadn't sold.  So we decided to have another sale the next weekend :-).  We both had to work on Friday, so that wasn't an option, but we kept all the tables set up in our garage and put them all back out again on Saturday morning.  To be honest, my mindset wasn't on how much money we would make that day.  I just wanted to get rid of more stuff and not have to box it all up and haul away.  So when we didn't have ANYONE stop by for the first hour and almost two hours, I was wondering if it had been worth it.  When the first people DID finally start arriving, we told them that the marked prices were just a suggestion.  They could "barter" with us on just about anything.  BUT.....................God decided to teach me a lesson.  We sold basically NOTHING!!!!!!  At the end of the morning, I think maybe ten to fifteen things were gone.  But we had over $100 given to our adoption!!!!!  People would say, "I don't see anything I really need, but here is $5.  God bless you!!!"  We got to have several conversations with people about our adoption, or about THEIR adoption journey.  What a blessing!!!!!  Even though we had a lot of things to take out of our garage (which we took to "Hope Ministries" in Des Moines) we received many GREAT blessings from the day!!!!

Friends ~ Our friends, Garth & Carmen, along with their two little boys, Jeremiah & Simon, drove from NE to visit us after our sale on Saturday, July 23rd.  They have been home from Ethiopia with their boys for 3 months now, and it was sooooooooo much fun to get to finally meet the boys!!!!  The boys warmed up to us as the day progressed and we had a GREAT time with all of them!!!!  I can't wait until we have our own little brown-eyed, brown-skinned little ones running around our house!!!!

I LOVE the way Simon's hand is up like he's saying "NO more pictures, PLEASE!!!"

Habitat for Humanity ~ Nathan volunteered at Habitat for Humanity last Friday.  He had a GREAT time!!!!  But I wasn't sure I wanted to let him in the house once I saw him.  He was FILTHY!!!!

 Family ~ We had a GREAT time with my sister and her family over the July 4th weekend.  We learned that my nephews are petrified of fireworks, but LOVE to get lolipops at parades :-).

I love to make Ben laugh!!!!

My sister & her family.  Doug, Debbi, Benjamin & Joseph

We also got to go out to TCBY's for ice cream on August 2nd, to celebrate their 3rd Bday!!!!  I can't get enough of those boys!!!!  I love them to pieces!!!!!

So...................we're still here.  We're still praying for patience.  We're still praying for our children.  We're still living our lives as best we can; even though our hearts are far away in Ethiopia.

Seven Months DTE

Today marks seven months of being on the wait list.  Each month brings us closer to REFERRAL DAY!!!!!  We are now number

on the unofficial waiting list for siblings 0-4 years old.  Please keep praying that God will give us patience as we wait.

Fundraising Updates

Pam ~ We haven't been doing too many "active" fundraisers in recent weeks, so I haven't mentioned our adoption finances on here in quite a while.  I think that the waiting time has started to wear on me.  We have been DTE for almost 7 months and really don't know when we will be getting that long-awaited referral phone call.  It "could" happen this week, or we could be waiting for several more months.  We had focused hard on saving the money we needed to be able to submit our dossier (which we did in December), and then we focused hard on saving the money we would need to be able to accept a referral (which we were able to save last April).  Since then, we have be working to save the money that will be used for our first trip travel expenses.  In the 3 months we have had this as our financial goal, God has allowed us to save just about $2,400 out of the estimated $6,500 we will need for our first trip.  We haven't been "focusing" on fundraising over these past 3 months, so the savings has been slow, but steady.  It is hard for us to feel an urgency when we don't know when we will be making this first trip.  However, we want to be ready.  We want to have that money saved and ready to purchase plane tickets ASAP when we receive that wonderful referral for our long-awaited children.

We are back in the "fundraising" business :-).

This weekend we are having another garage sale.  Our sale last October went so well, it seemed like a good idea to have another one.  Throughout the past two weeks we have been collecting items from friends and family to sell from our garage.  As of today, our garage is STUFFED and we still have a few more items coming!!!!  Praise the Lord!!!!

We will be up late tonight pricing items, and then up early tomorrow morning to pull everything out of the garage and set it all up.  This is quite a feat right now, because I am still not supposed to lift anything over 1-2 pounds (this has been "fudged" on several times this past week) so Nathan is having to do a lot of extra work.  We have been very blessed to have had several college girls coming over evenings this week to help us out.  (Thanks Tonya, Erica and Hannah!!!!)

Please pray for GOOD WEATHER!!!!  The forecast is calling for rain (which would not be fun!!!), but I am praying that God will allow the rain to skip us (just between the hours of 7 a.m.--6:30 p.m.)!!!  Will you please join us in praying for God's blessing on our sale??????

We will be putting out several of our hand-made cards that we have been attempting to sell :-).  We have packages of 4 cards that we are asking $10 for the group.  If you are interested in our beautiful cards, please leave a message or e-mail me (hearts1982@gmail.com)!!!!  We have sets of Birthday cards as well as All Occasion cards.

And in case you have forgotten, we are still collecting soda cans/bottles and getting the deposit money for them.  My mom just let me know that they are saving cans out in Colorado for us and will be bringing them to us when they come to visit in August :-).  You can't get a deposit back in CO so they are hauling them to IA just for the $.05 a can/bottle :-).  I love my parents!!!!!

Prayer Requests:
     ~ NO RAIN on Friday and Saturday (at least not during the hours of our sale)
     ~ That we will rest in knowing that God is in control of this garage sale.
     ~ Calmness.  I (Pam) get stressed when things are not "normal" and out of my control (like the weather).
     ~ Patience.  For Nathan as he has to deal with a "stressed-out" wife :-)
     ~ Patience.  In the wait.  To see our children's faces.  To bring them home.