Ephesians 6:11

"Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes". Wow! That is a powerful statement. But how does he come? A person, a situation and disappointment? a betrayal of the heart? Pastor Mike at Journey Church had just finished his series on this message right before we left. How timely. It's all in the plan. This much anticipated trip to the Ukraine turned out to be a major disappointment for us and could have led us to become prey to the devil's scheme and turn away from God because our hearts were broken. But instead we put on the full armor of God, just as we are trained at work to do when preparing to enter battle. Scott and I helped each other tighten anything that may expose a body part to harm. No one or nothing was going to take away the love we have for Jesus. We were also blessed to have two amazing people with us as our wingmen. Armed with all this in our hearts we both felt a sense of calm when it was certain we should have fallen apart. This is not to say we did not hurt or feel pain. The child we came there for did not want us. She did not see or could not see us as her parents. For reasons that I will not go into in this blog and we feel attributed to the determinant of this situation, we returned home empty-handed after three weeks in the Ukraine. The Matveevka Orphanage Behind these gates we left a child. A child we had waited for and worked towards for eight months. Although I was not pregnant, I felt like she had died. Except she wasn't and isn't. She is there and will stay there until she can accept the multiple parents put before her or she ages out after the eleventh grade. It's hard to know exactly what God's plan is for you when these things happen. It's hard to think actually. You are numb and in disbelief. But God has a plan and purpose for all of us. Little did we know that he had already started unveiling that plan and continues to do so.