Philippians 4:13

Phil 4:13 says: ^" I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me".  But God I'm only human.

Upon our return from our Christmas trip to Florida to visit my dear mother in law who is forever energetic, festive, filled with holiday spirit, and loves to entertain we decided to go visit the children at the camp.  Being with the children totally engulfs you and you lose track of time because its so wonderful to be there. You may think you are there to give and make them feel better, but in reality these children are giving to you strength you never thought you had. Who could complain about our boring lives when these children who have nothing give you everything. A hug, a smile, a drawing, any small token they may have. Your gifts to them may be big or small, inexpensive or not, but the one gift they all really want is a family.

Some of these kids aren't orphans, just saying..lol

So as the weeks go by we decide we need to adopt one of these children.  Did we just say that together? Why yes we did! Thank you Jesus! 

But now which one or maybe just give us all nine. Through the difficult process of deciding and asking about all the children, we settle on three. Yes! Three. We're crazy right? Well, not so fast. We are told that two of the three, a sibling group are 'spoken' for and that there are other families interested in them that have already started 'the process'. Darn! Oh well, this is the best for the children. The most important thing is that they find home. So we decided to rock on with our one.

The children leave in late January after almost four weeks here. Its decided its crunch time! Time to get the ball moving fast. And fast it does move, thankfully to our military years of service we have already been background checked and fingerprinted more than you ever need to know. So the accordion folder of papers is slowly getting filled so fast that I must buy a new one so that the elastic doesn't break off! I will tell you that you will need a lot of patience to endure the mountains of paperwork from every office, from your local police dept. to the FBI checks. But it is as it should be, you are adopting a child, not a pet from the local shelter. 

Sometimes the paperwork process felt redundant or like you were the only person who knew what you needed. Apostilled?? Ever heard of that?? who?? yeah, see....downtown, office of the Secretary of State. See that was easy..yeah right.

After months of notarizing, scanning, fingerprints, medical appts (syphilis test?? say what??), employment records, finances, home study, interviews with social workers you find out you are not a criminal and do not have an STD...yay! So you can adopt a child. 

In the meanwhile, we have been trying to establish, maintain and achieve a relationship with a child who speaks Russian and lives on the other side of the earth in the Ukraine. 

My husband's favorite saying (and Kelly Clarkson..haha)  is, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger!" Unbeknown to us Phil 4:13 is about to have a whole new meaning in the upcoming weeks as we finalize our travel dates and go head on into the unknown like the good warriors we were meant to be. This would be a war like no other we have been in and God filled us with strength to overcome the this hurdle a little bruised but unscaved.