Praise the Lord!!! Real progress!

The heavens declare the glory of God over Africa, summer 2011

Are we seeing the parting of the waters?  I think we are witnessing the mighty hand of God as the walls of water stand in place and He makes provision for N and A to in fact walk through to freedom and hope.  Wow, we're so encouraged!  We got some amazing news this morning!  Significant progress was made on our case with N and A, even more than we had imagined and prayed for (Eph 3:20!).  The attorney's assistant was able to gather and process all the necessary paperwork to begin our adoption in Congo and our case was heard in court!  We were just praying and hoping for the assembling of the paperwork since that had been such a sticking point, but the fact that the case was already heard in court is another huge step!        

There are still several steps ahead of us and it's never over until it's over, but this is an important step forward.  We'll write another post soon letting you all know what's next, but for now we want to celebrate what God has done so far.  Thanks for all your prayers!

Waiting... a glimmer of hope

We are awaiting a report from our agency letting us know of any hopeful and necessary developments.  As I posted earlier, our attorney's assistant made it into Goma last week and was working to light a fire and get some paperwork moving.  He has now returned to Kinshasa so we are anxiously and prayerfully waiting to hear hopefully that something has finally started moving!!!  If it has not, we were lovingly told that it will not likely be able to progress especially now that there is no one there pushing it.  It is all very complicated and too much detail to share here but we hope that we will only have good news and be able to get back on the "adoption train" with precious N and A.  We have been praying for God to move mountains and we know He can.  We also trust Him enough to know that whatever He has planned is best.   

Overlooking the Nile River 1 yr ago, praying for our kids.  Still waiting and praying.

Meanwhile, my new friend (mentioned in the previous post below) whom you can learn more about here, sent us a brochure in the mail.  At the time they made up the brochure, they had no idea that the kids pictured there are our kids!  I can't believe it, I have a brochure pleading for the sponsorship of the kids in our orphanage so that they can all eat.  And on the front is a big picture of our very own A that I have just fallen in love with.  She is smiling!!!  And sadly very thin with a poked out belly and shaved head.  Poor baby.  I can't wait to get her home, feed her, give her a good warm bath, snuggle her up in a warm towel, lotion her, put her in her new pj's that I have been holding onto for months, sing to her, rock her, and put a bow on that bald little head!!!  When I thanked this mother who sent the pictures from her recent visit to the orphanage she said, your son was the other child in the brochure and at the time I didn't even know they belonged to you.  Huhh?!?!?!?!  I couldn't believe it.  I had already poured over every child in the pictures to find him but I couldn't recognize him.  I think I now know which one he is but it's crazy that even though I have stared at his sweet little face many a time in the only picture we had previously had of him, I couldn't even recognize him from a different angle, different expression.  They are so adorable.  I don't know if that is just because I see them through the eyes of a mother but I already love them and think they are so cute.  I have that same ridiculous pride over them that any mother has over her children.

Lastly, our agency's International Director and his Assistant are going back to the Congo this week for their second trip.  This is a crucial trip for all of the Congo families as they are making major decisions on our behalf and on the behalf of all of the families and children who will come after us.  Please pray for their safety and for God's wisdom and favor as they navigate this treacherous and beautiful thing called Congolese adoption.

On the Move Again

After about 4 months of gridlock, we have finally gotten what seems like a breakthrough in getting the process moving again!  Our attorney sent his assistant to Goma and we got word today that he arrived yesterday and is working on paperwork himself.  He is getting the ball rolling again it seems.  In order to prove their legal orphan status for the courts, they must get the P.V. of Abandonment from the Dept. of Social Affairs and go to the courts to obtain a judgement suppletif.  We hope both of these things can happen while our attorney's assistant is in Goma this week.  Pray for this miracle!  He is also training a local lawyer to handle the case in his absence. This could be a very helpful step as it is very difficult for him to work this case from the other side of the country.

As an unexpected surprise, God has been answering our prayers in another way!  We have been praying, of course as any parents separated from their hopeful children would, that God would care for them and protect them.  I got an email on Monday from another adoptive mother in our program who is also matched with siblings out of the same orphanage in Goma.  We were able to talk and she said she was just there at their orphanage in March and that after reading my blog realized that she had met our children!  It is an amazing story really of our loving heavenly Father caring for these children and the God-given fighter spirit in this mother who would go to any cost to care for the children she is awaiting.  After being contacted and told by another party that the conditions in this orphanage are worse than could be expected and that the children are literally starving to death, she raised a bunch of funds, started a ministry, and jumped on a plane to go over and feed these orphans!  Since March, they have been all eating 3 meals a day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I wept when I learned that while we were praying and trusting that God would care for them, He sent flesh and blood in the form of a mother to go and do just that!  The cherry on top is that she has tons of pictures from her time there and we were able to see more pictures of N and A than the single picture we have of each of them.  In the picture of A, she is even smiling a big smile!!!  That means a lot to me because she looks very sad in the picture we have of her so I am glad to see that she isn't too traumatized to be happy!  She looks very hungry but I trust now that she is better fed.  If you want to read this amazing story, visit her blog at sweetinterruptions.blogspot.com  She has included pictures of food delivery and wrote about what it was like to meet her kids for the first time.  You should also check out her minsitry's web-site at mercysmission.org.  You can see other pictures there of the orphanage and the children.  By God's grace pieces are coming together both in my mind and in the adoption.  We are still so far from the finish line and so we hold onto N and A loosely, though we will continue to pray and fight like heck for them.