Embassy Update

Here is where we stood - our entire case needs to be submitted to the US Embassy for its approval, gaining their approval has proved very challenging for some families and relatively easy for others. We will not know anything until 10 working days after we are submitted. Also, the Embassy only does intake for adoption cases on Wednesday afternoons so if you are unprepared this Wednesday, you wait another week. Two weeks ago we were notified that our agency had made some serious changes to their in-country staffing which could cause some delays in the cases that are waiting for court or to be submitted to Embassy. Then last Wednesday we were not submitted because of an error on the girls' father's death certificate. We were praying we would be submitted this week, tomorrow.

That is where we stood last night when we went to bed.

This is where we stood this morning when my alarm went off.

"Jennie, you awake?" Yes. Then he says, "We will not be submitted to Embassy this week, their uncle has to take the death certificate out to the local area where their father died to have the correction made. I thought you should know right away so you would not be wondering." Silence. What is there to say? We both know that "their uncle taking it to the local police" is not the same as Will and I hopping in our mini-van and heading out to Bluffton or Charleston to have a correction made to a document. Travel can be difficult, time off work (if there is work) can be impossible, the funds to make travel possible if there is a vehicle are often non-existent, etc. These are the things running through both our minds; we may have just hit a time consuming snag. What do you say? You can only pray (and cry, maybe just a little.)

Will got up and began to get ready for work. I did not. I stayed in bed, buried under the covers because I could feel the frustration, the discontentment, the angry just a few feet away from me. And I knew if I dared to sit up it would smash me in the face like a ton of bricks. And I don't want to be angry and frustrated anymore; I have battled that off and on for the last few months. One moment my mind is full of thanksgiving and hopeful prayers and the next moment I am in turmoil, questioning God. I could not face the disappoint this morning so I stayed buried, praying God would make it go away.

If I am being perfectly honest though the real reason I allow myself to wallow in the frustration is because the alternative is heart-breaking pain that seems just one thought away. One thought about my little girls on the other side of the world sharing a tiny bed in an overcrowded orphanage. One thought about the things that orphans so often have to endure because they do not have a parent there standing guard. One thought that they may cry themselves to sleep because we have not come back to get them. One thought like that and the pain is too much, too overwhelming. So, sometimes in my weakness I put that energy it takes to carry that pain into obsessing about dates and paperwork, that is easier. But, this morning I did not want to wear this frustration like a coat anymore, I did not want to hang it around my neck any longer and allow it to take the breathe away from the wonderful moments I have here with my other four children, with my husband, with my God.

So, my only alternative is to face the pain, to admit that it makes me sick to my stomach to have left two of my children thousands of miles away from home. So, I laid there sick of the frustration but terrified of the pain. Asking Him why and how? How will I stand up under this pain?

And then He quietly reminds me that I asked for this pain. What? I don't think I remember that. Yes, remember you asked Me to show you My heart towards the orphan, the widow, the lost, the hurting, the broken. Remember? Yes, Lord, I remember, I have actually asked that many times especially in regards to orphans. Part of me was screaming, what were you thinking?! The realization sets in that I did in fact ask for this. I asked to understand how His heart breaks for the orphan and now my heart is breaking for my two little orphans. And yet my two little orphans are living in far better circumstances that millions of God's other orphans. Millions will sleep on the street tonight, thousands will die on those streets tonight, many will be kidnapped and sold into the sex trade, millions will die of HIV/Aids, millions will die from starvation. His pain is far greater then I could possibly imagine. The intensity of His pain for all His orphans is more then I could withstand. He has allowed me to feel the pain of separation from our girls to show me just a sliver of His pain due to His separation from the lost. He allows me to see just a glimpse of what He endures for His orphans that are suffering all over the world.

I asked for this, He gave it to me, He will sustain me through it.

I breathe one last prayer before I through back the covers, "Please God, give me Your strength to stand up under this pain." And He does.