You Are Immortal Until Your Work Is Done..

There is a quote that I think about often. I heard it from my sister and it really hit home for me because I am a worrier. It is from Jim Elliot and it goes "As your life is in His hands, so are the days of your life. Remember, you are immortal until your work is done." I think about it every time my husband gets on his motorcycle, I thought about it when my little brother deployed to Afghanistan, and I think about it now as we are preparing to make our first of two trips to Ethiopia.

Our adoption process has taken a giant step forward and we have been cleared to travel for trip 1. After a 13 hour flight over, we will stand before a judge in an Ethiopian court room on July 15 and tell him why we want to adopt children from his country. We will get to go into an orphanage and meet our sweet little boys for the first time on this trip. We will see hundreds of children who have no parents, children begging on the street and the utter poverty that defines a third world country. We will sit by our boys, play with them and hope they show some sort of softness to us as we are perfect strangers to them at this point. Then after we get to know them a little, at long last hold their hands, get to hear them laugh, and legally be declared their mom and dad, we will have to leave them. We will return to the US without them for a few months while we wait for the paperwork to catch up with us and the US Embassy in Ethiopia to issue entry visas for them and clear us to travel for the second time.

I am excited and scared! I don't like to fly. Every time I get into the hollow metal tube of death I am certain I will not come out. I do not like leaving my children for more then a day. I am afraid of what I will witness in Africa and how it will hurt my heart. I do not want to look into the eyes of so many orphaned children and only be able to bring home 2. I do not want to leave my new babies right after I finally get to them.

This process is full of risks. Taking a risk is scary and leaves you vulnerable for things to go very badly. But it also can leave you feeling so full and alive when it pays off! When you know that God is the one directing your steps and you agree to trust and follow there is such blessing along the way. With great risk there is great reward, right? I really am in awe of where God has brought us and I can hardly believe that little insignificant me has almost completed the adoption of 2 children from Africa! Impossible and amazing! It has opened our family's faith up to asking, What's next God? Where will you lead us next? And let's go BIG! Send us. We know we are as safe in the middle of a battlefield as we are sitting at home in our living rooms because we are in the hand of God.