Dare to Hope

Oh I am so EXCITED to write this post!

Also a little nervous...but we will get to that part later.

I mean, this one has been floating around in my head for at least 2 months!  Finally, today I heard the news: your dossier will be on its way to Azerbaijan this afternoon.  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Sorry--the excitement, I just can't even think straight!  I'll be honest--I danced around my kitchen to no music today when I heard the news.   And if you have ever seen me dance with music, you can imagine what it must have looked like with none! Ha...it probably wasn't pretty ;)

But I mean---after 10 months of trying to get back on track, I'm pretty sure you would have been dancing to no music, too!!!

So, what next?  Our dossier (remember, that's just the fancy adoption word for alllll of our paper work which contains every bit of personal information you can imagine) should arrive in AZ by the end of this week.  Next the in country representative for our agency will take about a week to translate all of the documents.  When she finishes, she will take it to the state committee.  The state committee will then read through all of our paperwork: birth certificates, marriage certificate, home study, proof of employment, bank statements, tax returns, financial statements, medicals, passport copies, pictures of our home and family, a floor plan of our home, our property deed...

After learning every possible thing you could possibly know about us, they will decide if we are fit to parent a child from their country.  If they do approve us, we will receive a referral for a child.  We have requested a child of either gender, age three or younger, with minor special needs.  Once the referral is received, we will have a couple of weeks to say yes or no to meeting that child.

If we make it to that point, I'll let you know the next steps!

So here is the part that makes me nervous.  I'm going to be very real with you--so hang on tightly.

We have had so many ups and downs in this journey called "international adoption."  There have been days of dancing in the kitchen...and days of sobbing at the kitchen table.  The faith journey God is leading us on has been such a unique time in our lives.  Never have we had to lean on Him so much...trusting that He has a plan for each turn in the road...trusting that we heard His voice and that we should put one foot in front of the other even when it makes no sense.  Trusting that we hear Him still, compelling us to continue in the same path no matter how many potholes trap us and delay our progress.

Some days it is easy to forget that we are doing this to find a specific child God is leading us toward.  Sometimes you want to throw in the towel and just take any child...I mean, they all need a home, right?!  But God prepared us for this question, too.  Back in August 2013 he brought this verse to my heart, and told me there was one for us.  I shared it with Kyle and he agreed.  Here is the page from my journal that day.  (sooooo hard for me to put it all out there, but keep hanging on, this is going somewhere)

So, if you believe that God has a very specific plan for this adoption...if you trust that His timing is perfect...how do you pray?  I know that the Bible tells us to ask for anything in his name and he will grant it.  I know that if I want my prayers answered, I must pray for things that are in His will.  So where is the line between asking God to do miracles and trusting his sovereign plan??

I have been wrestling with this question of how to pray since August 2014.  In August, late one night as I lay awake trying to decide how to pray, I felt like God was telling me to go for it.  To just trust Him enough to put it out there.  To say what I really wanted Him to do.  To just ask for it.  So I did.  I asked him that night, and almost every night since then, to bring our adoption to a close within a year from that day.  Of course, then I was terrified!  What if he doesn't answer with a yes?  What if we hit another huge roadblock??  What will happen to my faith?!  Will I trust that He is good even if he says "no?"  Will I crumble?  And yet I felt certain he wanted me to ask Him any way.  So I do.  I ask him to finish this before August 23, 2015.  I dare to hope that He will say yes.  But in the same prayer, I beg Him to strengthen my faith.  I want to be like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3.  I want to be able to say with confidence, "God can rescue us from the power of you, the king (the one about to throw them into the furnace of fire).  But even if He does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods..."  In other words, I want to believe and proclaim that God CAN complete this adoption before August, 2015.   BUT even if he does not choose to grant our request, I want to be able to say that I will worship HIM alone and still trust in His plan.

In December, I was praying my prayer and asking God if there was more I should be praying.  This was the note I typed after spending some time listening in my heart.

Yes, it was really late...

So now I'm ready to stop sharing my deep dark with you and ready to ask you a question...well a few questions.  If you are still reading, I just have to say THANK YOU! cause I know this is reallllllly long.  

Will you commit to doing the following?

1.   Will you pray that our dossier will arrive safely and quickly in AZ?  And will you pray that the representative will be able to translate efficiently?  Her name is Aida.  Pray blessings on her.

2.   Will you pray, as I did above, that the state committee would have favor on us?  Would you ask God to lead them to the child He has set aside for us?

3.  Would you pray that God would bring glory to himself through all of this?  That someone who doesn't know Him might be open to knowing God because of our story?

4.  On your weather app or your desktop or whatever you use to check the weather, will you add Baku, Azebaijan?  and each night when you check the weather for tomorrow, will you see what the day will be like for Azerbaijan?  Their time is 9 hours ahead of ours, so when you go to bed, they are waking up.  Will you use that visual reminder of their weather to help you pray specifically for our little one?

Will you be a little bit crazy with us??  Will you dare to hope that God will answer exactly how we are asking him to?  Will you risk being disappointed and have the faith to believe that God can do the impossible???  I'm not going to ask you to jump on the August 23, 2015 bandwagon unless you just really want to.  But if you will commit to pray for the four things listed above, will you just leave a comment?  It can be here on the blog or on facebook.  The reason I ask is this:  I know that when I commit to something quietly, in my mind or my heart, I am so easily distracted that I might forget.  But when I commit out loud to pray , I am so much more likely to remember!

"Um...hey Becca, you know I don't really believe in God"---I know that not everyone who reads this is a Christian.  You know I love you exactly as you are!...but I dare you to try praying anyway...might be an interesting experiment???

It is sunny and chilly in Baku today.  Lord, will you keep our little one warm today?  Will you send someone with an extra smile and an extra snuggle to love on our child?