He Moved the Mountain: Introducing Nya Jones!!

My Montage 3/1/09

Every Mountain He Has Moved

We got an email last week informing us that our travel dates could potentially be pushed back a week to three weeks due to policy changes at the U.S. Consulate in ET. I went into a fit with this information! A complete lack of faith on my part that God's grace is sufficient even when I am disappointed and hope is temporarily deferred.
I forced myself out of my pity party and chose to remember all the miracles God has done in this journey. Once I considered this long enough, I came to this conclusion: We have stood in the shadow of many mountains and He has moved every single one!
The price tag for an international adoption from ET is a whopping $25,000 + sum. We sent in our $250 application fee believing that God would provide what was needed if, indeed, this was His will. We made many sacrifices to come up with our initial costs and we were able too meet all our obligations.
I've already written at length about the miracle story behind a great portion of our fees being paid, but it is worth mentioning that this particular miracle began rolling toward us in 2005, before Nya's birth!
Clayton's heart was radically, and I mean radically, shaken for our daughter and her country. The Holy Spirit testified to Clayton's heart what He had already put in mine and all Clayton's fears and apprehensions about beginning a trans-racial family were eliminated. Since then, many people in our families have come to appreciate our choice to adopt and are excited about Nya's homecoming. This may not sound like much, but it is a mighty miracle! Even more mighty than all the ways He has provided for Nya to come home, the fact that her family is ready to accept and love her and overcome any obstacle that might prevent that, is perhaps the mightiest mountain moved so far!
Clayton got his dream job and oh, the mountain that was! Nobody believed he could do it taking the path he took, but with God all things are possible! We needed this new income to provide for a larger family and the Lord made that possible.
I was living in chronic pain with a condition that many doctors warned me was hopeless. I found myself wondering if I was capable of caring for another child. Another mountain He moved! He led me to a doctor who, imagine this concept, CARED about me as his patient. He performed a surgery that changed my life.
Our agency was forced to raise fees in the middle of our adoption. Gas prices spiked, the world's economy went topsy turvy and travel costs went up. All of this added up to a sum that made me queasy. Again, I wondered, how could we make this happen? Well, we couldn't, but our God most certainly could!! Another mountain He moved!
These are just some of the ways our Lord has chosen to act on the behalf of our daughter's life. There is not enough time to tell of it all. If only the world could see the heart of our God. We must show them!!
We stand before two more mountains with firm faith that He will move them: our court date and our travel and transition with Nya. We must never forget the miracle of the love He has shed abroad in our hearts and the ability He has given us to lavish that love on others! The greatest miracle! I know that He will move the mountains of hurt, fear, confusion, ignorance, selfishness, etc. so that our family can be a light to others. How thankful and humbled we are.

New Travel Dates!!

We just got the email that our new travel dates are April 11-18!! That means that it is one month away until I will be on a plane to Ethiopia. I can not believe this is happening!
My best friend, Danielle, is coming with me!!! Praise the Lord! It is yet another miracle story of God's goodness and faithfulness of how she was able to come. But I'll save that for another post... :)
We are so happy!

It's Come Down to This...

When I first felt that now familiar tug in my heart toward the beauty of adoption, I had many visions of what it may look like, feel like. None of those visions were correct.
Something in our lives apparently caught up with our hearts, because Father God finally gave us the go ahead in October 2007. Again, what we envisioned then is nothing like it turned out to be. I recently finished Nya's "introduction" video for the day of celebration- March 26- when we can show off our girl to the world. While putting it together, I found myself reflecting on what a real journey this has been. From start, to almost finish, it has been a wild ride.
Twice throughout this journey, we felt we might adopt two different sets of children. They were placed in our paths and although we were certain we had some kind of role in thier lives, we didn't know what that would be. Each time, the Lord gently but definitively showed us we were to be helpers in their lives but not parents to these children. They had parents coming and we weren't them. It was hard to have those doors closed, but it felt right and it was right.
Twice now, we've submitted to mildly insulting questioning (you do realize you will have black descendents now?), background checks, thorough physical assessments (yep, our tickers should get us through until the kids are 18), intrusions into our finances and childhoods, etc.
For 8 months we wandered in an emotional and spiritual desert where we felt the pain of unfulfilled longing, where we became way more acquainted with the suffering of people all around the world, where our eyes were opened and our hearts were torn and we were no longer comfortable at all with living out the American dream or whatever it was we were striving for previously.
Now, it's come down to this. Twenty itty bitty days until our family is complete and Nya has parents and we have a daughter and the boys have a sister! March 26th will be one of the best days of our lives.

New Court Date!!! Prayer time!!

Our original court date was April 3 and we found out today that this has been moved to March 26th! While we are THRILLED at the prospect of becoming Nya's legal family sooner than expected, we are also a little concerned about paperwork issues. Short explanation: We moved from Louisiana to Mississippi in September and Clayton also changed jobs and income brackets. Because of all these changes, we have had to RE-DO our homestudy (aka THE GOLDEN KEY OF ADOPTION!). This is a time consuming process to say the least. We are nearing the end of the document re-gathering phase, but a few pieces are out of our control: FBI background check, social worker's final draft, and MOST IMPORTANTLY the updated homestudy being sent to USCIS and then forwarded to Ethiopia ON TIME (before I travel). So, once again we go to the Lord in faith that He will cause this to be a YES all the way through. We have watched Him move mountains that seemed so large throughout the course of this adoption and throughout our lives. We need to pass court on March 26th and we need to bring this beautiful, amazing person home to be with her family. Please join us in going before our God on her behalf so that "the poor have HOPE and INJUSTICE SHUTS ITS MOUTH!!!" (JOB 5:16).