On the Verge...

At church this morning, a couple got up after the sermon and shared a story of how the Lord had gotten them through a time of trial through the truths in His word (we were in Nehemiah 8 this week). The encouragement being that during hard times and "easy" times, believers should cling to, revere, celebrate, and obey Scripture. This couple had been told that she would never be able to conceive without medical intervention and they were about to start trying IVF when the husband felt the inclination to wait for 6 months before they started down that road. It was a struggle and there was a lot of grief they worked through, but only about a month into their waiting, a friend felt lead to pray that the wife's womb would be opened and they eventually found out that they miraculously conceived naturally that day! Their baby is due in a few weeks.  This was a huge praise and an incredible encouragement that the Lord can perform miracles while we wait on Him. But, can I confess so

Hello again, blogosphere! So so much has happened in the last almost 6 months. The most significant of which is: WE GOT MOSES HOME!!! I thought I would recount the story here and now mainly because I think it builds my trust in Him to remember and celebrate anytime that God showed His faithfulness in my waiting. It also just gives him all the glory to share stories of His goodness and perfect timing! All that talk about feeling like Moses was supposed to be home the first week of June because that's when Joanna's due date was and how great it would be if he were home at the beginning of the summer, but thinking we would have to go and push things through ourselves.... Yeah... all of that... THAT all happened, except without ANY pushing on our part. God did it ALL. Basically, the orphanage finally got someone to go into the judge's office during the strike to find the court order so they could copy it and they found it had been done the day before the strike started, it

I have written so many half blog posts over the last few weeks, but I've gotten derailed and then the information is out of date. So I'm going to try to be brief, get to the prayer request and actually post this one, because we really literally be on the verge of our departure to go get our sweet boy. Most of you know that we got our official court order on April 5th, after being matched with Moses for almost a year at that point. That is pretty long, in the world of India adoption. Our coordinator originally had told us that we might have him home by his 4th birthday in September, but delay after delay and slowdowns and missing papers and a general lack of urgency left us with our written orders April 5th. When we finally saw the digital copy, we found a number of errors. We let the our agency know and they sent them through and we saw the corrections uploaded to the site on April 12th. They had told us that they would get the certified copy of that court order within 10-12

It's raining here in Austin. It's been off and on since yesterday. Coincidentally, last night Cyclone Fani made landfall in Odisha, India and as it continues over the next few days, the eye of the (the then tropical) storm will come very close to our son´s rural town in West Bengal. The wind and rain could cause some serious damage in such a small town and the aftermath could be significant. Sometimes, it's hard to take something seriously that is happening to other people on the opposite side of the world. We see the news (maybe), a facebook friend reminds us, we pause for a moment to pray, and then we carry on with our "normal day". But as the rain has continued here over the last day, it has been easy for me to focus more on what the people in India and Bangladesh are and will be going through. It's also so much easier to focus on it when a member of your family is there and you have no idea what's happening to or how this will affect him. I'm

For the first year and a half of our adoption process, we were the only people we knew that were adopting from India. Last summer, I did find an online community of TONS of other families from all over the world who were adopting or had adopted from India and it has been a game changer for our process. One of the most valuable aspects of this community, for me, is seeing that the kids eventually do come home.  In fact, that is an oft quoted phrase, usually accompanied by an adorable picture of an adorable kiddo. "They do come home." It's so good to see and remember. Comparing timelines is also a helpful benefit to knowing other people going through the process. At first I was scouring the internet for any other blog posts that might give us any idea as to how long our process might take. So, for that reason, I thought I'd share our timeline for information, encouragement, and posterity. I hope it will also help those who would like to to know how to pray and to rej

It was September 2015 when Quinn and I felt that we wanted to add a 4th child to our family. It's hard to explain how you know that feeling or how it's even possible to have that feeling when our arms were already so full with our first three kids. But there was just this space  that we felt. A space that was ready to receive another child. I've explained in previous blog posts that we were contemplating adoption at that point, but got pregnant that week. And that's when our arms and hearts began aching to hold our next child. On January 13, 2016 (three years ago today), we felt that ache even deeper in our hearts when we held Joanna in our hands when she came out miraculously easy after passing away at about 17 weeks gestation. We had been scheduled for a surgery to have her removed, but I am so, so glad  that she came to us whole in the hospital so that we could spend time holding her. It was weird and strange because they don't look like a normal baby at that