Waiting and Remembering

The last few days have been pretty quiet for us.  We basically spend the morning and early afternoon together and then go to the orphanage to see Masha at 3pm.  Our time with her flies by and before we know it we are home waiting for the next day and visit to come.  Our facilitator will be back on Wednesday and we hope to have a better idea of our schedule then.  Thanks for all the prayers and please remember to pray that the Lord would work in the hearts of others who read this blog to bring them to the same place He has brought me to... the adoption of our Masha.

I always said to others that I would support any family that wanted to adopt in any way I could, but that the adoption of a child into my family wasn't for me.  I selfishly didn't want the "hassles" associated with an adoption, especially an international adoption.  The first week of May of this year I still felt this way.  Then God started to change me in a way only he can.  Towards the end of April as I was shutting down all the equipment in the sound room after our church services, I looked at a picture.  This picture was taken at Uglegorsk Orphanage by the Fryburgers, last summer, when they were here to adopt their son Sergei.  They took many pictures of the children at the orphanage and they brought them home to our church and distributed them so we as a church family would have a name and face to pray for specifically.  This particular  picture was of Masha.  I had looked at it many times and prayed for her, but on this day in my heart it was different.  I thought to myself...if I was the type of person who would adopt, it would be this little girl, Masha.  I went on with life as usually after that day, but little did I know that that was the Lord's first swing to crack my hardened heart.

The first week of May we went on a family vacation with our friends the Macnamaras and with David and Ingrid Semans.  David and Ingrid talked about hosting and adopting Vanya and I told them I would support them in any way I could, but I couldn't see myself ever hosting or adopting a child.  When we returned from our vacation, Holly received a call saying that The Ukrainian Resource Center was looking for somebody to host a girl from Uglegorsk and that the Fryburgers had decided to host her since nobody else wanted to.  I thought, that's nice of them, to do that and give this girl a chance to visit our country.  Then Holly told me the girls name....Masha!  God delivered the blow to my heart that broke the stone away at that instant.  I immediately recalled that day in the sound room at church and Holly noticed the changed expression on my face.  She asked me why my eyes lit up, but I kept it to myself.  During that week I tried to avoid what I knew inside my heart, that God wanted this little girl to be a part of our family.  Later that week I told Holly how I felt the Lord was leading me and she said she had already asked if it would be possible for us to host Masha and she had been told we could.

The Lord has really shown His presence to us through the time we prepared to adopt Masha.  All of our needs have been met and all the difficult paperwork has been completed without any of the problems I have seen others have.  He has provided us with the right information right at the times we have needed it which has been a blessing.  I write all this to say that if God can turn my stubborn heart, just think of what he can do in your own heart or in the hearts of people you know.  God can use you to help one of these forgotten children who desperately need a family to show them the love that we with families sometimes take for granted.