God is Awesome

(Christen) Yesterday, God gave me the opportunity to share the love of our Heavenly Father; very fitting for Father’s Day. The 12 year old girl from the home that we had been hanging out with was beginning to get very attached to us. Last evening she basically asked if I would be her mommy. Talk about heart breaking! I explained to her that I was only 12 years older than she was, and that made us more like ‘sisters’ than ‘mommy and daughter’; and that even the laws would not permit us to take her with us because of our ages. I told her that the reason she wasn’t coming to America with us had nothing to do with her. Nevertheless, these explanations did little to soothe her sadness. As you can imagine, constantly seeing other children be united with their “new parents”, while she seemed to be passed over, was a heavy thing for her to understand.

After she began to understand that we couldn’t be her parents, she shifted gears asking, “would you find me a mommy?” Unfortunately, it’s unlikely she will ever be adopted because of her age. I didn’t want to give her false hope, so I shared with her that she may never get an earthly mommy and daddy, but that she already had a Heavenly Father who was awesome. I explained that her Heavenly Father already loved her more than any earthly mommy or daddy ever could, and that she could communicate with God any day, at any time! We then talked in length about God as creator, humans as sinners in need of a savior, and Jesus as our substitutionary sacrifice in order that we might be reconciled to God and live with our Father forever. Of course, I explained this in simple terminology.

What a blessing it was to see her demeanor and attitude shift at the word that she already had a heavenly Father! She cried. I cried. We read the Bible, and by the end of it, there were tears of joy at the revelation of our awesome, perfect, loving heavenly Father who will never leave or forsake us. This will hopefully be only the beginning of her spiritual growth, as we plan to leave her with her own Bible.

(Brady) Embassy Update: we filed the papers at the Embassy, nothing much to report. They accepted our paperwork, and will review it all and get back with us. I’m not very clear on the time frame of this process, but it appears that they could grant a Visa in 14-30 days. Our attorney seems to think it will be sooner rather than later. After that is approved, there is some waiting period before we can leave the country. I don’t know specifics, but we will keep you all posted! Thanks for the continued thoughts and prayers!