Thursday, December 27, 2007

The List

Now we’re getting somewhere! We’ve received a great little Christmas gift called spot number seven on the referrals waiting list!

Check out the significance of the number seven…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_(number)

Now let’s pray for some movement so that we can escalate up the list to numero uno (that’s #1)…

Blessings!

Monday, December 17, 2007

The Waiting List Awaits Us!

Ok. So right now Amy and I are waiting patiently (AHEM) as our Indian Dossier (dossier [‘dosiei] noun, a set of papers containing information etc about a person or a particular matter) makes its way to our adoption agency today. This is it for now. We have completed every task required of us thus far. The last task was to have multiple documents apostilled at our Secretary of State office in Montgomery. Those were sent back to us with the appropriate signatures and seals. We then turned around and added copies of a few other documents and forwarded the bulky completed package to the Adoption agency on Friday.

I am feeling a little surreal about where we are at this point. Anyone who has walked this road before will be able to tell you just what is involved in the process and for us to be where we are right now is amazing. God has been so faithful throughout these last nine months. He has gone before us and prepared the way and has given us favor with every person we’ve had to interact with. People have been so helpful to us and have gone out of their way to make sure we have gotten everything we need. From our bank to our doctors, they have gone above and beyond the call of duty. Amy’s doctor even left her typical office to walk downstairs with us to an area that had a notary. She patiently signed the requested documents and allowed the notary to do her work and maintained a great attitude and Amy even shared a hug with her. Thinking back on moments like that is very humbling. We get to see how much God cares about what He has called us to do.

We should find out today or tomorrow from our adoption agency where we are on the referral waiting list. I can’t wait to see how much information they give us relative to where we are on the list, who we are behind, the gender that others are waiting for, etc. We shall see!!

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Home Study Approved! Sent to Immigration!

Ok. So I guess I’m going to be posting about once a month. Oh well. However, I had to post something today. I’m really getting excited about our adoption. Amy called me today to let me know that the state has approved our home study and has forwarded a copy to Immigration in Atlanta. Man! The whole adoption process is beginning to really feel real at this point. Now, I am trying to hurry up and get my renewed drivers license so that I can get my passport. Unfortunately I had to discover that my driver’s license had just expired while sitting in the post office passport room filling out paperwork to obtain the passport. That’s ACE! Anyway, we’re trucking right along. Praise God!

Monday, October 1, 2007

Be Exalted Today!

Oh Lord, be exalted today. I lift up my head to You and admit with full sincerity that I am in need of You today. I am in need of Your presence. I am in need of Your love, Your mercy, Your peace, Your forgiveness, and Your strength. You are so powerful and mighty, yet gentle and merciful. You hold the whole earth in the palm of Your hand. You are majestic and beautiful. Your beauty and Your faithfulness are beyond comprehension. They stretch out through eternity. You are the everlasting Father. You never fail and You never waiver. You are the Oak of Eternity. The Strong Tower, The Ever-Present One, The Rock of Ages, and The Lion of Judah. Lord, thank You for life and the wonderful blessings You have graciously poured out on us. I take time now to acknowledge and thank You for it all. I love You Jesus!

Monday, July 16, 2007

Bizarre, yet Beautiful

It has now been a few months since my wife and I have begun the process of adopting our child from, India. The process has been a relatively smooth one thus far, “Thank you Jesus”. Things are really beginning to fall into place and progress is being made. I just need to share a few things that have been happening to us since the process was begun.

My personality is such that I am not easily “freaked out” or emotionally charged. I usually don’t get overly hyped about neat things, nor am I unimpressed about things. I just generally take things as they are. However, since our adoption process has begun Amy and I have seen some crazy things take place that I cannot deny are COOL. This week, during a couple of brief stints at our local Publix supermarket, the cool factor went to another level.

To fully understand the situation, we live in a pretty large city in North Alabama. Yes, this town is pretty culturally diverse, but it is still a city in North Alabama. From the beginning of the adoption my wife and I have seen several families and individuals of Indian descent, way more than usual it seems. There are plenty of races and nationalities represented in this city, but the ratio of people from the Indian descent that we are coming into contact with is very obvious to us.

My wife has decided to log every occurrence like this that we have experienced since the process has begun. We thought it would be great to share these occurrences with the child once he/she is older. She is even listing reminders such as Indian news headlines that pop up on the front pages of MSN or Fox News. The list is already an impressive one. It’s really neat stuff. After this past week and weekend she has a couple of new ones to add to our list.

Friday night, we were near the bread section of the supermarket and low and behold there was an Indian family with two little girls in a buggy. The oldest girl was probably 4 or 5 and the youngest was 2 or 3. Well, of course we always look briefly (trying not to stare), especially at the children because they are such a beautiful people. We just don’t want to freak the parents out. Usually they never know we have glanced at them and smiled. However, this time we both looked and the older girl made eye contact first with Amy, then me. An odd feeling came over me. I told Amy later that it was almost like a 6th Sense feeling (if you’ve ever seen that movie). I can’t explain it though. We carried on as always and completed our shopping and chalked it up as another occurrence similar to the ones before, but different.

Sunday night, we decided we wanted some sushi, so we made our way to the seafood section of the store. This time, we walked past the aisle right before the seafood section and there was another Indian family. They were dressed in their cultural garb from head to toe. They were at the end of the aisle headed toward us. They had a few items in their buggy along with a baby. Amy poked me as we walked by and I said come on and lets get the sushi and we will see them as they come around the corner. We wanted to see the baby. Anyway, we spent about one minute at the most, deciding on the kind of sushi we wanted and headed around to see if we could see them. We walked down a few aisles in both directions, and then headed for the front of the store. They were gone! We were quite confused, so we walked the entire store again in an attempt to find them and they were nowhere in that store. For the first time, I was really scratching my head began to think there were more to these meetings than coincidence. I understand how long it takes to walk to the front of the store from where we were and check out. It’s more than a minute in a half to do that, trust me.

So, at this point, Amy and I are praying that we begin to realize what The Lord is trying to show us through all of this. Is it a confirmation that what we are doing is in line with His will for us? Is it something more? We aren’t sure yet but, we pray that these reminders do not stop. It is too cool!!!

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Abilities

“You are the only person on earth who can use your ability” – Zig Ziglar

God has placed within each of us certain abilities, talents, knacks, or skills. Some of us recognize these gifts and some do not. Some of us act upon these skills and some do not (for a number of reasons). These gifts were placed inside each of us for a single purpose, to bring glory and honor to The Author of Creation.

Once we recognize the ability God has placed within us, it is our job to actually use it. There was a long period of my life as a young adult that I really did not believe I had any significant and unique abilities. So, I simply kept most of the things I was pretty good at to myself, for my use only or for no use at all. Maybe, I just didn’t think my gift was important enough to bring it to light or maybe I just didn’t comprehend the fact that God placed that within me for a purpose. It could have been a little of both.

In the book of Matthew, chapter 25, Jesus gave the parable describing what the Kingdom of God is like. In verse 14 and 15 the scripture says, “He called his servants together and delegated responsibilities. To one he gave five thousand dollars, to another two thousand, to a third one thousand, depending on their abilities. Then he left.” John Bevere stated recently that the point we should take away from this example is that each servant received something. In my mind, this also indicates that each servant obviously had their own abilities. If either one of them had no ability he would have received no money at all. Believe it or not, we each have abilities.

Thankfully, if we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, God also places His supernatural abilities within each of us. His abilities will take us past our own natural abilities. A perfect example of God placing his abilities within man is in Ephesians 3. Paul was writing from jail about delivering the message of Jesus Christ to those who had no background in the ways of God. He really found it to be a big surprise that he was able to get his message across to both the Jews and the Gentiles. In verse 8 of the Message Translation, Paul, one of the greatest men of God ever to live, even calls himself the least qualified of any of the available Christians. He says, “God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.” Other references here include Exodus 31:1-6, Exodus 35:30-35, Exodus 36:1-2, and Daniel 1:17-20.

Paul had no problem using the abilities he was given, but we sometimes have a hard time stepping out and offering those abilities. It may sometimes be because of fear or shame, but most of the time it is out of laziness or rebellion. We need to be like Bezalel and Oholiab in Exodus 35 and 36. When God placed craftsmanship abilities on Bezalel and Oholiab they didn’t just go and sit down or just create things for themselves. No, In Exodus 36:1 Moses summoned Bezalel and Oholiab and everyone else whom God had given the skill and know-how for making everything involved in the worship of the Sanctuary as commanded by God, and told them to start to work. Verse 2 says that the men were eager to get started and engage in the work and they did so.

Let us submit ourselves unto God. Let us use our skills and abilities that God has placed in us. Where we are weak he is strong. Let us get to work.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

What Am I Doing???

So, to keep up with my incredible wife who is now blogging about our exciting journey to adopt a child from India, I had to follow suit and begin my own blog. I presume that each blog won't really be related to another. I've just kind of decided to put my thoughts, feelings, fustrations, insights, etc. down into words since I'm not exactly the world's superlative heartfelt speaker. I've heard it would be good for me or something...who knows? Anyway, that's what I'm doing!

-Staying fixed on The King-