Court Update

So this is a small update in the large scope of things, but just wanted to share that we received an update that our case would be heard in the Mbuji Mayi court around October 5th.  This is exciting as hopefully all goes smoothly and we will be issued a judgement within a couple weeks after the court date.  The judgement is the official adoption!  We are thrilled that our process seems to be moving forward.  We would also cherish prayers as the Congo is a very unstable country and things can certainly go awry very easily.  The Congo is not like China, where the government is stable and you have a pretty concrete timeline.  Things can change on a whim with a Congo adoption as the DRC has very little government infrastructure.  So I have guarded excitement, but I also trust that God is more powerful than all of the issues that could go wrong.  What is so awesome is that I was praying fervently today for a quick and smooth process and that we would hear soon about our court date.  And I just so happened to receive an email regarding our court date!  God rocks and we praise him for his faithfulness on this journey.  Whatever happens, it is in his hands, his ways are greater than ours and he is sovereign!  The power of prayer is amazing!! So we keep on keepin on and trust in a powerful and amazing God!!

Joy

So there are definitely some not so fun things about adoption-like the wait!!  ARGGHHH!!  And attachment issues, etc, etc.  However I truly feel that the abundant blessings and joy far outweigh the not so fun things.  Yesterday we received new pics of our sweet, sweet boys!  These pictures brightened our day.  We cannot wait to love on them!! Our favorite thing about all of the pictures that we have received is that they seem SO happy!  I said to Matt last night, don't they just look happy? And he said, yeah, it's amazing!  I really think God is watching over them and blessing them in huge ways!  We are just filled with joy that they are joyful and we can't wait to bring this love into our home.  Don't get me wrong, we are prepared for super hard days, but LOVE always wins!!!  By the way, Jean is in the tank top, he is 5, Constantin is the little guy (age 2) and Patrick is in the Love Star shirt, he is 4.  We also sent out a care package to our little guys today.  It is Patrick's birthday on September 21st, so we sent them all some goodies.  Looking forward to loving and laughing as a Bruening family of eight!!

Not About Us

So it has been a month or so since we announced that we were pursuing an adoption of 3 boys, ages 3, 4 and 5 which would make us a family of 8 with 6 kids under the age of 7!!  The reaction across the board from many people has been that we are crazy!  Bless your hearts, but you are crazy!  Yeah, we know!  We agree, we are kind of crazy, but we wouldn't have it any other way!!  We are certainly not equipped with incredible patience, tons of wisdom, or gobs of gentleness to handle all of these little lives.  We are far from perfect!  However, we have lots of love and an incredible passion for orphans, the poor, the needy and just an overall passion to live out God's call for our lives.  For us that happens to be orphan care and helping the poor.  We are not amazing-as Katie Davis (Kisses from Katie) says, we simple read the Bible and did what it says.  In fact, if everyone would simply live out God's call for their lives, no one would think we are crazy because many "amazing" things would be happening all the time.  God uses ordinary people for his glory and to do extraordinary things-to do his work.  He wants to use all of us-no matter what kind of a mess we are.  And we aren't the first people ever to adopt a bunch of kids and create a large family.  We are blessed to know people and email and blog with people who have done or are doing the same thing.  It just needs to become the norm instead of the crazy!!  It's not about us, it's not about accumulating more stuff for myself, it's about freely giving and helping those who need it.  We feel blessed that God has blessed us with an incredible passion for the orphans and the poor and we enjoy just walking in obedience to him.  We also feel very much at peace with our decision and so we trust that our powerful God will be with us every step of the way. 


 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3:20-22

We would also very much value prayers for our adoption journey and others adopting from the Congo as well.  The Congo has very little infrastructure and so sometimes cases are heard and processed quickly and other times there are long delays.  Kids are dying weeks before their parents can get to them.  We would so value prayers that our adoption case and others would go quickly and smoothly without delays so that we can get to our children and love on them-as we all desire so badly to do!!  Thanks for praying! 

We are blessed so we can bless!!!!

Crazy Courage

There are a few updates regarding our adoption process.  Our dossier is completed, translated and sent off to the DRC!!  Yeah!  We also know the next steps in our process which is good.  It is nice to be able to follow along with what is going on.  So our next step is receiving a court date in the Congo.  That should happen in about 5 weeks, maybe sooner.  Upon receiving our court date, we will then hear whether or not the judge approved our case.  After court, there is a 30 day waiting period.  Once the 30 day waiting period is up our kids will be moved from Mbuji Mayi to Kinahsa where we will pick them up.  We will wait about 8 weeks for all the paperwork to be completed and then be able to travel.  So in all we are looking at 5 months if there are no paperwork delays and up to 8-9 months if there are delays.  We would so value your prayers that there are no delays and we have a quick process!!  I have been asked if these sweet boys are really ours...  The answer to that question, is yes, in my heart, Matt's heart and our kids's hearts!  We love them so much already!  But officially, no, they are not ours.  After we get through court and our 30 day waiting period, we will get the adoption judgement that states that we have officially adopted these boys.  So we have to wait about 9 weeks or so for the court process to get done and then we can call it official.  I titled my post today Crazy Courage because I believe it takes a lot of crazy courage to adopt!!  We are fairly confident that our court process will go well, but we are aware of cases where it hasn't gone well and people have lost their referral for various reasons.  So it takes some crazy courage and a whole lot of Jesus just to get through this part of the process!  Adoption is hard but it has already yielded blessings beyond anything I could have ever imagined.  Our spiritual and relationship growth along this journey has been incredible and I am so excited for what the future holds!  A special thanks to my sister in law for the following verse that I am holding close to my heart for the rest of this journey:  "Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong." 1 Corinthians 16:13.

By the way, I encourage all of you to be courageous and think about adoption or supporting an orphanage. There is a great need out there and God asks us to take care of the orphans, the poor and the needy!!

Saying Yes to God

This is a really exciting blog post!  Finally, right!!  We are working on adopting three boys from Mbuji Mayi Democratic Republic of Congo!  We received our official referral Saturday night and we couldn't be more excited!  Their names are Jean (pronounced John), Patrick and Constantin.  They are ages 3, 4, and 5.  This has been a really long journey filled with much prayer, tons of God's Word, much thought and lots of processing.  We have been processing this for over a month.  It has been such a great time of growing closer to God and learning how to rely on him.  We are so excited to glorify God by saying YES we will adopt these boys.  This will require much hard work and sacrifice but I can't think of anything else I would rather do.  Total surrender to God and total reliance on him is so incredible.  Our whole family is SO excited.  Our hearts have always been that we wanted to adopt those who often get looked over, like special needs children, children over 4, or sibling groups.  Words cannot describe the joy in my heart that God has blessed us with this incredible opportunity.  Serving him in this way is so amazing.  We are prepared for the Are you crazy comments and those that may not understand.  Wholeheartedly following Jesus usually comes at a cost.  But nothing is more worth it.  HE is worthy!!  God has shown up in amazing ways over these last few weeks, answering prayers and uniting our hearts.  HE is worthy of all praise!!  I am not sure of all the next steps yet, I hope it will be a quick process, like 6-8 months or so.  In the meantime we will renovate our house and add a seat to our car and buy more beds in anticipation of three more precious lives in our home.  We would so appreciate your prayers that our journey would go smoothly, that God would be more powerful than the legalities and the paperwork and that we would be able to bring these boys home so soon. 

Then he said to them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For it is the one who is least among you all who is the greatest.”

Luke 9:48

The Heart of the Matter

So there is not a ton of new stuff to share regarding our adoption journey.  Our home study is done and off to immigration!!  Woohoo!  That is a super big step done.  God answered my prayers on that one in a huge way!  I am now working on the dossier and hope to have that completed and sent to the Congo soon.  I realized something yesterday that I wanted to write about.  Jesus wrecked my life!  In a good way!  He turned everything upside down and my heart wants only to serve him, to love him and to seek him.  I have been wrestling with my heart and my emotions this entire adoption journey and I could not figure out what was wrong with me.  Why did I cry about the adoption journey taking so long?  Why could I not focus on anything but adoption, adoption, adoption?  What was wrong with me?  I realize now it is the longing in my heart to serve an amazing God and to be totally focused on that.  I had heard about the book Kisses from Katie but I had never thought to read it.  My sister was visiting and during our conversation she said you need to read this NOW!  So I started and I connected.  This book helped me to understand what was going in my life.  Jesus wrecked me!!  And I love it.  You see I used to love shopping and would be obsessed with buying expensive things to decorate my house.  I used to spend way too much time shopping on the internet for expensive clothes.  I used to desire material things.  And then Jesus wrecked me.  And now I want to care for the orphans, serve the poor and love others with all I've got.  I am now obsessed with Jesus and his plan for my life and I love it!!  And I love that I live this journey not by myself but with my family.  We can read the Bible, we can learn about the poor and the orphans, we can read amazing books and we can make a choice.  We can take action or we can do nothing.  As for me and my family, I want our hearts to be broken for what breaks HIS! What would happen if the 1 million readers of Kisses from Katie actually submitted fully to God's will for their lives?  What would the world look like?  I think it would be amazing.  I think it can be amazing! This life journey has been incredible and I am so excited to see how Jesus continues to wreck my life.  I hope to be able to update soon with news about a referral.  Until then we will continue to love, serve and live for Jesus!!

Waiting-Praying-Yearning

We have been approved to adopt from the Democratic Republic of Congo with A Love Beyond Borders, an adoption agency in Colorado.  There is a huge need for kids to be adopted from the Congo as there is war and incredible poverty in the region.  We are SO excited to be approved and to have found a country that we know is perfect and is God's will.  Our change in plans from China to Africa has been crazy but so wonderful.  I know it is God's perfect plan as I meet and talk to others who have a heart for Africa as well.  And it just feels right!!  So I trust wholeheartedly that this is the direction that God wants us to go.  I can't wait to get there.  And that's the hard part, waiting!!!  We are waiting for our home study to be rewritten so that we can submit a homestudy and an I600A to the USCIS to change from China to Africa.  We need to get our immigration approval and our dossier submitted to the Congo before much further action can take place.  We are also praying about what children God wants us to adopt.  We have a heart for those that are waiting-those that are older and in sibling groups.  And so we are checking out the waiting children and just praying that God would unite our hearts and show us which children are meant to be in our family.  Some days I just wish Jesus was physically standing next to me and telling me exactly what to do!  How awesome would that be!  :)  I feel like we will soon be making decisions on children, I feel an aching in my heart to move forward with God's mission for us.  But yet, he calls us to be patient as well.  I just have the yearning to complete this already, yet I know that we are growing spiritually in huge ways through it all.  So we will probably be able to travel to the Congo in about 9-10 months to grab our child/children.  So we keep on keeping on, serving our amazing Lord each day!