Amazing Love

So we are only a week away from our court date!  Can't wait to hear some good news next week!  As we wait I am just humbled by all God is doing in our lives.  I am working hard on enjoying the journey and not getting caught up in the difficulty of the wait.  Adoption has changed our lives already in so may ways.  We are totally dependent on the holy spirit to work in our lives.  We need him to help us grow spiritually, to keep our boys safe, to help our adoption process go smoothly, and to change us.  I just love how this process has MADE me dependent on Christ for everything.  I am constantly praying for our adoption case, for other cases and for him to help me be more patient, more loving, more kind, more compassionate.  We are also humbled at how God is just showing up and taking care of things.  Our initial concern when we decided to take the plunge of faith and say YES to adopting three boys was the additional stuff we would need.  Three more beds, lots of clothes, coats, shoes, etc.  But God knows!  And he just shows up.  We were so blessed to receive 2 twin beds and a dresser FREE from some amazing friends!  God took care of it!  And we are receiving clothes often from friends and family.  HE is taking care of it!  It is amazing to sit back and watch his love pour out on our journey.  And a huge thank you to all of those who are blessing us with stuff or praying for us!  We would so value prayers that we pass court next week and that we have a successful 30 day waiting period.  Living, Loving and Serving an Incredible God!!!

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!!