Wait, What???!!!!

Our God is an amazing, powerful incredible God!!  If you do not yet believe in the name of Jesus, BELIEVE!!!  If you feel God is calling you to do something crazy, radical life changing but you think you are not the right person for the job, I am telling you have FAITH the size of a mustard seed and do it!!  Our adoption story is one of faith in action and I am continually amazed at God's work!!!  So here are a few of my wait, what?!!  moments leading up to our current status.  A friend just happens to post on facebook that she has two twin beds and a dresser to give away after I had just been at IKEA agonizing over what to do about needing three more beds.  Wait, What!!  Thanks God!  And we just happen to have enough money to pay for our adoption expenses every time we need to write a check even though we only had enough for one and didn't plan on the extra expense of adopting three.  Wait, What!!  Thanks God!!  And one night I spent 45 minutes trying to find a google translate sorta thing to translate Tshiluba so I could communicate more effectively with my boys in case of a moment that would come up that we may need that.  There is no google translate for Tshiluba, but there is a Pastor and his wife who speak Tshiluba, who grew up in a town 100 miles away from where my boys grew up, who just happen to live 20 minutes away from us.  WAIT, WHAT!!!  This is a miracle God!!  Thank You!!! 

After we met that amazing Pastor and his family, we learned that he was taking a group of people on a mission trip in February.  I blew it off at first thinking that we needed to concentrate on our adoption and not worry about this trip.  However, my heart was continually stirred as I thought about what an incredible opportunity this trip would be.  So I asked my adoption coordinator what might happen if we went on this trip and how that would work with picking up the boys.  Of course the ideal plan would be to go on the mission trip and then pick up the boys after that and experience lots of amazing incredibleness in one fell swoop.  She said she thought it might work, that it wasn't really pushing it even, to make this happen.  But Matt and I still had to decide what to do, as if we went on the mission trip we knew we may still have to make another trip to get the boys.  Matt says he doesn't want to go, he wants to save his time off of work to spend with the boys.  So I call my sister whom I had invited on the trip and we decide to go.  We get permission from our AMAZING husbands to do God's work and we booked our tickets last night to travel to Congo on the mission trip.  And then I get an email today from our adoption coordinator that WE HAVE JUDGEMENT!!!  But not only do we have the judgement that we have been waiting for since October 5th, she also received other paperwork that puts our timeline ahead of schedule by 2-3 weeks!!!  WAIT, WHAT!!!!  Praise the Lord!!!  So it looks like we may be going on a mission trip and picking up three handsome boys at the same time!!  Of course nothing is set in stone and things can change quickly, but the Lord has blessed us with a miracle today and we are praising his name!!!  I am so excited to continue to watch God work.  I can hardly even believe how amazing God is.  And so today I am SO thankful and so humbled by his work and presence in our lives. My heart is singing!!!

While I'm Waiting

God has put this song on my heart this past week to guide me while I wait.  My prayer is that I will serve him well, worship well and most important that I will not fade.  Because this God we serve and worship is worthy and amazing and incredible.  I am so thankful for his ever present guidance and love.  We are still waiting to hear that we have received written judgement.  Without this signature our adoption process cannot move forward.  But I am confident that we will hear something soon, in God's perfect timing.  And while the waiting is painful and not easy, I plan to serve and worship and love well!!

Honesty

So today was a yucky adoption crazies day for this mama.  I am having a difficult time with all of the waiting.  We still have not received our written judgement and I found out that our 30 day wait will not start until a couple of weeks after our written judgement.  It is not until after the 30 day wait that we can breathe a sigh of relief knowing these are truly our kids.  So I prayed and I was mad at God and I wanted answers and I wanted to run, run far away from this adoption process.  Not because I don't love God and desire to live for Him, not because I don't love our boys, not because I don't love adoption.  But because it is too hard.  It is too challenging.  I want to do it my way, make it go faster, get my boys now!  Because I am selfish.  And as I think that it may be January, or it could be February, or it may be March before we can go them I just want to scream.  Scream at God to make it go faster, let me get my boys sooner.  If this is your will, why can't you move mountains and make it happen NOW!  But as I pray and read His word and listen to songs and read others words of wisdom I am gently but firmly reminded of Isaiah 55, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord.  It is not up to me.  I hear him saying are you going to follow me, are you going to allow me to get you through this, are you going to let me make you stronger?  You see I cannot try to do this thing that he has called me to with my own ways.  This challenge he has called me to is not for me to try to do on my own or for me to step in and change it or push it.  It is all about me relying solely and completely on HIM.  Instead of trying to do it my own way I have come to realize that I need to surrender.  Surrender in prayer and reading his word and learning more about who my amazing God is, allowing him to shape me.  And what is so awesome is that now at the end of my day, I am totally at peace.  At peace with just surrendering and allowing God the control.  And waiting well while he comforts me and changes me.  And I am renewed and refreshed and hopeful that our story draws others closer to Jesus.  And hopeful that others make the choice to open their hearts to adoption.  To a journey that is difficult but so amazingly wonderful in so many ways.  I feel blessed and honored and humbled everyday that God has chosen us to serve him in this way!

Praise

Praise and thankfulness are what I have been feeling lately.  Praise to an amazing God who answers my prayers even when I have given up.  He is quietly whispering that he's in control and it is his timing, but oh how I want it when I want it.  But his ways are greater than ours and he is faithful!  We received verbal approval that we passed court in the DRC on Friday.  Yeah!! We should be receiving word that the judge has actually signed off on the case on Wednesday, so I will update again when I have more information.  God is moving and blessing and my heart is so full and so thankful.  We are going to meet with a family who grew up in the Congo this month.  This is an answer to prayer as I desire to know more about the Congolese culture and how we can continue to be a blessing to the Congolese people.  There is no better way to learn than to talk to a family firsthand.  Thank you God!  Orphan Sunday is coming up and it will be a great time of celebrating God's goodness in our adoption journey and what he is doing around the world as we seek to care for orphans.  He is amazing and I am humbled by his goodness.  I am enjoying this journey, this journey of learning, this journey of change, this journey of drawing nearer to my Heavenly Father.  We are taking everything a step at a time and excitement is growing as we get closer and closer to bringing our boys home.  What a joyous day that will be! 

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!!