I think I left off where we had just heard from our agency saying they had begun to advocate for us to adopt K, K and R. We were waiting to hear back about this. And waiting. And waiting some more. If felt like forever but when I went back and looked at the emails it really was only a couple of weeks.
It was March 30th and Lance and I were going through a really rough time. As I’ve said before we felt like our family had been under spiritual assault since two days before we first saw those precious faces. On this friday, we were dealing with a very complicated issue. I can’t elaborate on this, and I wouldn’t call this issue part of the spiritual assault, but I’ll say it most certainly was icing on the cake. This particular issue had been a hard blow, and as Friday came to a close Lance and I made a very hard decision.
We felt very unsettled about it, and were very frustrated we had to make this choice, but we decided to give K, K and R back to the Lord and go back to pursuing 2 children. We had not heard from our agency and so we agreed to honestly let them go. We also agreed that if it was God’s will that these girls be ours, us walking away would not stop that. No man can thwart the will of God!
I don’t know how Lance dealt with this, but I knew what I had to do. I cried out to the Lord. I prayed, “Lord, I give these girls back to you. They are yours, not mine. You love them more than I ever could. Please take care of them. Help them find a home that will love them. God, be merciful to me. Don’t let me become depressed and discouraged. I need your strength.” As I finished my prayer, I deleted every picture I had of the girls. Then I cried for a while.
God did answer my prayers that weekend. He was merciful to me and helped me to be strong. While Lance and I still didn’t feel “right” about the situation we were trusting the Lord. We planned to tell the necessary people about our plan to go back to just two girls on Monday.
Although I kept this to myself, I had a very odd and strong feeling that we would be getting an email about the girls from our agency any day. I don’t know what made me feel this way, but I just knew it would come. I checked my email religiously expecting to find what I was anticipating.
Monday came and I had a photo session that morning. After my session, sitting in my car, I checked my email. Sure enough, my suspicions were correct and there sat an email from our agency. I opened it up and read, “Hi! We are ready to match you with the three girls!” and it went on to explain that after checking with everyone imaginable, we had green lights all around to move forward with the girls.
Immediately I turned into an angry, tearful mess! I threw my phone in the floorboard (don’t worry it was cushioned by layers of mail and school papers) and beat my fist on the steering wheel. Through sobs, I screamed at God, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!! I JUST GAVE THESE GIRLS BACK TO YOU!!!!! WHY ARE YOU TORTURING ME!?!?!?”
Eventually I settled down, but that day Lance and I went into a time of intense fasting and prayer. We did not understand what was going on but we were sure of a couple of things. These girls just kept coming back, and God was not closing doors, he was opening them. We told our agency that we would give them an answer on the girls on Thursday.
We received copies of their medical reports. We scoured over them. They appeared to be very healthy. Developmentally they were all doing very well. It was confirmed in the reports that their mother had died in a car wreck and that no one else claimed them.
We asked a lot people for their advice. We had a very tough decision to make. Over and over again people said, “You have to do what you feel the Lord is leading you to do!” So after much prayer and discussion, that is just what we did.
On April 4th, we said “Yes!”... again. But this time, we said it with a lot more confidence.
Over the next couple of weeks as we worked on finishing our dossier and waiting for the official match, God continually confirmed to me that we were walking the right path. One of my friends and fellow [country in Asia] mommas asked me, “Kristian, do you have 100% peace? I want to make sure you are 100% confident.” We had 100% peace and were 100% confident that this was the direction God was leading us!
A few weeks ago, we got a LOT of pictures! My friend Aimee had traveled to [country in Asia] to get her two daughters who were, get this, also in the SAME orphanage! She got to meet our girls, talk to them, hold their hands and best of all take lost of pictures! Oh my word, y’all! You just cannot imagine how big the smile on my face was as I looked through these images!!! LOOK for yourself and try not to smile while you do it!
Sorry, pictures no longer available
Then our agency sent us some pictures that they had another family take while they were picking up their daughter from the orphanage. EEEEK!!
So that pretty much brings us to present day.
Until next time! -K
