Just More Waiting.

It has been 8 days since the phone rang. "Prepare yourselves" she said. That was last Wednesday.

Even in the bad news I see God taking care of us. If there was ever a day to receive gut wrentching news, last Wednesday was a good day for it. I had already arranged for Cara to be with my mother for the day so that I could do all the final shopping for the cabaret. Bill was done work at 1:30pm (as opposed to Tuesday or Thursday where he worked 7am-10pm). We had already planned to take a long drive together up to Chester to pick up the Rocky Mountain Chocolate basket. It was as if God knew we would need this time and space to process.

Thursday was like the eye of the storm. When Lisa (our social worker) had called Wednesday morning I was too shocked to ask logical questions. She said she was going to make calls, I didn't even ask who they would be calling. However, we made the decision not to ask any more questions until the phone rang on Friday. It wouldn't change the outcome. We decided just to rest in God's peace and trust that everyone was doing everything they could. We experienced peace while we waited.

Friday was they day they were calling back. I had no idea what time. Bill was working a long day and then we were all meeting up at Destiny Arts to set up for Saturday's fundraiser. Bill had decided to fast for the day and he took a long walk by the river and talked to God during his lunch break.
He sent me this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbNK50T35wY of Chris Tomlin's song "I Lift My Hands".

My neighbor, Val, was incredible. She took Cara in the morning so I could finish up some things for the cabaret. A few hours later the girls came to play at my house which was a great distraction and Val stayed to keep me company. As it got closer to noon I knew that meant the end of the day in Uganda (they are 6 hours ahead). I checked my phone every 10 seconds. Val invited us to join them on a trip to run errands and perhaps stop by a Chick-fila. It was a great distraction. By 2pm the knot in my stomach was nearly unbearable but somehow there was still peace in my heart.

It was around 2pm that people started texting "any news?"....nothing. Cara went down for her nap and I waited for the phone to ring. A good friend stopped by to drop off a needed item and she had been fasting for us as well.

Eventually it was time to start packing up all the baskets for the fundraiser. One of my college students had brought her van and we were halfway done when the phone rang. I passed Cara off to her and went on the back deck to answer the call. "We haven't heard from Uganda but I didn't want you to wait any longer."  It wasn't good news but it wasn't a closed door either. Just more waiting.

I was able to talk with Lisa and ask some of the questions I was unable to form two days before. Most of my questions she didn't have answers for but she did share with me two things that gave us the hope we needed to get through the weekend. I don't feel comfortable sharing them here because they are pieces of Simon's story for him to learn when he is ready, but I felt much more hopeful when I hung up the phone on Friday.

The cabaret on Saturday was amazing. We enjoyed a day hanging out with good friends and they put on a remarkable performance that night. It was wonderful to watch everyone participate in the raffle and to see people win the items they had been hoping for. What an incredible gift it was for us to still be able to give during a time of our own greatest need. (More on the cabaret as we get photos up)

Monday an email came by 1pm. No news.
Tuesday I checked in...still nothing.

Wednesday, one week after the phone first rang, I got an email from Lisa saying that Ken (the orphanage director) and Alice (our lawyer) had talked. Simon's mother had told them the exact opposite information. Apparently this is not unusual because people become very nervous around lawyers. Lisa told me that Ken was setting up a meeting with Alice and Simon's mom so that the three of them could get the truth out. She has no idea when this meeting will take place.

In Lisa's words "it's not good news or bad news, just more waiting."

Please continue to pray for Simon. My heart breaks for this little boy that (hopefully) has no idea the delicate web he is tangled in. I wish we had more details to share with you. Thank you for waiting with us.

The Next 48 Hours

When someone who has only ever emailed you over the past two years picks up the phone to call you at 9am exactly...you hold your breath.

Her voice was pleasant but her news was not. "We need you to be preparing yourselves..." I don't remember her exact words after that but what I heard was this. The next 48 hours are crucial. Cling to God and trust in his plan regardless of the outcome.

You see the Ugandan law requires a male relative to sign the form to relinquish parental rights. A mother cannot surrender a child for adoption by herself. Simon's father is dead. Apparently they have not been able to find another male relative to sign for Simon in his father's absence. If the lawyer is unable to find someone to sign for him by Friday they will encourage us to let him go. He'll be "unadoptable." After that they don't know quite what will happen to him. The orphanage can't keep him and no one wants him. They are going to "make some calls this week." And that is all we know.

But it's not really all we know because we know that God is good. We know that He has been going before us with every detail of this process. And we know that God is a father to the fatherless.

The next 48 hours are crucial. Please join us as we pray for Simon. As usual God blessed me with a song to be the words I can't find right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9pqTQQyZnE

"Carry Me"

I try to catch my breath
It hasn't happened yet
I'm wide awake in the middle of the night scared to death
So I prayed God, would You make this stop
Father please hold on to me, You're all I've got

Carry me, carry me, carry me now
From my sinking sand to Your solid ground
The only way I'm ever gonna make it out
Is if You carry me, carry me, carry me now
God carry me, carry me, carry me now

Jesus calm my heart
Come near me please
Lord don't let these worries get the best of me
Oh I believe, that You're still here with me
Cause You meant what You said when You said You'd never leave

Carry me, carry me, carry me now
From my sinking sand to Your solid ground
The only way I'm ever gonna make it out
Is if You carry me, carry me, carry me now
God carry me, carry me, carry me now

 I'm at the end of myself
I know I've got nothing left
Feels like I'm stuck in the valley of the shadow of death
And I've been down here so long
I just can't find my way out
Oh God I don't stand a chance
Unless You carry me now
God carry me now

 

Unexpected Blessing - You're going to want to read all the way to the end.

This past Saturday was our first fundraiser since we got matched with Simon. It's amazing how this process goes so slow and so fast at the same time. After years of waiting everything needs to happen over 4 months to finalize the adoption.

We had already talked about the kind of fundraisers we wanted to do but we hit road blocks as soon as we started putting the wheels in motion. Our very first fundraiser in 2011 was a pancake breakfast at the local Applebee's. It was such an incredible day for us to see all of our friends and family come out and support us. Applebee's went above and beyond and made the day so easy for us. However, this time around there were more qualifications as to who could host a breakfast and we were turned down (they also didn't have any openings until October and we needed to work fast).

After two weeks of phone calls to every church in the area that we had a connection to, I finally got a call from a church that was willing to open their doors to us. However the pastor spoke with such a thick accent that I wasn't really sure which church it was that said yes! LOL.

Our goal was to feed pancakes to at least 200 people (which is a lot of maple syrup!). A huge thanks to my parents who allowed us to fill their freezer with sausage and orange juice as I shopped every sale I could find :).

The afternoon before the breakfast I opened up my YouVersion app and the verse of the day was Acts 1:7-8

⁷ He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

This verse is Jesus speaking to the disciples right before he ascends to heaven.  He is answering their question about when God is going to restore Israel. (the next few verses always make me chuckle if you want to look them up. I think angels have a sense of humor).

However, what I heard God say to me as I looked over the passage was "Lauren, you don't always get to know the details but it doesn't mean I don't have a plan. I am with you on this journey and that is all you need to know in order to accomplish it." It also reminded me again that while this is an adoption, it's not about adding children to our family. It's about God's love for a little boy and how He is going to use that help people see how much He loves everyone.

So I went into Saturday not knowing the details but trusting God that if 1 or 1,000 walked through that door, that it would be exactly as the day was supposed to be.

As it turns out the number was a lot closer to 1 than 1,000. However, even when the room was almost empty, I felt the love of everyone that was there. It also happened to be my birthday and there was no greater gift that watching Simon's grandfathers work perfectly together to make all the food and seeing my extended family pour juice and visit with our friends as they came to the breakfast.

Afterward everyone was anxious to count the money and see how we did. I wasn't. I knew that there was not much there and that it might be a disappointing task. The remainder of the day was hard. Bill and I kept oscillating between being thankful for how smoothly the morning went, to remembering all the people that said they were coming that didn't make it. I'm going to be very transparent here, not to make anyone feel guilty, but to expose how easy it is to take a blessing from God and twist it into something less. There was a point in the day when I was alone in my car traveling from point A to point B and my thoughts went to all the times I had gone out of my way for others. All the times I had put my life on hold to make sure I was there for someone or to be available to serve. All the hours I had logged with individuals caring for them in their time of need or simply mentoring. Thankfully, I was wise enough to stop that spiraling thought pattern. Immediately I checked my heart with what I knew to be true. I don't serve to be served. There are no strings attached. It is not a give and take. I love others because God said "love one another" not because of how they treat me or what I can get out of it. I love others not because they 'earn' it but because it's the only way some of them will ever get to experience God's love, which by the way is UNCONDITIONAL. So why would I even think to put "coming to my pancake breakfast" as a condition for anything. With my heart back in the right place I stopped to think of all the people in that room that had better places to be. There were so many friends and family members, students and colleagues that we know will be a part of Simon's journey beyond bringing him home. I felt so loved.

Still it was awkward when people would ask, "Hey, how did it go?"  I tried to be honest but still share the overwhelming sense of love that we felt from the day. The finances would take care of themselves somehow but the message we got was that God was with us and so were the people most important to us :)

As the week went on we continued to be blessed by people who were not able to make it to the fundraiser. We even found out that one particular group that came to the breakfast (who I am sure would want to remain anonymous but they know who they are) intentionally paid double for each person to make sure Simon came home as fast as possible.

It wasn't until I checked the mail on Tuesday that I got the knock out blow that confirmed what I had been hearing all week. "We don't get to know the details but God is with us and that is enough."

I came home to an unexpected package. I recognized the return address as a local church but I wasn't expecting anything from them. It only got weirder. Inside the package was a cardboard envelope like the kind used to send photos. No note. Inside the envelope was a VERY generous anonymous donation. I barely knew what to do with myself. I had sent Cara upstairs to pick out a book to read before nap time and I knew she was waiting for me. I could not process what was in front of me. I called Bill to tell him about it and finished with the naptime routine. I came back downstairs and had to open the envelope again just to make sure. I then called the church to see if the package had in fact come through them and if they would be able to return a thank you note for me (I wanted to respect the extensive efforts this person went through to keep their donation anonymous). The church had no idea what I was talking about and no idea who to direct me toward. I laughed with the woman on the phone. We both knew who the money had ultimately come from...God. I know to some people it might sound ridiculous to say "I got a package in the mail from God." It wasn't glowing or surrounded by a halo or anything. I'm not going crazy. I just know that God is the source of everything we have and He used one (or several) of his children to be his hands and feet (and checkbook) to bless Simon and bring him home a little faster. As of now, we are officially halfway to our fundraising goal :)

I still don't know the details, but it's continued conformation that He is the author of this journey and that He is with us and just like Jesus said to the disciples in Acts chapter 1...that is enough for me to be his witness to the ends of the earth.

:)

Bring Them All Home

A friend sent me this yesterday with a note about Simon. It's almost too hard to look at. Praying that God finds homes for them all. Even if a mother never holds her child after giving birth, the time in the womb is enough for a little person to bond and realize someone is missing, even if they can't describe it, they know. So sad.

Hope in the Bigger Picture

Today I am exhausted. I spent the morning at the church we will be using for a pancake breakfast fundraiser and we'll spend the evening touring the facility we plan to use for our Cabaret Night in August. I have emailed, facebooked, talked to neighbors and done all that I can to let people know about these two events. I have gone store to store for donations. Mentally, I am spent from the endless lists floating in my head about who might be able to help us and what we still need to accomplish.

Moments ago I checked our fundraiser page. 1 supporter. I could choose to let fear in. I could worry about where the money is going to come from (and some days I do, lets just be honest) but today I am going to choose to look to God. Yesterday I wrote this to a family member:

I kind of feel like I am running this race with a million weights tied to my legs making each step next to impossible, but then I look to my left and I see Bill right beside me and I know neither one of us is going to give up. We will love this kid forever even if it never gets any easier.

None of this has been easy but the love in my heart continues to grow for a little boy I've never even met.

Our church used to use the phrase "find your place in God's story." I love seeing the world this way. Ultimately, I am just one person in a world of billions of people. I will live a certain number of years and then I'll be gone. But God's story spans the ends of time. I could choose to feel insignificant. Or I could realize that I get to be Simon and Cara's Mom. I get to be the one running this marathon of life beside Bill cheering him on as he leads our family. It's my place in God's story and it's awesome.

So today I am not going to freak out about the finances or worry about traveling halfway around the world and back...nope today I'm gonna look to God for strength and teach my kids to do the same. As long as I am following Him I know I'm right where I am meant to be.

Love Notes

Some of my favorite moments in life are the times when I am clued into what God is doing. He doesn't have to reveal himself at all, but when he chooses to, it is beautiful. It has been over two weeks since "Ugi" (our nickname for an unknown Ugandan son) officially became Simon. I know time will continue to fly by as we count down the weeks until we can hold him. What I am enjoying at the moment is all the ways God is revealing himself in the details.

It's little things like his medical report saying "he sleeps 12 hours a night and takes 3 naps a day." What you may or may not know is that I prayed to God often that my kids would be sleepers. Cara still takes at least a 2 hour nap every day (sometimes Mommy does too). I knew that was God's gift to me but since I am a sleeper a skeptic could pass that off to genetics. But my Simon is a sleeper too :) Or at least he has the potential to be one after he adjusts to life with new people in a new country. Another way I know this was a little love note for me from God is because the medical reports in international adoption are so bare. Most often you're lucky if you get one parents name, and the child's height, and weight. I have never heard of personality details being included let alone sleep details. For me it's just another way that God is saying "I have been listening and Simon is perfect for you."

We also found out this week that we just made the cut. We were #5 on the waiting list and they matched the first 5 families! I had been wondering how we got picked being so far down on the list. It's wonderful to know that no one was skipped and that so many families are experiencing this joy right now. Five families at once is unheard of in the Uganda program. It is still so new and so slow that up until this point no families have traveled together. In other programs, like China, they will release a large group of kids at one time and everyone travels together and has ceremonies and sight seeing opportunities as a group. This is not normally the case in Uganda. I will be staying in Uganda while we wait for the courts ruling on our guardianship (anywhere from same day to two weeks after we appear in court) and for the US Embassy to process Simon's visa (another two to six week wait). It is so great to know that there could be other families there with me. What a blessing to have people there who know exactly what we're going through as we go through it!

I also think this is a particularly special thing because I would love to stay in contact with these families and give Simon the opportunity to reconnect with children from his orphanage. I know they will understand each other in ways that we never will be able to understand. What an incredible gift!

Simon already feels like a part of our lives. Cara talks about him often and we are doing our best to prepare her for what it might be like to finally have him home.

Last year Cara made the star on the left for her room. This past week we went back and made Simon the blue one for his room :)

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Please continue to pray for us as we prepare. We have one final grant application set to be reviewed in August (so far we have been denied from 6). It would be incredible to receive this grant and have some of the financial burden relieved. There is a cheesy Christian saying "Where God guides, he provides" but we have found this to be so true and we are once again trusting Him with the little we have to do big things.

We are also in the process of planning two different fundraisers. As much as we need the money, we see these more as opportunities for friends and family to be apart of this incredible journey. If you have gotten this far in life and still feel like you haven't seen God or heard from him, we offer you this chance to be apart of something amazing that God is doing in a little boys life (not to mention a front row seat hear about all the ways his parents are being stretched and strengthened).We hope to host another pancake breakfast in August before the college students leave as well as put on a Broadway Cabaret night in (hopefully) July featuring some of our incredibly talented friends and family members. Please pray that we find a location for each of these events (even better if the locations are free!)

Thanks again for "listening" :)
Lauren

We Are A Family of 4!!!

There was a delay in posting this because we wanted to tell as many people as we could in person, but here is what I wrote on the night we signed the papers to officially accept the referral for Simon:

We are a Family of 4

There is one hour left of June 13, 2013 and I decided I needed to use it to write about the past 7 hours because they will define how the next several years of our life go.

Today we made the decision to adopt Simon Peter.

We received our referral somewhere between 4pm and 5pm on Monday. I was sitting in my car the driveway of Grandma and Yo-Pop’s house in the rain. I checked my phone one last time to see if Bill had called and I happened to notice an email:  Referral #2. I glanced down and saw Referral and immediately started reading. I got about as far as “it’s finally your turn. His name is Simon” when I saw a tiny head coming toward my car in the rain. There was Caraline with no shoes headed out to greet me (isn’t she the best!). I jumped out of the car and swooped her up and back onto the porch out of the rain. Grandma came out and I began to tell her about the email referral.

I’m not even exactly sure what Grandma started to tell me; all I was focused on was finding a computer so I could see the first photos of my son.

I struggled to get the files to open on their laptop amidst questions from Yo-Pop and having Uncle Topher over my shoulder. Grandma was still excited about all the fun they had earlier in the day. Cara had almost given up on gaining my attention and started pulling out Polly Pockets to show me. I tried calling Bill several times without success.  It seemed like everything was happening at once!

As I was scanning the initial paperwork the house phone rang and it was Bill calling back in disbelief. He couldn’t get the files to open on his computer at home (he had made it home from work while I was on the road to get Cara).  Eventually I decided just to take Cara and head home to see Bill so we could enjoy this together.

I called my mom on the way home and even though I was incredibly sick she was able to detect the joy in my tone of voice. “You sound awful chipper for someone who is sick? How are you feeling?” I responded with “There’s a good reason, we have a baby boy!” There was immediate joy in her voice. I told her everything I knew and that I was racing home to see Bill.

At some point on the drive home I called Cindy our social worker to tell her the news. She was headed out to vacation but was so glad we caught her.

We came home to big hugs. Cara was hungry so we quick fixed her some chicken and talked over what we knew. I forwarded the paperwork to CHOP and we waited to hear what was next.

We called Uncle Adam and had Cara tell him the news. We also called Aunt Katie but Cara was done with announcements at that point so Bill had to fill her in on the news. We wanted to make sure all the siblings knew since Uncle Topher had been around when I opened the email.

Tuesday we got an email from CHOP saying one of the doctors would be contacting us to schedule a phone conference. They also immediately called for our billing information but we did not hear anything else for the remainder of the day…

I must have looked at Simon’s picture a million times that day.

Wednesday we didn’t hear much of anything either. Around 1pm we got an email saying that Dr. Friedman would call us on Thursday at 4pm. We had a conference call at 3pm with Lisa, the social worker who matched us. She wasn’t able to tell us much more about Simon then was in the paperwork. We talked through some details about the court system being closed for July and how the judges were changing so she wasn’t exactly in a rush for us to be the first ones on their desk after break.

As we went to bed that night I said to Bill, I wonder if God is holding off the doctor’s call because he wants us to know unconditionally that we want Simon. We were nervous about some gaps in his medical history but both of us were feeling confident that we wanted to move forward.

By the time 4pm Thursday came we didn’t really need to hear what the doctor had to say. I was so distracted thinking about Simon that I missed the entrance to 295 and wasn’t home in time to take the call. Dr. Friedman totally understood and agreed to call again in a few moments. (Apparently doctors don’t like to talk to clients on their cell phones while they are driving...imagine that!)

The phone conference was very informative. She basically said that there are a lot of things he hasn’t been tested for yet that he could have but that all the things we did know were good. We did find out that much of his growth statistics are right in the normal range – a fact that is pretty atypical of children raised in orphanages!  He seems to be doing well even in his circumstances.

I must also say that I had prepared Cara for the fact that mommy would have a very long phone call and that I would not be able to stop and talk with her or answer any questions. She kept saying “but if I tell you to stop on the phone you’ll stop right”…”no mommy can’t stop”… “oh, bummer”… then she would try again from another angle. When we were running late for the first call and Dr. Friedman said she would call back Cara was like “that wasn’t very long at all, yeah!” I hated breaking the news that she was calling back in 10 min… LOL.

While I was on the phone Cara got herself a banana and played on the iPad. She was so great. Bill walked through the door about 45 min in and Cara announced “mommy is on the phone and we can’t talk to her.”  Later she was even more discouraged when she realized that mommy and daddy were then going to talk about the phone call for the next hour. She kept trying to share information about what the dog was doing, what the characters on the pages of her book were doing “look mommy she’s drinking green tea on a purple lap top” We assured her that we had heard her but that we needed to talk about much more important things and interruptions would only make it take longer.

She said she was hungry and being the A+ mom that I am I said to her “Cara you are much more capable then you are claiming to be right now, please go in the fridge and fix yourself any snack that you are capable of putting together” Not one to miss an opportunity, Cara made herself blueberry waffles for dinner with extra butter (she came by to show me that she did the butter herself and that there had to be a lot…at the moment I didn’t’ care, looking back all I can do is laugh).

As Bill and discussed the doctor’s call, I sat on the floor and played devil’s advocate. We both knew at this point that we were going to sign the papers but I wanted to hear Bill’s answers to the hard questions. What if the tests the doctor has asked for reveal a terminal illness?  What kind of impact could his possible health issues have on Cara?  Is it really something we can prevent or do we just need to surrender control? People won’t understand…etc.

Finally Bill said “we just have to surrender the details. If this was about us and our comfort I would have given up a year and a half ago when I saw how painful it was for you to wait for him. This is something God has asked us to do and we need to do it. This is the child we have been placed with and we need to do it.” I have never loved him more. Thank God I married a man who will do the right thing even if it is the most gut wrenching decision. “Print it out let’s sign it right now.”

This would be the point in the night where I couldn’t stop crying.

We went up to the third floor as a family and got the printed contract. I was crying so hard I couldn’t see the buttons to push on the printer.  Cara kept saying “I want to draw too, where can I write? I want to write something to send to Uganda.” We told her that she could write another letter and we would send it to Ugi /Simon.  (Cara then proceeded to spend the rest of the night mailing pretend letters to “pretend Uganda” – Could she be more awesome?)

On the way upstairs I stopped by our bedroom to get a tissue because I was crying. Cara, never one to miss a beat, watched me walk out of the room with one tissue and knew this would not be enough. All on her own she went back in my bedroom and grabbed the tissue box. Several minutes later when I asked her to run and get me one from the playroom she pointed out that she had already put an entire box next to my feet for me to use. Priceless!

We then came downstairs and emailed the signed contract to the adoption agency.

We spent the rest of the night texting friends, calling family and trying to get our friends all together in one place. Every so often we would grab Cara and do a “you’re a big sister” dance or tickle fest. I randomly kept announcing to the room that we are a family of 4 now.

At one point I got out last year’s calendar to see what we were doing on the day that Simon was born (May 17, 2012). I have written all of our activities on the calendar since Cara was little. The entire month of May was full of notations, arrows, drawings and details of our lives. May 17^th was right in the middle and entirely blank. It stood out like a sore thumb. God knew we would need to go back and fill in the details of that day. It now says in bold purple letters: “Simon was born.”

We also realized (thanks to my mom) that we will be telling the entire church the upcoming Sunday which is Father’s Day (that much we had thought through). My mom also pointed out that we got married on Father’s Day.  What an awesome time of year! J

Then we looked up what the name Simon means. It means “God has heard”…yeah he did!

“Peter” means Rock (on which God built his church) and Simon’s last name “Ainebyona” means “one to whom much has been given”.  Simon Peter was the only disciple bold enough to get out of the boat and walk on water with Jesus. As Pastor Paul said “his name is stacked!”

We printed out his picture and closed out the night by putting it on our refrigerator right in the middle of all the family photos.

I know it’s different than going into the delivery room but even as I sit here crying and typing I am overwhelmed at how in an instant our family has grown again. Yesterday we had the anticipation, we thought today might be it, but tonight something happened and it became official. All 3 of us together, standing around a piece of paper and signing our names (or in Cara’s case begging to write her name), we became a family of 4 and Simon will never be alone again.

There is still a long road ahead. There is potential for disaster in more ways that we are probably aware of. It may only get harder but I know now more than ever that God’s signature is all over this story and I am so glad to be a part of it. He is in every detail and I wouldn’t change a thing.