Finding Peace

The last month has been busy, hard, and exciting. We survived the worst round of stomach flu my husband and I have ever been through...ever.  Unfortunately, I think my kids inherited their stomachs from my side of the family. If someone in our city has the stomach flu we will catch it, we will suffer greatly, and we will most likely spread it to the nations. My husband on the other hand has intestines of steel. I have NEVER seen him throw up in the 9 years that I've known him. This is God's mercy for our little vomiting family. Even if he feels achy, he can still function when the rest of us can't move, much less clean up messes.  I will not share any more details of those catastrophic 2 weeks, but they were a bit traumatizing. Thank the Lord, we have recovered and are making headway on the adoption. 

We got our fingerprints taken at the USCIS office and are waiting for our 171-H form which basically means we are good to go on the U.S. side of things. EXCITING. Now I am preparing our dossier (our big pile of paperwork) to send to our lawyer in Uganda. We still don't exactly know a time-frame but we literally could be several months away from getting a court date depending on how long it takes to do the investigation on Martin's background, etc... We will wait and pray and put our trust in the Lord and trust him to provide for us during this season. 

When Cheryl Sargent came home from Uganda after telling Martin that we were going to adopt him, she gave us a few pictures that she took while she was there that I want to share with you.

 This is Martin as he is looking at the Bible we gave him. We can't show his face until after the adoption but I assure you he has the BEST smile you've ever seen.

Martin colored a picture for Cheryl to give to his brothers Silas and Noah. I took a picture of it so you could see...

At first Brad and I were trying to figure out what it was. He drew a picture of a Sunshine Recorder and he is asking what the use of it is. Brad and I were like...we have NO IDEA what a sunshine recorder is so I googled it! To my surprise,  he drew an exact replica of what a sunshine recorder is.  It is an instrument that measures the amount of sunlight in different geographical regions. This made Brad and I laugh so hard because we knew he must have heard about it in school and seen a picture and wanted to know more about it. It is so random and so cute. I realized after reading his sweet little note that his world has been so small his whole life. He only knows the red dirt roads and little grass huts and rice and beans and a limited amount of information in the school he has only attended for 1 year. The idea that there is a little instrument out there called a sunshine recorder is probably mind-boggling to him.  Life is so simple and slow there. He was not asking God for an electric toothbrush or a playstation because he doesn't even know they exist.  He is thankful to God that he is finally living in a place where he knows that he gets to eat every day, unlike his life before he was brought to the orphanage. He is thankful to the Lord to be alive. 

I've been reading a devotional called "The Hope of Glory" by Sam Storms and it goes through the book of Colossians. A few days ago I read:

 "Peace that comes from God is a kind of peace that, rather than being dependent on material and physical comfort, actually frees you from bondage to physical comforts and liberates you from dependence on worldly conveniences and appliances and whatever else money can buy. This is the abundant Christian life: a peace and joy and satisfaction in God so deep and unmovable and indelible that no amount of suffering can shake it or induce me to take offense at God."

This thought has messed with me lately...in a good way.  I feel like God won't let Brad and I find satisfaction in things lesser than Him and I'm so thankful even thought it is frustrating at time. I know it is out of His great love for us. God is already using our little buddy in Africa teach us more about himself before he has even left Uganda. God is the only one who can give us true peace in a culture that has everything and God is the only one that can give Martin true peace in a culture that has nothing. We all need him. 

Thank you all for all of your support. Please pray for our Lawyer in Uganda as she prepares everything for court. Please pray for us as we wait to bring our son home... that God would fill us with his peace and give us grace trust Him in all things through this process! Love you all!