It has been two months since I last posted, but they have been very full months! We have packed up our whole house in St. Louis, said good bye to all of our friends, family and church there, and headed to Fort Worth, Texas! We are definitely settling into our house, mainly because we have been iced into it since Thursday. For our little family living apart for five months, we have gotten to spend a lot of time together lately. The house is starting to feel like home and we have started homeschooling again and are finding ways to get plugged into life here.
It all feels so different, though, whenever we leave the house. Not knowing which way to turn, hoping the GPS leads us the right way (which it already hasn't!) and not knowing whether we are close to a grocery store or what cities are far away and which ones are very close. It's very disorienting and it is a good exercise in not feeling in control. We both felt God leading us here this year, so we trust in His guidance and wisdom. We stay focused on the fact that we have family here, we have a wonderful new home, we do have GPS to help, and we do not have a busy schedule, so if it takes us longer to find a place, that is okay. Since this is our blog to focus on adoption, I cannot help but focus on the small amount of disorienting we are experiencing and comparing it to that of our future children. We understand the language, we knew what to expect, we could research and plan, we have familiar people around and familiar places. Our future children will have none of that. My heart breaks for how lost they will feel and how long it will take to build some trust. I would love to do whatever I could to prepare them for it now and make it easier. I do pray often that God will help someone prepare his heart for a new family, for a life in another country, and for him to know that we love him and that God loves him and cares for him so much.
M has been very concerned about our blog and whether we should change the name since we are not living in the Gateway To The West any more. We are not going to change it, because that is where our journey began. That is where we began praying about adoption and where we filled out the many forms and had our home study, and even squeaked in a home study update a few months before we moved. That is where we were married, first lived and where we had our first two children. No matter where we are, St. Louis is still where we began and, as my friend so beautifully put it, I will be 80 years old before I've been a Texan longer than a Missourian.
We fully expected to bring our son, or children, into our house in St. Louis when we started this process two and a half years ago. If there is anything I have seen as a common thread through all adoption blogs is the intense lesson of waiting you learn through the process of adoption. Some things we just have to go through to know what they feel like-waiting, fasting, moving and even the life-changing of giving your life to Jesus Christ. It's a journey.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13
We started by documenting our Ethiopian adoption, which has now changed to pursuing a little boy waiting in China! We are trusting in God's plan and enjoying the journey.
