We’ve been home a little more than a week now.  That was fast!  I’m elbow-deep into diapers, homeschooling, and “happy heart” chairing (our main method of dealing with meltdowns around here.  “Oh, go sit in the happy heart chair until you can change your attitude and have a happy heart.”  Seth and Havalah have spent an unfortunate amount of time in that chair this past week.  Gotta love resetting the boundaries….), and Jed has been back to work since the morning after we landed.  The question everyone is asking us is fresh in the front of our brains:

Gooooood question!  Here’s what I can tell you for now:

1.  We know God wants our family in Ukraine.

2.  We don’t know exactly when we will get there.  We have a couple pesky things like a mortgage and jobs that need to be dealt with.  🙂

3.  We don’t know how long He will want us in Ukraine.  We are open to 2 years or 20 years.  We won’t try to figure that one out on our own.  I know for me personally, I will have to go with the mindset that I am there for good no matter how long we actually stay.  I will have to root my heart there in order to be focused, otherwise, I’m a grass is greener type of gal.

So, for now, we wait on the Lord for His next steps for us and prepare however we can in the meantime.  I’ve been like a crazy person this week purging my house.  If we know we will eventually be leaving, we know we’ll have to get rid of a bunch of our junk.  Why not start today?  I mean really, do I need an entire tote full of nursing school care plans and assignments?  Heck no.  Do I really need doubles of every single picture taken in college?  Probably not.  My hair was really bad then anyway.  I don’t need double the reminders.  I also had chipmunk cheeks.  Really!  I showed Jed a picture and he said it looked like I was storing food for winter in my cheeks.  Gee thanks…but it’s true…I’ll be the first to admit those were not my cutest days.  What else would you expect after 4 years of living in the dorms and a really severe allergy/aversion to exercise? (I hate pain)

Oh my, the things we have saved over the years kill me.  Have you ever gone back and read old journals from junior high and high school?  If you need a good laugh or encouragement about how far you’ve come, read a few old journals.  Oh the humiliation!!!!  As I was sitting alone in my room reading old journals I actually found myself looking around in embarrassment as if someone would walk in at any moment and discover all the never-gonna-happen crushes I had back in the day.   I think I better burn those suckers before Jed finds them.  He’d never let me live it down.

Another step we’ve taken towards preparing for Ukraine is finding a Russian tutor!  We haven’t met her face to face yet, but we found a woman who is a believer who agreed to teach us.  She was a teacher in Russia and has lived in the States for 7 years.  Before moving here she taught English to Russians, and Russian to Russians, but she’s never taught Russian as a second language before.  This should be fun!  We are very motivated to learn and know it is essential that we learn as much as we can in the time we have.  We will meet her next week and get that ball rollin’.

Emotionally it’s been a hard week for me.  I’m happier than happy to be with my kids.  I’m so happy to see family and friends.  All that is wonderful and amazing.  There’s just one problem.  I left a ginormous piece of my heart in Ukraine.  I know Jed did too.  It’s just really difficult to have seen a part of the need and to know it’s still happening today, right this second, and we aren’t there to help.  I’m not saying we are the saviors, or we can fly in and fix everything there with our magic fairy dust, by no means am I saying that.  We just know God called us to that work and we want to help, hands-on, right now.  But, at the same time, we want to continue waiting on the Lord and letting Him guide this thing.  His timing is everything.  His plan is at work and we want to stay right in the middle of it and not make our own way.  It’s emotionally tiring though.  I want to just stick a For Sale sign in my yard tomorrow and be done with it.  Good thing I’ve got Jed to reign me in.

So, that’s where we’re goin’ from here.  We’ll keep you posted as things continue to unfold.  In the meantime, I’ll just keep weeding through embarrassing reminders of 1994-2001.  If you were my friend at any point during that time, shame on you for not telling me my hair was so bad.  On the other hand, maybe I should thank you for looking past my wings, perms, bandanas, Patty Duke flip, and HUGE bangs and loving the real me hiding behind the fluff.  🙂

Good night!

Yesterday we got some adoption news!  We hadn’t heard any news in months.  I was starting to imagine our paperwork was actually lost in the abyss of the state offices.  We got word that we have an Adoption Coordinator assigned to our case now.  I have no idea what an Adoption Coordinator does, but hey, it’s more news than I had last week…so I’ll take it!  Supposedly once they process those forms everything moves really quickly.  I really really hope so!

Here’s a sneak peek of the cuteness.  He loves all things chicken.  The Little Red Hen, the real hens in our backyard, toy chickens, and yes- chicken as food. 🙂

 He decided his toys needed to take a swim…

We also have good news about our April trip!  We were finally able to make contact with a couple that we most wanted to meet with in Ukraine.  This is the couple whose work initially drew us to want to save up all our pennies to fly across the world.  From what I know about them it seems they are doing exactly the type of work that we are passionate about.  Even if we couldn’t make contact with them we were still making plans to go and meet with others, and we were happy about that, but the blessing of being able to meet with these specific people just about triples our excitement about this trip.  WAHOOOOOOO!!

I’m slowly and steadily making a bit of progress on language learning.  OH MY WORD.  Why can’t they speak Spanish where we’re going????  My brain feels a bit foggy with doing Spanish studies with the kids in the morning for their class, and then doing my language study in the afternoon…I just know when we get there I’m going to be thinking in Spanish…or Albanian.  Ha!  My in-laws live in Kosova, so they speak Albanian there.  It’s not like I’m fabulous at Albanian (not even semi-fab), but you know how international travel goes,  your brain reverts to the last non-English language you learned.  But, it’s not like we have a translator meeting us at the airport, so I better get my rear in gear!!  I’ve been pretty faithful in my studies since the new year started, so Lord, please bless my efforts…HELP!!!!

On a less scary note, here’s some cuteness to sum up January.

Ez and Mommy had a date night

I think it’s pretty safe to say 2011 has been one of the best years of my life. I can’t believe it’s almost over!!  It’s amazing to look back and remember what life was like just one year ago and how much has changed since then.

Last year, at the beginning of 2011 we were in mourning. We had just been told that our 7-month-old baby boy we had fostered since day 1 would not be able to become our son.  The state was going to be doing open recruitment to choose a family for him, but because of some policies that had just been changed, we would not be eligible to apply to be his family.  He knew no one but us, and hadn’t seen his birth parents since leaving the hospital at 2 days old. We were his parents.  We were being told a big fat NO.

BUT…..

Praise the Lord we have a rockin’ case worker and our boy has an amazing lawyer who stood up and shouted that this was not right.  They fought for our boy and for our family.  Now, at the beginning of 2012 we are simply waiting on some final paperwork to be processed and he will be ours.  He will officially and legally be our son.  Oh, how I long for that day.  They tell us it will be soon!!!  God truly moved mountains to give us our son.  (Soon we can show pictures of him too! He’s quite the cutie)  🙂

At the beginning of 2011, we were halfway into our first year as a homeschooling family.  We were questioning if we were doing the right thing, we were insecure, we were struggling with math.  🙂  Now, at the beginning of 2012, we are comfy in our homeschooling shoes.  That’s definitely not to say I think we’ve got it figured out or that I’m an old pro now, but I can say we know we are doing the right thing for our family and we are thankful for that security.  Our days are full- full of diapers, interruptions, spilled milk (really!), meltdowns, overflowing laundry baskets, and potty-training disasters.

BUT…

They are also full of giggles and snuggles on the couch with the latest read-aloud we just can’t put down.  They are full of math breakthroughs, library books, ballet in the living room, and sweet Bible times with our single candle lit on the kitchen table.  I wouldn’t trade it for the world.  I thank God for the blessing it has been to our family.

At the beginning of 2011, I was a passive observer in my life with Christ.  I had become cynical and bored with my faith.  Oh, I have never stopped loving Jesus.  He and I had some sweet moments together, but they were few and far between- and I know the fault in that lies completely with me.  I had given up on dreams and passions that He had given me and created me for.  I was faithful in my actions, as far as serving the Body, yet my heart was far away.

BUT…

My God pursued me with reckless abandon.  He chased me down and He would not let me go.  He spoke to me in a small whisper at first.  That whisper grabbed my attention.  I picture Jesus like one of my kids who is so stinkin’ excited to show me something new, something they have created.  “Come here!  Look over here!  Look what I’m doing!!!!”  Yep, once Jesus had my attention He took me by the hand and said “Look!  I’m doing a new thing, and guess what?  You get to be a part of it!!  Follow me.”  Jed and I never would have thought last year at this time we’d be trying to learn a new language in preparation for a trip to a country in Eastern Europe.  I never even really thought about that country and we had NO idea about all the precious lives lying in wait there.  There was a whole community of people fighting for those precious lives and we had no clue about any of it!

I’m telling you what, Jesus changed my life in 2011 and I will never ever be the same.  My Jed has been amazing through it all.  He led our family and sought the Lord when I was uninterested.  He prayed for me and he loved me and I can never thank him enough for leading our family so faithfully.  Now God is calling Jed and I and our family to a great adventure.  Something big is about to happen.  YEEEEEEEHAW!!!!!

In 2011 God gave us our son.  He gave us vision.  He renewed our passion.  He changed our lives.  He set us on a course and we can’t wait to see where it leads.