Bedtime prayers

One of our favorite parts of the day comes at the end, when we all gather together in one of the rooms and pray as a family. Each of us pray a prayer. I've been working with my children in teaching them how to pray. With younger children (and adults), one of the easiest patterns to fall into is to pray a repetitive prayer, almost a rote recitation of requests to God. At times, after hearing a prayer that sounded familiar, I've asked my children if they thought about what they said. Other times I've heard my children stop in mid prayer after reciting a cliche' and start over, communicating from their heart to God.

We always pray for Lovette and Yekekou. They also pray for Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Anouk and their adoption. Tonight they added a request for some families that they don't even know. They are the ones that I referred to in an earlier post. It touched my heart to hear them praying for the adoptions of these families and for children that in all likelihood they will never meet. Still, they are learning what it means to intercede for others in prayer.

I've received some comments about my earlier post, both public and private. Some have alluded to something that I wanted to say, but perhaps didn't articulate very well. It came out in our prayers tonight. We love Yekekou and Lovette. And the sincere desire of our heart is to bring them into our home. But at the same time, they are not ours. And that's not because the Liberian government hasn't granted them to us, or because we are awaiting approval of the United States Department of State. Lovette and Yekekou, even if the adoption is granted and we bring them home, still will not belong to us. Like our biological children, they belong to God. If God is gracious to us in allowing us to bring them into our home, we will be granted both the privilege and responsibility of making these children disciples of Jesus Christ. Scripture is not at all ambiguous about the charge to parents to instruct children. And while the task is daunting, and beyond our capabilities, we know that God's grace is sufficient to enable us to fulfill this task.

Tonight as we prayed, we acknowledged God's sovereignty in this whole matter. And we prayed, sincerely, for the salvation of Lovette and Yekekou. We would not, for one moment, want these children in our home at the expense of their souls. And while we believe that we would be faithful in our responsibility to teach them about Jesus, and that they would have every opportunity to respond to His call to repentance if they were in our home, we asked God to bring them to Him, even if that meant that he didn't bring them to us.

After we prayed, we checked our e-mail, and received some new pictures of the girls. Was it a sign? Of course it was. It was a sign that God is gracious, and provides us with blessings that we could never deserve. Keep them in your prayers. Of course we want everything to go smoothly with this adoption. But even more than we want them in our family, we want them to become part of God's family. So pray for them to that end. God knows best how to accomplish that, and we trust Him completely.

The basement project

Sometimes difficulties can be blessings in disguise. That's what the flooding in our basement turned out to be. The water problem prompted us to install a backup sump pump ("us" being a relative term...we couldn't have done it without Bill Hunt's expertise and willingness to help), allowed us to put in new flooring throughout the basement, provided Lacey with an opportunity to paint the basement, and gave me a reason to finally change some of the light fixtures that we wanted to change. In fact, one fixture that I switched out hadn't worked properly since we moved into the house almost a year and a half ago.

We also moved our television downstairs, giving our main floor much more utility. Our family room in the basement is more of a theater room now. Lacey was able to rearrange the other side of the basement to set it up for our homeschooling with Classical Conversations.

We learned how to install laminate flooring. While even a modest inspection would reveal that it was very much a DIY project, we are pleased with the results. Lacey and I completed the office on Saturday morning, and later that afternoon Jeremy and Anouk Scott came over and helped us install the same style of flooring in the bedroom in a little over three hours. The next night Lacey and I spent almost the same amount of time trying to finish the closet.

So, in the process of cleaning up the mess, we have made our home more weatherproof, learned how to do some home improvement projects, remodeled our basement, and gained valuable space on our first floor. That's what I mean by a blessing in disguise.

Praying for Adoptions in Liberia

Through this adoption process we have been connected with many wonderful people who are in the same boat as we are in. They have been led by God to adopt a child from Liberia. They have filled out the paperwork. They have received a referral. They have anxiously waited as the adoption process has been completed in Liberia.

Then something goes wrong.

We've had snags in our adoption process. But our snags have mostly been self imposed goofs (such as getting the wrong fingerprints on a card). Right now I can think of several families that are facing obstacles to their adoption that must feel like a blow to the stomach from Mike Tyson.

Imagine seeing pictures of a child, knowing their name, writing cards and letters to them, and preparing for the joy of bringing them home, only to find out, moments before you are to travel, that the adoption may not take place. As I read their stories I get an empty feeling in my own stomach because I realize that we could face that very same situation. For Lacey and me, it's almost this unspoken fear...like a nightmare that you don't even want to talk about because speaking about it causes you to relive the imagined horror all over again. When I read about families such as the Alonso's or the Borchert's, I want to reach out to them, but words literally escape me.

I am convinced that God wants us to adopt from Liberia. And I believe that he put Lovette and Yekekou on our hearts and in our lives for a reason. And in our minds they are our daughters. But we don't know exactly what God has in store for us, or for Lovette and Yekekou. It may be that He brings them to us without incident and in record time. That would be wonderful. However, there may be bumps in the road, and it may even be that He has plans for them that do not include us bringing them to the United States. That's a hard pill for us to swallow right now, but I know that if indeed that is His plan, He will provide us with the grace necessary to go through it.

I know this seems like a dark post. I don't intend for it to be. But I can't help but think about these things as I see others going through these trials. And the good thing about trials is that they remind us, perhaps even more than blessings do, of our complete and total reliance on God for everything that we have and do.

For those of you that are praying for us, thank you for your prayers. And while you are praying, please pray for the Alonso, Borchert, Holtz and Redman families as well.