Was that the phone?...No guess not...

I was doing laundry this morning and thought I heard the phone ring-nope. The unfortunate thing is that, especially after school, our phone rings quite a bit. I am finding that I almost prefer someone else to answer it. Guess I am getting a little nervous about "the call".

Praying that we hear something soon. If it's a Kick-out at least we would know and it could be fixed and re-submitted.

So...what is one to do while they wait for the phone to ring? There are the obvious things like: laundry, cleaning, ironing, and meal planning. We have also painted both our girls' bedrooms- one a great shade of Guacamole (that's the color's name - really), and one white with large pink and green polka dots! How's that for variety! Then we had to switch all the stuff in the rooms, phew! Where do they get all that stuff!?

Next we tackle the "storage room" - dum, dum, de, dum. This one I sort of dread. I have gone through the saved kid's clothes and feel like I got pretty ruthless in my sorting. My sister has three girls and she was here this weekend so I sent her home with two boxes of girl's clothing. Yeah! We need to empty this room as it will become Daniel's bedroom. So instead of listening for the phone I had better get busy- BECAUSE- one day the phone will ring.

I am working on this this week:

"You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you, Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord is the Rock eternal." Isaiah 26:3-4

28 days and counting....praying....waiting...

I snitched this picture off of another's blog - Nathan is sitting in the background on Carmen's lap [Carmen is his mama at the Children's Home]. Please pray for Carmen she has recently come to know Jesus as her Savior.

The Lord is good to all; He has compassion on all He has made. Psalm 145:9

No news may be good news, but you never know in this wait. We were re-submitted on Feb.28 to PGN and we continue to wait. Pretty much everything in Guatemala shuts down over the Holy Week, plus our attorney was on vacation. So we won't get an update this week, though if they hear anything in the mean time they will let us know!

Today we took a Family Fun Day. Ken took the day off, the kids are on spring break this week. We went up and looked around the campus of the college our oldest has chosen and investigated the town. It was fun, though overcast and raining after a bit. It was fun to get away from home for a little while and just be a family.



Joel, Brandon, and Daniel waiting to get there.


Allison passing the time reading, or is she hiding from the camera?


Here are the girls on the way home, they have been in the car long enough!
(Note: they aren't intentionally segregated, it's just how they ended up today.) A good day shared all together.

Have a Blessed Easter

May this Easter be a special day of worship for you and your family.

From LYRICSMODE.COM lyrics archive

Song lyrics | On My Cross lyrics

Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. I John 5:4-5

Our First Born Son

When you have a large family and you make a decision to bring home another child you at times wonder what the older kids are thinking but not saying. Joel doesn't say much at times but I know that his mind is always going. Well, when we started discussing where we would put another child, bedroom-wise, Joel immediately wanted to share a room with Nathan. Now, part of that is not too bad of an idea as some young children are up a lot at night and some teenagers are nocturnal, we did decide however to leave him in his own bedroom. But it did show a piece of Joel's heart for his littlest brother-to-be.

Joel is one of those responsible kids whose homework you don't need to check. :) He has somewhat of an engineering brain with the heart of a disciple-maker. It is a great combination. His future plans have hopped all over the place-from architecture, car design, ministry, teaching English as a second language, ambassador... It will be exciting to see how the Lord leads Joel. He has such a willing heart and is eager to be used by the Lord.

As a part of the mission team we travelled with last summer to Guatemala he pitched in where needed and really enjoyed living for a week with some of the young men on our team. Partway through the week Joel was ready to move to Guatemala!

After trying sports he figured out they weren't really his passion. For a while he played clarinet. But I really love listening to Joel play the piano, he has taken lessons for years but also plays by ear (which is frustrating to his teachers). I love it when he puts together a song he has heard with his own twist! To us it seems Joel's music comes from his heart.

But to us, the most important thing about Joel is his commitment to the Lord. He is faithful to spend time in God's Word and loves the spiritual conversations he has with other kids. He is an encouragement to me as I watch him.

Now, lest I leave the impression that this guy has no faults maybe I'll share our recent Jeep story with you all sometime. :)

There are still orphans....

When we did our visit trip in February two new babies were brought into the Children's Home while we were there. Today on the website it says that 4 more babies were brought to the home. While there are not new adoptions beginning in Guatemala at this time, there are still orphans. And that is where it gets difficult. The money to feed and care for these children comes from the adoptions. Without the adoptions there is not money coming in to care for these precious children.

Maybe someone reading this has a heart for orphans but is not being lead to adopt. There are many opportunities, besides adoption, to come alongside an orphan. Below is an opportunity to do just that:

Visit the Eagle's Nest site - www.eaglesnestint.org

look for the link for Sponsor-A-Child. There you can see the real faces of little ones needing support. You can then link to the HOW CAN I HELP for more information.

Do not discount the power of prayer for these little ones. The Lord told the disciples to let the children come to Him. He has commanded us to care for the widow and the orphan. Perhaps the role you play is to pray for these children, for the financial need of their care to be met and for the Lord to bring about the resumption of adoptions in Guatemala-for the sake of the children and for the glory of the Lord.


The King will reply, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Matthew 25:40

PGN

PGN stands for Procuraduria General de la Nacion (Office of the Attorney General of Guatemala). HOWEVER, I am choosing to cling to a new definition of PGN.

P - Patience

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Psalm 27:14

G - Goodness of God

The Lord is good to all; He has compassion on all He has made. Psalm 145:9

N - Not Shaken

I have set the Lord always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Psalm 16:8

Now, please understand I am not saying that I have mastered this new way of thinking of PGN, but I'm trying. With each step of our adoption I think, okay I'll relax a little bit now (we have DNA, DNA is a match, we have our Pre-approval, we're in PGN,etc.). However, with each step we are one step closer to bringing Nathan home and that makes my emotions go haywire some moments. So I am going to try to keep this in perspective: while it looks like we are waiting on PGN, we are really waiting on the Lord, and to Him I desire to cling. (Even when I check my email, fellow adopter's blogs, and what is happening on the forums more often than any normal person should during the day.)

Case Update!

Here's Nathan "hanging out" waiting to come home.



We received a case update today. We were submitted to PGN on Feb.28! Yeah! It is not unusual to receive a KO (kick-out) from PGN due to paperwork details, on either the US or the Guatemala side. We are praying that our paperwork would be looked at favorably and we would have a quick trip through PGN.



Nathan's update was very good. He now weighs 13# 15oz and is 23.8 inches tall. He continues to eat and sleep well and be good natured.

Our Oldest

Since I started this blog as an outlet for my thoughts during our latest adoption I haven't given much detail about our family. While we are waiting through the last stages of bringing home Nathan I thought I might share a little about the rest of the clan. (of course as soon as we hear updates about Nathan so will you all!)

Last night I went with our oldest daughter shopping for a prom dress. That's an experience! You look at dresses entirely differently when your daughter is wearing them. We had a great talk in the car about what to look for in a dress. I'm not sure the word "modesty" applies to prom dresses this season. You used to have to watch how the front of the dress is cut, but now you have to be careful about how low the back of the dress is cut too! Since Allison is certain her dad would have her wearing a snowsuit to prom, (complete with hat, mittens, and boots) having her think through if it would be okay with Dad wasn't a good fit. I came up with a new measuring tool: if she could wear the dress in front of our Pastor and be comfortable it would probably pass the test for her dad. (He has seen the dress on the hanger, but not on his daughter yet). Ken is very aware that our little girl is growing up and when he sees her in this dress, any possible remaining doubts will be gone. I should tell you that she is going with a group of friends - no dates, something they decided they would do their senior year. This takes a lot of the pressure off!

Allison was recently given the honor of being the Student Servant Leader of the Year by a local organization. She really has a heart for service and for reaching people for Christ. We have wondered at times what Allison 'really thinks' about our large family, it adds to her responsibilities at home. When we were visiting colleges she made an interesting comment to me. She told me that she didn't want to go too far away because she didn't want to be the big sister that left and her younger siblings wouldn't know. She said, "you know mom, Molly, Brandon, and Nathan are still little and I want them to know me." What a young lady and a great sister! I know that her attitude is a testimony to her faith in the Lord.

"I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth." 3 John 1:4

It seems like in the beginning of parenting we had all these great ideas-some we have kept, others we have discarded. The Lord has been so kind to us, leading Ken and I as we have sought to be purposeful parents. Parenting is another of those topics that we have brought before the Lord on our knees often.

Note: The picture of Allison and Ken is from our mission trip to Guatemala last summer. Any "Big Ten" fans will notice their shirts - when Allison came home from buying her t-shirt it was sitting on our kitchen table. Later on she was looking for it and couldn't find it anywhere, her dad had put it out in the garage - he was disturbed that a child of his would wear anything but the Illini! heehee

No news yet

We should be getting a case update soon to tell us if we are back in PGN yet. So we are biding our time and wondering.

We thought we knew how we would use our bedroom space when Nathan comes home but now we are re-thinking that. Ughh. Right now the plan involves emptying our "storage" room and using it for a bedroom for our second son. This also makes better use of our bathrooms. The people we bought the house from used it as a bedroom but it needs some finishing touches. We set a goal for starting our bedroom moves when we went into PGN, so we are gearing up to get started. The great thing about this new plan is that if forces me to go through all of the STUFF we've been storing. Perhaps because of our recent trip to Guatemala, I have been convicted about all of the stuff we keep. So purging is a good thing! Of course, all of this has to be done between activities so I am praying for great BURSTS of energy for everyone. :)

We are praying that things continue to move in Guatemala as they have been lately, that would be great! We are sooo ready to bring this little boy home and love him to pieces.

As we wait I am learning a lot about the Lord's timing versus mine. I know how I want things to play out but I know that the Lord's plans are always better than mine. My prayer as I wait is that I will wait in a way that pleases the Lord.

Natalie found this picture on the EN site. She was excited and thought I should post it. When we were in Guatemala we thought he might be teething, drooling a lot and everything went in his mouth, now his tongue is sticking out. :)

Always fun to see his smiling face!

There was 11 in the bed and Rodolfo said....

move over!

(Rodolfo is our Nathan's birth name-far right back row). I love this picture! They are all so cute and cuddly.

We will have to wait a little while for a case update. We are praying that we will be re-submitted to PGN quickly! (we could possibly be in already).