Loving the Giver more that the gift

The name of our blog comes from the meanings of Lilibeth and Eddie's names. Lilibeth's name means "my God is abundance" and Eddie's name means "blessed," therefore, our blog became "My God's Abundant Blessings."

What I never dreamed of when I named this blog, is that God would be teaching me in a whole new way that I need to want Him more than I want His abundant blessings. I've learned more than ever before, what it means and feels like to completely surrender your blessings (in this case my children) to the Lord and trust Him with the outcome.

Through this whole adoption process I have had to trust God completely - with something that I badly wanted to happen. Something that I've dreamed about for years. And the Lord has refined me. You see, my trust is easy to give when things are going my way. But, the Lord has graciously shown me more of what it truly means to hang unto Jesus. The Lord has taught me that He is more satisfying than His gifts, and the lessons learned through pain can also be abundant blessings.

Pain for the Glory of God

Several of you have asked if we have heard anything recently about how Lilibeth and Eddie are doing. First of all, thank you for asking, and thank you for realizing that this is still painful for us. No, unfortunately we do not know for sure how they are doing. We have not heard from the family that is in process with them for a while, and we have yet to get a response from the international agency.

We are still dealing with the pain of this situation. There are few people who we have told everything about what has happened, so I'm sure it is hard to understand why we are still hurting over everything. Suffice it to say that we would give anything and do anything to have Lilibeth and Eddie home with us. When we accepted the referral they became our kids. We love them deeply and feel the loss greatly. Believe me, we have exhausted every avenue that we can think of, but we have realized that there is nothing left for us to do but to trust in the Lord's goodness and faithfulness.

When we embarked on this adoption journey our prayer was that God would be glorified throughout our process. Although we are trying not to dwell on our pain, we are acknowledging that God has an eternal purpose even in this horrendously difficult situation. We are grabbing unto God's promise that "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28) and steadfastly holding on regardless of how long the pain persists. We know that God can and will use all things to conform us "to the likeness of His Son" (Romans 8:29) And as Job said, "Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him." (Job 13:15) The God of the universe is our Father, and He does not make mistakes. He has never failed us, and He will not fail us now.

God's sovereignty means that He could have prevented my pain -- ouch! I don't like that! IF He is good, how could He have allowed such affliction? But the answer comes back from the pages of Scripture. His goal for me is far higher than external pleasure or a life without pain. He loves me so much that He desires to shape me into the very image of Jesus, and He is powerful enough to use every relationship and situation in my life to accomplish His objective. Yielding to this glorious truth delivers me from slavery to my pain -- perhaps not from the pain, but from slavery to it. . .

"We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure . . . . Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us . . . " (II Corinthians 1:8-10).

Our tendency to independence is crushed when the pressure is beyond our ability and we cast ourselves on resurrection power. Then we depend on His power that has delivered us, does deliver us, and will continue to deliver us!

Quote from By Design by Susan Hunt

Jesus, I am resting, resting

The Lord is continuing to teach us how to rest in Him. (In more ways than we ever anticipated!) Here is an e-mail to a friend who asked if I was nervous about our adoption:

DATE: 12/14/2007

I'm definitely nervous. Especially during the hard days - then I think, "Am I crazy, what was I thinking?!? How am I going to do this with four kids?" But then, I always come back to the amazing way that God has led us here so far, and I know (with my head, but not always my heart) that if God does not want this to happen - it still will not happen. I also know, like you said, that I really can't do it on my own. And I think that is exactly where God wants us to be - so that in our weakness He will make us strong. He gets the glory.

Right now I am struggling with how to make sure that I am in a place where I'm resting in Him and His strength even during the "easy" days, so that when the tough ones come (and I am expecting them to come) - I'll be better prepared and in the
habit of resting. (It makes me think of that hymn - "Jesus I am resting, resting. In the joy of what thou art; I am finding out the greatness, of Thy loving heart.) So, I think of it as an opportunity to learn more about God and for my faith to grow. (And trust me - I have a lot of growing to do!) I can totally imagine how you must be feeling right now though - It's easy for me to calmly say these things because I have not just been hit with any huge news!
Hang on to Jesus! I'm praying for you!
Sarah
ps Okay, so I had to go look up the rest of the words to that hymn - If you are interested, I love the verses (although the music on this site has much to be desired!!!) http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/j/i/jiamrest.htm

As we are resting in Jesus, you - my faithful readers - I'm sure have had quite enough of the posts of old e-mails! Of course I could go on an on, but with the next few posts I am going to list some of the adoption resources that I have been using and have found especially helpful. Should be a bit more interesting for those of you who are adopting right now. Thank you for continuing to pray for us and for Lilibeth and Eddie.

He works in ways we can't even see

Looking back at e-mails that I wrote during this process has really helped me to see how God was moving. Here is an e-mail I wrote last November:

DATE: 11/20/2007

This has been such a unique and heart-wrenching process for us! I have days too where I've been completely sad and discouraged and anxious . . . etc. It's still hard - even after having a referral because there are so many unknowns! For some reason lately God has really blessed me with a peace and rest about everything, but that has definitely not been my attitude throughout the process! . . . It's so hard to wait! . . .

So, the names. . . We are keeping Lilibeth's first name - We actually really like it! It is a combination of Lilian and Elizabeth. Lilian means "pure" and Elizabeth means "My God is abundance." We are changing her middle name to Joy (it is Melisa). We haven't settled on a name for Eddie yet, but we will most likely keep his middle name which is Eduardo (they call him Eduardo at the orphanage because his first name is Carlos and they had too many Carlos's already.)

. . . I just look back on everything now, and even though we don't have Lilibeth and Eddie in our arms yet, I can see why the Lord caused the delays that he did, even though it was painful and so hard at times. He has worked in ways that I can't even see, and I trust that Lilibeth and Eddie need to be where they are a bit longer than we had hoped because God has a greater plan than mine.

Oh, and I know what you mean about being concerned about the kid's transition into your home! I've been thinking about that a TON lately! I've noticed though that I get more anxious when I spend a lot of time reading the posts on the Guatadopt list - The people post the really hard situations, but the people who have good situations don't bother writing about it. But, I do think it will be hard. But it will be good too! And it will build character and faith! (I'll need to save this e-mail so I can read it to myself when the kids come home.) :)

Little did I realize that I what this e-mail would mean to me now. It will be hard, but it will be good. And it will build character and faith. God has a greater plan than mine!

Amazing adventure

A month after our referral our agency still did not know exactly how the adoption would work, but they were still very positive about the fact that it would work. They explained how the previous adoption they had done like this worked, and it sounded like ours would be similar. Here is a copy of an e-mail I sent to my brother on October 31, 2007.

DATE: 10/31/2007

We are still waiting for information from the attorney that our international agency works with. We don't know for sure how this adoption will work. But, we did get to send a care package for the kids with my friend who is leaving on Friday to go down there on a missions trip. We sent a cute photoalbum for Lilibeth. If you want, you can view it at http://www.photoworks.com/photo-sharing/shareSigninBook.jsp?shareCode=A0AE9E3C491&cp=ems_shr_alb_emb&cb=PW

If we don't have more concrete information before my friend leaves then she is going to leave the book with the lady who is in charge of the orphanage. That way she can give it to Lilibeth when we know more definitely that she'll be coming home.

So, we are just trying to be patient and wait for God's perfect timing for this. It is hard at times, but it is good to rest in Him and we trust that this is where he wants us to be right now. Adoption is an amazing journey. I never realized how much you can love a child without even meeting them. We are excited and nervous and thrilled and panicked (sometimes) :) It's quite the adventure.

The lady who ran the orphanage said that the kids were definitely coming to our home and told my friend to go ahead and give the kids their photo albums. I think it was at this point that I completely allowed myself to believe that they were going to come home! However, looking back on all these e-mails just continually reminds me that we were exactly where God wanted us to be. It is hard to comprehend why we would need to take this difficult path, but we do know that God has a plan through everything. Our prayer remains the same, "Lord, be glorified through our adoption journey."

Lessons Learned: Let Go and Let God

Through our adoption process so far we have learned so much more about what it really means to "let go and trust in God's perfect timing and perfect wisdom" than I ever imagined when I wrote this e-mail (just three days before our referral). It was good for me to read my own e-mail reminding me not to get all upset about things that are really beyond my control and to "rest in knowing that God is in control and working all things (even the hard things) together for our good!"

Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2007

This whole process is teaching me to just let go and really trust in God's perfect timing and perfect wisdom. Knowing that no matter what happens it will be for good. So, I'm learning not to get all upset about things that are really beyond my control. . . Of course my first thoughts are - "wait a minute, why wasn't our process like that!" But I know better than to dwell on that.

It's really a growing experience for me. I'm usually much more of a "hands on," "get it done," "assert yourself" type person. Anyways, just random thoughts, but all to say that it's really been good to rest in knowing that God is in control and working all things (even the hard things) together for our good! My biggest prayer through this whole process is that no matter what happens God will amazingly glorify his name through our process. . . I'm also praying that God would mightily show Himself to our social worker and others at [our homestudy agency] through our adoption process. In some ways we've already seen His blessing and answering that prayer, and we trust He will continue to do that!

All things work together for good

We are still processing what has happened these last few months. It has been a very difficult experience. I know that we have grown a lot through all the ups and downs and yes, even through the grief that we've gone through and are still dealing with. It's been very helpful and healing for me to look back at journal entries and e-mails that I sent to friends throughout these last several months. I thought I'd share some of those with you so that you too can hopefully see how God has been leading us and causing us to grown even through pain.

The following e-mail was sent to a friend just six days before our referral.


Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2007 20:27:47 -0500

We just found out that we are now number 5 on the waitlist. (So we moved up two spots in the last 1+ months.) [It actually turned out that we had not moved at all, but they anticipated that we would be moving up in the next week or so.] I don't really know what that means for us at this point . . . I have been talking with my social worker a lot about their domestic minority program. We have been praying about whether we should just switch to that program now, but when my social worker mentioned that to [the social worker at our international agency], [she] said she would like it if we could just "sit tight" for a little while longer, but she wouldn't say why . . .

I guess I don't really understand why she was not willing to give a reason why she wanted us to wait. But I'm trying, trying, trying to be patient and peaceful. For some reason it's harder when I feel like someone else might know something I would like to know :o)

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28 (English Standard Version)

Christ is All

Okay, here goes an attempt at explaining what's going on to all of you who love us and who love Lilibeth and Eddie and are praying for us. It is a very long, involved and complicated story, so it is really hard to tell in a brief couple of paragraphs. So, I'll give you the basics and then I might add some details in the entries to come.

There has been another family in process with adopting Lilibeth and Eddie since February 2007. We received the referral for them in September of 2007, after the family in process with them said that they were not able to continue. We were told that this family would be "disrupting," and we would adopt the children as a domestic adoption once they arrived in the United States. The last few months have been filled with ups and downs as any international adoption is - especially Guatemala adoptions lately.

We did believe, however, that Lilibeth and Eddie were coming to our home. We were thrilled at how specifically God answered many of our prayers in blessing us with these two precious children. We were told that the kids would most likely be home by the end of the year. We prepared for their homecoming as best we could by getting ready physically (buying beds, car seats, clothes, bilingual children's books, Spanish children's CDs, etc.) and getting ready emotionally. (I did try to guard my heart - but I'm wondering if it's actually possible after you receive a referral?) We also prepared our children for the addition of not one but two little siblings. My five-year-old daughter quickly went from "I think four is too many kids" to "I think Lilibeth and Eddie should both share my room with me." My two-year-old son frequently prayed "Tank you for Lilibeth and Eddie."

Then, one week before Christmas everything came crashing down. Literally. We experienced a grief that we had never known before. We were told "Lilibet and Carlos are no longer an option for you." You can imagine our absolute shock and disbelief. Up until this phone call we had absolutely no idea that anything was going wrong. We were made an offer to fly down to Guatemala and sign POA (power of attorney) for two other unrelated babies. There was absolutely no way we were giving up on our kids that easily. We pressed for answers - What had gone wrong? I now know what it means to experience so much grief at once that you actually suffer physically as well. My body completely reacted, and I was in bed with "flu-like" symptoms for the next day (it was most likely food poisoning at a very inopportune time). My husband was left to take care of the kids and try to put together the pieces of our shattered dreams.

Now comes the part that is a big reason I have been struggling with how to tell our story. This is where I could use prayer to have the right attitude towards people who we were trusting to help us and to do the right thing for Lilibeth and Eddie. I am going to leave some pertinent information out at this point because I just don't know how to tell it yet or if this is actually the place for it. For now, suffice it to say that after a few days we found out that Lilibeth and Eddie were again an "option" for us, but time was not on our side.

For those of you reading this who are not familiar with what is happening with Guatemalan adoptions right now, you need to know that everything in Guatemalan adoptions as we knew them ended at the end of December 2007. With only 4 business days left in the year, we were left scrambling trying to figure out what could actually be done to bring Lilibeth and Eddie home. After many agonizing phone calls and e-mails to people that are considered experts in Guatemalan adoptions, we became increasingly aware that there was nothing we could do this year (2007) that would help to bring them home. We were advised over and over that we needed to wait until next year when a new system of adoption was in place for Guatemala.

Although I did recover from my sickness, I was physically shaking for the next several days as we struggled to do something - anything - to figure out how to get these kids that we loved safely home. Eventually my body calmed down, but I spent the next few weeks making phone calls, researching on the internet, calling the US Department of Homeland Security, trying to figure out how to become a Guatemalan citizen in case it would help us under the new process. . . yes, basically exhausting every avenue I could think of.

Then came the final blow to my striving to figure out how to bring these children home. It came in the form of another phone call. This one was a tearful call from the woman who was in process with Lilibeth and Eddie since last February. She was calling to let me know that they had been contacted by our agency to ask them if there was any way they could still bring the kids home as their case was actually still active in Guatemala. They spent a few days to figure things out but are now proceeding to bring the children to their home ("grandfathered" in under the old system of Guatemalan adoption). I am so grateful to her for calling to tell me what was happening, because otherwise I would still be spending my time in a useless pursuit of information on how to adopt these kids.

I am ashamed to admit that at first I really was angry towards God for allowing this to happen when He so clearly led us to this place. During those weeks of extreme stress I said quick prayers for direction and comfort, but I did not spend time in agonizing prayer. I had more of an "I need to do something to fix this" attitude. I was not resting and trusting in my God who is good all the time, and who loves Lilibeth and Eddie more than I do and has the power to move in ways that I could never even imagine.

Looking back on the last several weeks I know that God has been doing a mighty work in my heart. For some reason, I was having a hard time completely surrendering Lilibeth and Eddie to Him. In fact, I have always struggled with knowing how to surrender my children completely to Him. I have prayed that God would show me how, and I believe that this experience has answered that prayer in a lot of ways. Walking through this fire has also taught me much about the all-sufficiency of Christ. There is a kind of joy that comes from realizing that Christ is all you need - everything else that He blesses you with is secondary compared to loving and knowing him.

Why Guatemala?

I'll give you the final decision maker as to why we chose Guatemala - namely: we fell in love with the idea of adopting a child from Eagle's Nest children's home. Now I will back up and fill you in on a little of the decision making process.

One of our considerations for where to adopt from was travel time. With two small children already at home, it was pragmatically difficult to even consider a country that required a lengthy stay. Guatemala has a very short time that is required to travel, so we were drawn to that country for that reason.

However, as I researched I soon discovered that there were many "rumors" and talk about concerns of child trafficking and other ethical issues with the way Guatemalan adoptions were being handled. Now, bear with me here. I realize that there are similar issues with any country you adopt from (including our own), and that there are many, many good, reputable agencies that provide excellent and very ethical service in uniting Guatemalan children to families. But, I'm just reporting what I was finding through my research, specifically that Guatemala was especially in the hot seat for issues concerning fraudulent adoption practices and child trafficking. Knowing that, we were wary of pursuing an adoption from Guatemala, and we were leaning towards a domestic minority adoption.

However, during one of our home visits for our homestudy our social worker was describing the different programs they had to offer for international and domestic adoptions. When she mentioned Guatemala, she said that in order to qualify through their program you needed to have a reference letter from a pastor. We were definitely intrigued and wanted to learn more. What we learned is that the agency that was doing our homestudy uses another agency for their program for Guatemalan adoptions. This other agency matches children out of an orphanage in Guatemala that is run by Baptist missionaries. We looked at the web-sites for the orphanage and the international agency, and we checked for any other information we could find about them.

In the end, we fell in love with the idea that our child would be well cared for at this children's home. We could go there to visit and stay right there in apartments that they had on site. Years later we could go back to visit, maybe even taking our child with us if he or she was interested. We could support the home even after our child was home with us. These were all reasons we fell in love with Eagle's Nest children's home in Guatemala, and we were thrilled to adopt children from that home.

My Husband's Response

After reading my last post, my husband e-mailed me with some additional thoughts:

I think God has blessed us with a taste of his experience of adopting us. Because of a desire in his heart to rescue those who were without a 'home' he committed himself to a process which in the short term caused him intense suffering and pain. Unlike us, God knew ahead of time that the process would be unspeakably difficult and full of rejection and betrayal. He endured this because he knew that displaying the glory of his adopting love was worth the price he would pay and that it would eventually result in an eternal joy. We got to channel a bit of his adopting love to Eddie and Lilibeth, and though this love did not produce the fruit of successful adoption we get to rejoice that this love will not be wasted and will somehow fold in to that eternal joy that all of God's successfully adopted children will one day feel.

Why Adoption?

Why adopt? Bottom line is: We love kids! We would love to have a lot of kids, and adoption is a beautiful way to add kids to our family. Having said that, there are also other factors that led us to choosing adoption for our family.

When I was a child if anyone asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, my reply was always the same: "I'm going to start an orphanage in Vietnam." I guess I have always had a heart for orphans. I also grew up knowing four aunts and uncles and a cousin who were all adopted and all but one of Asian descent. My husband has a special place in his heart for orphans because he is an orphan and knows how it feels even as an adult to be without parents.

Our Heavenly Father also has a special place in his heart for orphans. He calls himself the "Father of the fatherless." (Psalm 68:5) Throughout the Bible evidence abounds for His special love for the fatherless. And then, we are commanded to "look after orphans in their distress." (James 1:27) We are not specifically told to adopt orphans into our families, and we realize that there are many ways to provide relief to orphans. But, we also believe that adoption is a beautiful picture of our relationship with our Heavenly Father. He says several times in the New Testament that if we are trusting in Him, He adopts us. We are no longer strangers, but daughters and sons. Our journey towards adoption has given us a new perspective on God's loving Father heart that receives us into His family as legal heirs. (See Romans chapters 8 and 9)

Would we have chosen adoption if we knew that it would lead us down this path of intense suffering and pain? Honestly, I'm not sure. But I hope so. I hope so because we did not enter into the process of adoption lightly. We entered with much prayer and by following the leading of our Heavenly Father. If we would have somehow been able to foresee this suffering and turn away from the process, we would not have been walking in obedience to our all-knowing, all-powerful and all-sufficient God. We would not have tasted the joy that comes from being sustained by God's grace through the deep valley of pain.

The grace of God is sufficient for every new day no matter how difficult. . . There is more true joy in walking with God through fire, than walking on beaches without him.
-Pastor John Piper

Purpose of this blog

When I started this blog my purpose was to share our exciting news of our referral and then future updates with family and close friends. We were new to the blogging scene and nervous about making personal information public, but as time went on and our attachment to Lilibeth and Eddie grew, we eventually wanted to tell everyone we met our exciting news. I enjoyed also the idea of meeting other adoptive families who were also waiting for kids from our same orphanage. I anticipated printing entries and comments out for Lilibeth's and Eddie's Lifebooks.

The other purpose of my blog was to enlist the help of our family and friends in praying for us and for Lilibeth and Eddie. I want to thank all of you for your encouragement and prayers during the last months. God has definitely granted many requests.

My purpose of continuing this blog, even after loosing hope that Lilibeth and Eddie will come home is to glorify God by attempting to tell our story in such a way that shows how He has moved and is working even through an incredibly difficult and tumultuous adoption process. We have prayed since the beginning of our adoption process (over three years ago) that God would display His glory and draw people to Himself through our process. And even though we do not have a "fairy tale ending" to our story, our prayer remains the same.

So, over the next several entries I will attempt to piece together our story for you. My prayer for you as you read this is that you will be irresistibly drawn to our almighty God who is good all the time.