Jodi Speaks Her Mind

What we’ve been up to 8/15/2005

I think I covered Friday pretty thoroughly. Not one of our brighter days. But the weekend was actually quite pleasant for us. Emotionally and spiritually, we have been incredibly strengthened and renewed. We have fresh hope for both the process and the outcome of our journey. Saturday and Sunday we mostly rested, took walks, bought some groceries, wrote correspondence, got some phone calls from family and friends, and generally just took it easy. The weather has been incredibly perfect – right around the low 70’s with varying cloud cover, intermittent sunshine, and occasional cool rain. We will certainly not complain at all about that!

Sunday morning, we were unable to make it to the English speaking church we went to last week because you pretty much have to go by car, and our friends were resting up after the 3-day youth rally we mentioned earlier. So we ventured to a Russian-speaking one called Hillsong, and it was really awesome! Worship was all in Russian, but the overheads also had English translations, so while we were singing in Russian, we could at least know the meaning of what we were singing. The songs were really awesome and lively and led by a band comprised of drums, several keyboards, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, electric bass, a couple of brass instruments, more percussion, and probably about 20 people bouncing all over the stages singing into group microphones or individual mics. They liked to clap and bounce all in unison, and their passion for the Lord was really evident. The style of worship was quite similar to what we are accustomed – if a bit more enthusiastic – so we felt quite at home. The message really spoke to us as well (they had headphones for English translation). Anyhow, once again, we found brothers and sisters to worship with and were really grateful for God’s provision in this regard.

Kiev really is a wonderful city, and we are growing quite fond of it. They have beautiful, lush green parks all over the place, and being such a pedestrian society, it is never dull to just walk around and enjoy things like families playing in the playgrounds with their children, or strolling through some cobblestone avenue inevitably finding some unusual monument or ancient tree or some unusual building, sculpture, artist, or street musician. While we wander, we will often pray for the future of Ukraine. Kiev is a marvel, as it is fast becoming equivalent to any modern European city, but parts of Kiev and the remainder of Ukraine is still very behind and very poor. They have come so far, and yet have so far still to go.

Happy Anniversary to Us

Today has been a special day, as we joyfully celebrate 7 years of marriage. I am so grateful for the Lord’s hand in bringing us together. It is another story of God’s incredible faithfulness, perfect timing, some pretty intense lessons in trust and patience, and even several distinct events that could not have been orchestrated by anyone but God Himself. It seems He gives us past experiences to help us through present circumstances, only each time the challenges seem to increase to require more trust and more faith than the previous set. Steve is the love of my life, and I can hardly imagine the joy of adding children into the mix. I know that he and I as a couple are already a “family”, but the longing for children has been planted deeply in both of us, and we are so excited right now as we anticipate the next phase of our lives together. Thank you, God, for your incredible goodness and faithfulness to us! May our marriage and our family always bring you glory and honor.

The hardest post I’ve ever written 8/13/2005

Ok, folks, here it is. I’m going to be really transparent on my blog today. I generally try to be, but I know that it might make some of you uncomfortable. Still I believe we glorify God most when we are real. I don’t promise it will be pretty…just honest. We believe that the journey, the process, is as important as the outcome of this trip. And most of the journey is an internal one. So here is a glimpse of my internal journey…

Obviously, we were hit pretty hard by the outcome of this second referral. It was so hard to say no, and looking back it wasn’t even so much because of the boy, though he was sweet and we pray hard that he is adopted by a loving family very very soon. The reason it was so difficult for us (and me especially) was because the cycle of frustration and doubt (along with a lot of waiting) followed by hope and a sense of possibility followed by crushing disappointment followed by hope for “the next time” followed by frustration and doubt…etc. etc… is a cycle we thought we had overcome when we came to grips with our decision to adopt and left our infertility behind. Through grace and trust, I had reached a place of peace and knew that this path of adoption was the path that God had chosen for us – at least for now – for our first child. With this peace and sense of God’s will, we moved forward towards adopting.

But as we experienced the repeated disappointment on Friday with this second referral, I found all those past emotions flooding back – overwhelming, suffocating, dark, and despairing, and worst of all – a feeling of hopelessness. I feared that “the cycle” was going to take over my life again. I cried most of the way back from Cherkasy (the region where we were) to Kiev. I cried a good bit for the boy, but mostly, selfishly, I cried for myself and my own hurt as the years of pain tried to descend upon me like a dark cloud – a ghastly and familiar dark cloud. But I was not overcome! God has done a real work of change in me, and while it was one of the hardest battles fought yet, even as I cried, I cast my fears before the Lord, and felt them, slowly, one by one, lift away. The difficulty with this process of “casting your fears on Him” is that each fear, each painful memory, has to be felt all over again (ouch), let go, and replaced with God’s truth, with His version of the situation because His version is the only right version. What seems awful and disappointing today will lead to God’s perfect will and utter joy tomorrow. If we accept this and surrender to His leading, we can live a life of adventure, peace, and joy that is beyond imagining. Sometimes, like last night, we get a glimpse, a foretaste so to speak, of that perfect joy and peace that can only be found in Him.

Back to the story…

Still feeling heavy-hearted, we returned to Kiev and got settled into our new flat. The first thing we did was get online to read the e-mails and comments that had been sent since Thursday. I was starting to feel a bit better, but still quite emotional. I was still fighting the internal demons of doubt and fear. I was seeing the giants again and feeling they were growing in strength, numbers, and power to defeat us. How were we possibly going to get a good referral in this kind of environment!? Why? How? It seemed impossible. We sat down and got online to read over e-mails and comments. We were feeling very tired, emotionally drained, and it didn’t take much to get us crying. E-mails from family and friends have touched us deeply here and helped to keep us connected to our “real life” outside of this bizarre adventure we seem to be in the middle of. Sometimes they contain news and sometimes they just let us know folks are thinking about us and praying for us. Sometimes they contain actual prayers that make us cry as our spirits agree and respond to the collective work that God is doing. Sometimes there are scriptures that people feel are encouraging or pertinent to our situation, and these are read with hope and gratitude. But tonight there was even more, and it seemed like God was speaking to us in a new way, more clearly and more specifically. Our God, it would seem, has us here going through this process and experiencing these difficulties and heartaches, and obstacles, for one particular reason – and this is in fact the thing we wanted most – that He might be glorified through the process and most especially by the result. Be careful, they say, what you ask for, because you might get it.

God has basically promised us that He will be faithful to complete this process here. We will find our children and there will be joy for everyone to share in. There have been several prophecies spoken about this and the latest are downright dizzying in their awesomeness.

We want to publicly worship and honor God as the orchestrator of all of this, and we give Him thanks in advance for His faithfulness to us. When it comes to pass, we hope that all of you who have witnessed it will do more than just be happy for us as we start our new life as parents – but that you will seriously consider the power, goodness, and faithfulness of God and praise Him for it! And, if you do not know Him personally, consider the joy of surrendering to Him. Knowing God is the sweetest, most amazing thing in the world and I desire that all of you would know the joy, peace, and thrill that is found in Him. Just like we will never be the same after this experience, those who give their lives to God truly are never the same again. Never – that’s eternity, and it can start at any moment.

To Him be the glory!!

Not the news I’d hoped to give 8/12/2005

This is a very difficult post to write. I am very sad to report that we are back in Kiev. Much like referral number one, this little boy we went to visit had a serious medical condition that had not been listed on his NAC file. In some ways we felt drawn to him, but the reality is that we are not at all equipped to address his needs, and we felt he is not the one for us. Rejecting this referral was not “peaceful and easy” like the first decision. This one was hard. We are emotionally wounded at the moment and plan to take the weekend to recover, grieve, pray, and seek direction for the future. Most likely, we will go on Monday and request a third appointment, but right now that feels a long way away and we are tired, weak, and a bit shaken from the experience.

Thanks in advance for your grace, support, and understanding.

Appointment No. 2 Update 8/10/2005

Our second appointment did take place today, though it happened at 2:15 instead of 10:30. The morning appointments (one in particular) were going really long, so ours and all the rest got pushed to after lunch. The hours and minutes leading up to the appointment were far more nerve-racking than the appointment itself, which went pretty well I guess all things considered. By “all things considered” I am basically referring to pretty much a complete lack of healthy young children and of semi-healthy children as well (meaning minor medical issues). There are some healthy children, though. For example, we were shown a group of 4 healthy siblings – ha, right! We were also shown a precious, healthy little boy just under two, BUT he’s not actually available for adoption because he has a 3 year old brother (hello, perfect referral!!!) BUT the older brother isn’t yet available so even if we were to promise to come back for the older one, the younger can’t be adopted until they are both available and can be adopted at the same time. Then, of course, they added that the older brother’s file lists 2 more older brothers… the complications went on and on (and we’re back to another set of 4 siblings – this time not actually available though). They showed us another boy, very cute a little over 3.5 years old, with just a cleft lip – otherwise very healthy, but his paperwork is incomplete, so he isn’t actually available either. Basically, they had no good files to show people, so they were showing UNAVAILABLE children. Go figure.

Nonetheless, in the end we sat with two not perfect but worth considering referrals in front of us. Both had some very desirable aspects and some quite obviously negative or problematic aspects to them. We prayed and sought God and wrestled hard over which of the two to pursue. We kept waiting for some indication from God or a “sign” that either was “the one” but we just didn’t get it. We felt like we were on a teeter totter. In some respects, we leaned a bit more towards one, but other reasons lead us to the other. We were at an impasse. In the end, we just picked one and decided to go for it.

So, that’s the meat of it, folks. We will pick up our referral paperwork tomorrow (or at least that’s the plan) and head out very early on Friday to meet the child. We will be driving this time and Dr. Yuri is going along as our driver and will do another assessment like he did for the first child we visited. The child we are going to see is a boy – age 2.5 – with some “minor medical issues” which could turn out to be major medical issues, but we shall see.

We do hope and pray that this is “the one” but only God knows for sure.

In any case, we’re glad to at least be done with the appointment part and heading towards the next step. Tomorrow, we will be doing our final laundry and packing up (we’ve been in this flat for almost 2 weeks, so we’re quite “moved in”). Also, we have several more pictures of Kyiv sights to share with you, so hopefully that will happen tomorrow as well.

Thanks for hanging in there with us! The roller coaster is inching up that first big hill now. I hope you’re strapped in tight!?!