Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Kindness of Friends & Strangers...

Last you heard we were under the gun for making a large payment to our agency for the completion of our dossier. The payment was actually due today & I'm so happy to report that the entire check is in the hands of my agency & God provided every penny that we needed!!! God is SO good. We didn't even have to figure it out, we just kept praying & trying to leave it in His hands. He already had it worked out for us. For those of you who have supported us in prayer, with financial gifts or buying a t-shirt... words can't even express how thankful we are. Thank you for allowing God to use you to bless us through this process & for helping us get that much closer to bringing our children home!!!

With that said, I want to share with you the kindness of strangers. I'm not really even sure the story other than they are friends of a dear, dear friend. In the last two weeks we have received checks from two men that we don't even know. One with a beautiful adoption story of his own... his sister was adopted from Korea. The other, I have to admit, I know absolutely nothing about. He just mailed a check & that was that. Both of these gifts brought me to tears as did almost every check we received from all of you!

This got me thinking... who does that? Who just drops a check in the mail to someone they don't even know. Obviously these two men do. I have always considered myself to be a pretty generous person & honestly, it is hard being on the receiving end during this season of life. It is humbling but it is also really a wonderful thing. To know people are out there who are willing to give when they hear a need, to reach out to people they don't even know. I want to be more like that.

Who does this remind you of? Jesus did just that... his entire life on this earth! He consistently gave with no expectation, knowing no one would ever "deserve" what he was about to give them. He gave the ultimate gift knowing many would never even acknowledge it. His love was perfect! Perfect love casts out all fear. I had some fear surrounding this payment. I received perfect love in the kindness of strangers, all of our friends & family. I never needed to be afraid of what God had in front of us. I just needed to trust that he would completely take care of it & stop trying to control the situation myself. I know I'm a stubborn person & sometimes things have to slap me in the face before I get it. I'm so thankful the Lord has patience with me & understands my humanness.

Ways you can be praying...

  • usually takes about 2-3 months to translate the dossier, pray this will go much faster
  • learning Spanish
  • that our trust in God would not waiver through the remaining expenses (travel, in country & post adoption expenses) that is more than we have paid for everything so far
  • we would continue to have peace through this process & can handle the things that are coming
Thank you, thank you, thank you... so much for loving us!!!

4 comments:

Michelle said...

wonderful news!

jillstroud said...

So thankful God is ministering to you through this process. What an awesome story He is writing on your hearts! We will continue in prayer for you. We love you guys.

SarahRachel said...

Yay!! God is so good! We will continue to pray for you! I always read your updates to Alan and we both get so excited for you and Jeremy!

Suzie Skinner said...

oh pam, how great!!! i am so impressed with your patience on waiting for god. i mean seriously i know myself and i would have planned out how the money would be coming in and would have applied for numberous loans and done everything in my power to be prepared. that's such a good lesson for me.....to truly learn how to wait on god and not take matters in to your own hands when you're "under the gun". i pray that i will learn to do that in the small things so that i can do it in the big things. thanks for sharing. i love you!!!