Sadness and Happiness and Sadness and Happiness…

If you’ve been following Erika and I on here, Facebook, prayer letters or other, you know our lives have been FULL of drama… for the last… 2 years.  We really are not this exciting.  Really.  However, in the last week we have prepared to say goodbye to our foster daughter just as we receive word our adoptive daughter is ready to be picked up!  More details will follow in the days to come, but I want to thank so many of you for your love and encouragement, prayers and thoughts, comments and notes.  You have helped to sustain us in a very difficult time, as well, the Father has used you to constantly support and encourage us in some very discouraging and dark days.  Before these next few weeks of more drama and tears, I just wanted to thank you and to give glory to Him.  He has answered your prayers in more ways than you will know.  It has been amazing to get answer after answer after so long in waiting.  Not all the answers have been yes.  But we continue to trust His perfect plan and timing. 

We received Travel Approval for Emma last night at 11:30pm.  We are waiting on our agency to inform us when our appointment has been set up. WE HOPE to then purchase tickets to go and get Emma.  We’ll have her for 24 hours and then sign official adoption papers the next morning.  Our plan is then to return to our home for a few days to meet Bella’s family, pack up the last few things for the year and fly to Guangzhou where Emma will be given a US visa.  We may even be going through this process with Bella and her family… “What a coincidence” (note sarcasm).  Then we’ll fly back to the US and when Emma steps foot on US soil she’ll be an American Girl (insert upbeat country song here).   Of course this all hinges on things going quickly and smoothly.

Continue to pray for Emma and Bella’s next few weeks as this will be  a HUGE transition… Bella to her new family and Emma from an orphanage to ours.  There will be tears.  There will be drama.  I guess I just have to get used to this as a new normal for a while.  GULP.

Here are some more thoughts on the coming transition for these two princesses from Erika.

What’s about to happen to these two sweet little girls is… I don’t know.  I don’t have words to describe it.  They will both be taken from what they know and are used to.  What they have come to know is safe will be no more and they will need to adjust to a new safety.  Emma has never known the love and care of a mommy and a daddy.  In fact she may not have had much interaction with male adults at all.  And this week, prayerfully Monday, Mark and I will show up and say, “We love you and we will always care for you.  You thought you were safe and comfortable, but we want you to know and experience love and care like you’ve never seen it before.  We want you to be safe in our love and to ultimately know the eternal security of your Heavenly Father’s love through Jesus.  Oh Emma, I pray you will quickly and easily accept and embrace the love that is about to rock your little world.”