Honest Update and the Gypsy Boy...

I am ashamed that I have not updated since last July and for this I ask your forgiveness and grace. I promise our quest to adopt a set of littles in Uganda has not faltered nor stopped. It has become dry though, which has been very discouraging. It is not very fun to update with no updates!  In December, we were given another possible lead on a sibling set of three which at present seems like will not lead to anything either. We have not heard any updates on the situation since early January. Because of situations like this one and last summer,  I selfishly just could not bare to post something about them and then have the hope ripped away.  It was selfish though. I should have shared and ask for prayer and so I share now.

We are more than a year into this process and quickly coming upon the year anniversary of our dossier being in country sitting on a lawyer's desk in Kampala that seems to be doing nothing for our cause nor our agency's cause. While our agency is seeking other avenues, even in the country of Liberia, there are none ready at hand. We are not ready to give up on Uganda. God drew our hearts there for a reason and until HE SHUTS THE DOOR we cannot rush to move our dossier elsewhere.

Honestly, I cling to God's sovereignty in moments like these, because my mind cannot understand it separated from that. Separated from God's sovereignty, I want to be angry, hurt, throw a pity-party--you know all the selfish stuff and "justice seeking" on my own. Angry that we are 95% funded for this adoption in record time and there are kids longing for a home and a home longing for them...and yet we are all left empty. Yes, folks.....I can only lean on God's way, because they are certainly higher than mine, in times like these or the flesh rears its ugly head and the glory of God is darkened.

Here I specifically ask that you pray for our family to hear clearly from the Lord His will concerning Uganda, our agency, and how to move forward. We have been patiently waiting for months now and do not want to take things into our own hands because we are impatient. However, if we need to change agencies or even countries we want and need to hear clearly form the Lord.


God is at work in our family though. Specifically in myself as I daily battle chronic pain that is brought on by a condition called pelvic congestive syndrome. I have in the last couple of months been warring against the mental, emotional, and spiritual struggle that comes with chronic pain as the pain spreads and worsens. It desires to seek self and God has been showing me during this battle that He wants more from me. It is something that I cannot explain fully in words this thing He is doing in my heart.

 I thought adoption, for now, was going to be our call, our part, in changing lives in our world. I still believe in that call and have faith that God has the very children He desires us to have in His time. But God is certainly calling us to MORE. I am on week four of completely being overwhelmed by the "need" all around us in the world. The "need" that Americans have become so calloused to. The "need" I have been calloused to, ashamedly. When we arrived in Italy, I think my jaw was continuously floored the first 4 months living here. I could not get over all of the prostitutes (who 95% are drugged, beaten, and slaves to human traffickers) working from sun up to sun down on the most prevalent highway between church and the base, the gypsy camps where people live in filth and tent like cites, the gypsy children begging and even stealing, the massive amounts of Africa immigrants or shall I say, bond slaves, or even just the poverty of the native Italian people in the communities surrounding us.  But believe it or not, my Americanism stepped in, the walls went up, the calloused over feelings began, the looks of judgement and spite were aroused and instead of thinking like and being a Samaritan I started to think and act like a religious ruler...

And yet God is patient with me, working, molding, pounding, building the vessel of my life into something useful...
As God has been working in me, I have started to see vividly the face of a little gypsy boy. Oh the conviction that sweeps over my heart as I type this. Every Tuesday and Thursday, last fall I would take Adah to swim lessons about 5 minutes north of our home. There is one stop light along the way and shockingly enough, it is actually used. (southern Italy does not have much use for stop lights or signs of any sort. A stoplight here is a commodity to the poverty stricken as it is a way for them to make money, by soliciting their boxes of tissue, car scents, lighters, and even washing windows and headlights. At this one stop light, every time we were stopped. (yes...very irritating) And every time there was this very dirty little gypsy boy always trying to get me to buy his Kleenexes or  wash my windows and his tactics irritated me because he would pound on my windows. (NOT COOL) I would say he is about Jadon's age, 11 years old. The boy is thin, every tooth in his mouth rotted out and he always had the same clothes on each time I saw him.
....And....I WAS C.A.LL.O.U.S.E.D...to his situation. I was a judge instead of a Samaritan. I showed no compassion as I had become calloused to it and this is just one example.

I am learning that having lived in the land and being from the land of opportunity is not all what it cracks up to be. It has left me wanting..wanting for something that American can never give me and that is a heart and love for others. We all look at people on the streets in American and around the world like I have been looking at those here in Italy thinking this..." They choose to be that way. They should seize  their opportunity. If they would just go get a job... if they just did this or just did that." How shallow minded we are. What if they never had opportunity? What if their opportunity was taken from them? I think of the little gypsy boy...where is his opportunity? He does not go to school. He is being taught by his family to live as he does. He knows NO different. The same story line plays out for the prostitutes and the African immigrants I speak of. They are enslaved just in a different way with opportunity ripped away from them.....and that my friend is where CHRIST comes in. These are the people Christ would stop for. These are the people that He ministered to. These are the people that when they heard of Christ, wanted what He had and had so much faith that just touching His garment made them whole....and yet we are CALLOUSED and W.A.L.K. right by them with hard hearts.

I cannot.
I will not.
Not anymore.

Life is short.
Life is to bring glory and honor to Christ.
Life is to be Christ-like.
To love God and others before ourselves.

If life is to be Christ-like....then I need to repair the hole that is in the gospel I have been living. The "others" part has been on my terms, not on Christ's. No longer do I wish to live as such.

And...back to the gypsy boy. I went to find him today. He was not there. I intend to drive that way each day I leave the house just to see him again....Pray for me and how God would have me minister to him. I do not keep seeing his face for naught... I will buy his Kleenexes and let him wash my windows, but I know God is calling me to MORE....

I know now what is in my heart needs to come forth into action...how I am not sure. But I AM READY and WILLING and praying for God to show me and this family how HE intends to EXTEND the HANDS even more....