Adoption Update....getting closer

Today I got an email from our agency that says we are CLOSE to getting a referral. There are 1 or 2 families ahead of us. I am not sure if that means weeks or months, but we are close, we are close, we are close!

When I think about the whole paradox of adoption, I am sometimes ashamed at how anxious I am for this to happen. On one hand, you have someone's life ending or ending as they know it and on the other our lives are taking on a joyous new beginning. Somewhere there is a family grieving over a loss OR a young mother making the hardest decision of her life while we are picking out baby names and crib bedding. All over the world there are mothers who never get to see their children grow up, never get to snuggle them again, never get to hold their little hands or kiss sweet baby lips. I am sure not a day goes by without those birth mamas thinking about their babies, praying for them, and wondering.

These two pieces of the adoption puzzle are hard for me to fit together.

So even though this wait is hard, I know it is much, much harder to be on the other side of adoption. So, I strive to wait with grace and peace and to understand what it must be like for our baby's birth mother. And I say a prayer for her.

I have the Gift of Doughnuts.

Once I blogged about my experience at the fruit and vegetable market in Doha HERE . It was way back in May '08. I wrote about meeting the young and old men that work in the market and how important they are to God, how he knows their names and how they are supposed to be important to us too. And, I told about sharing my Krispy Kremes doughnuts with them.


TODAY, 9 months later I went back to the fruit and veg market for the 2nd time. I started out this morning not quite knowing what to do with myself. I spent most of the early morning checking email, doing a little quilting, playing around on facebook and obsessing over our now 6 months wait for our referral. I decided I needed to get out of the house and take a drive.



I got in the car and grabbed my devotional book and quickly read my devotional for the day. It was about how we are all gifted by God to serve him and others. I prayed "Show me how I can best serve you today, Lord" and set off to return something at the mall. After that, I got back into my car and didn't really know where I was going. I started driving toward the kids school and then realized I was an hour early to pick them up, so I thought I would drive over to the fruit and veg market. I was quickly transported to the reality of living in a developing? country when I got in the hustle and bustle traffic around the market. With horns blowing and people yelling at each other, I maneuvered my way to the entrance.


I walked in and started around the perimeter, knowing I would buy something, but not really needing anything. I stopped at a stall and looked interested, which is all the encouragement the sales guys need to start persuading you to buy a car full of produce. After a couple of minutes, the young man waiting on me said "You come here before." I said yes, but it was a long time ago, pretty sure he was mistaking me for someone else.


"You brought cake, you brought doughnuts."


And it was then that I knew that God was there...in the midst of this Middle Eastern market. He had directed my steps. These guys remembered me from 9 months ago because I shared my doughnuts with them. Unbelievable! I can only hope I have another opportunity to share Krispy Kremes and more with them.

This was a scary accident near our kids school today.

Boot Scoot

We had a fun time this weekend at the Doha A&M club Boot Scoot! We had a Texas sized fajita buffet and lots of country music and dancing. It was fun to be around a bunch of Aggies and we even sang the Aggie war hymn and sawed Varsity's horns off.

Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

This is one of the verses Cole is learning in preparation for his outreach trip to Jordan over Spring Break. These photos are of Cole's cross country track meet last week.

IOU

It happened again today...

I drove through KFC. KFC is huge in Doha and it is pretty good, too. I ordered our food, handed the guy my credit card and he said no, he wanted cash. I didn't have any cash and didn't have any way to get cash (lost purse, cancelled credit cards, found purse...another story for another day)

He said no problem..
Just bring it tomorrow....

WHAT???

I can't get over how people basically trust you to keep your word in this crazy place we live.

So, tomorrow I will drive all the way across town to pay my debt to KFC.

Adoption: Not much to tell

I get asked a lot about the adoption and really there isn't much to tell right now.

Other than I am becoming one of those impatient waiters.

At first, I was very patient. I scoffed at others who obsessed over the wait. Now, I can honestly say I am going crazy!

I check my emails and yahoo groups several times a day just to see if anyone has gotten a referral (they haven't lately). I try to calculate in my mind when our referral might come and as that time draws near or passes I get really bummed.

I think what set me off, was being in Ethiopia and seeing the sheer number of sweet babies in the nursery. The court system is so backed up right now that I am guessing our agency isn't giving many referrals, because they know the wait til court will be excruciatingly long.

So we wait and trust God's perfect timing.

Please Pray

Please pray for precious Abby Riggs. She is a little girl with cancer that we have been praying for a long time. Things have gotten very serious for her right now and she needs our prayers.

Read all about Abby and her amazing family at http://www.riggsfamilyblog.com/

thanks.

I'm generous!

Yesterday, I picked up Will after school and then we hung out at the school waiting on Abbey to get finished with her activity.

I brought along some leftover sushi for Will to snack on since he loves sushi.

When I told him what was in the box, he said "Thanks mom, that was so generous!"

He is such a sweetheart!

Another crazy Doha experience

Today, I took the kids to a new place for juice. Have I mentioned you can get the best fresh juices here. Will is crazy about banana and Abbey gets strawberry/banana. They are yummy.

We went to a new place called "As You Like". It was clean and they had a take out/ delivery menu. I picked one up and the kids were excited about ordering dinner from our new find.

Later that night, I called to place our order. Well, after 15 minutes of me trying to order and the poor fella on the other end trying to understand my English, I gave up. To make it even worse, I was ordering by the item number on the menu. That's right. He couldn't understand my numbers. I would say 17 and he would say 70. I would say 23 and he would say 33. Finally, I apologized and said to cancel the order and I would try again another day. I knew he didn't understand the whole cancelling part and sure enough, he called me a little later asking where we lived. I know it would have been impossible for me to explain where we lived. So the poor guy was stuck with whatever it was he thought we ordered.

Just another day in Doha!

Did you know?

In Doha all the gas stations are full service. It cost me around 50Qatar Riyals to fill up my small SUV, which is about $13.00 or $14.00. Yet another good thing about living in Doha!