disappointments and invisible wars.

for a few weeks now i've been composing parts of this post in my head. it's not directed at adoption at all, but more of what God has just been teaching me....and like i said from the beginning this blog is more than about our taiwanese potatoes...

last week, i had a moment. where i sat on my bed and i furiously journaled. because i felt disappointed. on so many levels. after going about town for various reasons, i escaped home. and i wrote it all out. i had hit a limit in my heart where i couldn't brush over one more thing that had let me down. so i scribbled everything on paper. i had almost purged it all when i found myself gradually starting to point the finger at God...

and i stopped.

paused.

and ended the last few pages with a heart broken and forgiven before christ.

you see as i went through and got it all off my chest, i realized several things. one, that my heart towards God was being affected by my standards i had placed on others. and two, everything i had listed out revolved around...humans. so God sat there quietly letting me vent and pour out my heart. and when i got near the end he allowed me to realize that i am still trusting others. and trusting others more than him. i must quit putting so much of my faith in those who are human and destine to fail me in some capacity at some point in my life...and more into the one who has never and will never fail me.

when i felt out of place or had hurt feelings, i wasn't taking it to him, i was bottling it up. and the funny part of that journal entry was that as i glanced back over it, it was the VERY things christ experienced when he was here. i'm sure his family and friends never really "got" him. he was on his own path and i bet he rarely was fully understood. his way of life didn't match anyone else's he was around. he was left out often and a gazillion people said the wrong thing to him all the time. the very things i sometimes struggle with were the very things he knew the most about! but instead of spending my energies talking to him and relating with him on these matters, i chose to blame him for allowing them to happen. ever had that occur? ever stopped to realize that maybe God's allowing you to experience hurt or pain so that you might run to him with it? i was floored by the concept...and how quickly the enemy twisted circumstances in my head so that without me even knowing it, i was blaming God. tricky, mctrickerson struck again. but i'd like to think i'm a little wiser now.

i'm well aware of another tactic of his now as well... 

on one occassion recently, jacob and i were in a fight. which, obviously that happens from time to time.  but i immediately felt this was different. i was angry. super angry. and he was too. we were both at odds. and i kept doing double checks in my thoughts because i was thinking so hatefully and i knew it wasn't me. luckily (for jacob ha) i'm a silent stewer and don't often voice all my thoughts. but a few short, snippey moments later i begrudgingly asked him to pray for us (i wasn't about to, duh, oh pride). we prayed. continued driving. and eventually felt an internal fog lift...now the interesting part came later...not too long after this incident, we found ourselves in an incredible situation where we were both able to talk and share christ with two gentlemen. for hours. as we went to bed that evening. we both apologized and recognized what had fully happened.  the enemy was trying so very hard to get us to be at odds with one another so that when we entered the situation we were placed in it would have been difficult for us to be on the same team. we would not have been one in spirit and with God. our anger would have distracted us from what needed to take place for the kingdom. so we asked forgiveness from one another and God...and immediately it backfired on satan.

from that point, we have both been a bit more on guard. and we can't get away from the scripture in ephesians 6 "¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." it couldn't be more truth. so while i was disappointed with various situations in the past several weeks, i have also been wondering how much is flesh and blood and how much is dark, invisible wars i can't see. so maybe give people a little more grace, and the enemy a little more battle before you spin around blaming God for situations.

george bailey moments.

we had our main, and possibly only, fundraiser recently.

and i keep finding myself having george bailey moments.  you know from "it's a wonderful life"? where he's at the end and all his friends come in with money and it closes out with him feeling overwhelmed and loved and the quote "no man is a failure who had friends"??  well we didn't feel like failures, but we were definitely shown love and from dear friends and family. overwhelming support from others.

i'll be honest that i'm not sure what the protocol is for sharing what funds were raised etc.  but i'll also be honest in sharing how much we were blessed.  we were hoping that maybe with the help of our silent auction we could raise maybe at most $1000. well when we cleaned up and got home around 1a.m. we emptied our bowl to find around $2200!! we were floored.  and shocked.  and blessed.  and thankful.  you guys, are seriously generous and so kind.  i still don't have enough thanks to provide for it all.

i'm not even sure what else to say. seriously. ha.  thanks :)

on the meter of where we are and what we are looking at remaining, it goes like this...we essentially only have travel costs remaining, which is an overwhelming blessing in and of itself.  we had originally speculated (and only hopeful speculating in doing so) that maybe we would travel in late spring...well it's looking more like late summer or maybe (hopefully not!) late fall at this point. and summer is the most expensive time to travel and tickets to taiwan are also at their highest then. while our game plan is to stay in country between court/wait times, there's also the possibility that i will have to come back for weddings and jacob may have to stay.  while the mere thought of that makes me want to cry, we continually hand the entirety of timing back over to God. so we are banking on only having to pay for tickets once for us each to go and come back, but it may not go that way.  currently we are looking at needing maybe $4,000 more to be on a little bit safer standing financially before we go.

once our referral for baby(ies) comes through, more paperwork/money will be worked on and spent to finalize immigration/passport forms. so while we are doing great, that is about what we have remaining, minimum. as we've discussed in other posts, i'm not into talking about the money side of things anyways. so we are estimating modestly a $4,000.  we have no plans for other fundraisers at this point, though.  aside from our awesome tshirts, we are simply trusting God to provide what we need, via work or spontaneous support (and as a friend recently pointed out, his provision may come in the area of a new idea for a fundraiser ha).

anyways. the fundraiser was a blast. this couple....

made the night a huge success, along with our friend nate.  they prepped weeks ahead of time with song selections, sound checks and light testing. drew even surprised us by starting the dance party with the song we danced back down the aisle to at our wedding ("i would walk 500 miles"...reserve your snickering). so sweet.  so much of the success was due to them. both of our families drove up that weekend and helped us...setting up, moving chairs busting out some tables and cutting some table runners...not to mention a debacle with glowing balloons shew...oh and then there's the silent auction peeps!! people were SO kind to donate massages, coffee amazingness, and gift cards for the silent auction. and food!! several friends/fam made food and brought drinks/coolers!!! people, seriously. were. so. kind.  so here's a couple pics from the little ipad we had set up at the photobooth...

and then of course the mad dancing...i honestly didn't take that many in an attempt to participate and talk to everyone that came out to support us...but i did get a few of the mayhem :)

so, yes. major success thanks to so many. we get more anxious and prepared each day that passes. come on home, sweet potatoes!! :)


oh here are those awesome shirts :) jacob drew them out. it's clouds (of course) with the taiwanese sun from their flag peaking out...with our theme adoption verse.  we didn't realize til i was wearing it recently, though, that the dotted line of the plane makes a "c" for cecil. :) happy accidents. to buy your own click the "donate" button on the top right of this page...make sure to include your address and size you want in the comments section and we'll send it your way.  facebook, instagram and email (or comments here) are also effective. :) they're $20 each and +$5 for shipping.

oh. and thanks. seriously. again. (even though i think there's only like three people that read this blog lol...)

12 weeks.

today (which is now technically wednesday) marks twelve weeks on the waiting list

and in case you were wondering, we did not receive a call on january 29th and my sweet friend is having a boy. :)  i'd be lying if i said i wasn't a little dissapointed that we didn't find out news like that together...but not crushed by any means.  just means there's another timing that's more perfect than the one i had in mind.

and it's true.  gosh.  if we had gotten a call that day i would have bawled my eyes out from sheer exhaustion.  january 29th ended up being when we had our FBI fingerprinting done...and that is quite a story...

we went to arizona last week to photograph a wedding for work. and since i'd never been to that part of the country we decided to tack on a few days at the end and explore sedona and the grand canyon.  more on that another day...it may have been our babymoon? maybe not. who knows.

 (p.s. this is the lengthy version of what happened to get to our fbi fingerprinting so i can tell my child someday ha...)

we were scheduled to come home on tuesday night and go to our fbi appointment wednesday morning in cincinnati. seemed simple enough.  fly from phoenix to chicago to lexington.  well, while some thought we got held up in some snow in chicago we, in fact, never even left phoenix before the problems began.  sunny, 78 degree phoenix.  we had an afternoon flight and as they had us all lined up in our respective spots when they made an announcement that only one bathroom facility was going to work...no biggie.  people left the line to go use the restroom quickly.  cool.  we all get back in line.  and wait.  and wait.  we only had an hour between our connection in chicago.  and as we start to get nervous our worst came...they've decided to try to fix the bathroom and delay our flight. so. dumb.  we can hold it 2 hours people.

so they delayed us which began the frenzy.  we rushed to the counter (as did everyone else).  there were no other flights out this evening that could get us home.  if we left we would be stuck overnight in chicago...and thus missing our fbi appointment.  because the main issue of our appointment was not getting to cincy, it was getting TO lexington where they had mailed our appointment paperwork while we were gone and THEN taking them to cincy.  so we first had to get home then drive. so we begged to be flown to louisville, cincinnati anywhere tonight that we could rent a car.  the closest they could get it that evening was to columbus, ohio.  so we bit the bullet and called and rented a car in columbus so we could be booked on a plane from phoenix to there and get into columbus at midnight, drive the three hours home, get the paperwork and get to our morning appointment in cincy.  it was crazy.  and horrible exhausting sounding, but we had to do it...or so we thought.

between finding new flights and booking cars, they delayed us again...which killed our chance for the columbus flight.  i cried.  we hadn't slept much that week anyways (long stories for another day) so i was already somewhat tired, and thus more emotional, and mix issues with my baby in there and i cried at the counter...though i can't just turn on my water works on demand...it did seem rather convenient to pull off while at the counter...but it didn't help our situation.  i think it only made the people helping us sadder too because they couldn't help us. also while all this is going on we were texting with my dad (travel guru) and my friend nina (also travel guru) to see what they could find us.

enter nina and her husband wes to save the day.  nina asked if we could get a morning flight into cincy.  i said yes, but of course the issue wasn't getting there the issue was getting to my home for the paperwork in time to get BACK to cincy for the fingerprinting.  so then the mullins saved the day.  nina told me to get a flight into cincy and she'd take care of the rest.  (*side note: those who know me best know i have serious issues asking for help, accepting help, and seeing others go above and beyond on things for me...i don't like being a bother, a hassle or nuisance...so really every part of me was in distress over this flight situation...but God used it as always to teach me...using nina :D) wes met up with our brother in law who was watching the house and got the key to our house to get in and get the keys to our mailbox...went to our mailbox and got our forms out and took them to nina.  nina then proceeded to drive at the crack of dawn the next morning to cincinnati to get to us (we ended up taking a midnight, red eye flight to philly then to cincy) as we landed 30 minutes late, drove us the 30-45 minutes to downtown for a...wait for it...TEN MINUTE APPOINTMENT.  yup.  all that hassle for a simple walk in and walk out appointment.

so sleep deprived and exhausted nina drove us home and continued being awesome.

 

and that, my friends, is how we finished our LAST piece of paperwork prior to our referral.  we are literally only waiting now.  feel free to come anytime, baby(ies).