DTE Month 2: Rollercoaster Emotions

Sometimes, in adoption, you just need a good cry. It seems lately all I have been doing that frequently occasionally. As we hit our DTE Month 2 I find my anxiety level rising. I don't know how many times I have read, adoption is not for the faint of heart, and let me just tell you, they are right! (Then because I am a woman I get into this bad cycle of feeling sad but then feeling guilty because we already have three amazing children and we are only in the official two months of waiting where some families have been waiting 18 months or even tried for years and now adopting so I yell at my brain - Put on your big girl panties and suck it up!)

I think one of the coolest and yet most stressful part of this journey is our variety in age range and child. Because we are open to one or two and up to 10 it could be Monday that we get our referral call or it could be a day 18 months from now.....anyone noticed I am kinda a control freak dedicated planner, if not please refer to my vacation itinerary for disney where I had us scheduled down to the hour for an entire week. So yes, this is hard for me. I know that God has called us to open up to this large of a range I know we are doing the right thing, but it it is still hard and we may have a long road ahead of us. What I do know is that God is there to hold my hand through this I we have many a good friend and family to support us as well.  

What has by far been one of the most amazing things to watch is the last groups of missionaries for Visiting Orphans work in Ethiopia (which I have the awesome pleasure of calling some of the team members my friends). To hear the testimonies of what happened and witness the pictures- Oh my! And now in our agency, this month has been really active with all kinds of different referrals. So exciting for these forever families. I am so thankful that my eyes were opened back up and so was my heart to missions and the world outside of America.

So in this journey, please be patient with us, as you wonder why I may be really somewhat moody or wiping away tears in my eyes,

          Remember somewhere in my heart a child is growing....

Sometimes people with the least love the most...

  This past week several of my adoption girlfriends went on a mission trip with Visiting Orphans to Ethiopia for about a week and a half and volunteered with various non profit groups. I was so thankful that they were able to document their trip with pictures. I can not express in words how impactful these pictures were to me. It brought back many memories of my own mission trip to El Salvador and to Malawi and how people with so little seem to have so much love....the faces of the Ethiopian people were just as amazing, such love and thankfulness. Not only did it remind me how important mission work is but it also gave me more hope in our adoption and a better connection to the country. I was reminded how big the world is and how I am responsible for how I spend my money and my time and that it is NOT all about me....

  I would love to share with you some of the organizations that they partnered with:

    Visiting Orphans

non-profit organization to be the hand and feet of Jesus to the 163 million Orphans by visiting them, loving them and sharing the gospel with them.      http://www.visitingorphans.org/
   




Children's HopeChest

 An organization that connects communities in the US to impoverished communities overseas. http://www.hopechest.org



Project 61


Hamlin Fistula Hospital

   A relief organization assisting with community development in Ethiopia. Specifically, P61 focuses on orphan care, equipping communities and empowering local leaders.
http://p61.org/

A treatment center for Women with the most devastating childbirth injury, a fistula,  which in Ethiopia creates a woman unsanitary and an outcast from her community. http://www.hamlinfistula.org/index.html

I am so thankful these past few years that the spark for mission work is lit again. Missions is such an integral part of  who I am and I know helped keep me going through some dark days of my teen years. I seem to have forgotten as I got older just how life changing these events can be for both the volunteer missionary as well as those receiving. I urge you to find somewhere, weather it be across the ocean or across the street that you can volunteer and give your time. You will not regret it!