Thunder and Lightning

We were told when we got here that if the day gets unbearably hot it means a thunderstorm is coming. I think that has been true every time. Whenever I say, "Wow! It's hot!" God sends us the coolness of rain. And when it rains here it's the most fresh and amazing feeling in the air. And when the sun is out the sky is the bluest shade of blue I have ever seen. There are some things about Africa I am beginning to love...not to mention my new daughter that Africa gave me:)

Today was a great day! We did a little shopping, jumped on the trampoline ALOT, swam in the pool, read a bazillion books, spent massive amounts of time on Evolet's hair (even though she doesn't have much...moisturize, moisturize, moisturize!) I have to say, even after 3 days it's looking WAY better.

So both of the girls are pretty independent...they both love hugs, but neither of them seem to be "cuddlers". Well...a thunderstorm changes that. At the first sign of lightning they fought for a space on my lap. They literally plastered themselves onto me like cling wrap. The electricity went out for a while so we sang Christmas songs to the light of a flashlight for like 30 minutes. Oh the spiritual parallels that parenting brings to mind! As we sat there I was soooo thankful for this scary situation that caused my children to run to me and find comfort and shelter. I thought, "Why can't they always be this sweet and cuddly!?" (Haven't had too much trouble out of Evolet yet, but she's human so...I'm sure it's coming) DUH...because when things are great they trust in themselves...human nature right!? Oh how I do the same things. I can't help but believe that some of the trials I have faced in Africa have been God's way of sending a little thunder and lightning my way. My insufficiencies here have illuminated sin in my heart I didn't even know was there!!! It has taught me to rely more on Christ's saving grace ALONE for every detail of life...not myself, my husband, my possessions. I've seen people here with NOTHING...they are living impoverished lives, but praising the God of heaven for all that he's done. People here also seem to think more "heavenward". Probably because life is hard and they see death more than we do.

I'm certainly going to enjoy what I'm missing back home (My house, my car, my dishwasher, eating at Chik-fil-A again, having a built in filter and ice maker, people that get to the point and know what the word "time" means), but I've seen what it's like to not have those things and I know that's not what my happiness is built on. What I miss the MOST are my husband and my church family...the relationships that edify me and build me up. The relationships I rely on for encouragement and parenting advice (ya'll have been great to keep in touch even from a distance, though. Thank You!!!!) But I know that even those things can become replacements for what's most important so in the times when I feel the storms rage in my heart, I run to Christ knowing that HE is my "strength and shield"...at least, that's what I tell myself to do. I'll just be honest, though, sometimes I decide to try to accomplish things on my own power and end up quite frustrated. Trying to "count it all joy" to face various trials. I know God's workin!

Nothing else interesting happened today...oh except a clogged pipe that made all the nasty dishwater from who knows how long spill into the entire gravel area outside my window...which Josie sat in, of course. Not a big deal...gave her a bath...got the pipe fixed. The smell eventually died down:)

Like a fish!

Both of my girls LOVE the water apparently. Took Evolet swimming for the first time today. She was ecstatic and asked if we could go again tomorrow! As long as it's not raining....



We went out for ice cream today! We walked into a shop and a woman said, "Your children are beautiful. Are they both yours?" It made me smile to say, "Yes:)"

Josie is having the expected jealousy issues that I am having to deal with. They both are going through a time of adjusting to each other and to me. As much as possible I try to forsee those cicumstances and be prepared with Biblical pearls of wisdom, but ya know sometimes life just come at you fast! Still, like 90% of the time they are playing SOOO well together...that's just more quiet than the other 10% so that part stays with you a little longer:) Since Evolet is 4 1/2, I decided she can probably forgo the naps. I just put her to bed at 7 when Josie goes down and she sleeps 12 hours. This way, I can have some one-on-one time with her while Josie's napping and that cuts out some of the jealousy. It's a balancing act to reassure Josie that she is loved and adored while assuring Evolet that she has found a family who will love her as much as we love Josie.

Evolet is obviously very used to sleeping around alot of noise. She fell asleep last night with a movie playing and me jerking the braids out of her hair. Tonight she slept through Josie standing on her bed saying "Hey Evolet!" Nighttime rocks!

We made Christmas cookies today. Evolet was excited when we decorated the airplane. I said, "Daddy would like this one." She replied, "I want to decorate this one for Daddy." I showed her pictures of Grandpa and Grandma, more pictures of our house, and some friends back home. I don't want to overwhelm her, but she seems interested to learn about what her new life will be like.

We've been singing Christmas songs and both of my little girls love to dance like silly things to some music:) Last night I lay in bed for a while just thanking the Lord for His goodness and it hit me that I have a 4 1/2 year old. She was born in June 2007. I don't even know what I was doing back then, but ya'll I was 20!!! I was thinking "wow. Josie isn't even 2 yet. I can't imagine if she went to an orphanage tomorrow and learned their routines and then went to live with a new family 2 years after that!" It is truly just God's graciousnss to us that Evolet seems to be adjusting miraculously well. Based on human wisdom, it probably should not be going so well...and as I said, I'm sure there are struggles in the future yet to come, but Praise God for His goodness to me now. I know we have many friends and family members who have been lifting us up in prayer. Thank you...and keep doing it! Pray that we can go home soon. I'm ready to see my husband again:)

On the 2nd Day of Christmas...

...My turtledove came "home"!!!! We are so excited and rejoicing to be bonding as a family (however sadly without Dad for at least a month or two yet).




Got the call from my attorney this morning that the committal order was ready to pick up around 10 a.m. Every day for the last like two weeks I've kept the house really clean "just in case" it was that day she came home. Today of course, the house was a mess so I figured that was a good sign:) Even though I've been preparing for this day for like a month, hearing my attorney say "Can you be here in 30 minutes?" made my head spin as I tried to gather the things I needed and pick up toys really fast KNOWING that Evolet was coming home today!

So we got the committal order and took it straight to the orphanage. I brought a change of clothes for Evolet since the clothes she was wearing belong to the orphanage. We chatted with all the kids for a while and made plans to go back to visit on Sunday. Evolet was all smiles!!! Here's a photo of her on the car ride home:

So we got home, had some lunch, put Josie down for a nap. Then Evolet and I watched VeggieTales while I spent 2 hours undoing her braids and I STILL only got half of them done. I want to just leave her hair natural for a little bit...play with it and see what it does.

So when Josie got up, they jumped on the trampoline. Evolet let out the most precious giggle. The trampoline is definately a big hit!!! She also can't wait to go swimming. She's been asking when we are going to fly in an airplane. She and Josie had their first, second, and third fight of sisterhood and parenting has taken on a completely new dimension for me...the peacemaker. I totally have expected this and have prepared by asking lots of questions to parents of mutliples. Game on!

This is going to sound silly because I know there's still SOOOO much adjusting to do, but honestly today felt like a pretty normal day. Evolet just jumped into our "normal" routine of life here pretty well. She was helping me with dishes, calling me "mommy", cuddling with me while we watched TV. She tries to keep Josie out of trouble (good luck:) It's like she really really belongs with us. Praising God for his all-knowing ways. I know there are struggles ahead, but right now I'm enjoying the perfection of it all.

She was excited to skype with Darren. When our internet connection got so bad that it disconnected, she said, "Hey. Put Daddy's face back up!" I know they'll have alot of catching up to do, but Praise God for skype. At least she has a visible live connection with him this way.

Once I finished on her hair (a total of 4 hours and she fell asleep while I was finishing it) she took a bath and went to bed. I hope she doesn't freak out in the morning and she remembers where she is! Maybe she'll also remember that I promised her ice cream tomorrow.:)

We appreciate your prayers on our behalf in our saga of beginning the foster process with Evolet. Please continue in prayer for the 3 year old we are still hoping to adopt. And pray as there is still much paperwork, court date, embassy...more hoops to jump through before returning home. I do feel like the process may be a bit more bearable now, though. Happy 2nd Day of Christmas:)

A Ten Day Week

Social welfare assured me several times that Evolet would come home by the end of this week, only to inform me yesterday that they've been busy and she would have to come home Monday. Who knew a Zambian week had 10 days in it!?

We went to the orphanage to see Evolet yesterday. It was a joy to see it, and it was so very hard to leave her there again. She asked me, "When are you coming back to take me with you?" I tried not make any promises about Monday since it's obviously not in my power to do so, but assured her that I would be back Monday and hopefully she could come home then. She seems very excited:)

This hilarious conversation was one of the highlights. Keep in mind that the locals here tend to reverse their "L"s and "R"s. So one of the Auntie's at the orphanage asked, "What name are you going to give Hope?" I replied, "Evolet Hope". She said, "Oh nice. Hope, can you say Everett?" I quickly tried to correct and said, "No, not Everett. Ev-o-let." She said, "Yeah. Ev-ER-ett." So then of course Evolet was saying "Everett". I decided that I could work on pronunciation more when she gets home.

So what I had thought would be a busy weekend getting to know my new daughter is now going to probably feel like a very slow weekend. It's been raining all night and all morning so...that may mean Josie and I stay inside most of the day. I have tried to look at this as one last weekend with just me and Josie. I know it will be hard to balance getting to know Evolet and making her feel special while at the same time letting Josie know that she is still very loved and special too. Hopefully we can have some fun "Josie/Mommy" time. On Sunday mornings she helps me make pancakes. That's always fun:)

I can't even explain how painful Darren's absence has been. I mean, I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I didn't think it would be this hard either. After all, I'm a pilot's wife and I'm used to being away from him for SHORT periods of time. Lately my pitiful self spends the evenings watching sappy movies and weeping at the sound of Christmas music wishing we could be together. I really really miss that man.

So if we get Evolet on Monday that will be exactly one month into the fostering period according to my attormey...that means one-third of the way there!!! This last month has gone by so slowly. I really hope that once Evolet comes here time will speed up some. I can't wait to be back home:)

Shoe Shopping!

I know the picture above has nothing to do with the title of the post, but seeing as how I can't post my Evolet photos yet, this is my outlet for cute Josie pics:)

So far we have had a great and eventful week! Yesterday we were able to tell Evolet that we are adopting her. She was very shocked and didn’t say much. She seemed kind of overwhelmed. I told her I would come back today and talk to her about it some more.

Today was the only day I could get my visa renewed for another 30 days so I got a babysitter for Josie and planned to run some other errands and spend some one on one time with Evolet. When I went today, Evolet ran to me and gave a big hug. She let me hold her as I read the kids some books to calm them all down some. I gave her a zebra pillow pet to cuddle with and a 4x6 photo of Darren, Josie, and I. She never let go of the zebra OR the photo. She was very excited. She even called me “Mommy” and held my hand. I asked the Auntie what size shoe she thought Evolet wore. She said, “Why don’t you take me and her to the store with you and she can try on some shoes!!!” So we all went shopping and had the best time. I bought Evolet some CUTE silver dressy shoes to match her Christmas dress. She really liked them. She told me that purple is her favorite color, but she likes other colors too:)

Since it is Tuesday, we went to the Pizza Inn and got buy one get one free pizzas with Grape Fanta. Evolet said she loves pizza so I think we’ll get along fine:)

I spoke with social welfare today. Our social woker is going to the police station tomorrow to get a copy of the report she needs. From what I understand, she then writes a letter of discharge that I can take to the orphanage to pick her up while the attorney files for the committal order. That’s how I understand it anyway. So it’s very possible that I could get the call tomorrow to go and get her. If not then maybe Thursday.

I’m very excited. Evolet seems excited and Josie…doesn’t really understand what’s going on but is happy when I tell her she’ll have someone to play with for the rest of her life.

There's even a small glimmer of hope that our "Keira Jane" may come back into the picture. That's a SMALL glimmer of hope and I won't elaborate, but you can pray for that situation.

Thank you all for your prayers. They are greatly appreciated!!! I have definately felt that friends across the world have been "weeping with those who weep and rejoicing with those who rejoice."

Joy and Pain

So my conversation with social welfare yesterday brought good news and bad news.

Bad news first (that way I can end on a happy note):

The three year old we were hoping to adopt and name our sweet sweet Keira Jane is now looking like she was not destined for our family. We fully expected her birth father to sign whatever paperwork was necessary...after all he hasn't been to see her in 3 years. But now suddenly, he has decided that if his choice is to have her adopted or live with him, he'd rather her live with him. I can't even explain all of the bad things I FEEL like saying about this man right now or the assumptions I would love to make about his motives, but the truth is that I just don't know his reasons. Maybe he really honestly didn't realize what he had sitting there until it was almost taken from him and now he really wants to care for her. Since I don't know what's in this man's heart and I've never met him I'm going to lay all of those assumptions at the feet of Christ and trust that He too loves this little girl even more than me and know's what's best. His ways are always better.

There was a boy who was available when we went to the orphanage the first time. I told the social worker we would be interested in him, but she said a family has already spoken for him.

THE GOOD NEWS: The 4 year old girl whom we will name Evolet Hope should come into my care next week. I confirmed this with the social worker who said that she just needs to obtain a police report that was missing from the file, but it looks like a pretty clear cut case of abandonment so we don't expect any issues.

So I took all this news to Darren and we discussed it. We are rejoicing that our Evolet will become part of our family soon. I don't want the news that suddenly we can't bring home 2 to overshadow that. We have decided that we will proceed with Evolet and let everyone involved know that if something changes with "girl #2" or "the boy" while we are still in Zambia, we would be interested. Short of a miracle, though I don't expect that to happen.

Many thoughts have gone through my head since I got this news. Heavy things like, "What will my "almost daughter's" life be like now? We could have offered her great medical care to deal with her delays and a family full of love"...to petty things like "But I bought THREE Christmas presents...now who gets the extra Barbie?" Silly me...I know that God knows what he's doing. Even though our human wisdom and plans said "this" was the best path for our family, I'm certain God knows infinately more than I do and I'm glad.

So...we're glad and we're sad, confused and certain. Story of my life these days...

Next Week!

Look what I found talking to herself in the dryer...