The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly...

You'll have to forgive me not updating in a while, although, Darren has been sending out e-mail updates. I've been busy trying to figure out what the heck is going on!!! The Zambian adoption process continues to be an ongoing rollercoaster for us. Each day is typically met with a nugget of positive news as well as a major letdown. And we've only been including a fraction of that in our e-mails! It feels like a tennis match. Last night as Darren and I were talking on his last evening here, we were thinking back over the reasons we felt so strongly that God was leading us here. Too many things went right for us to question that God wanted us to adopt from here, but now so many things are going wrong! I continue to believe that even though this is harder than I imagined, that God is waiting for the darkest night to display His glory brightest. I'm really clinging to that hope right now. Our attorney assures as that what issues we have can be resolved...however, he's getting married either today or next Saturday and will be gone for 2 weeks! There continue to be numerous paperwork issues, infinate conversations that go like this "No...you have to talk to so and so about that. I don't know anything" then "so and so" says "No...I can't handle that. You are supposed to talk to someone else." All the while everyone at social welfare treats me like a 5 year old and try to make it out like I'm the one that doesn't know what I'm doing. There...I vented for the day.

Darren left for Home about an hour ago. Is it possible to miss him already? I know we both envisioned him leaving with some certainty and peace of mind about where this is headed, but God has other plans I guess. It would have been easier I think to see him go if I could start counting the days to when he comes back, but I really have no idea. Well, enough sad stuff.

Here's a photo we took at the orphanage the other day. This is Josie eating Nshima (think really thick sticky grits)

There's a lady at the orphanage that the kids call "Auntie Grace". She taught me how to make Nshima the other day. I burned my arm (ow). I agreed to teach her how to bake cookies so we are doing that next week. She really loves the kids there and they all love her back. Sometimes, with so much mess going on with paperwork and running from this office to the next, it's easy to forget why we came here, but when we go to the orphanage and see the kids there I'm reminded what we are fighting for. Please pray for us to keep up the good fight and look to Christ for our comfort. Thank you all!