Time, Money, and God

How's that for an interesting title? So what's it all about? Keep reading...

TIME:
Our flights are booked. We leave next Sunday. It's hard to believe that seven days from now, we should be in our apartment in the capital city of that far and away land. Hopefully, sleeping soundly (since it will be 6AM there) recuperating from our long two days of travel. I'm sure in many ways, time will fly by over the next week. Work is crazy busy and there is no way that I can take any extra time off before our trip. So, I'm stressing a little about getting everything done. But, Mark reminds me that what is important is that we have the basic stuff, our money, documents, etc and get on that plane. Yep, on one hand time seems very short! On the other hand, the next seven days will creep by as I wait to board that plane that will take us to the country of our children's birth, closer to our son!

MONEY:
Someone asked me recently what we would do if we weren't able to raise enough money for our adoption. Friends, that is the situation we are in. We had planned for the cost of this adoption to be about $25,000. Airfare has turned out to be a much bigger expense than we had planned. It will probably cost us about $8,000-10,0000 for our plane tickets. We're anticipating total adoption costs of over $30,000. Seriously, we don't have that kind of money lying around the house. I know many people say "If you don't have the money, you shouldn't adopt." And eight months ago, I probably would have agreed with them.  But, that was before I left a piece of my heart at the orphanage of our children. When Mark and I realized that God was calling us to bring a certain little boy home, we knew that we didn't have the money for a second adoption. Mark had just lost his job. We had maxed out our home equity loan to bring Maia home. We had hoped to apply our tax refund to paying back a substantial amount of that loan. Well, our government has stalled our tax refund as they scrutinize the claims of nearly everyone who completed an international adoption last year. We have no idea when or even if we will ever see that money. So, we really are not in a situation to adopt. God has been good to us. With the reimbursement I will receive from my employer, we will have raised approximately $17,000 of the amount we need. But, there's less than a week to go and we are still short about $12,000.  What will we do? Whatever is necessary to bring our son home. Our savings accounts are empty, we'll access retirement accounts, we'll swallow our pride and accept help from friends and family who need the money themselves. But, we will be faithful as we grow our family again. For those who have donated to our fundraising efforts, thank you. For those of you who are uplifting us in prayer, thank you! For those of you who are considering donating, please know that our hearts will be forever grateful and it will be money well spent!

GOD:
Just want to end on a very special note. As I was looking back on our journey to bring Maia home, all of a sudden I felt a strong urge to look back at specific dates. Our appointment with the government in our son's country is June 22. Why is that significant? Because June 22, 2010 was the day that we sent in our paperwork officially committing to adopt Maia. How like God is that to choose to honor that day in such a great way!