I must embrace the fact that I am inadequate before I can ever hope to be the wife my husband can depend on or the mom my children need me to be. I know I have said so many times that I am leaning on my Heavenly Father in this process. I have said it again and again, "We could not do this without God." I have said it, but I have not always lived it. In fact I most often find myself despairing and feeling overwhelmed to the point of panic before I hit my knees and remember that He is God.
Pride cometh before a fall.
About a month ago we sent off our Dossier to be submitted to Vietnam's Department of Adoptions. We had just wrapped up an online auction to raise the rest of the $3,500 US processing fee that we needed to pay to send our Dossier. At that point it meant we were $16,360.00 from being FULLY FUNDED to bring our daughter home! We were (and still are) praying hard that we will be able to travel to bring Rori home before Christmas of this year. And we had a handful of fundraisers being planned for the next six months that I felt pretty darn confident would be able to get us to our goal and have us fully funded by December!
Basically, I had come to a point that I was feeling less stressed about raising an enormous amount of money in a short time, and I dare say I had begun to feel a bit CONFIDENT in MY ability to advocate for our daughter and our family in the fundraising department, rather than in my own heart really acknowledging that this was all God!
John 15:5 "….apart from me you can do nothing."
A few weeks ago I was reminded that I am small, and despite my greatest efforts I cannot do this in my own strength.
Back in January I had a fall while holding our 6 month old son and he had to be Life Flighted to a children's hospital. A few weeks ago we received notice that over $31,000 was not going to be covered by our insurance and we had to start paying on it right away. Also a dozen smaller bills from the same incident for hospital services.
At the same time our refrigerator, home air conditioning unit, and van air conditioner all went out. Total cost of about $8,000.00.
To recap….A month ago I was feeling CONFIDENT. We had about 6 months to raise $16,360.00. (A huge amount but it was about half what we started out needing in January so I could see it happening.)
Fast forward to today, we are about $40,000.00 deeper in debt than we were a month ago, and need to come up with lots of cash fast to fix our air conditioning situation, we had just about tapped out our credit already with unexpected home renovations from the previous year, and we still need to raise our remaining adoption expenses.
I'm not gonna lie. I panicked. At first when our air first went out, I though…"This is gonna be ok, we will get through this." Then everything else snowballed and I fell apart. I forgot who I lean on for a moment. I forgot the King of kings is my Father.
And then God.
I have never in my life experienced God showing up in my life like He has throughout this process. It just shows me how much He loves His children, and especially how much He loves our little girl.
Our friends and family showed up, complete strangers showed up, God showed up.
Two families stepped in and loaned us window units so our babies would not have to suffer in our almost 90 degree house.
Our church family started launching fundraisers for us to help us come up with money for our Air conditioning.
A coworker of Jeremiah's GAVE us an AC unit so that we will only have to pay for the labor! We have not had a new quote yet, but I imagine this will knock off as much as half the cost! (we will still need lots of duct work and electrical done, as our old unit was OLD and the new units need completely different setups.)
Another coworker has offered to look at our van and try to fix it for us!
And a family we do not know stepped forward and donated HALF our remaining $6,360.00 in agency fees! They donated $3,400.00!
A local shop donated Scones that were sold for our family at church sunday.
Another family is making handmade items and selling them to help us.
Our T-shirt fundraiser has sold over 100 shirts! we will make about $1000.00 if I have added everything up correctly!
We have a meeting tomorrow to discuss appeals for our medical bills, praying that we can get some relief on this front.
I don't believe God gives you only as much as you can handle. I don't believe that I am capable of being the person I need to be without leaning fully on my heavenly Father. A few weeks ago I felt as though a jet plane had crashed into our life. I was despairing, I was falling apart.
I can breath now. We still have so far to go, but I can breath now because I am not relying on my strength.
I can breath now, but I had nothing to do with it. I did not find some awesome solution to our money crisis. I COULDN'T DO IT. GOD DID. He has been so faithful, and I know he will continue to be. All I need to do is remember that this is not my doing.
I read something anther adoptive mama said a while back. "Work like its all up to you, but pray like its all up to Him." Because in the end it is. I can drive myself into the ground and exhaust every option I have, but no matter how hard I try the unexpected can happen, and if I am not leaning ONLY on Him I am going to fall.
Please keep us in your prayers as we pick up and push forward! I will post separately to update everyone on our adoption process. Thank you for your prayers and support!
#BringinghomeRori #loveblind
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