One Less Orphan

We lost the referral for Kirill.

The boy known as David on Reece's Rainbow, who we named Eli, has found a forever family in his home country.

Without a doubt, this is God's will.

From the moment I laid eyes on Kirill, I knew that the Lord had huge things planned. Please believe me, I don't say this in poetic retrospect. I could see potential in the face of every child in their orphanage, but God had laid it upon my heart, from the moment I saw Kirill, that this little boy was destined for absolute greatness.

His paths were being divinely directed, I could feel it, and I was grateful to be a part of it.

That knowledge has made this easier.

Since January, he has been prayed for by name. Prayers for specific blessings have been sent his way, and angels have been guarding over this little boy. I'm so grateful that, although he'll never know it, he had someone loving him during his last months as an orphan.

Kirill, already a full head taller than any child in the orphanage, was facing imminent transfer to an institution after his 5th birthday, only two months from now.

It is rare for a family in his home country to seek out an HIV+ child of his age to adopt. So while I may never know his family's complete story, I'm at absolute peace about his future.

You'll always have an American lady who loves you very much, Кирилко!

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

- Isaiah 55:8-9

When You Have No Strength To Stand...

Kneel

Adoption Moratorium, Faith, and TWO Little Winns

Since November, Donald and I have made ZERO progress toward finishing our adoption. The country we're adopting from has been voting on legislation that would put a moratorium into effect for their international program. After passing two votes and being signed into law by their president, it would go into effect. It was after the first vote (where it passed) that we paused everything. Being toward the end of our home study, and having many of our documents gathered (some of which were time-sensitive and could "expire", so to speak), our best judgement told us to wait and see what would happen next.

Any further progress would have been a significant financial investment in adopting from our specific country. The cost for translating the documents was over $4,000 alone. If their program closed and we had to switch countries, we'd be out by several thousand.

A huge financial risk... that we weren't willing to take.

I remember reading blogs of fellow adopting parents who made the opposite decision, and were pushing forward in faith. My reaction? "Oh, they must be loaded..." or, "Wow, how naive...". At best, I might have thought they were brave or inspirationally optimistic.

Now, I find myself ashamed of those judgements. Aside from it obviously being NO business of mine, I now see the fruits of their faith: submissions of dossiers, dates received, plane tickets purchased, and some families with children already in their arms, home forever.

While we, the "financially prudent family", sit here on the couch with our dogs, watching X-files.

Several "postponements" in the voting process later (among other things), a moratorium is no more imminent than it was two months ago. And yet, we're no closer to having a Little Winn home, either.

Not for long, though. We're moving forward. We're doing this thing. We're taking the financial leap of faith, and are tapping into retirement accounts (lol, who needs a retirement fund - our kids can care for us in old age!) We're bringing home our Little Winn... or rather, our Little WinnS.

We've decided to bring home TWO children from Eastern Europe.

Details are still being hammered out, but I'll post more information once things are official.

ONWARD!

It's Scary Business :-(

It's 6:41am and I'm doing homework. I have been for 40 minutes.

More history homework, as usual. It's my favorite.

But... can I just vent for one tiny moment?

Having to pretend I agree with the depressingly immoral passages in my textbooks just to earn a good grade makes me wish I could be attending a private Christian university SO badly sometimes.

(on the sexual revolution in the 1920s:)

"...There was also a modest increase in premarital sexual intercourse, made possible by...(contraceptives - more text than I'm willing to type). But sexual intercourse usually took place between partners who assumed they would marry. Importantly, the marriage they looked forward to was a romantic/sexual union in which both husband and wife had equal rights to sexual satisfaction. Effective contraception transformed sex from merely "propagative act" to a "spiritual avenue of expression." In this way, the new woman of the 1920s, though freer sexually, continued to focus on romance, marriage, and family."

I'll try not to be too whiney here, and I'm not trying to suggest that this textbook is evil or overly-opinionated (thought I could make a pretty good case based on some other chapters...) but it kills me is that all of my homework is centered around the assumption that I agree with the text.

I do my job, and I give the teacher what he wants. To get the best grade, I fake it.

In the past, I've attempted to tactfully and gently add my personal opinion in... but it is both time consuming and detrimental to my grade.

Also, on a slightly related note: I leave my house for work within 2 minutes of the elementary children being picked up at their bus stop. The stop is DIRECTLY in front of my house. Nearly every morning, I overhear a variety of profanities and explicit topics being discussed.

....by 9 year olds.

And I don't live in a rough neighborhood.

Yet another reason to consider homeschooling, I guess. :-/

Being in the world is scary business sometimes.

Bad Week, Good Week... Works For Me!

Last week was bad. Just terrible.

I accidentally answered one very important question wrong in an essay for one of my classes (similar to "2+2=5". Yup, one of those type of inexplicable mistakes), which brought my grade down from a hard-earned 4.0 to a 3.7.

One afternoon, in the hours between my normal morning shift and an evening shift I was covering for a co-worker... my car broke down. Yup, my 2008 Prius WOULDN'T start.

This wouldn't have been so catastrophic if I wasn't parked in the Steele Lake Park parking lot with my windows rolled down. I couldn't just leave it there. :-(

Thankfully, the dealership paid for the tow-truck and rental car, and my boss was nice about me being late. The next day, however, they couldn't find ANYTHING wrong with my vehicle. It was working just fine! I've decided that it's a temperamental hippie, hell-bent on making my life difficult.

Many other miserable things happened last week. Some self-created, some acts of God, and some just rotten luck. No more of which I'll continue to complain about here.

This week is different. This week is a glorious, bright shinning light of happiness and hope. This week, NOTHING can get me down. And I mean nothing.

I'll be blogging a little later about what makes this week so fantastic, so check back soon.

Ultimately, I've decided that bad weeks are necessary to balance out the really good ones. Life just wouldn't be fair of God allowed EVERY week to be as great as this one is cracking up to be.

Back in the Saddle

The past week has been all sorts of busy, but in a good way!

I was asked the Sunday before last to speak in sacrament meeting the following Sunday (which was this last Sunday, in case you weren't tracking). So in addition to subbing in the Sunbeams class(3 year olds, for all my beloved non-Mormons out there), I had my hands full preparing for Sunday. The subject was on how we can create Zion by being pure in heart. A fabulous topic, if you ask me. Researching the subject was really uplifting and inspiring.
I was up WAY too late Saturday, preparing. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if I would have prepared better earlier in the week AND if I wasn't so busy Saturday afternoon.
After working Saturday morning (which I don't normally do), the rest of my daylight hours were spent completing my garden bed, and filling it with soil.

Unfortunately, the only pictures I have are ones taken with my Blackberry. I still haven't figured out how to operate Donald's new-fangled camera properly, and since my Katrina-proof camera (an Olympus Stylus - totally indestructible) is missing its' power cord, my phone's camera is what I've been relying on.

I finished screwing the two layers(built a few weeks ago) together with support pieces:


Next, I laid down a some week-blocker and put down a layer of big rocks, gathered from my yard (I needed to get rid of them somehow!). They weren't ALL the big rocks, but they were at least the BIGGEST ones I could gather before I started to go insane and then gave up. Trust me, folks... picking up rocks is torture.



Then... mom and I filled it up with dirt! Woot woot! Props to my mom, by the way. Without her fabulous truck and the use of her time and physical labor, I would have never completed this job in the time that I did.





In other news, school started back up again this week for me. I'm actually going to full time this quarter, but since one of my classes is online and another is a hybrid, I only have to drive up to school once a week. So far, so good. I'm absolutely loving it.

The only bad update to share is that I have some sort of rodent(s) living in my garage. I haven't seen it(them), but their "leavings" are everywhere. GAG! Critters? In my brand new house? I DON'T THINK SO, GUYS! It's bad enough that I've already found three spiders. I need to hang a "GROSS LITTLE CRITTERS NOT WELCOME" sign outside my front door, and then maybe they'll get the message.

Anyway, I've found it VERY difficult to find humane and EFFECTIVE forms of extermination. Poison? No way. I don't want to be sniffing around to find a stinky little dead mouse/rat-corpse after its long and painful death. Glue trays? I'd cry if one got caught. The same goes for those little traps that just catch them inside and then keep them there until they starve to death. They may be gross little vermin, but I DO have a soul.
Standard snap-down traps? Scary, but hopefully effective... because that's what I got.
I'm no bleeding-heart, but I still don't like to see any creature suffer. Even spiders, which I abhor above all of God's creations, I kill swiftly and as pain-free as possible.


Moving along...

Well, I was given an assignment in the ward. Nothing too time consuming, it appears. The Graham Stake is putting on a fine arts expo-thingy in June. I'll be the representative for our ward, which essentially just means that I go to the meetings, take notes, and pass on the information to our ward.

The Bishop also said he had a calling for me. Oh snap... everyone pray hard that it's something wicked cool, okay?


Um... what else...
Oh yeah, D.O.G., our 11-month-old Newfoundland puppy, almost outweighs me. He's less than 10 pounds behind me. I'll soon be able to say that I own a dog who weighs more than me. Don't ask me why, but that's always been my dream. I adore large beasts, which makes me like a female Hagrid. Just smaller and far better looking, I guess.

That's all for now, folks!

New Favorite Scripture

Psalms 126:5

"They that sow in tears shall reap in joy."

Doesn't that just make you feel better?

Adam and Mom's visit - Pt. 1 - Thanksgiving w/ the Sr. Missionaries

On November 21st my mom flew in to visit us here in Germany. A few days later, on the 26th, Donald's best friend Adam arrived.
The following day was Thanksgiving, and dinner with the missionaries was only the beginning of our adventures!!