I'm So Happy I Could Kiss A Giraffe!!

Kissing a giraffe in Kenya 2006

I just got word from our adoption agency this morning that we have a number! We are number (drum roll please).... 143!!! Yippie-yahoo. It's a big number compared to what I've read about from other families adopting from Rwanda but I am just so thrilled to finally get a number and "get in line"!

I also have received word that 20 families received their non-objection letters. Which is what we are in line waiting for... it's basically a letter from Rwanda saying that we can adopt an orphan from their country. Congratulations to all those families!! After a family receives their non-objection letter, the nuns at the orphanage are given the family's paperwork and begin the process of matching the them to a child!

All this can still take a while. I still don't really have a good idea of a time frame. But this is still fantastic news! As you know Rwanda temporarily has closed it's doors to accepting more applications for adoption while they transition into a new adoption process (from non Hauge to Hauge). We were not sure how this transition would effect the families who turned in their paperwork before this happened. I had heard they were hiring new staff and training them but didn't know if anyone would be working on the "old" stuff at the same time or if everything would be focused on the new path. Looks like they are starting to process dossiers again in the midst of the changes!! I think in another month we will have a good guess on a time frame. I was told they are renumbering the dossiers ahead of ours so hopefully I will get a new lower number soon! In the mean time I will praise God for the good news this Monday morning! :)

Inspiration From Others Who Dream Big

I was planning on writing about some of the great things I'm learning in my new class relating to adopting kids from hard places... but as I was reading blogs and came across this amazing lady... She is young- 20 years old I think. Her story is something like this: She decides wants to take a year between high school and college to live in Uganda. Her parents agree. She works as a local kindergarten teacher. She has taken in several children to raise and started a program to sponsor other kids so they can go to school (the schools are not free like in the U.S.) and have a feeding program. After her year, she returns home as she promised her parents and attends college. She soon realizes God wants her back home in Uganda. She breaks the news to her parents and returns. She now has over a dozen kids living with her and her program sponsors over 400 local children. I was amazed as I read her blog entries. She has loved and comforted the old and dying, assisted in birth, been given starving babies, sewn wounds together with stitches and all sorts of other things you can't imagine someone her age doing. Her heart beats for God's children- particularly the orphans. It is inspiring to read. Read her blog and check out her organization Amazima.

I was told growing up that one person couldn't make a big difference in the world. That change had to come about through governments and political leaders. I remember coming out of high school wanting to be the change I desired to see in the world. Since I have come to know Christ personally, I have begun to experience the difference one life, saying "God, please use me" can make in the world. I have witnessed many people, making incomprehensible changes in the world. They are incomprehensible because they are just ordinary people (really!) who focus their life like a laser with a deep passion for hurting people and reliance on God... and God uses them in ways you just can't dream up. God's plan for your life is bigger than your dream for your life.

I wonder what path God has for me and my dreams...

He is continuing to lead us down the path of adoption from Rwanda. As you know we made the deadline of turning in our dossier to the Rwandan Embassy in the U.S. by Aug. 31 - truly by the hands of God (read my post about it... it was a crazy day, Aug. 30, 2010, running around getting county and state authentications and more!). As of September 15th, 2010 our dossier was checked into Rwandan government branch for adoptions (Ministry of Family and Gender Promotion is the official name)! This is a date that will be on my calendar every year and celebrated in honor of God's Mighty Hands.