Praying for Patience

We're waiting to receive the official proposal for our precious daughters. It's been almost three weeks now. The ICAB (Inter Country Adoption Board) meets twice a month. Surely they have met by now?! It is ICAB's job to have the final yay or nay for the adoptive families of their beautiful country's children. Every time the phone rings between 9am-10am, I jump and run for the phone.

This waiting has been a lot more difficult than the before-the-match waiting. Now you know what your child or children look like. You envision your every day life with them as part of your family. It's not just the Engineer and I who eat sleep and breathe our wee daughters, but their older brother and sisters as well. Each time Squirt puts on an outfit that is getting too small, when she removes it, I find it laying on my bed. She tells me, it's too pretty to give it away. We must keep it for Belle. I smile, toss it in the wash, and eventually when it's clean, I fold it and put it away for Belle.

When I do groceries, I wonder at what food they will like. Will the like a lot of the strange foods we eat? We do eat some rather strange foods, and I'm not talking culturally, but as a family. My kids actually like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, beets, and even artichokes.

When we were doing our back-to-school shopping (now that was a concept. Wow! Is that an expensive endeavour)! the girls were perpetually shopping for their sisters instead of focusing on indoor shoes, pencils, and the like. I have to confess that I'm no better though.

Will they like camping? Do they like pink? Their suitcase is FULL of pink clothes, so I hope so! What will they think of the cold and snow? Have they ever been swimming?  Will they like swimming? Have any of them learned to ride a bike? Will they like school? How much English do they know? Do they EVEN know any English?

Lots and lots of questions. I'm glad that they are in a Christian orphanage and are already learning about our Lord and Saviour. We pray for our precious daughters each and every day. We pray that God will be preparing their little hearts for the big changes that will come. That they will be safe and remain healthy. We pray that we will be good listeners to them. That we will know when to get help for them and when they simply need to talk. We pray that God will give them peace about their past and strength to face the future. Even though we haven't met them yet they are as precious to us as if they had been born to us. We pray for their biological family too. We also pray for patience as we wait. If someone told me I could get on a plane right now, I sometimes think I would just drop everything and run to that plane!

This waiting is all part of God's perfect plan. Through our adoption journey, we have seen very clearly God's perfect plan for us. His ways are higher than our ways. Two verses that have been very special to us on this journey are Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.", and  Proverbs 16:9 A man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. We have seen God working like this time and time again throughout this journey.

People say we are doing such a wonderful thing by bringing these precious girls home. We will be blessing them so much. We say it's the other way around. Their presence in our life (is already) and will be an awesome blessing to us! It won't be easy, but what is in life. The waiting is hard, but knowing that God has it all in control makes it bearable. However, until we hear news of our proposal we continue to  pray for patience.