The Lord is not Slow...

Wow.  It’s been almost two months since I last posted.  And these months have been insane.  Pretty sure we’ve experienced every human emotion, sometimes simultaneously.  Why?

Well remember in June how I told you that there was a teens tiny chance that we might not have to wait until the end of the summer for investigations to be completed?   That if they were completed sooner that maybe we’d get to travel this summer?  To be honest, I only half-heartedly prayed this would be the case.  But, 48 hours after our living relative interview at the embassy, we received an email that our investigation was complete!  We had visa appointments in July, which meant we would be traveling in July to pick up our children!  Wahoo!

We booked a hotel room.  We booked plane flights.  We furiously packed.  And packed.  And weighed bags and repacked.  We scurried around finding perfect money newer than 2006 with no creases, marks, or tears.  (Because few places accept credit cards and apparently, they only like perfect US money.)  We hosted missionaries to the Congo who helped us pack and prepare for life in Kinshasa.  We gathered groupons and gift cards for Henry and Grace to take with them to our friends who were keeping them.  

And then about 48 hours from the time we were supposed to leave we heard devastating news:  Charlie’s passport application had been lost by the passport issuing office and so, obviously, the kids had missed their visa appointment.  We were suddenly forced to decide to push back our tickets and pay change fees and the difference in fares or cancel them all together, pay fines and get partial refunds. We tried to push back our hotel reservations, but always knowing there was no real way to know when exactly his passport would be issued.  Or if the embassy would be able to reschedule our appointment in a timely manner.  We were one of the first appointments scheduled for our agency under the new immigration policies, so to some degree, all of us were swimming in unchartered waters.  And the water was deep, dark, and churning.  

To say we were sad and angry would be an understatement.  There was a sense of us reliving every miscarriage and the loss of Emma Sloan all over again.  Because you should just know that waiting adoptive Mommas are so very much like pregnant women in their emotional (in)stability. But not only are we wrecks,  we are loony while also under intense financial strain.  So much fun for everyone!  (Bonus points are that you can drink while waiting during adoption.  And you should.)  

Henry and Grace even buckled under the weight of our grief.  I oscillated between snapping at everyone and crying out of sadness and shame.  We tried to find someone to blame: each other, our agency, the system, the embassy, the Congo, God.  At one point, Sloan awoke to the sound of me crying and cussing while in the shower.  He asked, “Ummm…is there someone in there with you?”  I replied, “I’m yelling at God.  Sure, there are bureaucratic delays, but ultimately He is in charge.”  Sloan said, “Okay, well maybe lay off the f-bombs when praying.  You’re a grocery cart and a pint of booze away from being a hobo.”  

But in the end, we knew the truth:  there was no one culprit behind our delay—this was just life in a fallen world, bureaucracy was slow and orphans got the short end of the stick.  

But this was God’s plan for our family, and He would derive glory in our delay.  I delved into the Psalms.  Ever grateful for David’s words which were f-bomb free but still spoke my heart.  Psalm 22 was ever on the tip of my tongue:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest…Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help… I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.  My heart has turned to wax; it has melted within me. My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death.

And in the midst of David’s distress, David ends the psalm in the future tense, knowing that one day God’s people will proclaim He has done it!  So while I was upset with God’s tarrying, I knew He would bring my kids home.  

But when?

After much delay, we FINALLY got Charlie’s passport.  So then it was time to re-appproach the embassy and ask for another appointment.  During this time, we continued to beg God for patience.  If there was a verse on patience in the Bible, I was clinging to it, thinking if I just prayed the right prayer, God would make me okay with these delays.  That if I just trusted Him enough I’d be all zen and peaceful and could return to business as usual, complaining about my first world problems like too much rain and forgetting my grocery bags as opposed to yearning for my children languishing in an orphanage.    That if I could just learn the lesson that God was trying to teach me, all would be well and we could proceed.

But then God gave me 2 Peter 3:9.  At first glance, I kinda dismissed it.  Perhaps God was not trying to teach me about myself.  (Wait?  You mean it isn’t about me?)  Perhaps it was not my own impatience God was trying to reveal, but rather, His own patience with me.  That I can and should continue to pray Come quickly, Lord Jesus!  Hasten the day when my faith becomes sight and there is no more death or mourning or tears or orphans!  However, I should also realize that He tarries not because He is forgetful or distracted or angry with me or stuck on Candy Crush level 208 (for the love, people!), but because He is patient and He is not done.  He is waiting so that more of us can experience forever in His fullness.  His love is so great, it empowers Him to wait for us.  

Y’all I can’t even comprehend that.  Love so big it is pleased to wait? 

So we wait.  Not because we are pleased to do so, but because we really have no other choice.  We have new visa appointments for next week.  We hope to travel mid-September.  About 2 months after we first thought.  But I do get to be here for Henry’s first day of Kindergarten

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How can you be praying?

-For no more hiccups in our process.  For the embassy appointments to go well and for our visas to be issued quickly.

-For the next steps in country to happen quickly. 

-For our new travel plans to be able to happen:  I am planning on travelling solo and then Sloan will follow up about 12 days later and then we will all fly home together, thereby maximizing Sloan’s PTO stateside.

-For me to figure out how to divvy up our supplies.  Before I had everything split evenly between 5 bags.  Now I have to basically put every necessity in 3 or pay loads in extra baggage fees.  So that’s 100 lbs less!

-For Charlie and Mollie’s health.  Charlie has lost some weight and has begun to ask for us.  Our boy misses us and is ready to come home to us! 

-For us to continue to trust God to provide for us.  Each delay has had both emotional and financial cost.  The changing of the plane tickets cost $1600.  So basically the entire amount raised during our CFA fundraiser.