Five Years

"The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." Proverbs 16:9

At some point in time, you know whenever I have time, this verse will be painted on a wall in our house. I feel like it has been the theme of my life for the past few years, and especially for this adoption. 

Five years ago tonight, these two little kids went out on their first date:

For those of you that don't know our story, Josh and I had been friends for a long time, but it was not until a week in November when the Lord began to really draw our hearts together. We both had plans for our lives but by the Grace of our Father, he began to direct our steps---directing our steps together and showing us a glimpse of the future he had for us.

I don't think either of us would have imagined that five very short years later, we would be putting our passports in the mail to get our visas, buying plane tickets, and sorting clothes for our little boy! The Lord has truly began to direct us throughout this process and it has been amazing to see how the Lord is fulfilling the desires that He placed deep within our hearts many years ago.

I am not even attempting to imagine where the Lord will lead us in the next five years, but I am pretty excited about the few weeks! We officially have plane tickets and are beginning the process of preparing to travel! Thank you for all of you who have prayed this week. The Lord has been so faithful to provide exactly what we need.

Josh, I cannot imagine being on this journey with anyone else! I love you and cannot wait to add a few trips to Russi*a to this journey!

(And now that I have been sweet you can enjoy this picture of Josh's curly hair from five years ago!) 

Courtney Leigh

Thankful

So I am not going to say that I am going to post more often, because my brother has reminded me that I say this every time I write. But we do have news and so things are going to be changing often around here, which might lend itself to a few more updates!

We got a referral! And its a...

Boy! Our little man is 2 years old and seems to be very healthy! We are looking at traveling for our first of three trips in 3-4 weeks. We will be in Russ*a for about a week and will get to meet him and spend time getting to know him. 

We are beyond excited, and a little bit scared, as this journey just became a lot more real. We have dreamed about our child for so long, but getting to see his precious little face makes every feeling more intense. (We cannot post pictures on the internet, but trust me, he is cute!)

We greatly covet your prayers first for our little man and then selfishly for us as well. Here are a few things that you can be praying for.

1. Please keep our son in your prayers. We are praying for him and for his caregivers, that they will help him to know that he is loved and has a family.
2. Pray for us as we prepare to travel. We are waiting on a few more things from Russia before we can buy plane tickets and get visas. Pray that we will get that approval and will be able to smoothly get the necessary documents for us to travel the first week of December.
3. Pray for our hearts as we are preparing to bring our son home. You all know that there is a lot that goes into being ready for toddler, but we also know that anything can happen in adoption. It sounds weird to say that buying a crib is a leap of faith, but in a lot of ways it is. Pray that we will trust the Lord with our fears and the uncertainty that comes with the adoption process, while we are physically preparing for his arrival.

As we enter into this Thanksgiving season, our hearts are grateful. Praise Him from whom all blessings flow for this life! 

Josh and Courtney

Overwhelmed

Overwhelmed… if you ask Courtney, she will tell you that it is a word that I rarely use. I just don’t like it. It doesn’t actually give the person you are speaking with an idea of how you are feeling. Are you sad? Happy? Angry? No, I am overwhelmed. What exactly does that mean? I like to be able to hear the words that are coming from a person and assign an emotion with them, so I can know how I can help. 

However, the word overwhelmed is the only word I can come up with that describes how we feel the past few months. We are overwhelmed with the love that has been poured out on us by our friends and families. Not a day goes by where there is not someone asking us about our adoption process. It has been amazing to me that the conversations are not just a casual, off the cuff comment, but that you really care. When you ask, you really want to know. You will stand in the hallways, stop by the office, send an e-mail, stop our parents in church or at the table in a restaurant, you will make the call or text all just to genuinely check on us and to see if our child is ready to come home. Many days where you have talked with us, you could not imagine what we had been through, yet you were there with a smile and a kind word to help us move forward. 

You have prayed for us… Oh, how you have prayed. We have literally felt the prayers of the saints as you have stopped in your daily life to lift us and our child up. We know that God’s people are interceding because there are days in the waiting process that we would never get through without your prayers on our behalf. 

You have given. There are so many of you have given sacrificially to our adoption fund. We have been blessed by those friends who we have not heard from since high school, those who live down the street, those who helped raise us, those who go to church and work with us… you all have said that you would partner with us so that we could bring our baby home. Because of your faithfulness to the Lord in giving, you have made the financial burden, one that I was more scared of than anything, so much lighter than we could have ever imagined.

Whether you know it or not, you are an instrument of God’s grace and mercy. Every time you call or stop to talk, you are showing and sharing His love. Every time you give of your time and your money, you are showing how the body of Christ comes together to sacrificially take care of one another to answer His call on our lives. Every time you respond to His urging, you are showing that God is still at work. Every time you meet a need of ours, whether you know it or not, you are the physical presence of God answering prayers.

We are overwhelmed. By God’s goodness and His grace, we are overwhelmed. By His work through you as you minister to our family, we are overwhelmed.

Our prayer is that you too will feel His presence as you continue to follow His leading and that God’s richest blessings be poured out on you and your family, as you have continued to be the living, breathing body of Christ to ours.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21

With humble hearts,

Josh and Courtney 

Surrender

I really am going to do better about writing, I promise. It has been a frustrating few weeks and I have struggled to successfully articulate what I have been feeling. 

Waiting well is hard. It is hard not to be frustrated. It is hard not to be discouraged. It is hard not to dream about the future. Its hard not to answer all of the numbers that you don't recognize and get angry when its a political campaign.  I am a dreamer and Josh is too---in different ways, but we are both prone to dream about the future (hence the name of the blog). I am slowly learning to let the Lord transform my dreams into his, but in the past few weeks I have been guilty of "dwelling on dreams and forgetting to live." Wise words from the mouth of Dumbledore. 

 After talking with our agency at the end of last week, it is looking like we are going to be waiting a lot longer---for the next several months. And I find myself really discouraged. I knew this could happen, but I guess I just didn't let myself believe that we would be waiting more than two months. 

Josh and I have often told people that adoption is our plan A. This is our first choice for starting our family. I was talking my frustrations out with my mom and she wisely reminded me that when we have no plan B, we have no other choice but to put our trust in our Savior. Surrendering our plan A is our only option. 

Surrender is hard because it means giving up the control. I'm not there yet, but I am working on it. Surrendering to the God who was and is and is to come. Surrendering to the God who created the son and the moon and the stars. Surrendering to the God who throughout scripture shows us how His heart is drawn to the plight of the orphan, how he intervenes for the orphan. 

Kristin Wong talkes about this in her book on adoption, Carried Safely Home, where she says, " In [Jesus], we have the ultimate picture of God entering into the vulnerability and poverty of his people. God is glorious. He created and sustains the outer reaches of the universe; made millions of stars...and holds them all in place. He also made and watches each fatherless or motherless child in each hidden corner. He counts the hairs on their heads." 

This week, Psalm 146, has reminded me of this truth:

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.

When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God,
who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever;
who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the sojourners;  he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations.

Praise the Lord!

God has given me the opportunity to surrender my plan A to him. The God who created me and created my child. The God who holds me as my heart longs for a child and my baby as he or she longs to be loved. This God lets me join in his story. 

"God, unfathomable in his power and glory, is also the caretake for the weak...God could care for the orphans by his unilateral action alone. But he invites us to participate in his work of mercy. When we love fatherless children, we are doing the work of God--not on the work that he commands us to do, but the wrok that he, majestic Creator of the universe, promises to do himself. Through adoption, we are drawn into awe and love for God. We glimpse reflections of who he is and what he has done, and we marvel and rejoice....Through adoption I follow him. Through adoption, I worship."

And as I worship. I surrender. May this story be for His glory alone. 

Courtney Leigh 

Trust

One of my best friends, Autumn, once shared this quote with me and I have been thinking about it a lot lately:

"It is a safe thing to trust Him to fulfill the desires which He creates." Amy Carmichael

Ask my mother and she would tell you that I have wanted to be a mother my whole life. Besides being Josh's wife and a follower of Christ, there is nothing in life that I want more. My heart longs to hold my baby, to see his face, or know that she is safe and being cared for.

This week has been a hard one for us. All of our paperwork is in Russ*a and submitted to the right office in our region. We are just waiting. We have found out that we are 4th on the waiting list. I know that seems short, but it is still hard, waiting, but yet not knowing, hoping and praying. We are being forced to trust our God with our desires--desires that come from Him. We firmly believe that our Father gave us these desires and we know that he will see them to fulfillment.

Our hearts are burdened, not just for our own child, but for the millions around the world who do not know unconditional love. Our hearts break for the hundreds of thousands of Russ*an orphans--who when they age out of the orphanage at 16, 60% of the girls will end up in prostitution and 70% of the boys will end up in prison. It is our prayer that we won't just be adopting a child, but allowing the power of the Gospel to transform their life.

We are very grateful for your prayers and support. I know that we say it a lot, but your messages, prayers, questions about the process they get us through. Thank you for continuing to ask--and for letting us be honest in the days where we hurt. Thank you for emotionally and financially supporting us. 

On the fundraiser front, we have raised over $600 with our bracelet sales! We have lots of people helping us sell bracelets, so if you are interested in one or more, please message me. And just in time for the Olympics, we have plenty of new Red, White, and Blue bracelets! You can support both Team USA and Team Russ*a! :)