Our Prayer

In about an hour, the Russ*an government will open and to be honest, things are not looking very hopeful. We are truly praying for a miracle tonight.

My heart is crying out to the Lord, begging for him to work in ways that I cannot imagine through people that I do not know and probably never will. We are praying for him to do what is impossible in our minds but simple for the God that we serve.

Here are a few verses that we have been praying:

"We wait in hope for the Lord: he is our help and our shield." Psalms 33:20

"The Lord will fight for you; you only need to be still." Exodus 14:14

"So do not fear, for I am with you...I with strengthen you and help you..." Isaiah 41:10

"Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption." Psalms 130:7

"The kings heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes." Proverbs 21:1

A year ago, the Lord began this redemption story. It is HIS story. Lord, we pray tonight asking you to continue the work that you began. And even if the work that you are doing doesn't allow us to bring Josiah home, give us the faith of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to be able to say, " If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty's hand. But even if he does not...we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold that you have set up." Daniel 3:17-18

May we see God's Glory in Russ*a tonight...

Josh and Courtney 

Comfort

Today is Christmas in Russ*a and it is currently Christmas morning for our sweet little boy. My heart hurts that we are not able to celebrate with him--to have presents for him to open--and see his excitement as he does. 

This week has been another challenging one filled with lots of questions and very little--ok really, no--answers. We are waiting until the Russ*an government reopens after their holidays and are praying for an answer that would allow us to bring Josiah home. 

I have cried out to our Lord so many times this week, begging for a miracle, for understanding, for peace. I have prayed for belief and confidence to trust in the Lord when I am weak. I can honestly say that I am emotionally, physically, and spiritually exhausted. 

Saturday morning, I woke up at 3am unable to sleep. I moved to the couch and began begging God for an answer. My heart longs to bring Josiah home. I want to hear him laugh. I want to watch him play with the train Nana and Pop gave him for Christmas and ride in his Clarke's golf cart with his cousins. But the hardest thing for me to come to terms with has been that we may never have to opportunity to see him come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. I have been praying for his salvation from the time we first saw his picture, and while I know that Christ alone can save him, I may never get the opportunity to tell him about Jesus. 

I sat on the couch and just begged God for his salvation. I prayed, asking even if I never get to physically hold him again to please allow him to believe in the God who created him. I walked up stairs, heading to Josiah's room, but I stopped at the bottom of our stairs. There we have a photograph framed with one of my favorite verses written underneath. I walk by the picture every day, but for some reason the words stood out that morning:

The Lord your God is in your midst,

    a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness; 
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.

Zephaniah 3:17

I have always loved the fact that the Lord quiets us by his love, but in that moment, I honestly felt that the Lord was in my midst. As I set on the steps and read that verse over and over, I truly began to believe that the Lord could save. I am praying the Lord will physically save Josiah, but also that He will spiritually save him. Even if Josiah never gets to come home, our God can save him. It doesn't matter how dark the place that Josiah lives, our God is mighty to save. It doesn't matter if Josiah isn't hearing the Christmas story read on this Christmas morning, our God is mighty to save. Josiah may never do any of things that I would do to teach him the story of the gospel, but our God is mighty to save. 

As I truly began to trust my Savior with the salvation of my child, my confidence began to grow. There is no greater miracle than salvation. If Christ can save me, there is nothing He cannot do. 

At the beginning of this week, I started reading a book called The Red Sea Rules by Robert Morgan. It looks at the Israelites journey through the Red Sea and contains some amazing truth and comfort for dealing with hard times. I really just want to post the whole book here, but that is illegal so I will leave you with a few verses that Morgan uses in his writing and have comforted me this week. Please join us in praying them over the next three days. 

 "And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” Exodus 14:13-14 

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21

Courtney Leigh

My Heart

This post is about to be very real and honest and so I am giving everyone a fair warning!

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven...a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance..." Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 4. 

This has been one of the hardest days of my entire life. For those of you who know me personally, you know that I don't cry--like even in situations where I should. But today, I woke up crying and have pretty much ugly cried most of the day today. Our hearts are truly broken today, but our hearts are also rejoicing as tomorrow my little brother is getting married. Most of today, I have flipped back and forth between a time to weep and a time to laugh. I love Hunter and I love Mary Beth and I am so thankful for their marriage and what the Lord is doing in their lives. I am also thankful for a family who will grieve with us even while celebrating.

We are also so thankful for all of the support from our friends and family. Thank you for your calls, your messages, and your willingness to fight for Josiah on our behalf. You will never know the ways that you have touched our hearts today. Your willingness to stop what you are doing and help us fight for a little boy you have never met has brought us to tears.

I wish that I could tell you good news tonight, but we honestly don't know much. We are still waiting to find out what will happen to the families like us who are in process of adopting. We have talked with members of our government and are grateful for the work that they are doing on our behalf. Russ*a is currently in their holiday and so government offices will close tomorrow for the next two weeks and so it may be a few weeks before we know the specific details.

So many of you have asked how we are doing. And I can honestly say that the Lord has been so very faithful to us. We knew that this journey was not an easy one, but we have never been more sure that this is the journey that the Lord has called us to. The call to adopt is deeply rooted in the Gospel and over the past few months has wrapped itself around the very fibers of who we are.

This journey has changed me. It has shown me more about the character of our Father than anything before. Tonight, my brother reminded me of the story of Abraham and Isaac. God had promised Abraham a son and yet then ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on an alter. I am seeing a glimpse of the faith that it took for Abraham to travel with his beloved son to a mountain top and build an alter. I am pretty confident that he was begging God to let him return home with his son, and yet he continue ahead. Oh how I wish I had Abraham's faith, a faith to believe that "God will provide" even when our human brains cannot comprehend.

Tonight, I am longing to hold a little boy who is halfway around the world and just waking up from a nap. A little boy with a stubborn streak just like his daddy's and a dimple that has him wrapped around his mama's finger. So I am choosing to believe that God will provide. This seems impossible to me, yet throughout Scripture our God does the impossible. So we pray to the God who created Josiah and who loves him more that we ever could. We pray, asking for His will to be done and choosing to believe that our God can work through our broken hearts and unbelief.

Josiah, I pray that you know much your daddy and I love you. One day I pray that we will tell you of the stories of the people who prayed and called and fought to get you home. While my desire is for you to be in my arms soon, I know that I may not get to hold you, but I also know that the God who made you, loves you. And I pray that you will know and understand His love for you, both now and through salvation in the future. We love you, little man, to Russ*a and back (it seems farther than the moon!).

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." Romans 15:13

Courtney Leigh

A Call for Prayer

The last 72 hours have been truly a whirlwind for us. We are still recovering from jetlag, finishing up projects for class, heading back to work, and trying to figure out how to emotionally deal with missing our son.

Monday, that roller coaster was made even harder with the news that members of the Russ*an Parliament are putting up legislation to ban U.S. Adoptions. 

This legislation is in response to a piece of legislation that was passed by our House and Senate and signed into law by President Obama last week called the Russ*a and Moldova Jackson–Vanik Repeal Act of 2012 that includes language that is referred to as the Magnitsky Act. The Magnitsky Act now punished Russ*an officials implicated in human rights violations. It freezes their accounts, places visas on hold and will not allow them to travel into the United States. For those of you who know me, I am a true political junky. I understand that politically, this act is the right thing for American businesses and it takes a stand on human rights, which has always been a stand the United States has been willing to take when no one else would. However, the language used in this act was denounced by President Put*n before it was signed into law and as far as we can tell, there were no diplomatic relations set up to ensure that the international relationship would still stand strong.

Earlier this morning, around 7:25 AM our time, the Russ*an Duma (lower house of parliament) overwhelmingly passed the second reading of a piece of legislation that now holds the amendment to stop and ban all US adoptions. This piece of legislation has one more reading for passage on Friday and then will go to President Put*n’s desk for signature. If it continues like it is, the new law will go into place on January 1, 2013 and would take the place of the agreement signed this July between Russ*a and the US.

We are hopeful that the Russ*an government will work diligently to find a way to ensure that the children of Russ*a are taken care of. We are hopeful that the United States government will work diligently to find a way to work towards an agreement that will help keep the door of adoption open for the many children who are looking for homes. 

At this time, we ask for your prayers. This does not change the affirmation we feel to continue to follow the leading of our God to bring Josiah home. We have worked throughout the day to finish paperwork and get things in order to send to Russ*a as if this conversation was never going on, because we know that the little guy we left in an orphanage last week is truly our son. It does not make us waver in our faith in the God we serve, for we know that He is sovereign and like Isaiah 55 tells us “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” It is during this time that we must not lean on our own understanding but truly trust in the God we serve.

Pray, not only for us, but for the many parents around the country who are waiting for the call that there is a child in need of a home or the parents who have met their children and are waiting to bring them home.

More importantly, pray for the children of Russ*a. It is already Russ*an law that all children who are placed for international adoption must have already been available for adoption by Russian citizens for an extended amount of time. As one Russ*an diplomat said earlier today “this will harm our children because they will not be able to find adopters.” As Courtney and I look at the picture of the place where our son is living, our hearts are heavy because of the thousands of Russ*an children that will call places like this home, permanently, if this law is passed.

It makes the days harder, but as we come on the celebration of Christmas we are reminded that Christ came to fulfill promises. We hang on to the truth that God will finish the work He has started in us and that His promise to us will be fulfilled. We know that our God is bigger than any government, any piece of legislation and any plan that we could have.

So for now, we will echo the Words of the Psalmsist…"I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the LORD more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning."

Josh

Home

We are finally back home and it is good to be back! Many of you have been asking how we are doing and so let me try to fill in a little of what has been going on. 

Thursday, we went to the notary to official sign all of our paperwork. We had already accepted his referral, but now we were signing to officially begin the process of adoption. We will have to complete more documents on our end and then will have to wait for a few more documents to arrive on the Russ*an side before all of our paperwork is submitted to the court; however, it is really nice to actually have the process started. 

Because of when our appointment was at the notary, we were not able to go back to the orphanage on Thursday. While this was difficult for us, the Lord was very faithful to provide some much needed fellowship for us. The other adoptive families who were in Russ*a with us are such a blessing. They truly understand the joys and challenges of adoption and they know and understand the places that these children come from. Their honesty, encouragement and laughter was definitely what we needed on Thursday. 

Friday, we began the long journey of heading home. The flights and layovers went very smoothly, and we had the unique experience of seeing the sun rise and set multiple times on the same day! :)

Many of you have also asked how we are doing since we returned home, and we are very grateful for your encouragement. I have struggled to know how to put words to what I am thinking and feeling. Leaving your child in another country and not knowing when you will return is extremely difficult--everything about it feels wrong. While we can be working on paperwork and completing our checklist, we ultimately have to place our child in our heavenly Father's hands--trusting in his protection, his sovereign timing, and his prefect will. This process is entirely out of our control, but it is not out of His. 

Josh and I were talking as we drove home and the Lord had placed the same verse on both of our hearts:

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6 

How grateful I am for that promise. Thank you for your prayers and encouragement. Please don't stop praying.  I cannot wait to be able to hold our little boy in his room upstairs and tell him of all the Lord has done and all who prayed him home.

Courtney Leigh