Born in Cambodia

We finished our last day of training today. Yeah! We always learn some great stuff, but what I really love is lunch time, when you get to know others that are in the same boat. (Plus, we get to eat out while the kids are at Grammy and Grandpa's House).

On a much different note, here are some thoughts from this last week. One of my recent post talks of the fear of Ethiopia closing, which is still a fear of mine, but after talking to our agency and friends at other agencies, my immediate fears have somewhat diminished. Anyway, all that to say, in the midst of my fear, I started looking at what other countries have open adoption programs and, believe it or not, Cambodia may be opening. We ALWAYS thought that we would adopt from Cambodia, but it was always closed. We eventually thought that it would never open, so Ethiopia was our next choice. Then I also discovered that currently Cambodia only accepts parents with no more than 2 kids, so that means that even if Cambodia opens we won't be eligible if we adopt from Ethiopia. For a couple of days, that felt really hard for me. I thought that we would maybe try to adopt from Cambodia first and maybe put our Ethiopian adoption on hold, since it is going to slowly anyway. However, there is a really good devotional book called "Jesus Calling, by Sarah Young." I still don't know if it's so good because it only takes about a minute to read or because it really has great stuff in it. Either way, January 5th's entry was written for me that day. It's written as if God is talking. It said:

True dependence is not simply asking Me to bless what you have decided to do. It is coming to Me with an open mind and heart, inviting Me to plant My desires within you. I may infuse within you a dream that seems far beyond your reach. You know that in yourself you cannot achieve such a goal. Thus begins your journey of profound reliance on Me. It is a faith walk, taken one step at a time, leaning on me as much as you need.

After reading that, my whole outlooked changed. I felt like my decision to try to figure out how to adopt from Cambodia was just part of my plan, not God's. I feel like God started us on this path to adopt from Ethiopia and the obstacles that made adoption "far beyond our reach," seem within reach now. We still know that things can change, but for now, we are more excited than ever to adopt from Ethiopia and it even feels less like our 2nd choice than it did before we found out about Cambodia possibly opening. Actually, to be more exact, we are more excited than ever to continue to put this whole adoption process into Gods hands and to trust him to bring us the perfect child for our family, no matter where they were/will be born.

The pictures that I included are of our trip to Cambodia so many years ago, where our joint desire to adopt internationally was born.