One day at a time

I've lost track of time since we've been in the hospital with Dad in these, his last days. However, I have had time to read other blogs about families who adopted from the Ukraine and decided to use the time to set up our blog. I am dedicating this blog to my Dad,who along with my mom, taught me about faith and encouraged me to follow God to whereever the journey might lead, hence the name FaithJourney.

Which brings me to the reason I am setting up a blog in the first place. In January, our family will journey to the Ukraine to hopefully adopt a 13 year-old girl named Lena. At least, that is why we "think" we are going over there. This particular journey began in March 2007 when Trent felt led to contact some people in Georgetown who had adopted 3 kids from the Ukraine and were looking for a family to adopt another Ukrainian orphan whom they had hosted. He asked us if we wanted to adopt again and after we picked our jaws up off the floor, we all got very excited. We met with the family and after much prayer and discussion we realized they were too attached to that young girl and we decided to host another child. We looked over the orphans that were available through Frontier Horizon probably a dozen times. We asked questions about several of them. They all looked so precious, but Lena's picture kept coming up through all our questions and finally we settled on her.

Lena spent 3 amazing months with us this summer. She came only speaking a handful of English words (actually about as many as we had learned in Russian). We had many laughs listening to the way we were mutilating each other's language and pronunciation. About 3 weeks into the summer, we decided we wanted to pursue adoption and here we are. Our appointment date is January 26, 2009. We learned so much over the summer and found 3 different contacts who could speak Russian and translate for us. We became quite adept at charades as well. We learned about her family and her culture and our kids learned how to put others before themselves and how to share their parents. Most of all we saw first hand how love transcends all barriers, even language.

So there it is, my first ever blog. I guess the Lord has used this time that my dad has been ill to help me to slow down and live life one day at a time. Love the Lord, your loved ones and use your time wisely for his service and to care for those he has given you. After all, it's really not our time, it's HIS.