I can think of so many different places to start. We have hosted nine children from orphanages in Eastern Europe over the last four years. Each experience came with its own encounter with God. I plan to share about each of them eventually. For now I will touch very briefly on the last hosting we did summer of 2013 so that I can lead into how God has spoken the three children we are adopting to our family. I will share more about them in a future post.
This summer we hosted siblings. Arturs who was seven at the time and his brother Mihails who was five. Those boys were full of life. Busy all the time! The very first night they were here, I had went down stairs with the baby when it was almost morning. My husband woke me at 5:30am to tell me he had found Mihails tiptoeing through the hall with a little flashlight he had found in the boys room whispering "Mamma" and looking for me. He showed him where I was on the couch with the baby and he crawled right up beside me wrapped his arms and legs around me and fell right to sleep. I wondered where he had learned this or if he had cuddled someone before. They had been in the orphanage two years with no one visiting them. We knew from the hosting photos that they had a younger brother and sister. The time seemed to go so quickly. There were so many different emotions over the weeks they were with us. The greatest emotion of them all was their desire to be loved. Arturs would tell me again and again that I was his Mamma and he was my son. He smiled so big when he said it! The day before they would have to leave to go back to their country, they were drawing a family picture of them with us. It was in that picture that we learned they also had another bother, he was one!
Our prayers were to bring them home, that we would be the family for them that they so much wanted. They both cried at the airport. Mihails cried especially hard. I kept telling them we would see them at Christmas and not to be sad. One of the hardest lessons I had ever had to learn I learned standing at the airport saying goodbye four years ago to our first host boys. That lesson was "It's not about me"! There are so many reasons someone can make for not wanting to be vulnerable or be hurt when you have to say goodbye to these sweet children when you host (or anytime you love actually). So many reasons to look away when you see pictures of orphans being shared, or any injustice. But when you are made to truly cling to the fact that it is not about us, and you can see glimpses of that truth, you have a small understanding of something so big. It is freeing in a way to know it doesn't have to make sense, the pieces don't have to all fit together - there is someone who already knows where every piece goes. So we said good bye believing they were ours and we would see them again. We started to inquire for home study agencies. A few weeks later we received an email that the grandmother had came and took all five of the children. I don't remember crying for a while. We prayed and we decided to wait for a few weeks since it was shared with us that the orphanage staff believed they would be brought back into care. While we waited we continued to pray. After a few weeks, we both felt that we were meant to move forward... that we were given the amazing opportunity to love those boys not to keep from loving any other child that was still waiting but to know it was worth it.
So I looked at a listing...and while scrolling I see the cutest little boy staring back, "Alonzo". I showed my husband one evening not sure what he would say. He looked at him, watched his video, and then said "yes, find out what we have to do". Just like that, there we no questions, no uncertainty, just yes!
I had felt like there was atleast one other child that we would be drawn to add to our adoption. We had just been considering a sibling group of five and had always thought we would be adopting siblings. There were two little girls right away that I kept going back to and watching their videos over and over. The older of the two - "S" is a five year old little girl with Spina Bifida. We had actually seen her two years ago on an adoption listing. My oldest son was 10 at the time and came running down the steps one morning in tears. He said he had a dream he would have a sister who could not walk and he was going to have to help her. He wanted to look at adoption listings right away and he scrolled and scrolled that day. Eventually he found "S"! At that time she was with an agency that did not allow unrelated children to be adopted together so we weren't sure as we thought when we adopted it would be siblings or atleast two unrelated children. We were getting ready to host and decided we would look more into it after hosting. When we came back sometime after hosting, "S" was not listed any longer and we thought she had been adopted. The other little girl - "Mary Ellen" I was drawn to this time also has Spina Bifida. She just turned two this February. Aside from Spina Bifida she also has Arnold-Chiari syndrome, and hydrocephalus.
Once I inquired further about the girls and what their diagnosis meant, I quickly made a list of 20 other children to request files for. The idea of catheterization scared me. When any of my children need any first aide type care I usually point them in the direction of their brother reminding them he is a boy scout and has his own first aide kit. I am not good with blood or anything of that sort. So I felt I was making an informed decision not to consider a child(ren) that would need cathetrizing, it seemed to make sense.
And then it was the evening of Orphan Sunday. The worship was like no other time I can remember experiencing. Not the music, but the actual worshiping that was taking place. I was there, I was singing, I was praising, I felt His presence... and then BOOM! "You say you want to deny ME nothing but you deny me this." I heard it or maybe I felt it but this I know for sure it was about the girls. It was about how I had foolishly thought I could state that I am not comfortable with some medical things and move on looking at files. Did I even ask God what I should do or did I just make the list of files I wanted to review and move on.. I can't remember. So this dialogue is happening in my head while everyone is still worshiping. Whatever is going on around me, I don't realize it any longer. I'm trying to remind God how uncomfortable I can be at times with medical stuff and right back I am faced with the truth that my uncomfortableness no matter how great does not compare to the need these girls have for a family, to their uncomfortableness with being orphans and being alone. Then an image comes into my mind of this past summer. We had ministered outside of an abortion mill. IF a mother had come to us and said she was only aborting because she was told her child would have Spina Bifida and IF she said she would not abort the baby if we would adopt it... what would we say? Would we say we had to learn more, or would we say that we would be too nervous of the care that was needed. NO we would say yes! Yes we will adopt your baby! And what about now... if I was being asked, what would I say?
On the way home my husband kept asking did I feel something different at the service? "There was something different", he said. "Something happening", "I don't have words for it but I never felt like that" he continued. I didn't say much. I knew what had happened and what he had felt but I was trying to process what I was feeling about what God just asked me. Over the next couple days I kept questioning God. "What would this look like?" "How would we do it?" I mentioned one evening to my husband what had happened and he seemed a little unsure. He quickly said that the need of Spina Bifida was one that was bigger than we could consider and I was like, okay that is what I thought too! Then that Friday morning, that dialogue played out again. I was telling God about all the appointments we would have and how I would have nine children in tow. Then I heard this asked of me, "If I told you I buried a treasure so deep in that field (child) that noone else sees it, would you trust me and go for it?" I was sure I knew what He was asking and suddenly the fear wasn't as great as the promise. We started school with devotion and as we begin, I realize the lesson is about the man that finds a treasure in the field and sells everything to buy the field! (Mathew 13:44) We drove my husband's lunch to him because he forgot it and I was so excited and trying to tell him what happened. I remember saying "look at my eyes, are they spinning? God is speaking"! Things like that started to happen again and again everyday. My husband was still not convinced. He had said God would have to speak to him. There were nights when I would wake up and say this is crazy what am I thinking. Then I would refocus where my trust was and consider all that had been said and done. There was no way to pretend as if it hadn't happened. The children were there for everything that had happened. What was I going to teach them in this moment?
There were some intense moments, there were tears. One evening when I wanted to know which of these girls God was speaking for us, I reached out to a friend and she said just pray and ask Him specifically which of these girls are your daughter. She encouraged me, "He will make it clear". It was probably well past midnight at this point. I am on my knees in the living room asking Him and crying out to him. And when I asked which is our daughter the reply that came back was "What if they are both your daughter?" Quickly I stood up..."What!?!" "I asked which one!" I could barely sleep but I thought okay, it was just a question, just a "what if" He didn't say that they were both our daughters just "what if" they were. When my husband came home the next day from work, I looked at him for a moment and then said..."I have to tell you something, it isn't from me so please don't get upset.. but what if they are both our daughters?" At this point he thinks I have assuredly lost my mind. He didn't want to talk about it so I trusted he would think about it. The devotion the children and I had been doing for school ended up day by day walking us through what He was asking of us and each day it grew more and more beautiful.
God was speaking to the children too. Remember the dream my oldest son had two years ago, the one where he would have a sister that couldn't walk? The first week in December he had that dream again, he woke up crying and ran to us. He said, "I had the dream again, but this time I could see faces and I saw both of their faces (both of the girls)! And my oldest daughter also, she kept seeing the image one evening of a kitten we had rescued one evening the year before. Her and I were driving and something went across the road quickly. We pulled over and there was a kitten sitting beside another kitten that was dead. The kitten we had seen was dragging its back legs. We managed to pick it up and put it in our van. It was late but we used a phone book at a store and found a 24 hour vet that agreed to look at the kitten. They said judging by the x-ray, the kitten had been thrown from the over pass and that explained how the break looked. They gave us the choice of committing to pay for the surgery that would be at the very least $1200-$1800 or they would need to put the kitten to sleep. I looked at my daughter who was pleading with her eyes and said I was sorry but we just couldn't agree to that amount. We sat with the kitten when they put it to sleep. Now here it was over a year later and she saw this image over and over one night and could not sleep. She said she asked God why she had to see this now and He assured her that while she couldn't help this kitten with legs that couldn't work, she was going to be able to help her sisters (whose legs don't "work") when they come home. My children were hearing God and so willing to walk in what He asked. It was amazing.
Each time I would share something new it was hard for my husband to listen, he felt like I was being moved by emotion and he said it time and time again. It was getting to the point that he didn't want me to mention any of it at all. My friend advised me to give him some space and let God be who moves him. Yet there were things I felt like I was suppose to tell him. Then one day standing in the kitchen I threw my hands up ... I told God how much I love Him and I love my husband. I said "he is upset with me, I can't tell him anything else, You are going to have to tell him, but please quit speaking to me about this" and right back I heard "I am either who I say I am or I am not... I have never been anything less to you than I told you I am." He was right!! So I asked how could I possibly bring "S" home knowing we left her there for two years and I felt a peace as I heard, two years ago there was no "Mary Ellen" you had to wait for her. How could I ask Him not to tell me more...Okay God, then give me the words to speak to my husband. I left the kitchen in tears, went to turn the computer off to start school and there was a verse a friend just posted.... I called to the children to bring the Bible to me. As I was looking up the verse my husband called from work. I quickly said, "I think God gave me a word for you, I was just looking it up" ... I hadn't realized I "mixed it up" at first. But it wasn't really mixed up at all... it was beautiful!! "Hear you deaf; and look you blind, that you may see! Who is blind, but My servant? Or deaf as My messenger whom I send? Who is blind as he who is at peace with Me? Yes who is blind as the Lord's servant? You see many things, but you do not observe or apprehend their true meaning. His ears are open, but he hears not! It is the Lord's pleasure for His righteousness' sake to magnify instruction and revelation and glorify them." Isaiah 42:18-21 How beautiful is that?! We need to be deaf and blind to what is being asked of us... if we weren't and we could see it all ahead of time would we obey? Even without seeing it all we are sometimes held still in fear. So how much more fearful would we be if we saw what we would endure and could hear what we would go through when God is asking us to move? So maybe there was a reason my husband didn't feel he was hearing anything. Then I realized the verse I was meant to go to and went to it while we were still on the phone... Isaiah 43:19 "Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it, and will you not give heed to it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." So together those verses were first assuring us we would not know what was ahead and that was okay because in the second verse he was assuring us while we did not know what was ahead of us in what He was asking, He was already "doing a new thing" and making "a way in the wilderness"!! It was such a sweet word from God. An answer right as I cried out for a word for my husband when I was ready to ask the Lord not to tell me anything else. How loving He is in every detail!
I am not sure how much my husband heard of the verses on the phone that day. When he got home I quickly asked if he wanted to look at the verses together and he replied..."What verses, the ones where you tell me I am deaf and blind?" Ahhhh no, that wasn't it. And it would be a few more days before I came to him and asked him if we could do a study on when we are both hearing two different things and how to test which is truth. A friend had shared that when her and her husband find themselves feeling they are hearing two different directions to move in, they always test it to see which was spoken by God. My husband had said, "I am not saying God has told me not to move forward with the girls... I just believe if He was asking that I would have total peace". I knew that isn't always how it happens... the devotion the children and I had been doing had just had a lesson that said when God speaks asking us to do something it usually causes a crisis in our faith. Meaning that when He speaks we can experience crisis because we either have to trust Him and walk in that trust or be faced with seeing that we don't really think He can do what He says He can.
My husband agreed to do the study about what it meant to test what we were both hearing/feeling and see where the truth was in all of it. At the end of the study, my husband looks at me and says that he will give a yes and see what God does with it trusting Him to shut doors if they aren't meant to be open. The very next day on the way home from church my husband turns to me and says, "Look if we are going to do this, we are going to need the body of Christ to come around us. We can't do it ourselves. The next holiday that is coming up is New Years Eve we need to start thinking about a fundraiser we can do." We get home and there is a message waiting for us. It is from a wife of a member of a Christian Band. Her message was almost word for word what my husband had just said on the way home. They felt that as the body of Christ they were suppose to come around us for support and specifically they had an event coming up for New Years Eve that they would like to benefit our adoption! My husband stood there, it spoke to him... he gave God a yes... and even though God did not have to confirm anything to him, he just gave him exactly what he had said he needed moments earlier.
I didn't share all of this to in any way speak against my husband. I love him and I think he was doing his best to protect his family from something he hadn't heard a yes from God on. I also believe that often times we wait for the yes but are afraid to ask if it is a yes so we just wait. Kind of like my children when they know there are things they can help with but sometimes wait for me to tell them because they know if they ask I am most assuredly going to answer with a yes and a list of things they can help with. I think we can all find ourselves afraid of the "yes" sometimes. However since giving God that yes, and God reassuring my husband, he clings to that yes and is excited to bring these three children home!
So that was the beginning of getting "here" to this place. And ever since giving the yes, God has been faithful to continue to make ways. There is so much more between the beginning and now. I am sure I may have missed writing some of it. I am sorry for such a long post! There was just too many things He was doing to skip over any of it. We have since learned to catheterize and God has set other families who are experienced in these needs in our lives! One of the women that God placed to walk with us lives about 10 minutes away, she taught us to catheterize among many other things, and she has worked with children that have Spina Bifida in China. How good is God? He placed more than one family in our lives that will be able to share from their own experiences that He planned to use long before now. The promise in that is beautiful!
So the title of my blog.... Beyond What My Eyes Have Seen is referring to all the things God has for me that are beyond what I can see but what I want to walk towards in faith (also why I chose the picture for the blog). And this post "His Treasure" was for the first word He spoke that Friday asking if He told me there was a treasure would I go. I am not certain if I should write "He said" or "I felt" or some other thing. All I know is that everything I heard or felt or whichever it was, it was real and I want to walk in it!!
Here are a few pictures of the boys we hosted this summer. I didn't find myself crying until we had our official refferal. I was so happy to have our referral but I couldn't help but feel sad that there were two little boys somewhere that I loved so much and I couldn't explain to them why they wouldn't see us.
Arturs and I trying to take a serious picture looking at each other!
He asked for a kiss, he looks so content in that moment!
And then Mihails let us know it was his turn!
Kisses always made him laugh!
Mihails walking with dad and the baby!
They were happy to pose for 100 pictures...not everyone had the same enthusiasm!
Please keep them in your prayers! They are His and they are in His hands!
And your ears will hear a word behind you,
"This is the way walk in it,"
whenever you turn to the right or to the left. Isaiah 30:21
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