Please pray

There is some overturn in the Bulgarian government today.  Please pray that this will be a positive in Bulgaria for their economy.  Please also pray that this will not hinder the process of international adoption moving forward.  We are waiting to obtain the official referral of our girl and the invite to travel for the first trip to meet her.  This was tentatively scheduled for mid-March and we are praying that we will stay on schedule.

A quote from Star Trek: "The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."  However, this is hard to say, when I am the one waiting.

This is the official word from our adoption agency:

Dear Families,

We wanted to make you all aware that the adoption processes in the Bulgarian program will not be affected by the resignation of the Bulgarian government.

Our in country partners, Vesta, have checked with the MOJ  and have been informed that this situation does not concern the international adoptions.

The IAC will continue to be held and will not be canceled during the election of the new government as the chair of the IAC will  not be changed.

We will let you know should any of this change.

Let us pray that this stays true, and nothing related to international adoptions is affected, except for the better.  It is all in God's hands (as always).

Waiting

We are waiting to hear when it is time for our first trip to travel to Bulgaria.  Waiting is difficult.  I try to convince myself I am a patient person, but in truth I am not always.  I don't like to wait.  If I have to leave a voice-mail message for someone on the phone, I want them to call me back right away.  (This is in a work context where I am needing information for a file ... as to personal calls I am much more patient and realize people have busy lives).

In an effort at cost-cutting we got rid of all but the most very basic cable television.  And there is not much to watch on "regular television" so I find myself seeking something else to distract me when I don't want to be doing my chores or post-graduate studies.  The other day I thought how there used to be more music in my life, but now it all seemed to be books, reading, working, etc.  Where had the music gone?  So over the past few days I put on my headphones and just listened to my music.  Today I found that the music had come back as I was singing while getting ready for my day this morning (much to my husband's chagrin at such an early hour of the morning).  I may have to move my "concerts" to a more tolerable hour of the day.  Nonetheless it took me back to my childhood when I would sing, sing, and sing ... for hours on end.  Just because I wanted to, not just to fill the time while I was waiting ...

We miss too much of the now looking ahead to the future.  At least I know I do.  Another thing I have done to fill the gap of time is to begin to read Les Miserables.  Because I just don't get all the hype about the movie (haven't seen it yet), so I figured I needed to read the original story so that I could get the full picture.  I often find that when we have read the book, and then watch the movie, our minds fill in the gaps in the story that the movie leaves out thus adding poignancy to the theatrical production.

I know I sound like I am a person with nothing to do but wonder what to do while waiting.  Not true, I am a grand procrastinator.  I have plenty of things to do to fill the hours of the day without music or leisure reading.  I need to read my Bible more.  I need to clean house more.  I need to work on my studies more.  But I am a daydreamer at times ... I need music and I need to read fiction that inspires. Somehow, I feel the urgency to incorporate as much of it as possible in this waiting period.  Because when we finally bring home a little Bulgarian girl, I am sure I will find it doesn't really matter anymore what I need ... but what she needs instead, to grow in wisdom and godliness.

It is an anticipatory waiting.  I rush to fill the days with all the quiet moments I cherish, in anticipation for the day when it will be the crazy, busy moments of life I cherish above all others.

Well, so much for rambling philosophy ... would love to have some comments on this as I am quite in stream-of-consciousness mode this week and would love to discuss any of the above random topics --- at your leisure.

Blessed

We are feeling incredibly blessed today.  This adoption process has been a journey of faith trusting God to provide every step of the way.  Due to some recent generous donations, we are 2/3 of the way to our financial goal.  This means that we have raised enough for the next amount due for adoption expenses and for the first trip (hopefully end of February / beginning of March)! So excited to see God's provision come when we least expected it.  We have another 4 or 5 months now to continue to raise the rest of the funds which will cover the final payments due for adoption expenses and take the second trip, hopefully sometime this summer.

I am not just speaking in cliches when I say this has been a journey of faith.  More times than I would like to admit I have suggested to Tony that perhaps we should apply our tithe money to this.  Surely this was as noble a spiritual application of funds as giving the money to the church, just to send it for missions overseas.  This was like our very own mission project.  I was always raised to tithe, and give it cheerfully, but also was raised in enough of a variety of church and para-church organizational structures to also have my own internal conflicts on what exactly counted as "God's storehouse" into which the money should go.  Did it have to be the church centralized, or could it just be giving 10% to ministry "stuff"?

But God has blessed me with a wonderful husband, who is a strong spiritual leader, and he stood firm that the tithe was to go to the church.  It isn't just about "doing good" with the funds.  It is about supporting the ministers and the ministry of the local church as the base for ministry of the body.  Now, I admit some days I am still conflicted about the meaning of tithe...not doubting or complaining about the 10% allocation, but more just wanting control of its application I suppose.   So this was the journey of faith ... we continued to tithe throughout this process.  With me worrying about the amount that could be going toward the adoption fund instead and wondering if we would have saved up enough money to go get our girl in the end.

But God himself knows the tithe can be a testing ground for people.  Did God not say, "Test me in this, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." Malachi 3:10

So we have continued to tithe, and as Malachi states ... God has blessed.  Something I always knew to be true on paper, but through this journey, I now know to be true by heart.  

Blog Name Change

Hello everyone. We changed the name of our blog to Child of Prayer, it also has a new web address: www.childofprayer.com.   You can use the old blog address link and it will redirect, so whichever way works.

Dossier on its way

We finalized our dossier for the adoption in Bulgaria and sent it out to our adoption agency in North Carolina on Wednesday.  The dossier should be arriving at the adoption agency today.  Yay!

Next our adoption agency forwards the dossier to Bulgaria for translation, presentation to the appropriate governmental officials there, and then we will receive the official referral to go meet our girl.  Can't wait!

We hope that everything will run smoothly and that sometime in February or March we will be making that first visit.  I will keep you updated.

T-Shirt Fundraiser

Hello all! We have set up a store through Adoption Bug to do a t-shirt fundraiser.

The direct URL is www.adoptionbug.com/grubaughadoption. But the quickest way to get there is simply to click on the box on the right hand side of the blog.

We receive a certain percentage of the proceeds from the sale of each t-shirt  to go towards adoption expenses.

With the way the fundraiser program is setup, we only receive a commission on the products we chose to sell on our fundraiser page, so make sure you go directly to our page. You can add additional items to your order from Adoption Bug's regular store, but only those items purchased from our page will credit our fundraiser.

Thank you for your support!

Christmas Party Tomorrow

This blog post has nothing to do with adoption (other things do happen in our lives).  :)

A  couple of weeks ago Tony and I went to Jefferson, Texas for the weekend to see the Candlelight Tour of Homes.  We also enjoy shopping in the antique and junk shops out there.  We found some good items to sell in our booth here ... a Wonder bread advertising sign in Spanish being one of my favorites, even if we will have to wait a while before it becomes a collector's piece.

We also enjoy shopping the antique malls in town. In one of the shops here in town, I found a Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library (in yellow box) in pristine never used condition.  I had to have it as it brought back so many memories from my childhood.

So tomorrow is a Christmas Party at our house.  And I am very ambitious about the appetizers I plan to serve.  I have decided to make most of the food using the recipes from the card library.  (A quick shout of appreciation to my husband here who made the extra trip out to Central Market, because his work was closer to it, to get some unique items not in the everyday grocery store).  Oh, and it you are reading this thinking to yourself, Central Market IS your everyday grocery store, then I am very happy for you and wish I had that kind of paycheck to cover it! Wow, is that place expensive.  But I digress ...

So with a trip to Central Market by Tony, and to Walmart by both of us, I have the ingredients in hand to make these delectables:

Bambinos (Card 25 - Come for Coffee Category)

and from the Crowd-Size Entertaining Category:

Card 13 - Party Sandwich Loaf (this one looks unique and complex ... interesting to see if it turns out)
Card 20 - Lemon - Strawberry Punch
Card 23 - Swedish Meatballs
Card 25 - Crab Dip in Pepper Shells
Card 27 - Cornucopias and Triple Treat Kabobs

Just wish I could have figured out where to find mini-skewers or party toothpicks at Walmart.  That is one of my fairly many complaints about Walmart is that their placement system for items often doesn't make logical sense to me (but that is a whole other blog post someday).

Well anyway, I'm hoping I have time to get it all done, plus get the house ready for the party.  I'll let you know how everything turns out and I'll try to remember to post pictures too.

Until next time ...

Merry Christmas everyone!