Cool news (although not yet "THE news")

We have had a few cool things happen lately that we are praising God for:

• We are moving this weekend to a new two-bedroom (answer to prayer!) flat at the Baptist Seminary. This flat will be free of charge because of our ministry there in the coming year.

• This coming Tuesday, June 27th, we will get to visit the baby orphanage in Prague--the place where our daughter will likely come from, although there is no guarantee of that. While there, we will get to see what it is like and ask lots of questions of the head doctor.

• Because there is no baby yet, we get to go to California for my sister's wedding (yippeee!), seeing dear friends, and a whole lot of shopping to stock up for next year! We will be in California from June 28th- July 15th, unless we get "the call," in which case our plane tickets are changeable so we can come back early.

• Matt's visa is ready!!!! This is incredible news because they told us it would take a minimum of 2-4 months and it only took 4 weeks! HUGE ANSWER TO PRAYER!

• Our wonderful TeachOverseas.org community here in the Czech Republic suprised us with an awesome baby shower, complete with a beautiful basket full of goodies, lovingly compiled and decorated by our very-gifted friend, Amy Smith.

• Our digital camera broke (perfect timing--weddings and babies ahead!) but we were able to find the same one on ebay for a great price

• We have bought a family season pass to the Prague zoo--which is a fantastic zoo and which we hope to visit many times with the baby!

So, lots of good, though stressful, things... Thanks so much to everyone who is praying and encouraging us in this process.

Musings on Change and Fuzzi Bunz

When I was younger, I really hated change. In recent years, I thought maybe I was over my aversion. After all, change often brings new things that we have been hoping and waiting for for a long time--like babies, new jobs, new places to live and other adventures. In that last few weeks, though, I have been reminded that change is still very painful, especially when a lot of major changes happen in the span of a month or two (the above list, for example)!

Some good news:

• a specific flat (apartment) has been designated for us at the Seminary and it is in the building we had hoped for and has 2 bedrooms (for a while it looked like only 1 bedroom flats would be available)
• not having the baby yet means I have been able to work during June which means no lost income for the month
• the sun has officially returned to Prague and we don't have to wear coats anymore :-)
• we had a great time babysitting our little friend, Nehemiah (almost 3 years old) last weekend--good preparation for what's ahead!
• we decided to buy cloth diapers, which I'm actually really excited about because they are Fuzzi Bunz new high-tech cloth diapers of the future :-)
• it looks like we will probably be able to go to California for Sarah's wedding (yippeee!!!)

The Insider Perspective

So, last night we had a helpful phone call about the adoption which put a lot of things into perspective.

We had heard about a woman named Marie who is a Czech Christian trained as a psychologist at Wheaton College (in the States.) She works at an orphanage in Ostrava, which is in the eastern part of the Czech Repulic, and she is friends with many of the ESI teachers out there.

We called Marie last night because we had heard that she helped another couple to be matched wtih a little boy from her orphanage and that the couple had felt so supported by her and knew she had really loved and prayed for their little boy.

Marie was wonderful and really helpful. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as having her just find us a baby girl in her orphanage. She explained the system to us much more comprehensively than anyone has up to this point. Evidently, we need to wait for the Prague process to run its course first because the babies from other regions only become available nationwide after three families have been offered them and chosen not to adopt them. Marie also said that we are still relatively early in the process and she felt very sure they would find a baby for us in Prague within a few months at the longest. However, she encouraged us to keep in touch and feel free to ask her any questions along the way.

It was deeply encouraging to hear from someone who really understands the process that there is nothing to be concerned about and we're on the path toward having the baby soon. She also gave some wise advice about health issues in the children and how to be sure we know exactly what health problems our baby may have.

Thank you God for an ally and a source of much-longed-for information!

Where are you baby? Part II

For weeks when we have been asked the question, "So, have you heard anything yet?" we've been saying, "No... We told them we wouldn't be free until June 1st, so we won't hear anything till then." Of course all this time we had been hoping that June 1st would roll around and we would get the good news very soon: "Great! She's all ready. Come and get her!"

Now June 1st has come and gone and we do have some news, but not the news we had hoped to hear.

Earlier this week, we sent an email to the Magistrate to let them know that we would be finished with our most pressing work responsibilities as of Monday June 5th and available to receive the baby from then on. The polite and prompt reply came back the next day via our translator. "Please tell them we know they are eager but we haven't yet found a baby for them. We are continuing to search and hope it will be soon."

Bummer!

The hardest thing for me about the way adoption happens (at least here in the Czech Republic) is the lack of concrete information and a sense of timing (i.e. "Are we talking next week or six months from now?" "Hmm.... No idea."). I battle feelings of powerlessness and being at the whim of bureaucrats I can't even speak with directly about something so deeply important to us. It's not that I think it won't happen. I know it will (see note on platitudes below) but it is simply hard having so much uncertainty.

For example, I have no idea when my last day of work will be. That means any lesson with a particular group (whom I see just once a week) could be the last one, so it is hard to know how and when to say goodbye. (I have already talked to my school and will stop working once we get "the call.")

Last night, Matt was gracious enough to help me do something constructive with these frustrated feelings by moving around our furniture configuration in our bedroom in order to put the crib where we want it. We decided we might as well get it ready now because it is something concrete we can do to be more prepared and it will also help us get used to the new arrangement so that there won't be too many changes all at once.

A FINAL NOTE ON PLATITUDES
Thank you to everyone for praying and listening and caring. If you have ever been in a frustrating time and shared about your feelings with other Christians, you may be able to relate to the feeling of just wanting to be heard and affirmed. So, with genuine gratitude for the kind-hearted intentions behind this common Christian practice, I give all our dear friends and family permission *not to* respond to my current feelings with statements such as, "God is in control" and "Everything will come together in God's perfect timing." :-)

Some potentially more helpful responses would be something like:

"I can imagine it must be really hard to wait."
"How can we be praying for her and for you right now?"
"What are you looking forward to about being a new mom/dad?"
"What will you miss about your life before parenting?"

P.S. Of course, I have found in the past that every time I have posted something about the adoption up on this blog, we seem to receive new information that the exact opposite scenario of what I just reported has now become the likely new scenario. So maybe when I hit that magic little "Publish Post" button here in a second, I will hear my phone ring... :-)