A Change in the Requirements

We've been sitting on some news since last week. Don't get excited.

If you know our family's story, then you know that international adoption can be fraught with uncertainty. The peaks and valleys that inevitably accompany trying to work with two sovereign nations on two different continents on opposite sides of the globe can leave us feeling quite dizzy at times. Add to that the emotional toll that IS adoption, and it is easy to feel utterly and completely overwhelmed.

While we were in process to adopt Bradley, there were several points along the way when it looked like things would not work out. There were rumors of Ethiopia closing to foreign adoption completely. Then things did shut down for about six months. Then the requirements started changing to a degree that our agency offered to let waiting families change programs because it looked like things were coming to a halt. It was a chaotic experience to say the least.

And while we were in the middle of it, I really struggled. Deeply. Now, though, on the other side of it all, it is so easy for me to trace the Lord's hand in the writing of our family's story. Each piece that felt like a delay or setback was overseen by our great and glorious Father, who was truly working a miracle. And I would do it a thousand times if it meant I would be able to be Bradley's mom.

Then, a few months ago, we started the process to adopt again, this time from China. And I thought it would be easier. I thought that our past experience and the notorious consistency of the adoption process for China would make things easier to bear. I was ready.

But one week ago today we received a phone call from our social worker. She told me that they had just received word that China has changed some of its requirements for inter-country adoption. My heart started racing. When I hear things like "change in requirements" I immediately start sweating. She told me that among the new requirements is one that affects our family in a big way. The new policy states that in order for a foreign family to adopt from China, the youngest child currently living in the home must be three years old.

I managed to hold it together on the phone. But after we hung up, it started to sink in. Asher is not quite 16 months old yet. That means we will have to wait a year and a half before we can submit our paperwork. We are devastated. We thought that in a year and a half we might have our daughter home.

I called Adam and sobbed on the phone with him. We were scheduled to have our final home study interview the following day. We were one step away from submitting everything to immigration.; a huge milestone. And now we are on the sideline.

It's so tempting to despair. To throw our hands up and say, "Why?" But we are trying to take some deep breaths and make the right decisions.

We are still committed to adopting from China (until the Lord tells us otherwise). After meeting with our social worker and our agency's program director, we are going to complete our homestudy and keep it updated until the time comes when we can submit.

As we have talked with each other, family and friends over this past week, we are starting to see some light. We have more time with Bradley and Asher, more time to invest in them and focus on them. We also know that if our first adoption had followed our desired timeline, then Bradley would not be our son. So we KNOW that the Lord is sovereign, and that while this shocked us, it did not surprise Him.

So we would ask for your prayers as we wait in this new way, that God would use this time to strengthen our faith, our marriage, our family; that we would not grow weary in the waiting; that we would seek out ways to glorify Him through the path He has laid before us.

With love,
Baylor

CLEARED!

Oh, what a twenty four hours we have had! I am COMPLETELY wiped out. And I am getting on a plane in less than 48 hours. Let me back up.

I told you that we received notice from our case manager that our adoption was being filed with the U.S. Embassy on Wednesday. Well, Ethiopia is 8 hours ahead of us, so that meant that we would very likely be receiving our clearance notification sometime during the wee hours of Thursday morning. Based on the experiences of adoptive friends of mine, I was expecting to hear something between one and five this morning.

Sooooooo, needless to say, I was not anticipating a night of blissful sleep when I laid my weary head on my pillow last night. Sure enough, I was wide awake until two this morning. I read for a while, counted my breaths for a while (made it all the way into the 600s once!), tossed back and forth for awhile and checked my email approximately every three minutes.

Nothing.

Sometime after 2, I drifted off and then snapped awake at 3. Checked my email.

Nothing.

Dozed on and off till 5, checking my email every few minutes. When 5 rolled around, I was too awake to even think about falling back asleep.

Still nothing. So disheartened.

I will tell you this, though. During those silent hours, I prayed harder than I ever have before in my entire life. I was pleading with God to work a miracle. To PLEASE move this mountain so that our boy could be with his mom and dad on his very first birthday.

Around 5:15, I left our bedroom and went to sit on the couch, switching between chatting with another adoptive mom who was waiting on the same email and refreshing my own.

And then suddenly...

Click on that picture to make it BIG and beautiful! 

There it was. The email that we had really been waiting for all along. Our case had CLEARED. We had permission from the United States to go get our boy and bring him home. I responded right away to schedule our interview appointment. We heard back quickly, and... 

I leave in two days to go get my son. 

Did you catch that?

Itineraries are being finalized and bags are being packed. 

All praise and honor and glory be to God alone. He has done this great thing. 

Oh, and that sweet son of mine? He will be sitting right here with me, in this house, on his very first birthday.  

Love, 

Baylor 

Ten

Today is a hard day. This whole past week has actually been rough, but today especially. Bradley is ten months old today. That is ten months of his sweet life that we will never get back. Ten months that he has spent away from his family.

We have been his parents for six of those ten months, and sometimes (like today) it feels like we will always be parenting from afar.

Right now, we are waiting for an approval letter from MOWCYA (the branch of Ethiopia's federal government that deals with adoption/orphan care). Once we receive this letter, we will be issued a travel date four our court appearance. So much of my heart is so heavy and frustrated with all of this. We just want to be with our son, and while we are so close, it feels so far away.

I know I have been doing this a lot lately, but I am going to ask you to pray for us and for our son again. And I am going to ask you to pray for us today.

-Please pray that we will receive our MOWCYA today and our travel approval by the end of the week.

-Please pray that we travel in mid June so that Bradley can be home by his first birthday, in two months.

This is a big prayer. It is a bold one. But God is big and He asks us to bring Him our bold requests. So I am asking you to join with us in praying today, the day that our son turns ten months old, that he will be with his family soon.

Love,
Baylor

Lots Going On

All of a sudden there is a lot of stuff going on in my life. First, you and all of your bold prayers last week, resulting in AWESOME news from Ethiopia! Then, I went to the Christian Alliance for Orphans summit in Nashville for two days this past week. And now I am sitting in an airport waiting to fly to Haiti with Compassion International for this coming week. Whew! 

That's a lot! 

I'm working on sorting through everything I took in at CAFO last week and gearing up for what the Lord already has in store for this week in Haiti. 

But I also wanted to share that we have our preliminary court hearing THIS WEEK. That means we are about to be one step closer to having Bradley in our anxious arms. So I want to invite you to pray with us again at 9:30 CST tonight. We are joining with other families from our agency I praying for Ethiopia, adoption, government officials and processes and, of course, our kids. Here is what I will be praying tonight:

-For Ethiopia, that God would continue to comfort those who lost loved ones to ISIS. 

-For government officials, that they would move with all imagined speed to process paperwork on behalf of these children. 

-For our son, that he would continue to grow and be healthy, that his caregivers would love him well in our place. 

-For our case, that our hearing would be completed without incident and that our MOWA (federal government) approval letter would be issued immediately so we can travel by the end of May. 

Thank you all so much for partnering with us on this long and difficult journey. We are so grateful for your faithfulness and love. 

More to come soon! 

Love, 

Baylor 

Humbled Awe

I am sitting on our back porch in humbled awe. We serve a great and powerful God.

Each morning, I come out hear to drink my cup (or two) of coffee and pray. As you probably know, most of my prayers center around a little boy on the other side of the world. I sit right here and ask God to protect him, love him and bring him home to us. I ask God to move our case forward so that our son can live with his family and know the deep love of his mom and dad.

And over the weekend, I asked you to join me in those same prayers. So many of you responded with emails, texts, Facebook massages. You shared that post with your friends. And then I believe hundreds of you linked arms with us on Sunday night to pray for Ethiopia, adoptive families and our case specifically.

Adam and I sat in Bradley's room and prayed these same things, too.

Dear friends, I received a message this morning that our preliminary hearing has been scheduled. And it is SOON.

I can't share the date here, but if you are just dying to know God's goodness, just send me an email. I'd love to tell you.

This isn't the hearing for which Adam and I will travel, but it is the next (and last) step to get to that point.

I don't have words. So many of you prayed with us and for us. You went to God on our behalf. And He answered in a POWERFUL way. All I can tell you is THANK YOU. Thank you for being part of his story. Thank you for giving of your time and your prayers for our family.

I would ask that you keep praying for Ethiopia as a nation and for our case specifically, that we will travel soon and have Bradley home by June 27.

It is impossible to ignore God's hand in this. Time and again in Scripture He tells us to call on Him, to cast our burdens on Him, to seek Him, to ask great things of Him. And He tells us to do these things so that He can be magnified and glorified. It can be tough to hang in there sometimes; I am a walking testament to that fact. But He can be trusted. He is good, and He loves us, even when (maybe especially when) life is looks impossible. That is Him setting the stage to do something incredible.

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.

Malachi 3:10

Love, 

Baylor 

Please Pray with Me

As I have done so many, many times before, I am going to ask every person this post reaches to pray with me, with us. There is a group of adoptive parents who pray together on Sunday nights at 9:30 CST. We pray for all different things: families waiting on a referral, families waiting on paperwork, families waiting on court dates, families waiting to go get their children. Each of those things is so important, but you will notice an obviously common thread.

WAITING.

That is what SO much of the adoption process is about. And as you know, that is where we are right now, too. We are waiting on a preliminary hearing so that we can be in line for our own court appearance. So many steps to get to our boy.

So I want to ask you to join with us tomorrow {Sunday} night at 9:30 CST. I want to ask you to pray some VERY specific things, not just for us, but for all families and for Ethiopia.

-Last week, Ethiopia experienced a terrible tragedy when 30 Ethiopian Christians were killed by ISIS in the Middle East. Please pray for comfort for the people of Ethiopia, especially for the families of those who lost their lives for their faith. Pray that the Lord would use this event in a powerful way in Ethiopia, to open eyes and hearts to His truth and His redemption.

-Please pray for a deep sense of urgency in the government officials who process adoption paperwork. Ask God to lay it on their hearts that each piece of paper represents a child who is away from his/her family. And pray that that reality will spur these workers into swift action.

-Pray for the families who are waiting on all kinds of things: referrals, paperwork, hearings, travel. Ask God to give their hearts rest and peace.

-Please pray for our family specifically. We are struggling right now. Please pray that Bradley is safe and being well loved and cared for (all of our photo updates indicate that this is happening!). Pray for our family's case specifically, that we would be issued a preliminary court date this coming week. We are also praying (begging) that Bradley will be home with us by June 27, the day my brother-in-law gets married.

I have been praying and pleading, and I am asking you to join me. If you are on social media of any kind, please feel free to share this post with anyone you think will join us. We need every last prayer we can get. And if you can join us tomorrow night, please let me know somehow. Leave a comment, send me an email, anything. I need to pray and thank God for you.

Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 

Jeremiah 29:12-13

Many of us are familiar with Jeremiah 29:11, and these verses follows right on its heels. A dear friend put this chapter and these verses in context for me a few weeks ago. At the time that the Lord spoke these words through Jeremiah, Israel had been in captivity for decades, crying out for deliverance. And this was God's assurance to them. I can identify so much with that idea. I have felt like a captive to this process, to this time of waiting to be a mother for so many years. Crying out to God for deliverance all the while. I am praying, and I know He will listen. 

Love, 

Baylor 

I'm {not} Fine.

As I was scrolling through Instagram this morning, I found a photo, courtesy of @momastery, that perfectly encapsulates how I am feeling about our adoption right now.

{photo credit: @momastery} 

I mean. Seriously. How perfect is that? 

And that is basically it. 

There is so much about the way this process has been going lately that has left me feeling completely helpless and exhausted. Kind of like a woman who has collapsed in the middle of the street while still chanting, "I'm fine." 

But the reality is, I am the exact opposite of fine. 

I don't feel fine. I feel lost, hurt, scared, exhausted, panicked. I feel like the road in front of us keeps getting longer, not shorter. I feel like our boy will never really be home. 

And yet, when people ask me how I'm doing, my response is still, "I'm fine." 

Why in the world do I do that? 

I don't know if I want people to think I am fine or if I just can't handle unloading everything on every person who asks. 

But whatever it is, I can assure that I am not actually fine. 

This past week has been a real struggle for me. All of our final paperwork has been in Ethiopia for over six weeks, and we have yet to move to the next step of bringing our boy home. And I am powerless to do anything about it. It is maddening. To love a little life so much and be unable to show him that or keep him safe. There have been so many moments when I have felt the wave of panic rising up inside me. So much so that I can't keep the tears back. I look at his precious face, and I can't believe that we have had to spend so many days apart. 

At each step of this whole journey, I have felt myself being tested and stretched beyond anything I ever thought possible. And as we have progressed, it has only gotten harder. This week, especially, I have struggled deeply with reconciling who I KNOW God is and who He APPEARS to be in my life right now. I know that is something I should not be struggling with. Because I know God, and I know He is good. But when I look around at the state of our life and where our son is, I am left feeling mystified, even hurt. I was watching an adoption story today, and the wife of the couple said that during their long, long struggle to become parents she often felt that what God was doing was mean. Oh, that resonated with me. I have felt that way often, and it is a terrible thing to feel. I know God is not mean; He is loving and good. 

And so right now, on a daily basis, I am having to remind myself that my feelings are not a true indicator of who God is. I can feel them (and I think I should), but I cannot stop there. I have to continue believing that God is good and that He is at work, even in the middle of this terrible situation.

So if you are here, too, in the middle of something tough, I want to invite you to be OK with the fact that you are not perfectly fine. I don't believe that God asks us to ignore our feelings. I believe He asks us to trust Him in the midst of them. 

So, while I am not "fine," I am trying to remain steadfast in faith. 

Love, 

Baylor 

Prisoners of Hope

The time between seeing our sweet boy's face for the first time and our trip to meet him seems to be growing ever longer. It has been almost five months since we first laid eyes on our beautiful boy, and we are still uncertain as to when we will actually be able to travel to meet him. Adam and I have begun to grow {understandably} weary in the wait. I was venting some of my frustration to my mom on the phone earlier this week -- she is sharing in our sentiments these days -- and I just told her that I did not get it any more. Plain and simple.

In the adoption world, all those months and years leading up to your referral, you can hang on to the reality that you are not waiting for A child, but you are waiting for YOUR child. So you can remind yourself as the days pass by that God is at work preparing YOUR child to be brought into YOUR family. But now, here we are, five months removed from seeing the child God has gifted our family with, and we are still waiting. Waiting. Waiting...

After we got off the phone, my mom sent me a text with a Scripture reference in it.

Zechariah 9:12

I was not immediately familiar with it, but some quick Googling left me without too many words.

I need to do more research to figure out the exact context of this verse, but this one sentence was enough to basically halt me in my tracks. I so identify with the idea of being a prisoner of hope, being held captive by God and His infinite goodness. So much of this journey to our boy has been heartbreakingly awful. I have had more hard days than good ones, and I have shed far too many tears for me to ever count. I have hurt. I have begged God for favor. I have prayed for the safety and health of our boy. I have asked God for mercy. And in all of that, I have not received many of the answers I wanted. Our adoption has taken YEARS longer than we were told it would. The emotional and spiritual toll has been steep. It is true that there has been one brilliant and beautiful YES to our prayers, but we have gotten so many NOS or NOT NOWS.

And at many points along the way I have felt bereft of all hope. I have felt alone and forgotten. I have felt {in very real ways} that the Lord was far from me. But then I read Zechariah 9:12, and I am reminded WHO my fortress really is. You see, the problem with me wanting to abandon all hope is that I simply can't do it. I know who God is, and I know that He is good. So even though I have found myself, countless times, in places where I begin to doubt and lose hope, there is this foundation of truth beneath my feet that refuses to give in.

The Lord is my fortress, and I am a prisoner of hope. He will provide. He will, as Zechariah says, restore twice as much to us. I don't know what that twice as much will be, but I have a feeling there will be a LOT of joy surrounding it.

A few weeks ago, one of our pastors preached on hope and how the hope of Christ follower is different. Hope in our English language is something we wish for, something we desire to happen. Hope in God's economy is an assurance. It is not something we hope happens; it is something Jesus has already done. Beth Moore said it well: Hope is the knowledge that God is going to show up.

I like that. I love it, actually. Because I do, way down deep, know that God is going to show up. I know that He is going to do this incredible thing. I just have to continue to trust Him.

And maybe you are there, too. Maybe, like me, you are battle scarred and so tired of fighting. Can I tell you, from very lengthy personal experience, that God is still good in your trial? I pray that He is your fortress, too.

Love,
Baylor

Three

I should have sat down to write this yesterday, but I didn't. I didn't want to acknowledge it, much less deal with it.

Yesterday, April 10, 2015, marked THREE YEARS in the adoption process for us.

Part of me is really struggling with the reality of that kind of passage of time. And the other part of me is so over keeping track of how long everything has taken that I just can't even bear to think about it anymore. When we started out this process, we were given a TOTAL timeframe of 12-15 months. That is long gone.

And yet we are in the home stretch (or os it seems), and so we are trying more than every to keep our chins up as the days roll on. I haven't been writing much lately, and there are a few reasons why. The foremost is that I have grown so weary in this process. I am so very tired of my son living on the other side of the world, of not being the one to care for him, of being disappointed over and over again. My heart is really hurting these days as we watch our son grow up and change in pictures, wondering when it will finally be our turn to be there for him. My soul is aching all the time as I wonder (virtually nonstop) what he is doing, whether he is being held, when we will be able to meet him. So many things.

But right now, I am trying to really refocus my heart and put all my trust in God. Man will let us down, but our Lord will not. So I am trying even harder to look at Jesus and not at this hot mess around me. I am trying to remind myself that He knows exactly when we will meet our boy and that His plan is best. You would think that I would be really good at this by now, but, honestly, it just gets harder and harder as the days go by, as timeframes shift and as expectations are not met.

I would, yet again, humbly ask for your prayer. I would ask that you pray for the government workers handling adoption cases in Ethiopia to be filled with a deep sense of urgency about their work, that they would move swiftly and efficiently to get these little ones to their families. And very specifically, I ask that you would pray that we have our feet on the African continent on or before Mother's Day. I'm just not sure how my heart will handle another empty armed Mother's Day, so I am asking that God would move in a powerful way.

Thank you for hanging in there with us. I realize this is not my most eloquent post, but my heart is just too tired today.

Love,
Baylor

I Miss Him

How can you miss someone you have never even met? I have no idea, but I am certainly experiencing it these days. I look at these pictures of my beautiful son, and I miss him so much it hurts. Physically aches. I just want to hold him and kiss him and tell him how very deeply I love him. I have just been staring into his little brown eyes, willing him to know that he is loved and cherished. I've been imagining what it will be like when I finally have him in my arms, when I get to be the one who comforts him and rocks him to sleep.

I wish I could just flood this blog and the internet with his sweet face so that you all could see what I see. A precious boy who is beautiful all the way around. I want so much to know him. What is he like? What does he love? What makes him laugh?

But the Lord is asking me to hang in there a little bit longer. To continue to trust in Him and His ability to care for our son apart from me. It is easily the most difficult thing I have ever done. Adoption is hard all the time, but knowing you have a son, knowing his face and having to live every day while he is on the other side of the planet? Well, that takes the cake. I'm thinking about him nonstop, wondering if he is OK, if he is crying, if he is hungry, if he is sleeping. But even in this, I see God's grace. I mentioned that we received updated pictures of our little man this week. And he looks so good. He looks healthy, and the room he is in looks so clean and well taken-care-of. So I look at those photos, and I breathe a heavy sigh of relief. He is being looked after.

So we are getting closer. Slowly but surely, we are making progress toward bringing him home. And God is teaching me so much along the way. I am learning to trust in a whole new way, and I am seeing that God can strengthen me to withstand what seems impossible to me. He can hold me up and carry me through. And I can trust Him to do it.

But that doesn't make me miss him any less. And I am BEYOND ready to get my hands on him.

Love,
Baylor

It Landed

We received confirmation from FedEx yesterday that our PAIR letter has officially been delivered! What and enormous weight lifted off our shoulders. Apparently, few things in the world have the ability to throw me into a tizzy quite like adoption paperwork. Our letter was originally scheduled for delivery on Monday by 6 P.M. Naturally, I was stalking FedEx like a crazy woman, refreshing my tracking number every few minutes. Then, it suddenly said, "Delivery Delayed: Future Delivery Requested." My heart dropped down to my heels. And then I saw the new expected delivery date: Friday 3/13. I did my best to remain calm, but I was more than a little upset. A whole week? Our letter is going to sit in the FedEx facility for a whole week?

But the Lord is good and sovereign, and in the midst of my crazy, I tried to remind myself of those truths and rest in His peace.

So you can imagine my elation when we received our email confirmation yesterday that the letter had been successfully delivered to our agency. It landed. Yaaaay!

Now all we do is wait. Wait for a court date. Wait to travel to Ethiopia to meet our son!

And yesterday was made even more wonderful when we received updated photos of our little guy!

FOUR OF THEM!

So that is what I have been doing for the last 24 hours. Staring at the sweetest little face I have ever seen.

Love,
Baylor

PAIR LETTER!

Our approval letter has cleared both Embassies in Washington D.C. and should be on its way to Ethiopia this week!

Amen. Thank you, Jesus.

Once our letter lands in Ethiopia, we will be officially in line for our court dates. We will not attend our preliminary court hearing; a representative from our agency will go on our behalf. Once this is complete, we will be assigned our court date, for which we will travel to Ethiopia.

I would, yet again, ask for your prayer in this. Once our preliminary hearing is complete, it can take some time for our actual court date to be issued. Please pray that this happens quickly so that we can get to our boy as fast as possible.

We are so close to the end of this long journey, but there is still so much to be done. We continue to covet your prayers and to be so appreciative of each of you.

Love,
Baylor

Last Piece of Paper!

Yesterday was kind of a BIG day! We sent off our VERY LAST piece of paperwork that we are responsible for before plane tickets. 

My favorite FedEx receipt of all time. 

WOOT WOOT!! 

That last piece of paper is what is called the PAIR letter. Pre Adoption Immigration Review. This is our government's preliminary approval for us to bring Bradley into the U.S. We have sent it off to be authenticated, and from there, it will go to Ethiopia and we will be IN LINE FOR A COURT DATE! 

Did I just get to type those words? 

Why, yes. I believe I did. 

So now, we wait a little more. Shocking, I know. The authentication process seems to take about two weeks. Once our paperwork lands in Ethiopia, we are in line for our court dates. First, the preliminary hearing (which we do not attend). Then there will be the hearing itself, which we do attend. At that time, we will legally take custody of Bradley. He will officially, on paper, be ours. Cue the tears of joy and relief. 

Almost there. Thanks for sticking it out with us! 

Love, 

Baylor 

Weight

Today is hard. I don't know why. There is nothing in my life that marks February 12 as a difficult day. No family tragedy. No deep loss. But here I am. Feeling buried, feeling this impossibly heavy weight on my shoulders, feeling a deep sense of burdening.

I want it to go away.

For the last few days I have been feeling like all of the stress I have been living under for the last three years has finally manifested itself in my body. I am EXHAUSTED. Seriously. Every morning when my alarm goes off, I think to myself that I could easily sleep for another four hours. My emotions are all over the map and I feel like I am wound so tightly that I could snap and collapse into a puddle of tears at any moment.

Aren't you jealous?? :)

And as I sit here and really think about it, I realize that this part of my story is probably not too different from that of any adoptive mom. There is all of this tension as you move through paperwork at the start of an adoption. You want it to be perfect. Every i dotted and every t crossed. You get frenzied over your house being flawlessly clean for your home visit. Clean baseboards mean I will be a good mom! You record your entire life history and your beliefs about parenting (Some of which have not even crossed your mind yet, because, really, who thinks about how you might one day handle a hypothetical situation and how your experience with your parents will impact that? We do now!). You take classes on incredibly difficult things about parenting kids who come form hard places. You hear stories of kids not attaching to their adoptive parents and you PRAY TO GOD that will not be you. You finally send off all of that precious paperwork, representing countless hours of work. And then you wait. And you wait. And you wait. And you wonder if your child is alive yet. And if he is alive, is he being taken care of? Is someone holding him, comforting him, loving him in your place?

Then you get to see his face. And every single thing in your life changes. He is yours, but you can't protect him or comfort him. You have to love him from afar. And you know, that even in the best of circumstances, the person caring for him is not you. And you have to trust God and God alone to watch over your son. You have to beseech the Lord to care for him and somehow, let him know that you love him so, so deeply.

And then there is the part you are not ready for. No matter how much training you went through. There is his story. A story that you alone will carry. A story that cannot and will not be shared with anyone, not matter how close, because it is not your story to tell. It is your story to protect. It is a story that carries an enormous weight.

So all of these things are crashing down on me this week. And my body is looking and me and saying, "Yeah...you need a nap, a nice twenty four hour nap." But there are all of the other things in life that demand attention.

My soul is weary, dear friends. And my body is right there, too.

I am so overjoyed that we are really in the final stretch before Bradley is in our arms. And I am trying to hang in there and on to God's grace and provision and strength. These arms are tired, though.

And here I am reminded of Paul and his first letter to the Corinthians.

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? 

Run in such a way as to get the prize. 

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. 

They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 

Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. 

No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, 

I myself will not be disqualified for the prize."

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

He is talking about preaching the gospel here, but I also see a LOT of parallels to where I am in life right now. I am trying so hard to run this race God has laid before me. Trying to run with purpose, not aimlessly. Trying to discipline myself. 

So easy to say and SO much harder to do. 

God has been at work in my heart in such a deep way over the last three years, and I do not want to give up now. I'm trying to work on my prayer life so that I can stay focused on Christ, because I know that everything else in my life needs to flow out of that. And in that, I am fighting of extreme exhaustion and the feeling of being wholly and completely overwhelmed. In those moments, when I let exhaustion win, I forgo the very thing that will bring me rest. Prayer. 

God is bigger that these things, though. A good friend and fellow adoptive mom reminded me the other week that my circumstances bow before God. I just love that. It is such a clear picture of reality, and it is one that I am clinging to these days. 

My circumstances bow before God. Yours do, too. 

Love, 

Baylor 

Swirling

Gah! So, so much swirling around in my mind. There is my day job (teaching middle school of all things!), my night job (Noonday Ambassador with spring launch right around the corner), my house being in constant chaos over the last two months of renovations (with more to come!), oh and my son living on the other side of the planet (oh, right...that).

I think I have reached my peak for stress intake.

God has been so, so good in my life. Always. But especially in the last few months. He has provided at every turn. Yes, there have been ROUGH times. But He has been there. And in that, He has been revealing Himself to me.

Still, in some moments, like tonight, I feel myself getting very overwhelmed and wanting to just crawl into a hole and cry. For a really long time.

There is just so much. So much unknown. So much to fear. So much to worry about. I can, in a very real way, feel it rising up inside me. And sometimes, if I am being totally honest, I feel like I am going to be swallowed up.

I know I won't be. I know God is greater. I know He is real and here and sovereign. I know that He is watching my son with an unwavering eye. And I know I can trust Him to care for Bradley during this in between time.

BUT OH MY WORD IT IS HARD TO DO!

Relinquishing control, COMPLETE CONTROL, of someone you love so deeply to someone else. I would not do it for anyone else but God.

And I am trying to bring myself back to this place of unwavering trust and solid assurance. But I feel like my feet are on shifting sand. Even when little things happen, tiny things that are unrelated to our adoption, I feel myself overreacting. And I know it stems from the EXTREME amount of stress I have been under for almost three full years.

Still. Even in this. God is here and He is real. I just have to remember that. Remember it and live by it.

Breathing in and out over here. Feel free to join me.

Love,
Baylor

And Then...

So our fingerprint appointment letters F.I.N.A.L.L.Y. came in the mail. Amen and hallelujah! I cannot begin to explain the relief that swept through my body and soul when I opened the mailbox on Friday and saw those sitting there. Especially since I had cried on the phone with our immigration officer the afternoon before.

That's right. Real tears. On the phone with this lovely, lovely woman who does not know me.

How dignified.

And then, of course, our letters came the following day.

Woot woot! 

So what happens now? 

Well, on Monday we will go get our fingerprints redone. Praying they let us in even though our appointment is not till February 18. 

And then...

Our immigration officer will issue what is called our PAIR letter. This is our pre-approval letter to bring our little guy into the U.S. 

And then...

We send our PAIR letter off to Washington D.C. to be authenticated. This is just  legal process to make our approval letter a certified document. 

And then...

Our PAIR letter will go overseas to Ethiopia. 

And then... 

We will be put in line for a court date. And wait...

And then...

We travel! This is when we will appear in court in Ethiopia and take LEGAL CUSTODY OF OUR SON. 

So that is where we are these days. Whew! 

Love, 

Baylor 

But I Did It Perfectly...

So by now you probably know that I am experiencing a bit of frustration in the adoption world this week. Our fingerprints have expired. Boo. And we are now at a place where nothing can be done until our prints are renewed. We are waiting for our appointment letters to come in the mail so that we can go get reprinted. Each letter has a barcode that is unique to our case, and so we cannot go without them. Believe me; I considered it.

The most frustrating part of it all is that our prints expired SIX DAYS before we needed our approval issued. And now we are stuck. Grrrrrr. For the last four days, I have STALKED my postman and the mailbox, praying that our letters would come, but they have yet to arrive.

And I have been blaming myself.

For three years, I have tracked every single piece of paper that pertained to our adoption. I have met deadlines, gotten originals of all of our documents, made it to appointments on time, checked and re-checked everything. And I did it successfully. But now, in the eleventh hour, I dropped the ball. I somehow missed that our prints were expiring, so my lapse is causing this delay. And as result of this, I have found myself feeling a lot of things over the last few days. I have been sad, upset, angry, impatient, unfocused, but most of all, I have felt indignant. I have thought about all the paperwork we have completed over the last three years, coupled with where we are now, and I have said to myself…

"But I did it perfectly."

And God stops me right there. He stops me and reminds me that this process, bringing this sweet, beautiful boy into our family, does not hinge on me or the perfection I might think I have achieved. I cannot do enough fast enough to get him home. It doesn't depend on me at all. This boy becoming my son rests solely in God's hands. Color me humbled.

And I am starting to think that is why our print cards have not arrived yet. I am starting to think that God is, once again, using this journey to my son to reveal something to me about Himself. Namely, His sufficiency and my lack of it.

Maybe you are there tonight, too. Maybe you have worked hard and done all the right things for a VERY long time, only to get so close to the end and feel like you have hit a brick wall. I'm right there with you, friend. But there is purpose in this, too. God is still at work, molding us into who we need to be for what lies ahead. Hang on.

Love,
Baylor

Another Step

I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to all of you who prayed for us yesterday. From what we have heard and deduced, things seem to have gone well, but we will not know for sure for another couple of weeks.

For now, we are working on getting our fingerprints renewed. I know, right. Third time. We are pretty sure it will be the FINAL time we have to do this. But we would LOVE for you to pray for us, as this has the potential to delay our case. And that thought sends me into a tail spin. I'll be honest. I am feeling super frustrated that after three years of diligently keeping up with so much paperwork, I missed something so key as such a critical point. Grrrr.

For now, we are taking another step toward our little man, and we are SO ready to see him and BRING HIM HOME.

So I'm just trying to hang in there and trust that God is sovereign over my oversight.

Hopefully, I will have some awesome news to share with you VERRRRY soon!

Lots of love,
Baylor

BIG Prayers Tomorrow

Thank you SO much to every single one of you who has committed to praying for us and our son and our adoption tomorrow. Adam and I will be praying at 4 A.M. (CST) tomorrow morning if you would like to join us. But we will GLADLY take your prayers ANY TIME!

Here is what we are praying for:

-Courage for all parties involved, one in particular

-Compassion for all parties involved

-Swiftness in decision making

-GOD'S FAVOR. This one is the big ask.

Now, you are probably wondering, when will we know what comes of all this praying? And I don't have an answer for you. My guess is that it will be a few weeks. But believe me, dear friends, when I know, you will know.

Thank you for partnering with us and being willing to go before the throne of our Father on behalf of our sweet, sweet son. He has s one SERIOUS fighters in his corner. And by that, I mean YOU!

Love,
Baylor

We Need BIG Prayers

Hello, dear friends. My heart is so deeply awed and humbled by you and your commitment to us and our adoption over the last almost three years. When we set out on this journey on April 10, 2012, we had NO idea what this path would bring. And now here we are. Close. So, so close. And I need to ask for your partnership again. I need to ask you to pray with us and for us.

With adoption privacy regulations, I cannot share here exactly what is going on, but I can tell you that it has the potential to be hugely wonderful and to move us closer to our boy.

I am asking that you pray for God's favor in our life and in the life of our son. That the step we are currently on will go smoothly. That you will give courage and wisdom to all parties involved.

And I am asking that you pray these things really early on Monday morning. We will be praying at 4 A.M. here in Alabama, and we would love for you to join us. I know it's early. As someone who HIGHLY values her sleep, I am genuinely sorry about that. If that is not possible (no judgment here), I would ask that you pray on Sunday night.

If you can commit to doing this, I would love to hear from you. Our goal is to share with our son exactly how many people have been a part of his life and his story even before he came home. You can leave a comment or shoot me an email (bay.knott@gmail.com).

Thank you, friends.

Love,
Baylor