Coming Home!

Finally, our daughter is coming home.
Rusty is leaving this week to go get her and we even have a plane ticket for her to the U.S.!
We are so relieved that this waiting period is coming to an end, and that we feel certain her visa will be issued.
We appreciate more than we can say the prayers so many have prayed on her behalf.
We can't wait for her to get here! Friends and family, this little girl is a spitfire, so it's time for you to meet her!
We know getting her home is just the beginning of a sweet, rewarding, but extremely difficult journey.
But we are so thrilled to add Ella to our family, as God ordained it to be from the beginning of time!
These first few weeks are going to be overwhelming for her, and probably for us as well.
Can you imagine the culture shock these children feel?
Having spent two weeks in Ghana, seeing how night and day different it is there, I know it's going to be serious overload for her.
Every adoption expert tells you to stay home and establish a routine as much as possible in the first few weeks.
Introduce people in your life slowly, not all at once.
Keep the traffic in and out of your house at a minimum initially.
Some of the hurdles we'll face involve food, air conditioning, and of course, BONDING!
Adding an older child to your family is big enough, but adding a deaf child has its own unique challenges.
Communication as a family will be a learning process, to say the least.
If you feel led to pray for us, you can pray:
-For all of my children to learn to sign fluently and that we would all be committed to using sign at all times in the house. This is huge! (Some of my kids are signing better than others.)
-Pray for Ella's adjustment to U.S. culture, food, environment, being surrounded by SO MANY white people, and sleep.
-Pray for bonding for everyone! As Ella grieves the loss of her birth family, she has to embrace us as her family, and vice versa. Please pray for this process, that God would do what only He can do in our family!
-For Ella's schooling. There is so much to consider, and we need divine wisdom as we begin teaching her and continue to make decisions concerning her education.
-We need people in our life that can sign/ will learn to sign to be babysitters, interpreters at church, etc. We are so thankful for the people He has already provided! Praise the Lord!
-Finally, safe travel for Rusty and Ella, and for their bonding while they are there together.

I'm sure there's more, but I'll stop.
Thank you again to those who have followed this, who have prayed, and who continue to pray. We can't tell you how thankful we are!

Leaving for Ghana

We leave for Ghana today.
I will not write long, because I am soaking up every minute I have with my kiddos.
I can't seem to swallow the reality that today is July 24....July 24th. We've been telling people for weeks that we would travel on July 24th. I guess that seemed far away. But it's not. It's now.
I have bags packed. Full of my stuff (what do you wear in Africa? I clearly don't know!) Full of Ella's new stuff. Full of coffee creamer, because I'm a coffee addict that really doesn't like coffee without good creamer. I'll fall apart.
With a bucket of goldfish and Craisins,and food that will sustain us when we can't fill up on fish with eye balls looking at us.
My stomach is nervous. It has been since yesterday. What in the world is this going to be like?
We will meet our daughter for the first time in a little more than 24 hours. What will we say?
I am leaving my kids behind for longer than I ever thought I would. (I'm a homeschool Mom, okay? 2 weeks is like forever.)
How will they feel while we are gone? (Peace of mind for me: they are in AWESOME hands!)
There is so much opportunity to TRUST THE LORD. Trust them with my current children, and my child I've not met yet.
Trust him with every anxiety, every nagging fear, every creeping thought that if I let it grow will become a cancer in my mind of full blown WORRY.
I will pray. pray. pray. PRAY!
God has been amazingly faithful to get us this far. His hand has been on every single detail. If this thing were up to me, I would have totally screwed it up by now. This deal started more than two years ago, and when I thought it was all falling apart, questioned if this adoption would ever happen, God was at work. He was orchestrating every event to lead us to this. Looking back, it's been like clock work. Invisible clock work.
So I will trust Him. And I will beg every person I know to pray for us. So here is how you can pray:

1. For my kids while we are gone. That the weeks would go fast, but that they would lean on the Lord, and be safe and happy. We've obviously never left them for two weeks. Pray for my anxiety about leaving them and for theirs.

2. For safe travel. I am a little nervous about missing our connection to our flight to Ghana. If we do, we miss our court date! I am also nervous about the long flight over the ocean, so I'm praying we can sleep on the plane. That travel time would be calming and God would ready our hearts to meet Ella.

3. For our meeting and bonding with Ella. I have no idea how our little girl is feeling, and we can't expect her to be excited about us, but we are praying for immediate bonding, and for love and trust to grow daily! Also pray for our communication to be clear.

4. For her visa. This will require a miracle. But basically, if she could get her visa in three days time, she could come home with us. They have the right to review it for 60 days. We are the first family from our agency to adopt through the Ghana program, so we really don't know how long it will take, But we REALLY want to bring her home the first time. We have been told this is basically impossible. But we are asking anyway. Will you please pray for a miracle with us?

5. We have the opportunity to visit with her birth family while we are there. Pray that we would be a blessing to them, we could share the Gospel when given the chance, and would bring them peace of mind about Ella's future well-being. (Note: we won't be sharing publicly her "story" behind her birth family and reasons for this adoption. We want to protect them and Ella's privacy.)

6. Paperwork. Ugh. Please pray for every detail to fall into place with paperwork. Our adoption hangs on this.

Thank you for praying, and we will try to update our blog to keep everyone posted.