Ukraine My Heart: He's Always Been Faithful

This post title just happens to be the lyrics to one of my favorite songs by Sara Groves, and the most perfect expression of God's work in my life. He is always faithful. And I continue to experience His complete and amazing faithfulness during this adoption journey. Although the past few weeks have brought some really difficult moments for our family, we have felt His presence and experienced His goodness. We have asked for prayer and cannot say enough about the way our friends, family, church family, and fellow adoptive families have encouraged and prayed for us. God has used each of you to demonstrate His faithfulness, and we are thankful.

International adoption of a teenager is an amazing gift, but it is not an easy road. Because our son is almost 15, there is an overwhelming desire to bring him home as soon as possible. So, paperwork and other delays can be discouraging and stressful. And although we are blessed and thankful that we get to communicate with Dima fairly regularly, when phone minutes run out, batteries break, and other events occur, there can be some quiet and difficult weeks when we don't hear from him at all. In the midst of everything else happening, we are also working hard to fundraise. From the beginning, this has been a financial leap of faith for our family. So many people have been generous and giving, and you have blessed us with your time, money, talents, and more! When we look at the bottom line, it can feel overwhelming. We have a long way to go, but we continue to look forward to the day we reach our goal.

The emotional twists and turns of this journey are to be expected, and we continue to see what we call "bread crumbs" of encouragement to remind us that God is the author of this story, and that He will complete it in a way that brings Him glory! Those bread crumbs come in many forms--phone calls, texts, and messages from friends; a precious little girl who gave part of her life savings to help bring Dima home; friends who pulled together to make yummy food and raise money for us at their own event; friends who blessed our family with a mini vacation, groceries, and their company; new friends who know, are adopting, and love other kids at Dima's orphanage; pictures from friends who were recently at his orphanage on mission; friends using their talents to make things we can sell; and so much more!

On the right side of the blog, I have added a fundraising thermometer and a broken down list of adoption costs, along with our progress so far. By year-end, we need some additional funds in order to keep our progress going and not have any delays to our current schedule (which puts us traveling to Ukraine in May 2014). Also on the sidebar, there is a list of current fundraisers, a couple of which are great Christmas shopping opportunities. And don't forget that you can take advantage of tax deductible year-end giving through Grace Klein Community. Message me at loveandtots3 at gmail dot com for details on how to make a 100% tax deductible donation to help us bring Dima home.

Thank you for following our journey and for praying for Dima and our family. Here are a few recent pictures of our son.