Overwhelmed

It's only Wednesday, but it feels like it should be Friday. This week we were overwhelmed to receive donations in addition to those on our YouCaring account that pushed us up and over the edge of what we needed for our immigration application and dossier. That means we're now working towards in country costs for trip 1. This is a really big deal! We are just over 1/3 of the way to our final total. It's amazed us how many people have given a financial gift in the past few months, told us that they were praying, or have asked about him and shown excitement about our news.

In the midst of the paperwork, planning fundraisers, writing grants and organizing documents it can be easy for me to get tunnel vision and focus only on the task at hand, but a few times each week, I receive the same text, "So Mom, when are you and Dad coming to get me?"

He's waiting so patiently. But each time I receive one of those texts, it encourages me to stay up a little bit later to work on the grant writing, pick up extra sub jobs for the classes with a more challenging dynamic, and pray. He has a face and a name and there isn't a moment that we aren't thinking of him. The only comparison I have is that when I was expecting each of our three biological children, once I knew of the pregnancy, there wasn't a waking moment that I "forgot" I was pregnant. The similarity is that there isn't a waking moment that I'm unaware of him, of the eight hour time difference and that he's beginning his day when we're ending ours and what we need to do to bring him home.

I remember sitting at the big "clash" football game last fall a few weeks after he had headed back to his country. The sounds and activity were overwhelming with the bands on the field, the players, the cheerleaders and dancers, all of the students. I sat and just took it all in. I wondered what he would think of it all if he was here and had a moment where I allowed myself to dream, "What if he's here for this next year?" With the way things are going, there's a chance he really could be here for that game this fall.

I don't want to get caught up on a timeline and predict too far ahead what I think will happen. There's only so much control we have over this-- so much of it will depend on waiting for translation, for his country to decide on court dates, for our social worker to complete her part. But I admit it... we would love to take him to that football game.