Monday, July 20, 2009

Officially Moses

It's official; his name is Moses David Ishimwe Limmer. We feel like God Himself picked out his name and who are we to change it? (If you haven't heard the story, see the post below) God has shown us His faithfulness over and over, and Moses' name is one more reminder of the destiny and purpose He has in store for our son. We added the name David, after Justin's father, and it means "Beloved". Very fitting for our little guy! He has been loved in our hearts for such a long time, and we can't wait to love him in person! "Ishimwe" means "Give thanks to God" in Kinyarwandan, the language spoken in Rwanda. We can't stop giving thanks! What a precious gift our little Moses is!

I've been thinking a lot about Moses' birth mother, and how his story has so many parallels to the story of Moses in the Bible. I have been praying for her and envisioning what she must have felt the day she gave up her precious son. I'm certain that she felt that there was nothing she could offer him and praying for life for her baby. A hope. A future. God knew and saw her heartache. He moved on the hearts of ordinary people, thousands of miles away to act in obedience, even when we had questions and doubts. Little did we know the blessing in store for us, and ironically enough, we started the adoption process just weeks after Moses was born! So many emotions! So much reassurance that God is moving on our behalf and has ordained this adoption!

Please pray with us that we'll get a court date soon so that he can be ours in every way. As soon as we pass court and we are his mommy and daddy on paper, we can post a picture.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Referral!

Finally! The day we've been waiting for is here! Our agency, America World called this afternoon to tell us that we have a beautiful, 13 month old little boy (and he is beautiful! I'm telling you, you could get lost in those big, brown eyes.) He is gorgeous! I'm really at a loss for words right now, and wish I could just show you a picture. Unfortunately, we're not allowed to post pictures on public forums (like blogs) until he's legally ours.

Along this whole road, I've seen God's hand move in tremendous ways, but I've also experienced incredible worries and doubts. When we very first started adopting, Asia, our oldest daughter who is 4, told us, very emphatically that her baby brother's name was Moses. So you can imagine my surprise when Terra, our coordinator, told me that they had a precious little boy for our family, and ... you guessed it ... his name is Moses! I cannot doubt the hand of God! He knew all along the perfect child for our family! We're not sure right now if we'll keep Moses as his first name, but it will definitely be in there somewhere.

Now we wait for a court hearing to legally make us his parents. We so appreciate your prayers as we get closer and closer to bringing Moses home.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Change in Plans

Flexible...be flexible. That should be a mantra for any parent who is adopting. This morning we received a call from our agency asking again about our willingness to change what we had requested. Because of various circumstances that have recently occurred in Rwanda with international adoptions, the government is becoming very hesitant to refer children that are under 1 year of age. International adoption, as a whole, is very new to this country, and the agency we're working with, America World, is also in the pioneering stages of developing their adoption program with Rwanda. Needless to say, there is a lot of learning and changing things on everyone's part, and rightly so. We're so grateful that the Rwandan government, the US government, and AWAA have the best interest of the children and us in mind.

Because of all this, our agency coordinator said that the orphanage would now like to refer a healthy, 12 1/2 month boy to our family. Would we be willing to think about it? To heck with thinking about it... yes!! It was pretty funny because she had both Justin and I on a conference call, since he and I were in different locations at the time. I asked Justin during the call what he thought about it, and he just laughed. "I know exactly what you want to do," he said. What a great guy! Terra (our agency coordinator) said that hopefully (keep our fingers crossed) she really would have all the paperwork for our referral together and to us by the end of the week. Thank you Jesus!