An Update: Next Steps

It has been a continued whirlwind of emotions, activities, and to-do lists this past month.  I finished school at the end of this past week which has alleviated a lot of extras from our day to day life.  We are now in the hosting zone!  I wanted to take a moment to update everyone about where we are at in our hosting journey.

We had some wonderful people help us financially and I know there are even more that I don't know about who are supporting us through prayer.  We were short a third of the money on the night before the due date.  We were stressed and praying that we would know what God would have us do.  A lot of you know we recently sold our house and moved.  The day the money was due we received a check from our previous mortgage company, which we knew we would be getting, but had not been given the exact number.  We underestimated the amount based on what we knew so God once again provided more than what was needed to pay the balance on our account.  It was amazing! Then, after flights were finalized last week we received the small balance statement from New Horizons for Children, which happens because they can't predict the complete costs of flights and connecting flights to a location closer to us.  It wasn't very much, but I prayed God would move the funds so it didn't affect our regular budget.  About two days later we received another check from the title company from closing on our new house.  There had been an overage charge and we were being refunded.  It was a little more than half of what we owed for the final flight difference.  And finally, just to remind us that God is ultimately in control we received one more check from the internet company again with a little bit of money that was left when we closed the account at the old house.  It was a happy mail week at our house! : )  If there were any doubts about whether or not we were truly being called to host this summer and on such short notice, they have been erased with God's awesome provisions. 

The next hurdle happened when we received the flight information.  Her flight will arrive in Chicago around 9pm on June 29th.  We were struggling to figure out what options we had because Josh works both the 29th and 30th.  Most of you may not know but Josh isn't able to just take off of work very easily.  We submit his days off in December for the following year and they are granted based off of seniority, which Josh falls about 6th in line for his shift.  Then, it is not a good thing to just call in either.  They are pretty strict and it is a fine line of calling in one too many times and you could end up in trouble.  We prefer to stay away from calling in because of that and try to only use the pre-approved days off.  We kept going in circles about how picking her up should play out.  Do we drive back that night and get home around 2-3am and then Josh could make it into work by 6am but be exhausted?  Do we spend the night with my brother's family and leave early the next morning and Josh could make it in for the last 6 hours of his shift if his Lt. would approve that?  Anyway, the options were swirling around but God took care of it.  Back in December when Josh submitted his days for this year he chose some random days here and there throughout the summer for extra family time.  We don't typically keep track of his days off when we have no pre-made vacation plans.  Finally, he checked this past week about what days exactly he had asked off for and guess which days they were?!? June 29th and 30th!  Again, if doubts are floating about out there about whether God wants us to do this, they should be gone by now!

The Michigan training was about two weeks ago, and it was a huge blessing.  We were required to attend an all day training up in Michigan.  The trip was very smooth with little traffic and Josh and I enjoyed the 6 hours round trip of talk time with each other.  The training was great because we were able to get a lot of information and meet other host families.  We were also able to talk to four teens who have been part of the hosting program and then adopted by their host families.  It was interesting to hear what scared them the most and what experiences were most valued.  Overall, it was a great day and made us even more excited about this adventure. 

To end this extremely long post I will share our to-do list and some prayer requests:

To-Do:
-prepare the room our host daughter will be staying in
-get a few more outfits on hand for the first few days
-obtain a winter coat to send her back with
-obtain a rolling duffel bag (required to send her back with)
-Home Safety Assessment (will be done June 5th)
-finish unpacking from the move
-obtain a Ukranian Bible
-schedule Dentist and Eye exams (required as part of the program)

Prayer Requests:
-our host daughter's salvation
-prepare our host daughter's heart and mind for the upcoming weeks as she joins our family
-take any of our fears and anxieties and fill us with peace and wisdom to handle situations which will occur this summer
-prepare our other three daughter's for the changes in our family
-give Josh wisdom as he leads our family through this experience
-we would find a dentist and eye dr. willing to give us services for free or reduced price
-set our eyes and feet to Him as we serve this summer
-traveling for our host daughter would be smooth and her body would remain refreshed and strong through the long day of traveling

We are getting excited and nervous as the days dwindle and her arrival date gets closer.  I will hopefully continue to update everyone through this blog.  Thanks for everyone has is supporting us through prayer and I love getting all the questions and being able to answer them for each of you.  Thank you too for the financial support you gave our host daughter to make this happen for her. 

God Bless,
Katie, Josh, and our soon to be 4 girls!