Where He Leads, We Will Follow

Obviously, I am not a regular blogger.  So let me rewind to August 2015.

Our hosting journey came to a bittersweet end.  We weren't ready to say good-bye and the weeks following departure were full of heart ache and learning to communicate and parent across a big pond.  A piece of our hearts will always be a little sore from not having L in our home everyday.  We talk to her almost daily.  She does get busy at her trade school during the middle of the week so we don't normally talk then unless she is having a rough week.  She seems to have adjusted better to trade school than she did at first.  We send pictures and I love you's as often as we can! Her birthday is this month and I have felt extra weepy about not having her here and probably because of the news we are wanting to share too.  Thankfully, some of L's other past host moms and us have joined together to send L some money each month to help take care of her needs.  She is so appreciative and it helps knowing if she needs something she is able to get it.  We did look into the possibility of a student visa for her but so far that has not worked out.  There aren't a lot of options in Indianapolis. The places we did look into either denied us for lack of proof of finances (They wanted $20,000 sitting around in our bank account and we definitely aren't there at this point in our lives!) or the lack of English was a deterrent for them to accept her.  We asked to host her at Christmas but she was no longer able to be hosted because of her status at the trade school and not an orphanage.  So we have continued to nurture the relationship and care for her across an ocean.

Back in late January/early February the hosting window opened up for Summer 2016.  We immediately did the initial application and gained access to the photo listing.  It was awful! Not a single child made our hearts stir like L had.  We would look together every few days and crickets! We started talking and praying about not hosting, maybe it wasn't meant to be, it wasn't the path God was leading us down.  But if there is anything we learned after hosting and loving and still loving L is that we now have a heart for orphans and want to adopt.  We have specifically felt lead to adopt from Ukraine.  So as we scrolled through the pictures and read the profiles we saw and inquired about a few kids from Latvia but after getting more information and still felt nothing we kind of put it on the back burner.  We started to talk about just flying L over for a vacation this summer ourselves.  While we want her here, we also felt that nudge to keep checking the listing because new kids were being added every few days.  Finally, this past week a darling little face popped up on the listing and I showed her to Josh and read the description and we both said hmmm, yeah, maybe.  Then, I started randomly wanting to see her face one more time and would look at her picture and read the description.  Josh said to email our coordinator and ask for more details.  I guess it was at that point for me that I kind of already knew this is the one we are supposed to have in our home this summer as I wrote the email to our coordinator, Liz.  Then, to confirm it we began checking our email frequently (like twice an hour at times) for a response from Liz.  And darn that technology, Liz was having some issues with the email through NHFC and so the response took forever (or just a few days)! Before I was done reading it all the way, I was messaging Josh.  We both said okay this is it!

V, is from Ukraine.  She is 14 years old.  She wants to see a giraffe.  We are working on finding out from the person who interviewed her to find out her language and region.  She is quiet and was a little shy during the interview.  She was very nervous too.  She has an older sister who just turned 18.  When the interviewer was done and went to hug her she just melted right into her arms.  She has been hosted one other time.  We can't wait to see her and have her into our home.  And if God is leading us to adopt her then we can't wait to begin that journey as well.  Our minds and hearts are open to His leading and where He leads, we will follow.

Prayer requests: We will need to raise about $1,750.  We will need to find a dentist and eye doctor willing to donate exams (hopefully, the ones we used last summer will be willing to do so again!).  Prepare the hearts of our girls as we add another family member this summer.  Prepare V's heart to be open and accepting of our love and care this summer.  Give us strength and perseverance as this is hard work! Also, pray for a gentle touch upon our hearts where L has been and that we wouldn't compare the relationships that we have with both of these girls.  Pray for L as at some point this will probably come up and we don't want her to be hurt or feel that we never wanted her!

And finally, for those of you developed a relationship with L and maintain contact on Facebook or even have her as a friend on Facebook we ask that you place her as an acquaintance so you can filter what comments are shared with her.  We are trying to protect her feelings in this delicate situation and if you re-post any of our posts about hosting it could hurt her greatly.  We want to keep you informed and have people praying over us but also want to be mindful of not hurting her.

Thanks for your prayer and support as we begin another hosting season.  I will be posting more information in the coming week about how to help support us financially, as well as through prayer, and meeting physical needs for V too.

In Him,
Katie and Josh