The Love of Christ and Dan's leaving for Bulgaria...

I've wanted to write so much here on this blog...but life with 5 kids at home can be busy, especially when one of those 5 is a young baby.  There has been so much going on these past few weeks.  Lots of emails back and forth with our adoption agency and the agency in Joseph's country.  I can finally, offically post that Joseph is from Bulgaria!  So, if you were wondering which Eastern European country he was from, it's Bulgaria ;)  Bulgaria is not the country that we originally set out to adopt from...instead it is the one that God hand-picked for us.  Because that is where Joseph was.   And it is now a country that has become part of our family.

Dan leaves for Bulgaria tomorrow.  We can hardly believe it.  It just doesn't seem real.  Even with the suitcase in the hall, filling up with all the necessary things...its still hard to truly grasp the hugeness of this all...that on Friday morning,  Dan will be taking our little boy out of his orphanage forever and bringing him home to us.  I'm washing little boy clothes and worrying that maybe they might not be the right size and I'm packing away baby food since Joseph is used to pureed and watery foods and I want to make sure he's eating...and all the while I keep coming back and reading these verses in the bible....every day now for about a week I've been taking in these verses from Ephesians (underlining emphasis is mine)...

¹⁷ ... And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. ²⁰ Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

I just keep thinking to myself..."how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." 

It is so wide and long  that it takes simple people and stretches them across the ocean to rescue the forgotten.

Christ's love is so deep that it pushes us to take on things like adopting a special needs child because
the deepness of Christ's love is not about living our own lives in prosperity, but about laying our lives down for others.

Many people put off the idea of adoption because its not practical, its too expensive, its too difficult.  From an intellectual standpoint, it seems kind of crazy to go through all this and take a stranger into your family.  But scripture is very clear that God's love "surpasses knowledge."  Its just more than we can grasp.  And we have definitely found this to be true.
This adoption has taken and stretched us far beyond ourselves...and it has witnessed to how long and wide and high and deep our God's love really is.  That He would put this on our hearts to go all this way and through all this effort to love this one little boy.  That is not us.  That is God.  This was all God's doing.  And He truly has done immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine.  We  prepared for the worst...not being sure what to expect.  And Joseph was amazing.  And our hearts broke to leave him.  And we can't wait to bring him home.  

We are so thankful that we heard God's call and answered it.  There is nothing sweeter in life than doing what God calls us to do...no matter how hard that calling might be.

Please pray for my amazing husband...who not only happily welcomes all the kids that God blesses our family with, but goes even further to be obedient to God's call to stretch and adopt and says "Yes, Lord!"  He is my other half.  I love him dearly.  And I will miss him while he is away bringing our son home.  He will be away for his birthday AND our anniversary.  I am so thankful for his willingness to go bring our boy home.  I'm a lucky girl.

Pray for safe flights tomorrow.  Pray for an easy and smooth transition for Joseph.  The orphanage is all he's ever known.  We've been praying for months now that his transition from the orphanage to our home would be a smooth one for him.  Please pray for his well-being while he is in Bulgaria....with new sights, sounds, food, surroundings.  Please pray that he's not too overwhelmed by it all.  

I'll keep you posted about Joseph's Gotcha Day on Friday morning and how Dan is doing on his trip.

Thank you to all that have been supporting us with your prayers and donations.  We are so very thankful!