Introducing Stoyanka!

Fear not, for I am with you;

I will bring your offspring from the east,

And from the west I will gather you.

I will say to the north, Give up,

And to the south, Do not withhold;

Bring my sons from afar

and my daughters from the ends of the earth,

-Isaiah 43:5-6

               Exploring Sofia with Stoyanka

For those who haven't already seen our announcement on Caitlin's feed, we would like to introduce Stoyanka Grace Kirsch! Caitlin and I are currently in Sofia, Bulgaria, and she has been with us for almost a week now. We are overjoyed to finally welcome her to our family after years of prayers and preparation, and we are especially thankful that she is already smiling and laughing with us as she adjusts to the first of many transitions over the next several months. We are also extremely grateful to everyone who has supported and prayed for us throughout this long adoption journey.

                     Our Little Fashionista

There have been a few things that have happened since Caitlin's last update, so I'll try to hit the high points. After matching with Stoyanka last October, we got to have five virtual meetings with her over Zoom, and then we had to send a bunch of paperwork to Bulgaria to confirm the adoption. Then we waited for several months, during which we didn't have any direct contact with Stoyanka. Fortunately, we were able to receive some photos and updates from her foster family via our adoption agency. Finally in mid-February, we learned that the judge reviewing our court case in Sofia had approved our adoption, which meant that Stoyanka was officially our daughter! We were also notified that our travel dates for this pickup trip would be late March, so we had about six weeks to prepare.

Fast forward to last week, Caitlin and I arrived in Sofia around midnight last Friday after a long planned layover in Munich. Since we had barely slept much in the previous 30 hrs, we ended up sleeping about 12 hours straight and getting up at 1 pm on Saturday. We spent that first afternoon/evening walking around the surrounding neighborhood and park, and enjoyed our first delicious Bulgarian meal at подъ липите, one of the oldest restaurants in Sofia, which is only about a five minute walk from our flat.

On Sunday we took a walking tour around Sofia with Free Sofia Tour. Our tour guide Vasil was funny and knowledgeable, and we learned a lot about the rich history of Sofia as we saw many famous landmarks and buildings that have been well-preserved over the centuries. We topped the day off with an incredible meal at Izbata Tavern, which was a generous recommendation from Free Sofia Tour. Then we went to bed early to prepare for the big day on Monday.

Sharing a delicious Bulgarian meal at Izbata Tavern the night before picking up Stoyanka

At 7 am on Monday morning, our translator Mihail and our driver met us at our flat, and then we drove 2.5 hours to Nova Zagora, where we got to physically meet Stoyanka for the first time! We were blessed to briefly meet her foster mother, who clearly took loving care of Stoyanka since she was placed with her family at 28 days old. She also gifted us with an album of photos from Stoyanka's time with her family, which is especially precious to us and Stoyanka. We were able to give her a couple small gifts, along with a card that Mihail graciously translated into Bulgarian for us. We also got to meet a couple of the social workers who helped facilitate our virtual meetings with Stoyanka in October, so it was great to meet and thank them in person. All in all, our time in Nova Zagora was short and sweet, as we headed back to Sofia within an hour. But we had an extra passenger on the way home!

          Our first family photo with Stoyanka

Stoyanka was surprisingly calm to leave with us, although it was evident that she was feeling some grief too. She sat quietly in her car seat for the first few minutes, but she was willing to interact with us. She got sick when we stopped for lunch, which ended up being an amazing bonding opportunity for her and Caitlin since Caitlin got some smiles from her during cleanup, and then she was content to sit and sleep with Caitlin the rest of the way back to Sofia.

When we arrived back in Sofia, we had to stop by the immigration office to submit her Bulgarian passport application (she will get a US passport later after she immigrates to Colorado). There was quite a line outside the office, but Mihail and one of his co-workers were able to quickly get her in and out by explaining it was an application for an adoption. After that, we were back at the flat, and we had the rest of the afternoon to play with Stoyanka.

We were pleasantly surprised to see how well Stoyanka interacted with us immediately. She was smiling and laughing as she tossed a ball with Caitlin. She held Caitlin's hand as we walked through the nearby park, and she let Caitlin carry her when she got tired. She initially called Caitlin "Kaki" like her sister in the foster home, but she quickly transitioned to calling her "Mamo/Mommy" and me "Daddy" before the end of that first day. We're still in awe of how God has answered our prayers for Stoyanka's transition!

        Walking back from the park on Day 1

The last week has been so sweet as we've gotten to know Stoyanka better. She was pretty calm and quiet for the first day or two, and she still can be when she's tired or she's in an unfamiliar place/situation. However, she has really opened up when we're in the flat. She is very expressive and silly, and she doesn't hesitate to express her opinion. She is very proficient at saying "Ne Ne Ne!", especially when she wants Daddy to stop dancing. At one point, we were video chatting with Gideon, Miria, and GiGi back home, and she and Gideon had a ball making silly sounds at each other.

She loves cucumbers, tomatoes, and bread. She really enjoys drawing, especially making circles on blank paper, but she likes drawing in Mommy's notebook too. She has an eagle eye when it comes to spotting devices that have been left within her reach, and she especially loves "Masha and the Bear", which she calls "Bao Bao" (We were warned by her foster mom, but didn't fully realize the extent of her addiction to Bao Bao until she made a beeline for the Kindle as soon as she entered the flat for the first time). She loves to go for walks, and she can walk so much further than we ever anticipated. On Tuesday, we walked into the city to buy a stroller since our umbrella stroller got smashed on the flight over, but she still has yet to sit in the new stroller (Doh!). She loves baths, but hates washing her hair.

                       Making silly faces

Stoyanka has bonded to Caitlin very quickly and always wants to hold her hand while we are walking. She will ask Caitlin to carry her when she gets tired, and she likes to snuggle while she watches a show. She is not a big fan of Daddy carrying her or holding her hand yet, although she will make exceptions, like when there's a step up where we can swing her together. She will also let me carry her when it means bringing her to Mommy on another floor of the flat. However, we have had some good one on one time playing with blocks or her growing multitude of stuffed animals. She has been co-sleeping with us this week since she doesn't like being left alone, and we've been accommodating that for the sake of bonding with her. She is a bit of a squirmer, but the snuggles are great!

                     Watching Bao Bao...

We have a couple more days here in Sofia before returning to the States. We have our final visa interview at the US Embassy tomorrow, and then we'll take COVID tests and receive her final adoption paperwork on Tuesday. Then we have to leave our flat at 4 AM Wednesday morning to begin the long trek back home. Caitlin and I are looking forward to being back with Gideon and Miria and introducing them to their new sister, but it's going to be a lot of scary change for Stoyanka in a short period, so please keep her in your prayers.

I get to spend another 4 weeks at home with everyone before returning to work, so we are hoping it will be a sweet time of bonding as we transition to being a family of five. It will be a little while before we introduce Stoyanka to everyone in person since we want to focus on her bonding with me, Caitlin, Gideon, and Miria before we overwhelm her with the village of friends and family that have loved and supported us through this journey. We are excited to share her with you all, but we also ask for patience as we ease her into the new life that awaits her in Colorado!

We Have a Match!

At long last we have a match for adoption! What a journey this has been. If you have been following Austin and me on this journey, you will know that we restarted the process after returning from Germany in 2015. We got all of our paperwork approved and were entered onto the Bulgarian waiting list in the spring of 2016. The wait was long and we (particularly me) were getting discouraged and wondering why God was taking so long to bless us with children. 

Much to our surprise, I found out I was pregnant with Gideon in 2017. This news was long awaited, but also received with a little sadness for what this might mean for the adoption. We knew the pregnancy policy of our adoption agency would most likely delay our adoption. Once we spoke with them though, we found out that things were taking longer than expected and it would likely be 2 more years before we received a match. This was plenty of time to have a baby and for him to grow to be at least one before we got a match. 

After we had Gideon, we updated our home study and decided to change the requirements for the adoption from 2 children up to the age of 6 to 1 child younger than Gideon. This was a hard choice, but was encouraged by our agency. They informed us that it can be hard to change birth order for biological kids, especially for the oldest if they have reached the age of 2. That was looking more likely for our case and parenthood was turning out to be more challenging that we imagined. I can now put into perspective all the comments people make to new parents and how true they can be. "The days are long, but the years are short." "Enjoy them while they're young; they won't want to cuddle forever!" "Sleep when they sleep." This one really only works with the first born. Oh, how I wish I could have slept all the time Miria slept. 

Shortly after having Gideon, I had this very strong sense that I would get pregnant again and it would be a girl. This was terrifying and exciting at the same time. I have gotten along better with boys most of my life and I said when I was younger that I just wanted to have boys. I believe God was giving me a heads up so I could prepare my heart and my mind for having a girl. Almost 2 years later when I got pregnant with Miria, I knew in my heart my baby girl was in there! At the gender reveal it was a much needed confirmation for my heart that God is with me and he cares for me. 

If you know me well, you know that I have struggled with my faith for many years. God has really used children to show me that I am His child and he cares for me. The fall before I became pregnant with Gideon I sat in the front row of church each Sunday and cried. I am good at hiding my emotions. Probably too good. Turns out Austin didn't even notice. I felt so alone and unseen. I especially felt forgotten by God. I was close to walking away from the faith. Earlier this year one of my good friends had walked away from the faith and while I could feel her pain, I wasn't sure if I believed the same way. I sat on this fence for years. There were many points that I thought I would fall off on the side of atheism or agnosticism,  but Jesus is faithful; we have a loving, patient Father God. 

Shortly before becoming pregnant with Gideon, I was asked if I wanted to fast and pray with a friend of mine for the month. I said no. She told me that was ok and that she would pray for me. Later that month, I was driving home from an errand and caught a glimpse of the mountains. Seeing the beautiful mountains fills me with a sense of unexplainable peace, every. single. time. While I was coming down the hill, I had this overwhelming feeling of peace (more than normal) and decided to stop fighting with God for a little bit. I was going to stop questioning everything and just believe. A month later I found out I was pregnant. The voyage back to full faith in Jesus Christ as my savior is still ongoing, but I am happy to report that God has been using my kids over and over and over again to show me my weaknesses and show me how He is enough to fill in my insufficiencies! 

After updating our home study for the new parameters, we were informed it would be a couple more years before we'd likely receive a match. That turned out to be true. About 2 years after Gideon was born we received a match for a little boy that was just 4 months younger than little G. Much to my delight I was pregnant with Miria but this meant be had to decline the match received for this little boy. Then the pandemic started which would have delayed and frustrated the process for us. I still pray for this little guy and hope that he is with the very best family now!

Miria was born August of 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic (or what we thought would be the middle...) We are so grateful for her and it was good to have a year of not being sick with a newborn.  It has been a very hard year though. I wasn't offered as much help as I was with Gideon and having two littles is tough. It has really made me a stronger woman though. I am a better mother for it, even if I feel that I have failed my kids in a lot of ways. I am realizing that every mother fails at something though and we all do our best and love our kids in ways that others never could. I choose to accept the saying "you are the best mother for your kids and that is why God gave you to them." I am going to cling to that as we bring our new daughter home too. God didn't intend for Gideon to have a little brother that is almost his age. He gave Gideon sisters and Miria an older sister. 

Our new little girl was born April of 2019 to a mother that was unable to care for her. She was born early with an infection that left her in the hospital for the first month of her life, but God has answered our prayers over her and provided her with a foster family that has loved her and cared for her. She has only known them as her family. They have taken her to their vacation home in the country and her foster sister (20 years old) who was adopted as well, visits and enjoys her. She is the only child in the home and gets to be around peers 1 day a week at daycare. She loves to draw and seems to be mild tempered. We are so eager to meet her in person. We got to have a daily meeting for an hour with her for 5 days through zoom. Normally this would have been in person, but due to the pandemic it wasn't possible for us to travel at this time. Even though the visits were from 1:30-2:40am every morning, they were so precious. The last morning we were saying goodbye she was saying "Ne! Ne!" It was so sweet that she didn't want to say goodbye and I really had to hold back my tears. I knew I wouldn't get to interact with her again until we go to pick her up.

While I am so excited to pick her up, I am also so sad for her. She is about to experience the biggest trauma of her life. I get teary eyed everything I think about it. Out of the ashes comes the beauty. We are excited we get to be her forever family! Gideon and Miria are going to have another sibling to love. Austin and I get to have another daughter. If adding another child is anything like what I think it will be, we are going to have some hard moments. It is going to be worth every struggle and tear though. I look forward to us all bonding, to days at the park in the sunshine, to traveling and exploring our world, to snuggles and movie nights. I look forward to us all being a family together!

The kick off of this holiday season with us together as just a family of 4, has been special. It wasn't expected for us to not host but we had the best family day ever on Thanksgiving. I cannot wait for our other daughter to be with us next year and for us to be able to share her name and pictures! I wish you all peace, happiness and health this holiday season. I also wish you all peace with your creator of whom we celebrate at Christmas. Christ be with you and your families!

Adoption Update - National Adoption Month

"learn to do good;

seek justice,

correct oppression;

bring justice to the fatherless,

plead the widow's cause."

-Isaiah 1:17

"For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him."

-Romans 8:15-17

    So it's National Adoption Month, which means I have been inundated with gentle reminders of how long overdue I am in providing an update on our adoption. I would blame it on 2020, but then I'm not sure who/what to blame for 2018 and 2019. Last time I checked in, we were still awaiting the birth of our firstborn, and he didn't even have a name yet! And now Gideon is almost three, and we even have another addition to the family. Our beautiful daughter Miria is three months old this week. These two are wonderful, and Caitlin and I are so blessed by them. The lack of sleep this last three months has been really sanctifying too! It's made much of 2020 seem like a dream, which has been a blessing in and of itself.

    I should probably start a dedicated blog to chronicle Gideon's misadventures, but that's a task for another day. Many of those are preserved in the nightly lore of Mr. Quackers and Little Al anyway. But as Gideon has been consistently learning these days, not everything is about him. So let's get on with the adoption update.

    When I last left you back in 2017, we hadn't gotten much news from the Bulgarian MOJ (Ministry of Justice) on our place on their adoption referral list. In April 2018, we got our first update that we were #716 on the list, which meant it would likely be another 2 years before we received a referral. This was disappointing news because we had already been on the list for 2 years, but it was encouraging to receive an update. We also had a newborn, so we were excited to have some time to welcome him into our family. Our agency does have a pregnancy policy to ensure that children do not arrive into the family within a year of each other, so we knew we wouldn't be able to complete an adoption until 2019 at the earliest. 

    We also made a couple other changes to our paperwork during our home study update in 2018. The first involved changing the age range of our adopted child to be younger than Gideon. This was something that our social worker strongly recommended to preserve the birth order in our family since it can be extremely confusing for a firstborn child to have an older child placed in their home. The second change was partly inadvertent due to some conflicts in our paperwork, but our referral preferences were changed from two children to one child. After some further discussion with our social worker, we decided to leave it this way since bringing two children home becomes a lot more complicated with one child already in the home. At the same time, this change did not preclude us from being matched with two children, and we were starting to understand that God's plans for our adoption journey were slightly different than our own, so we decided to embrace the next detour(s) He might have planned for us.

    About a year after our first MOJ referral list update, we learned that we had moved up to #438 as of January 2019. We were excited to see movement, and hopeful that we might even receive a referral in 2020. And then on New Year's Eve, we found out that Caitlin was pregnant with Miracle Child #2. Of course we were super excited, and I was a little more mentally prepared for this news than the first time around! Looking back on it now, we probably thought that was the craziest thing that would happen in 2020. Caitlin and I were pretty convinced that we weren't getting a referral anytime soon anyway, so we decided to wait a couple months before we notified our agency of the pregnancy. But what would 2020 be without some drama in every facet of life?

    The first week of March 2020, Caitlin got an unexpected call from our adoption agency. We had received a referral! The MOJ in Bulgaria had matched us with a 22 month old boy, which was only a few months younger than Gideon. However, Caitlin then notified the agency that she was three months pregnant, and the aforementioned pregnancy policy came into play. This policy is in place to ensure that the family is given the time necessary to attach to each child, especially since any adopted child will have significant mental, physical, and emotional needs that call for close attention and care as bonding and attachment begin. As a result, we were required to put our adoption on hold for several months, which meant that we had to officially turn down the referral. Talk about a whirlwind of emotion! It's a strange thing to reflect upon, knowing that boy could have been our son if a few circumstances had been different. I can't help but wonder where he was placed instead, but I pray that he found a loving forever family. It's also easy to see God's providence throughout the circumstances. Based on everything that has occurred with COVID-19 since March, it's unlikely that we would have been to travel to Bulgaria this year at all, which probably would have been more discouraging than putting the adoption on hold temporarily.

    So where does that leave us now? Our adoption is still on hold for a few more months, but we were told that we wouldn't lose our place on the referral list, so there's a chance that we could receive another referral as soon as next year. But I haven't had a whole lot of luck with my predictions so far, so it's probably more likely there will be another abrupt right turn on our journey.

    So have we reconsidered adopting now that we have two children at home and after everything we've been through? Honestly, we haven't seriously considered walking away. We believe that we have been called to adopt, and by God's grace, this journey of growing our family has only served to confirm that calling. What do I mean by that? Well, if we had had two biological children on our own timeline, we wouldn't have started the adoption process as soon as we did, and it's very possible that we would have been too comfortable with our family and our life to ever seriously pursue adoption. 

    But as Christians, we aren't called to a comfortable or an easy life, we are called to deny ourselves and follow Christ (Matt. 16:24-26). Following Him looks like following His example. Christ laid aside his crown to suffer and die as a man in order to redeem his people from slavery under the law, to make us heirs of the Father (Gal. 4:1-7). Our heirship is not based on anything we've done, it's a free gift of grace that we receive because of Christ, and we have been raised up with Him (Eph. 2:4-9). That's the gospel in a nutshell.

    We had a guest pastor, Todd Froman, speak about adoption at our church this last Sunday. He said that adoption is a tangible way to show what God does through the gospel. He's right, and that's a big part of the reason that we decided to adopt in the first place. We know that adoption will not be easy, and that it will probably come with steep physical, mental, and emotional costs. We know there will be people who won't understand why we've chosen this journey, and we may even lose friends over it. But as Todd said on Sunday, the call to adoption is a call to follow the Shepherd. So when we're in the thick of it, be sure to remind us of that!

    We also know there will be great joy that will come from adoption. A fatherless child will finally be united with a father and a mother and a brother and a sister that loves them, and that will be a joyful moment! There will be some battles, but there will be victories and there will be beauty as bonding takes place. We are looking forward to the adventures as we introduce another child to the wonders of Colorado.

    So you may be wondering how you can support us. For those of you who have been supporting us via prayer or monetary gifts, know that we are deeply grateful for you! We have been blessed to be able to raise the funds we need for the adoption, so we don't need any money. But we will gladly take your prayers. There's a good chance that our child (Miracle Child #3, aka MC3) is already alive, either inside or outside the womb, so please pray for his/her health and wellbeing. Pray that MC3 will experience love and care, and that his/her heart will be prepared to join and bond with our family as their own. Pray for Gideon and Miria that they will welcome their new sibling with open arms. Pray for Caitlin and myself that our hearts and minds would be prepared to love and nurture MC3, and that we would accept whatever God has planned for us next with grace and thanksgiving. 

    And lastly, pray about how God has called you to bring justice to the fatherless, correct oppression, and plead the widow's cause (Isaiah 1:7)! Not everyone is called to adopt, but there are many other practical and meaningful ways that you can support and love those who cannot advocate for themselves. God advocates for the poor, the sick, and the oppressed, and He calls us to do the same (Matt. 25:31-40).

A Divine Detour

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make straight your paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6

The heart of man plans his way,

but the Lord establishes his steps.

-Proverbs 16:9

Just so everyone knows, my definition of "regular updates" is at least one every year and a half. Now that we've established my blogging goals, I'll get right down to it.

Last time I checked in, Caitlin and I had just learned that we were officially on the waiting list to adopt two children from Bulgaria. Since I'm that nerdy guy that likes to have all of the intel, I had done some small amount of research into the Bulgarian adoption time frame. Although the available data points were few and far between, I felt pretty good about our chances of being matched within 12-15 months. So once we started closing in on a year on the waiting list, I was starting to get a little anxious that we hadn't heard anything and that my expectations weren't being met. Little did I know that we were about to get thrown a curve ball.

At the end of April, Caitlin and I had a long weekend trip planned to San Francisco. Caitlin had a conference at Mile High (lucky!) that Thursday and had happy hour plans afterward, so I was expecting to have the Xbox, I mean, the house to myself for a couple hours when I got home. I was pleasantly surprised to see my wife bounding up the stairs when I walked in. I joked later that she's never quite that excited to see me, so I should have known something was up. After exchanging some normal TGIF small talk, she told me she had some news for me. Then she broke the news that I was going to be a father! But I didn't register the exclamation mark. As I recall, my initial response was "You're kidding, right?". I knew that I hadn't heard anything from the adoption agency during the day, and I was pretty certain I would have at least gotten a phone call. After 5 years of trying to get pregnant and a considerable amount of fertility testing, I had accepted the premise that we would bring our first children home from somewhere other than the hospital. So it took me a few seconds to process what she was saying. Even once I confirmed that she was not actually pulling the meanest prank ever, I still felt conflicted. While I was excited that we were indeed going to have a biological child, I couldn't help but think about the 2 years we had already invested in the adoption process. We had been told that we would have to put the adoption on hold if Caitlin became pregnant and that our international application could potentially be suspended indefinitely if we had another child. This was an incredible turn of events, but it wasn't part of the plan, specifically my plan!

Fortunately, we had a 3 day weekend to process our feelings before we had to call the adoption agency. Caitlin called them the following Tuesday with the update. At this point, I had semi-prepared myself for them to say our application would be put on hold. But again, our gracious, eternal Father showed he had other plans for our growing family. Our agency congratulated us and then told us that the queue in Bulgaria was moving slowly, so we were still probably a year or two away from being matched. As a result, they said we could continue on with the adoption and just update our annual paperwork in January! Talk about a whiplash of emotions! We were so relieved by another unexpected development, although it was (and is) a little intimidating to imagine being gifted three kids within the next year or so.

After such a long period of waiting, it was almost surreal how the timing worked out. Looking back now, it's easy for me to see God's hand in everything that led up to the point where we found out we were officially going to be parents. About a year ago, Caitlin and I had struggled with questions about how we could grow our relationships within the local community so that our adopted children would have a stable environment when we brought them home. After several months of much prayer and deliberation, this led us to start visiting local churches in Aurora, even though that meant we would have less time to spend with our dear church community in Parker that we have come to know and love since 2011. This was easily one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make as a couple, and it led to several draining months at the beginning of this year, as we visited many different churches and questioned the wisdom of what we were doing.

Eventually we decided to visit The Crossing again. This was the first church we had visited on our grand tour since it meets five minutes from our house at Smoky Hill High School. The first time we had visited, there was a swim meet at the high school, and the head pastor was sick, so we watched a John Piper sermon instead, which was a positive theology sign. Apparently it was a bit of an abnormal Sunday even for them. However, we had been welcomed graciously, and the worship was incredible and gospel-centered, so we decided to give them another shot. Our second visit was a little more in line with expectations, and we were encouraged to hear a convicting, gospel-based message, although we still hadn't heard a sermon from the head pastor, Isaac. However, we met him after the service, and he talked us into coming back the following week for Easter, where he guaranteed that he would be speaking. We were also really excited about how involved the church is within the local community. So we came back the next week, and we heard a wonderful, albeit atypical Easter message about how the resurrection shows us that we can believe the Bible is true. During the sermon, Caitlin leaned over and told me "This is where I want to go" and I readily agreed. In the weeks that followed, I was amazed at how quickly we were able to build relationships with our new church family, and each Sunday was an echoing confirmation that we had found our church home. What we didn't know that Easter was that we already had another big change coming. Less than two weeks later, we learned that we were officially going to be parents! The timing could not have been better.

Caitlin told me afterward that she had been praying for months that we would know who our future children would be by Christmas of this year. While she didn't get quite the answer that she was expecting, I don't think it's a coincidence that our baby's due date is December 25th. Praise the Lord!

Fast forward a few months to today. We have found out that we are having a boy, and he's right on schedule. We are so excited to meet our son! We have been overwhelmed by the joy and love he has already been shown, and we can't wait to introduce him to y'all. That's right, I almost got through this whole post without one "y'all", but that would have been an egregious Southern faux pas. We have not heard anything else about our adoption yet, but at this point we'd have to wait until next year to fly to Bulgaria, so it's probably better if we don't get matched until next year. It's going to be really exciting when we get that call though! With that, I am going to sign off. Grace and peace to you, brothers and sisters!

Our Bulgarian Adoption!

A photo op in Sofia, Bulgaria

For those who don't already know, Caitlin and I are excited to share that we have been in the middle of an adoption process since we returned from Germany last May. In reality, we started the paperwork process the previous fall, but when we were given the opportunity to move to Munich for a few months last spring, we decided to wait on completing our home study until we returned to the States. At that point, we had basically decided that we wanted to adopt from Bulgaria after speaking to our friend Katherine Long, who lives and works in Sofia as a missionary for MTW. Therefore, we were extremely blessed that being in Europe made it possible for us to visit Katherine last April. Katherine was a wonderful host and guide; she gave us the grand tour of Sofia, which is a beautiful city, along with a lot of background on the history and culture of Bulgaria. 

Our visit to Sofia served as confirmation that this is where we wanted to adopt, so we were excited to renew the adoption process last June once we returned to Colorado. The next big steps for us were to complete our home study and adoption training. Going into the adoption training, we were still trying to decide if we wanted to adopt one child or two. We had been leaning towards siblings, but it wasn't until we went through the training that we really began to think about our adoption from our future children's perspective. We went through an exercise where we examined loss by taking a list of ten things that were important to us (family, personal beliefs, friends, favorite places, culture, language, etc.) and then had to gradually choose which ones we could live without until there were only one or two left. Then our instructor pointed out that adopted children often lose most everything that is familiar and important to them when they are adopted. She cautioned us not to lose sight of this even though we may think we are bringing them into a better situation than where they were. As a result, we realized if we were able to adopt siblings or two children that knew each other well, our children would still be able to retain a biological connection/friend, a familiar language, and some of their culture to help them face the unknown. This was enough to convince us that we wanted to adopt two children, so we requested to be matched with siblings. We are a little nervous, but we are extremely excited about bringing home both of our children if that is how God provides.

We finished our home study and training last August, and then we had to put together our dossier for Bulgaria. This consisted of our home study, medical and financial records, background checks, family photos, and other documents. It took several months to get all of these documents compiled and certified by the state of Colorado and the Secretary of State, but we were finally able to submit the dossier to Bulgaria around the beginning of January. For the last few months, we have been waiting for the Bulgarian government to process our dossier, and we just found out a little over a week ago that it has been processed and we are officially on the waiting list for a referral! There is not a concrete timetable for how long it will take to get a referral, but the best estimate we have been able to determine is 12-24 months. Since we are open to siblings up to 6 years old, we are hoping and praying that the wait will be 12 months or less. This means that there is a good chance that our children are probably out there right now, so please join us in praying for their safety and well-being in the interim!

Once we are matched, we will travel to Bulgaria twice in the following months. The first trip will be within a couple weeks of our referral to meet and bond with our children. Then a few months later, we will return to finalize the court process and bring our children home, so there is still a lot of waiting to be done. In the meantime, we will be preparing our home and our hearts to welcome our  

children home. We plan on posting regular updates here as the adoption moves forward, so stay tuned to hear more about how God works to bring our family together!

Freedom From The Second Temptation

    "When our ultimate goal becomes security and protection, God becomes a means to that security and protection. We "test" him then, to see if he is able to serve as a means to our real god, our sense that everything will be all right. As long as we see our way toward physical, emotional, financial, relational, or familial well-being, God is welcome. But when such things are threatened, we indict God with our grumbling, even when we carefully disguise this as "venting" against our circumstances, not against God. We assume that God's love entails God's visible protection right now. When that is absent, we grow distant and prayerless toward God. We put him to the test.
      I heard not long ago from a man I haven't seen since high school. When asked about his religious beliefs, he simply says he is "an atheist until proven otherwise." I fear sometimes that despite all my Sunday learning I'm the same thing. It's not just that I want to be protected from whatever scares me-- I want to be reassured now that this protection will always be there. I want Christ, but I too often want him as a quantifiable spiritual asset, as something I can always check to be sure of just as I can check my bank account balance or my cholesterol level. I want what God has promised, but I want power of attorney to execute those promises when I determine I need them. That's not what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about.
      What ultimately undoes the pull to self-protection is the cross. Jesus refused to seek the proof of his own protection because he was seeking more than his own protection. He was looking for you, and you weren't on the pinnacle of the temple. You were outside the camp, cut off from the presence of God. Jesus didn't throw himself from the high place for the same reason that a faithful husband doesn't run out of a burning building to call a lawyer to sue the arsonist if he knows his wife is trapped inside. Jesus didn't come to protect himself. He came for the world. He came for the church. He came for you. He bore your reproach, strapped on your curse, carried your exile. This other-directedness freed Jesus to live out a very different life from the cringing, anxiety-filled lives so many of us carry on."

    "We don't need to protect our lives because our lives are already crucified. We are, the gospel tells us, "hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3). We can know then, whatever comes at us, "When Christ who is your life appears, then you will also appear with him in glory" (Col 3:4). We can be willing then to lose our lives, our reputations, and our arguments because we can't hold on to anything by our cunning strategies anyway. In the long run we're all dead, and in the longer run we're all raised from the dead. There's a freedom that comes from seeing that."

-Excerpts from Tempted and Tried by Russell D. Moore

Foolish Power

"For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."
- 1 Corinthians 1:18