The Love of Our Father

Mabuhay (welcome/hello)!

In my last blog, I mentioned I would be posting about all the changes we have been making around the house. However, God has placed on my heart to something a bit different this time. In the month of love (Valentine's Day), I am so deeply reminded of our Father's love for us and want to share it with others.

Since we officially announced our adoption journey, Ben and I have expressed this decision came from the foundation of our heavenly Father's unconditional love and adoption of us into His family. For even longer than that, God has given us both the strong desire and calling to grow our family and share our love through adoption.

Through every step of our journey thus far, He has never stopped showing us His love. We want to celebrate His love by sharing specific examples of the love He has shown us through answered prayers. If you have said even one prayer on our behalf, see these items below as a testament to His love for you as well. God is great – He hears us, and He answers us!

• Quick approval of our dossier with the Philippines
  • In October 2019, we submitted our dossier to the Philippines and were told to expect our approval by March 2020. We were approved by December 2019 – in just over 2 months rather than 6 months!
    
  • We didn't find out of our approval until January, so while we ended 2019 discouraged to not be approved (because I always love getting approved early, of course), God had already answered our prayers and provided. This is a great lesson and reminder that sometimes God has already answered our prayers, and, with our limited perspective, we just don't know it yet!
• Saying no to good, so He could say yes to better
  • Over the summer of 2020, we prayed over a sibling set we felt God called us to submit our name for consideration. In August and September 2020, we specifically prayed the deciding committee would make a quick decision. I felt God specifically placed on my heart we would know by the end of September. And He was faithful to that promise - by the end of September, we had our answer.
    
  • While the answer was no, God provided the answer quickly. He even gave Ben and I specific moments of clarity that he had something even better in store for us. He placed another specific message on our hearts that something important would happen in late October or November.
• Being matched in record time
  • Throughout October and November, we prayed God would open our hearts to be prepared for something big in store. Throughout this time, we kept surrendering our will to His will. We know He heard our pleas and our submission and continued to fill us with hope and comfort.
  • Recall, God had placed a specific message on our hearts that something important would happen in October or November. And something big He had in mind - we received our match in November! We have been told by our adoption agency this is one of their fastest matches they've ever seen. Their normal process takes about 2-3 years to match a family and we received our match in just shy of 11 months!
    
• BREAKING NEWS! Quick progression of our US paperwork
  • Just last month, we asked for prayers about our current step in the process – receiving the US approval for JP's immigration. No, we have not yet received that full approval (so keep praying!). However, we were initially told to expect 7-8 weeks for USCIS to accept our paperwork (due to COVID delays), but they accepted our paperwork in 1 week! Both us and our adoption agency were thrilled to say the least!
    
  • USCIS still needs to formally review our paperwork, so we expect about 2-4 weeks for that approval. But God has continued to show us He is not defined by our human timelines – He can and does move our journey along at His perfect pace.

As I wrap up typing the prayer answers above, I am overwhelmed at the reminder of God's love for us. God is great! May He always be praised for His rich blessings.

I would be remiss, though, if I didn't acknowledge that God's blessings may not always look like what we hoped for in our prayers. Even in our own adoption journey so far, it hasn't always played out the way we thought it would. He's answered no, when we wanted him to say yes. He's answered wait, when we wanted to be told to go. He's shown us better, even when we thought good was ok.

Throughout it all, good and bad, we seek to remain in a posture of surrender. While God encourages us to bring to Him our pleas, we believe and know that God's will is the best. He's taking care of us. Nothing surprises Him, and He's certainly not bound by earthly timelines. We can trust Him.

We are excited to see how God continues to answer our prayers – those we have already prayed and the prayers to come. We know once we travel to our son's birth country and meet him, we will see even more of God's faithfulness and love.

Next update I promise will be about the changes around the house. Stay tuned! 😊

Our prayer request this month – Thank you Lord for the unconditional love You have always given us. Love on JP for us. Give him an extra dose of Your love in this month of love. May he be ever aware of Your presence. We also pray that You would help him supernaturally feel our love – the love of his parents. Oh Lord, how we love him already. Give him a hug from his mom and dad.

Until next time – all our love!