Teaching at St. Lukes

Apparently we forgot the camera at Alliance! But here’s the view out my window that weekend.

And his name is Noah

Another couple of busy weeks! Our kids have had a ton of stuff going on, a piano competition and their debut performance in the youth worship band at church (yes, all three at once! Rinnah singing, Rachel on bass, and Toby on keys) among other things. It’s been so fun to watch them! And I’ve had two more women’s conferences plus a concert and worship services, our dossier is finally in China (more on that below), and our kitchen is complete! Halleluia! Can’t even tell you how fun it is to have a stove again. 🙂

I was back at St. Luke two weekends ago to do a conference on Esther on Friday night and Saturday. I love working with this church – the ladies are all so sweet, and they do an incredible job. Every detail is planned and their hearts are simply to glorify God! We had a great time there, and also got so many kids sponsored for Compassion – it just blew me away! They had about 5 times the normal number of sponsors for their event, and it says so much about their church!

The following weekend I was up in Alliance, Oh, closer to Cleveland, and did a concert on Friday night, a women’s conference, this time on Peter, on Saturday, and then their worship service on Sunday. Sometimes it’s hard to have that kind of weekend – you know some people will be at all three things so you don’t want to overlap too much, but you also know a lot of people will just be at one, so you don’t want to leave too much out! Friday was a great night, lots of visitors to the church, Saturday was a sweet time thinking about how God transforms us to be usable by Him, and then Sunday I spoke on Daniel and about whether Romans 8:28 is really true – can God really use all things for good? It was a good sermon for me personally, and I felt like God gave it to me specifically for that weekend. I’ve been struggling with some fear as we get closer to this adoption, and these were great reminders for me personally.

This weekend we decided on our little guy’s American name. We’re going to name him Noah. I love the imagery, that God was the one who saved Noah and kept him against all odds, and I am praying that one day our Noah will know God as well and be as faithful to Him as Noah was. Since our Noah just turned 9, we were really struggling with what to do with the name thing. He’s already going to lose so much – his country, his culture, his language – and we hate to take his name too. But we have many Chinese friends here, and they all expressed to me that he would probably want an American name as well, at least legally, as it makes things easier. So we’re going to keep his Chinese name as his middle name, and then just ask him what he wants to be called day to day. And if he changes his mind at some point, we’ll roll with it too.

Our dossier was officially logged into China yesterday, so that is a huge step forward. Now we wait several more weeks as it’s all translated, and then there are several more steps as well such as our official approval, travel approvals, visas, etc. We know now that we won’t make Christmas, and they were saying perhaps February, but that is Chinese New Year, and a lot of the government offices shut down which would make it impossible for us to complete the adoption. So it looks like March it is. Please be praying for us! I am getting really anxious to get him, but I am also struggling with fear about his health, and if the doctors will say it’s too late for his surgery, and how the surgery will go, etc. God does not call us to fear, and he really does give me the peace that passes all understanding every time I give the situation to Him, but I will not turn down your prayers that I would be able to rest there. And I definitely covet your prayers for Noah and for his health! Thank you so much – it is such a blessing to me to know that people are praying!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2015 at 4:48 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.