Answered PRAYER!

Court decree has been signed by the father!!!! This morning I prayed specifically that the father would come in today and sign. In some strange way I new that step was going to be completed today. So now we need to be praying that the minister of health in Liberia would complete the case histories with the parents. And the court decree would be officialized in the courts making Serena, Gidstina and Gideon officially Walsman children! AAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!! :) :) :)

Really Struggling!

We haven't been given any updates, things are going slower than expected, and I feel like my heart is laid open bear on the alter, ready to be smashed to pieces any minute! I never imagined this process to be so painful! I have pictures of our children now printed and taped to a shelf just above my computer monitor. I have this urge to take them down and put them away and not think about the adoption, other than praying for the children each day, until we get the call to bring them home. It is so painful to live in this not knowing stage. It isn't that I'm desperate to adopt them. If it isn't God's plan than I would willingly lay them down. But we are in the stage of not knowing, which is so hard for a control freak like me! :)

Having gone through three miscarriages I know how it feels to have God give and expect a birth and then have him take away. I just don't want to go through that again! I wish he would just tell me now, if they aren't for us, than close the door. But I realize that may not be his plan, we could go along another year or more and not bring them home. I know that I just need to trust and be surrendered, it is just so difficult!

I look at the children and I wonder should I attach to them as my children? I love them so much, without even trying. I am actually trying not to attach but when I look into the reality of my heart I'm already attached to them! I need to be praying that God would give me his love for these kids, not my own. My own love is so conditional and unstable and selfish and self-centered. God's love for them is, I imagine, free without any strings, free to love them where they are and continue to love them even if they don't come home. Free to pray for them and think about them and free to let every bit of my heart one hundred percent agape love them. Doesn't agape love mean to love at the sacrifice of oneself? So loving them would mean, letting them in, at the risk of them never becoming my children. Would I have loved in vein? No, I would have been a reservoir and hopefully conduit of God's love for them and that would be a gift.

I'm not sure if I've posted this already but the children's biological mother did come and sign the papers for the court decree, now we are just waiting on the father to come. Pray for God's will to be done please!

Thank you to all who have donated towards the children's adoptions! We appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts! We are up to 3,000 dollars! 13,000 more to go!

New Pictures of our kids!

Gideon,

Serena

and Gidstina!

Update...

Right now we are waiting for the necessary documents to be signed so that Serena, Gidstina, and Gideon will be legally our children in Liberia! This is so exciting! We hopefully will have that completed within the next 4-6 weeks.

We have the opportunity to send some things over to the children with a family that is going to pick up their children. I decided to sew them blankets even though it is hot over there right now. I figured they could lay on them or hold them. I just wanted them to have something special and I love making things by hand for my babies! I embroidered their names on them. We also will send a picture album for each of the children and letters from each of us.

I've been reading a book called "A black man's tribute to his white mom". It is definitely a good insight into how a dark-skinned child feels with a white mother. I know we will have challenges but I will continue to remind my children that we are all made in God's image, we have the same color blood, and if we all looked the same wouldn't that be boring!!!!!!! God is much more creative than that!

I just finished reading "Tears of the Rain". It was about a missionary couples experience in Liberia from 2001-2003. They were there during the civil war. What a scary time! It gave me tremendous insight into the Liberian culture and the extreme poverty in which they live. It helped me to understand how they can give up their children for adoption. It is the most selfless act they could do for their children. Children literally die of starvation on a daily basis there. Malaria is horrible and a common killer of young children. Measles generates such high fevers that children lose their sight. It is so so sad. Witchcraft and devil worship is VERY common. Child sacrifice is not unusual. I read things that I thought weren't humanly possible. Our living conditions here are absolutely royal compared to Liberian living conditions. I feel so spoiled and I just don't know how to change it.

I want to figure out how to spend less on everything, groceries, clothes, gifts. It just doesn't feel right at all to live the way I do while those in Liberia are living the way they are. So if you have any good beans/rice recipes or other money saving ideas email them to me at acwalsman@yahoo.com. Thanks!

Fund-raising garage sale success!

Thank you to everyone who donated to our garage sale. We raised 730.00 towards our adoption! I started thinking if we could have about 12 more of these we'd raise enough! It was actually the first garage sale I'd ever done. It was exhausting but fun! The only problem about having 12 more is I don't think we have enough time nor do people go to garage sales in the winter! Anyway, it was a wonderful experience. I didn't anticipate that I would need help on Friday but God was so good and a neighbor who I had never met came over and helped me and even donated a bunch of her own stuff for me to sell! She helped me navigate through all the haggling and things that I wouldn't naturally be comfortable with. She was a God-send! Thank you Kim!

One update, we got I-600a approval which for those of you who don't know, that is the big American thing you have to get to adopt. It is United States immigration approving you as an adoptive family. When we go to Liberia we will apply for the I-600 for the children, but the I-600a is pre-approval for that, so it makes the I-600 easier/faster. Does that make sense? Anyway, it is a significant step in the process!

Update....

We got our fingerprints done with the USCIS which was an interesting and sort of trying experience. We brought the boys with us, which was the trying part. I was quite delighted to see that they didn't use ink for these prints. It was pretty cool. I show off the pictures of the children to everyone including the man who did my prints and at just about every store I go to, every cashier, every waiter, every well ANYONE! I kind of embarress myself... I just can't help it though, I'm just SO darn proud of them!

No update on the Liberian side of things. Just waiting, waiting, waiting! We got our first two donations yesterday which was exciting! I know God is just going to knock my socks off in how he provides for this adoption! He has already blown me out of the waters by calling us to this in the first place! Go God! This is definitely an opportunity for Him to be glorified because we certainly cannot do this and claim the glory for ourselves! This is ALL HIM!

Random thoughts on our adoption...

When I look at the picture of Gidstina and Serena and Gideon I just melt. I can't believe that one day they will be home and in our arms. Their so beautiful and precious and I love them so much already. I've been thinking a lot lately about the difficulties that they will face due to being adopted. I've thought about how much their hearts will hurt over the fact that their African mom and dad gave them up. And I hate it, because I know that when my children hurt I want to make it better, and I won't be able to. I hate that the most. I'll just hold them and hurt with them and I will lead them to the throne of grace that promises us that their daddy in Heaven works all things out for good and that He loves them and their African mommy and daddy.

This adoption, it is bittersweet. The most bittersweet thing I've ever experienced. When I lost our baby boy, Adin, last January the anguish I felt was indescribable. I remember thinking that God wouldn't have allowed me to go through losing Adin if He didn't have a REALLY important reason. So I trust that God wouldn't have allowed this in Gidstina, Gideon, and Serena's lives if it weren't eternally worth it.

So often I look at the here and now but God is Alpha and Omega, First and Last and he knows the beginning from the end. So he knows that these troubles we face are light and momentary and that they are worth it for the glory that will be revealed when we get to Heaven. In that reality I walk forward in embracing Serena, Gidstina, and Gideon as my own.

On another note, God is orchestrating each part of this adoption and everything seems to be just falling into place! We have our appointment to be fingerprinted next week and two weeks after that we should have I600A approval. Beyond that we just wait for the Liberian side of things to be accomplished. I'm just praying continuously that God's timing would be done. I know that it will. I'm so excited!

OUR DOSSIER IS ON IT'S WAY TO LIBERIA!

Can you tell I'm excited! Well, just a little!!! It's so neat to think about this and how it's Gods thing, that he is doing it...I keep praying for these children and for this process and His peace really does protect my heart. I start to worry and fear when I get out of sync with God and stop praying. Praying is like one of the best things that God has given us. It is amazing the difference in my life when I am continually praying. We continually pray about God providing the money for this adoption and I do wonder from time to time how that will happen. We are having a yard sale next Saturday and I'm excited about that. It will be neat to see how God provides because this is obviously His thing and he will bring it to completion!

We got a referral!

Last Thursday we received a very surprising phone call from our agency that a sibling group of three had come into the orphange, two sisters and their little brother. We had thought it would be several months before we got a referral so this was quite a surprise! We had planned on adopting two older girls and were open to it if they had a younger sibling. We were thinking to adopt two girls that were around 6 and 8 years old. These little girls were 4 and 4! No, not twins, but very close in age. We had put on our application two girls between the ages of 4 and 8 so technically they were in that range, right on the line! God sometimes does the unexpected doesn't he! And their little brother....yes another boy, is 2. God knows I had been secretly really hoping that our "girls" would have a little brother or sister. I'm such a blessed woman! What can I say! After praying and contemplating for five days we decided unanimously that God was calling us to these children! We called the agency Tuesday, October 2nd and told her YES!

Here is the picture of our beautiful babes...

Gidstina Gideon Serena

I feel like I do when I show off my newborn babies when I show people this picture!

Why Liberia?

Liberia was founded in the 1800's by white Americans desiring a place to get rid of freed Black slaves. I use harsh words because that is the harsh reality. They did not want to live, work, and play in and amongst freed Black slaves. So the American Colonization Society was formed and came up with this "solution". It may have resolved their problem but it was only the beginning of many challenges facing these freed slaves. The indigenous people already living there and the "Americo-Liberians" would end up festering the makings of all out civil war for 150 years before the atrocities would begin. They did not mix well, it wasn't a good idea, and it wasn't right.

From 1989-2003 Liberia was in civil war. Rebel soldiers killed thousands of men, women, children, and babies. What was once a developing country is now a devestated country. Steve and I read a book called, "Where little ones cry" and it was about the lives of children during the civil war. It broke my heart and I longed to do something to help!

We are so thankful to have this opportunity to care for these little children as our own! Our hearts are open to whatever else God would call us to, to help rebuild Liberia.

How God has worked this adoption in our hearts...

I (Abby) have had a love for Africa and a burden for Africa since I was a little girl. I used to watch the infomercials on t.v. and just cry and cry. My favorite song as a child was "we are the world, we are the children". I could sing it now! So as soon as I knew about this thing called "adoption" my mommy heart was immediately drawn to the idea of not just sending food over to orphans, not just providing for their physical needs, but to their emotional and spiritual needs as well.

I longed to put my arms around children who were in such great need and love them with all of my heart. I did love them and I still do! I talked with Steve before we were married about my heart for a large family and adoption. He was open to this as well, as he has a heart that is driven by the fuel of mercy. However, Steve did not feel it was time for us to pursue adopting in the early years of our marriage. At one point Steve told me not to talk to him about adoption anymore, at all. So I stopped. And prayed. And prayed, and prayed.

God gave me the opportunity to put my arms around precious African children on a mission trip to Tanzania in June of 2004. I prayed a lot during this time about adoption and our family. Several weeks after I got back Steve called me into his office one morning and with tears in his eyes told me that God was laying adoption on his heart. He said he didn't feel called to pursue it right then but that we needed to pray about it. So we did.

Several years went by, we had another baby and we moved and life went on but God still burdened my heart for the needs of orphans in Africa. As our oldest son came to the heighth of his struggles I concluded in my heart that we would not be adopting any time soon and that surely God wouldn't be calling us to it. I told God this past April that I would not be praying about adoption anymore. I almost felt like it would be wrong for me to. That God didn't want me to be praying about anything else but our oldest son. I wondered if he didn't want me to be focused on anything but him. So I told God that if he wanted us to adopt he would just have to bring it up because I wouldn't be anymore. I did this with an obedient spirit wanting to honor God with my life, not because I was refusing to adopt if that was his call. I just felt that sensibly it couldn't be.

Several months went by and I really didn't think about adoption. I had truly let it go. One day at church though God brought it to my attention once again. The preacher, Scott Armstrong, talked about how the early church grew by embracing orphans. In the early Roman empire little girls weren't desirable by many so they would abandon them outside the city gates. The Christians would wait there outside the gates and when babies were abandoned they would take them and care for them as their own. He said that this was how the early Christian church grew to expand the entire Roman empire. He then challenged the congragation by saying "Imagine the impact and influence we would have on nonchristians if we lived like that!"

His message stood out to me, obviously, because I remember that specifically. And one of Steve's friends from highschool visited our church that day, of all days, with his African American adopted son. This evidently made an impact on him.

We went to lunch with our new associate pastor and his wife and in the middle of our conversation with them Steve turned to me and said, "It is time to pursue adoption." I just about fell out of my seat! Is that not God! I knew it was God because so many, SO MANY, other times Steve had said, NO, NO, NO! And several years ago God had begun to lay it on his heart, telling him to pray, but not to go ahead with pursuing adoption yet.

And now, in the fullness of time. God was saying go, go get them! He promised us he wouldn't leave us as orphans, he would come to us, and now we get the opportunity to mirror this beautiful adoption love of God to little ones in Africa!