BIG changes

As I'm sure the few of you who read my blog have already heard, our family will be moving to Thailand in September. When we first felt God calling us to work with SIL we knew moving overseas would eventually be a part of it. It was just a matter of when. In January we were invited to take an assignment in Chiang Mai.

We are really excited. We truly believe this is where God whats us to be. Where he wants our family to be. I am so looking forward to spending time volunteering at a orphanage there. Damien will be doing the work he has always dreamed of. There are so many positive aspects. But there are sacrifices as well. Moving so far from family being the biggest. We don't necessarily live close to them now, but Thailand is quite a bit farther. :-) Our plan is to serve two year terms and be back for six month furloughs. And hope that maybe we'll convince family to visit some in between.

Our plan is to move at the end of September to be there in time for a month-long orientation in October. But so much has to happen before then. In May we will travel to New Orleans for my sister's graduation and to speak in a few churches. In July we will travel to VA and NC to visit partners and churches there. During the month of August we will be in NC at another training course to prepare us for living overseas. We come back to Dallas at the beginning of September to hopefully secure our visas and Sora's passport and then move some things down to New Orleans. Then, we'll fly out around September 25th. After orientation in October we'll have 6 months of Thai language study. Phew, makes me tired just writing it.

One thing we've been so amazed at is how God's hand has been so apparent throughout this entire process. From Damien being able to get a visa sponsor to do the work he wants to do, to being invited to work specifically in Chiang Mai, to having friends who are very interested in buying our car when we leave. But our most recent "miracle" has been in regards to Sora's adoption. We have always known that we couldn't finalize her adoption in the US for 6 months after she got home. Her homecoming being so delayed really made things difficult. She came home on February 25th meaning we could finalize August 25. This would give us only 1 month to get her birth certificate and passport and visa. Her passport and visa could be gotten in one day, but expediting her birth certificate would take about a month. Talk about cutting it close! It's really hard to know what date to buy plane tickets for when you don't exactly when the BC would be coming. And if it didn't come in time, and we missed orientation in October, we could possibly have to wait a year to move to Thailand. If that happened, we knew that would be God's plan, but it still made it hard for us to make any type of plan. So, our social worker here in Texas told us we cold just finalize early. No problem. People do it all of the time. She called our adoption agency in New York in early March and they told her NO WAY. We couldn't do it even one day before August 25th. So we really didn't know what to do. Do we plan to go in September and then just pray that all of the timing works out? Do we just wait a year? When we contacted our lawyer (we have to have a lawyer to finalize because it is done in a court) she again talked about finalizing early. We told her it wasn't possible and our agency wouldn't budge. Well, she called them anyway. And last week she called and said the finalization was scheduled for July 12th? I was so confused. Part of the problem was that she talked to Damien when I wasn't home. I finally got back in touch with her and confirmed the amazing news! She talked to our agency and they had somehow changed their minds and agreed to that date...6 weeks early! That means we should get her birth certificate by mid-August which is plenty of time to get the other paperwork we need. Seriously, that could only have been God. These next few months will be stressful and we're so thankful we don't have to worry about this aspect of it.

So many things have to fall in place before we move. One of the biggest aspects is having the funds we need to actually get there and set up a home. We covet your prayers over the next months as we prepare the kids, prepare ourselves, pack up or lives here and travel all over the US. We feel God's presence and know He will be upholding us through it all.