raw honesty

This post is much overdue.
It's been on Arlan & I's heart over the last several months actually. Probably since late September. Yes...3 months late. Pathetic...I know.
Here goes...raw honesty. The good. The bad. The ugly.

Late summer & even early fall found us still eagerly anticipating & awaiting our phone call/email that would declare our adoption paperwork sent to the Ugandan courts, looked over by a judge & granted a court date. A court date means we travel. And by we, I mean Arlan, myself, Covenant & Haven. If you'll remember (click here), shortly before Covenant was born our agency was pretty confident we would most likely be traveling to Uganda by early/mid summer to go get Keziah Patience as our paperwork was progressing well.

Summer came & summer went. No forward motion with our paperwork to the judges. We then switched our hopes & prayers to potential fall travel and having her home by Christmas. But as the leaves changed color, the paperwork seemed stuck. The lawyer hadn't been using the most recent homestudy (updated in April after Covenant was born) and thus we had some glitches with the testimonies we were supposed to sign off on in October. We over-nighted documents to our agency in TX only to find out we had to redo them the next day as the documents needed to be single-sided printouts and not double sided. (insert sigh)
Our documents eventually found their way to Uganda and thus were sent to the lawyer one last time before being sent on to the courts. We just received word last week that the courts finally have our documents. It's December. [insert double sigh]

I hesitate to even give you a time frame as to when our agency expects a potential hearing for Keziah. It could be as soon as two months. Most likely it will be another 4-5 months. We are ECSTATIC for our dear Kaeb friends as they are traveling to Uganda in February to go get their son. This shows forward progress with the country & international adoption in Uganda. Click here to follow their adoption journey.

Raw honesty comes in the form of me admitting my fears...so here goes...
I fear our little girl will never come "home".
I fear she is spending yet another holiday/month/week without her forever family.
I fear she is continually searching [as one of her videos confirms] for "a family of a different color who will take me 'home'...and we aren't coming.
I fear we won't have the opportunity to show her the love, touch, growth, health that Christ first showed us.
I fear we can't even begin to work through the ugly/trauma/attachment/neglect that often comes with children from hard places.

There. There is raw honesty.
But glance again at all of the above phrases and see how each sentence begins.
I know...pathetic.

Adoption isn't about the "I"...it's about God's back-up plan. Adoption isn't natural. It's hard. There's a lot of hurt....ugly...frustration...and the waiting. Yet God's word provides for a way to equip His Body to pray, provide & adopt children who don't have parents. And Arlan and I have been called to adoption and many of you reading this have helped equip us. We are asking His Body to continue to pray.

Our lives are SO blessed right now. We are looking forward to a holiday season with friends & family...Haven is giddy with anticipation of presents & cousins. We are excited to have our "promised" Covenant spend his first Christmas munching on wrapping paper, lighting up the room with his smiles, and peeling around the family room with his push car. And yet...there is an ache in our hearts. An ache knowing our daughter is 1/2 way around the world wondering why this "different colored family" doesn't come get her and knowing there will be one more season of family memories she will have missed. 

Many of you have asked in recent weeks and months how our adoption is progressing...I'm usually more optimistic than this post possibly reflects. Yet, I'm also very real in communicating to you how we are continually petitioning you all as The Body to repeatedly pray. We are encouraged by those of you who are praying. And asking. And giving hugs when needed. Below are our prayer requests.

My lack of faith often translates to me trying to compartmentalize God's sovereignty. I'll declare I trust Him in all things, give lip service to His "timing is perfect" and know He has everything under control [I ususally do this with a big smile on my face too!] and YET I try and orchestrate details, wanting my/our agenda to "fit" into the timing of adding Keziah to our family. It is good for us to continually petition the Father for and repeatedly lay our prayer request time and time and time again at His feet. Do I or don't I trust Him fully? 

Ah Lord God! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee:

Jeremiah 32:17

Prayer Requests

• Pray for continued movement in Uganda...for our agency workers, lawyers, and judges overseeing our case. 
•  Pray for Keziah. She is now 4.5 years old (she was born about 8 months after Haven-July 2010) and must be wondering why this transition she has been told about is taking so long. 
• Pray for our family...especially Haven as we anticipate this transition. 
• Pray for our faith to be strong while we wait.
• Pray for continued provisions as needed costs increase due to the amount of time waiting.

Thank you for your prayers. We are blessed by your love & warmth each time you ask/hug/care.
Love-The Millers