Andris is here!

Wow! Where to even begin? We have spent the entire last week in a whirlwind. Thursday night was the WIC banquet and I was in charge of decorations, Friday night was Franklin's birthday party, Saturday was the girls' first dance recital, and finally Sunday was the day to pick up Andris at the airport!!!

Sunday evening came, and we loaded up the van with coats, snacks, and a welcome sign. We headed to the airport where we would wait for 2 hours for the flight to land. We talked with many other families who were also hosting children and had a good time despite the wait.

Finally we got word that the plane had landed! In that moment, I think I experienced every emotion possible. I teared up just thinking about how the time had finally come to meet Andris. I was scared and excited all at once! We made our way to the bottom of the escalators and saw the group of kids in red shirts stepping off of the steps. At first, I didn't see Andris and Frank ran off to chase a run-away Julia. Then, there he was. He was a lot shorter than we had expected and was wearing a hood that he was practically hiding in. He looked very scared. I gathered our family around and we welcomed him with hugs. At that moment I had no idea how we were going to make this quiet child a part of our family.

Final days before Andris

I am almost in tears typing this! We are $150 away from reaching our goal! I knew we would get there, I had a peace that God would provide - still, seeing it actually happen is amazing!

With one week before our deadline, we still owed $990 to make Andry's trip possible. It seemed like such a daunting amount to raise in only one week. The day before our deadline we still had not received any extra donations, our balance of $990 was still staring us in the face. I called the office for a final total to write a check ourselves. I had no idea where we would come up with the money, but knew that God would work it out somehow. I then left to take the kids out for a milkshake. We had been cooped up in the house for quite a while and I knew that they were feeling some tension from me, therefore causing them to be antsy. During our drive, I received calls/texts from several people saying that they had just donated. We went grocery shopping, and while I was in the store the New Horizon's office called to tell me that we had so many donations come in at the last minute, they had worked it out so that they could extend our deadline to December 4th to allow time for more donations to be made! When I checked our account that evening, $550 had been donated since we left the house!!! Since that time, we have received over $200 more! God's ways are mysterious, I know He could have helped us raise all of the money a month ago, but He didn't choose to. I guess we just needed an amazing lesson in trust and faith.

Not where I thought I was...

So, I guess I'm not very good at dealing with my true feelings. Over the past month and a half I thought I was dealing with everything pretty well. It hurt, but I was ok. I realize now that I have thrown my energy at everything I possibly could. I haven't let my mind slow down to actually experience the pain. I have learned a lot and grown up a lot, but I'm not over the pain at all. I don't think I've even begun to get over the pain.

A quote that really hit home

"An evidence that our will has been broken is that we begin to thank God for what once seemed so bitter." ~ Nancy Leigh DeMoss

One Month

Today marks one month from the day we lost our sweet Mercy. My biggest fear was that I was going to miss the lesson that I was supposed to have learned from my miscarriage and have my baby's death be in vain. I'm not sure if I've learned one specific lesson (yet), but my faith has grown in ways I never could have imagined. God was able to sustain me through one of the worst trials of my life. I felt the pain, and still do, but through it all I am able to put my trust in God. This is nothing short of a miracle - it is nothing that I have done myself. I know that in my human state, blaming God and becoming bitter would be the easiest things to do. Surprisingly though, God has held me close and kept me from those feelings. He has given me a renewed vision of who He is.

A day or so after my miscarriage I saw a post on facebook about an orphan hosting program. Orphan hosting is something that I have been interested in for a while, but never pursued. This time, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the pictures. I was a mother who was missing a child, and these were children who were missing a mother. It just seemed to fit. After looking into the program I found that it was very expensive to host an orphan. Feeling disappointed, I talked with Frank and decided to attend the informational meeting anyway with hopes of hosting this coming summer. I began to think that maybe my miscarriage had occurred so that we would be available to host this summer. The orphans were to arrive in the US very close to what would have been my due date. At the meeting, I gathered information and told the organizers of our desire to host in the summer. "We'd love to host for Christmas," I said " but we really need extra time to raise money. With that, I went home to relay what I had learned to Frank.

Several days later, I received an email from the director of the program. She had picked 21 children whom she believed REALLY needed to be hosted this Christmas. Frank and I both looked through the descriptions and photos and didn't say much to each other about it. The next night we found ourselves looking through the photos yet again. At the same time we both looked at each other and said, "We need to do this!" In the next few minutes, we realized that we were both feeling called to host the same sibling group, Vilnis and Natalija. Along with this realization came the realization that we had 45 days to raise $6000. Despite how impossible that sounded, we both had a peace that if God wanted us to host these children, he would somehow provide the funds.

Over the next 2 weeks we sent out letters, talked with our church, and called local businesses about fundraisers. Things weren't looking too promising. We had a few days left to raise $1100, and the jar on our mantle holding funds for "the kids", as our children now fondly referred to them, was holding a mere $113.00. We went to bed that night rather discouraged, and Frank prayed that the Lord would make clear to us what we should do. The next morning Vilnis and Natalija were on the list of children with a scholarship! Someone had donated $1500 toward their hosting! We were so thrilled, and I began to call our coordinator to put them on hold. I tried calling several times that day before and after lunch, on the way to dance, and during dance class. When I got home and looked at the children's pictures again, Vilnis and Natalija had been placed on hold. I was SO very disappointed. I spent the next few hours crying and praying. It was amazing how attached I had gotten to just the picture of those children. When Frank got home I watched him go through the same process. We were essentially in mourning. It may sound silly, but losing the opportunity to host those children was devastating!

Throughout the next few days we looked through the pages of children's faces. Though we wanted to help, we didn't feel the same for any of them that we had for Vilnis and Natalija. We felt confused about what direction we should take. What was God trying to teach us in all of this? Obviously it wasn't his will for us to host Vilnis and Natalija, but what WAS His will?

The first child that stood out to us was one of a 14 year old boy. He also had a $1000 scholarship that would help out immensely. We inquired about Slavic, and the director told us that he was a great boy but he might go through nicotene withdrawal. We weren't expecting that at all, and the thought scared us off. We began to search for younger children. After all, what did we know about taking care of and entertaining a teenager?? I found several possibilities, but as Frank and I talked about it, we watched the words "ON HOLD" show up under each child - immediately after we would start discussing them. We went to bed with about 7 different face swimming in our minds.

The next day was busy, and I didn't get to check the listing until 2:00 that afternoon. EVERY single child that we had even remotely considered as a possibility had been put on hold except for Slavic. In my inbox, I had an email from the director, "Could she help us in any way?" I emailed her back that she should put Slavic on hold for us. I felt that God was trying to tell us to trust Him and not run from what we saw as a difficult situation.

Later on that evening, I found another email in my inbox. There was another family interested in not only hosting Slavic, but also adopting him. Because of my age, we would not have been eligible to adopt a 14 year old, so the director was wondering if we would mind if the other family hosted Slavic. She did have another suggestion for us though. Andry was a 15 year old who liked kids, animals, and wanted to decorate a Christmas tree. At this point, we felt that we were just following the Lord's lead. It wasn't about which child we felt we were equipped to handle, it was about which child He thought belonged with us. We accepted the director's recommendation and Andry is now "ON HOLD" for the Aiken family! We really couldn't be more excited! In her most recent email, the director wrote, "God does use all things for His good. We will choose to trust that He is in control of this placement, too. Thank you so much for trusting Him." And now we will trust Him to provide for Andry's travel and document expenses. One month to go!

So, one month from Mercy's death, and I have had my faith tested several more times. I don't know what is in store for us, but I feel so much stronger in my relationship with Christ that I'm sure He will be there to help me handle it!

Perfect Timing

One of the mornings after my miscarriage I was sorting things out in my mind and talking in my head to God. "God, I know that this was your will, but it was going to be so great! I've always wanted to have a baby in May, and Mandy (my best friend) is pregnant at the same time. It's something we'd always talked about. It was just such perfect timing!" I felt God's response so clearly that it almost echoed in the bathroom where I was getting ready. "My plans for you are perfect, not your own." Even though it's hard to accept, it's so true! It doesn't make the pain any less, but it does somehow make the loss easier to accept. My God has a plan in this - it's not something that I understand yet, but I will. I may never know the exact reason, but whatever it is, I can rest in the fact that it's a perfect one.

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Why Mercy?

Throughout my next few blog posts you're going to hear me say that God told me things. I have to admit to being a skeptic up until this point. I know that God speaks in a still small voice. I've always gone to him and prayed that He would help me make good decisions. Still, I've never had God specifically, almost audibly, tell me things until these past few weeks.

When I first thought that I was miscarrying, I called my midwife to ask questions and talk about what was happening. When I described my symptoms, she told me that what I was currently experiencing would definitely get more intense and more painful before it was all over. I waited for two days for this intense pain to begin, then realized that the worst was definitely over and the physical pain and difficult time that I had been expecting wasn't going to come. At that time I though, "I am so grateful that God showed me mercy in my time of sorrow." He provided relief from physical suffering when I was so overcome with emotional pain that I didn't know how I would handle anything more.

Mercy was again brought to my attention in a song. God often speaks to my heart with music, and this time He used "Blessing" by Laura Story. The first line of the song says

"We pray for blessings, We pray for peace."

Peace was the first thing that I had thought to pray for, so it caught my attention and I began to listen to the rest of the words.

"What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise"

I'm still unraveling what this means to me, but I began to wonder - Is this really an event that I can be thankful for? Is God's compassion being manifested in what I now see as such an awful event? I definitely do have a thirst for things beyond this life that I never had before. I have a child in heaven that I am so excited to one day meet. That thought alone makes heaven feel so much closer and God seem so much more real in my life.

I began to search for a gender neutral name that meant "mercy" or "merciful". One of my first points of sadness when contemplating my miscarriage was that I would never be able to know if my baby was a boy or a girl. How could I connect with and name a baby when I didn't even know the gender? One evening I was kind of talking to myself in my head (yes, I do that a lot when Frank isn't home in the evenings) and I referred to the baby as "she". I stopped in my tracks...thoughts?...and I almost heard God tell me out loud that my baby was a girl. Since then, I have referred to the baby in my own thoughts as 'Mercy'. Then, in church this morning we sang "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" and it solidified the name choice in my mind.

"Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise."

It may seem like a stretch or a bit silly, but I felt like God was letting me know that he remembered my little girl and that His mercy that I felt at the time of my miscarriage wasn't a single event, but an ongoing stream that I can always count on and praise Him for.