Wait, Trust, Display. From the Book of Acts.

It’s Friday. 

The sun is shining, the leaves are beautiful and God just encouraged me greatly through His Word.

Here's what I just read -> Acts 4:

• vs 11-12 “This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
•  vs 20 “for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”
  

Our cares in this world, our stress, our fears, our trials and our uncertainty…it all comes back to what do you believe about Jesus. And if you know Him as your Lord and Savior, these things have no place in controlling you - And you'll read below why I'm needing to rest in this today!

Back in Acts 1:4, Jesus tells His followers to WAIT for His promise. They could not and should not do the work of the Lord alone. And if you read further into Acts 2, His promise is the Holy Spirit. God dwelling IN man. WOW.

If studying the Bible seems scary or daunting to you, here’s what I do, because trust me, I feel that so often as well. I read a small section of scripture (a chapter or a section of a chapter). Then I write out in a journal:

1. what the passage says about God
2. what is says about Man
3. what is my personal application from what I just read. 

Three sections - and it’s amazing just by observing and applying how much you learn from it.

From Acts 2:1-13, here were my applications I came up with:

• Wait on the Lord
• His promises WILL equip me for a greater work
• Rely on what the Lord fills me with (His Spirit)
• Stay true and devoted to the Lord and I will witness firsthand Him at work
• Let the Lord speak through me for the world to see
  

SO in our adoption, this ‘waiting on the Lord’ is written for me here - but I hope maybe in your own circumstances you can relate.

• We have been in the adoption process for our second child for 968 days.
• Or you could say 2 years, 7 months and 23 days.
• We have been matched and known our daughter for 479 days.
• She has known us through letters and pictures for approximately 430 days.
• We fully expected to travel and bring her home 4-5 months ago.
• Our daughter’s room has been set-up and ready for her for approximately 9 months.

 And specifically to travel - as we are fully paperwork ready to travel.

• Our daughter’s passport was issued over 2 months ago.
• Our paperwork/case information has now been at the US Embassy in Bangkok for close to a month.
• We are hearing almost daily (this week) of international adoptive families traveling to their child’s country (not Thailand).
• We heard confirmation this week that our US government has done no further advocating for adoptive families to Thailand besides a one-time contact in July.
• We have heard positive reports of our adoption agency advocating for us; however, the speed of this and the amount of government departments this advocating has to go through gives little to no hope of us seeing movement any time soon. We've seen very little result from this advocating that has been going on for 4-5 months. This advocating is specific to allowing adoptive families come into Thailand when the visa we travel on still is not being issued due to COVID - we need exceptions to be made for travel to happen. We also need the Thai government trust that Thai children will be safe when placed into countries with a high COVID risk, such as the USA.
  
• We have been renewing paperwork again, fingerprints again, fees again…all to make sure nothing is expired by the time we do travel.

And the final painful reality…our adoption agency is not expecting any families adopting from Thailand to go before the year ends. Which means another birthday missed, another set of holidays without her, and a big brother that amazingly is showing a patience in this story that is only of the Lord.

God is writing a greater story than we can see. And this delay is no surprise to our Lord. He has equipped us for this wait, for a long and painful process of building our family. And as we await His promises, we anticipate we'll see God’s work firsthand, and we will not and can not stop proclaiming Him as we wait AND when she is finally home!