Friday, September 10, 2010

Praying for Plans

So I am very careful about how I speak about plans. Anyone that knows me from my childhood, knows that I had a very clear sense of direction with my life. God has blessed me in knowing well the desires of my heart, but how he fullfils those desires has rarely been what I expected, or would even have guessed. So as I begin to share with you our tentative plans, please be prayerful for us to trust and yeild joyfully to God's will in our family's life, whatever it may be.

Adoption is, well, expensive. I hate to talk money, but its just a fact. The other half of that fact is that we don't have oodles stored up somewhere. God has been so faithful and generous with us, I am by no means complaining. I am always astonished at tax time to see how much God allows us to give and how he stretches the little bit we actually live on. All this to say, we are saving and planning fundraisers, but a large sum would really help. My hope is that selling our home can really get us a good chunk to cover the expenses. We live in an older home and have been trying to finish up some renovations. Our hope is that it will sell well and we can then buy a relatively low-priced home and bank the earnings for adoption, or at least in part depending.

I ask that you pray for us about the timing that we place the house on the market and also God's provision for where we should buy next. There are many great houses in our neighborhood and we would love to stay nearby. Its hard to think about leaving our first home sometimes, but mostly I think about my neighbors that I have come to know and love.
For fun, I'm including some pictures of a couple renovations we've done.
Upstairs bathroom: Before (I know, it was pitiful)


After



Kitchen: Before (this is after we started stripping the cabinets, but they were gross and had literally 7 different colors of paint and who knows how many layers. The pictures are a bit misleading cause you can't see just how gross the cabinets were before, with rust coming throught the hinges, paint drips and stains.) Before:

After



And finally our front yard. Big thanks to Alan Murdock of Arthouse Gardens for the landscaping design. Jacob and I did all the labor to save some money and we got the peagravel for free from one of Alan's clients! Before:


After (excuse the fallen leaves)



We are almost out of projects before the house is ready! I'm excited to get this big process done so we can then focus on more specifics for our adoption. Again I think God has used circumstances to force me to wait. Nepal adoptions have been suspended recently and we are praying hard about whether to pursue our daughter there. I'm very tempted to freak out, but have resisted thus far. With all we are doing with the house, it may be months before we sell it and are then ready to proceed in the process. I'm thankful to have this time to pray, without having to make any big decisions immediately.




Again, with the flimsiness of plans, our house may not even sell. Even still, I'm thankful that we have been blessed in both of our work situations the last couple of months and have not had to go in debt to make these home improvements. We shall see just what God has in store!