The Lord has been teaching me a lot this week. I have been learning about wisdom, love, adoption and especially about my tongue. I almost wish I could have a tape recorder and walk around with it so that during the day when The Lord shows me something I could record it right then and hold on to it. I know there is so much to share and much that has been going on since my last blog. I know something will be missed, but as John said, "Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." John 21:25
So I will try my best to cover what I remember. My last post was about our infamous trip to the courthouse to get a piece of paperwork that we needed for our immigration approval which took FOREVER! On Friday we finally received our immigration approval. That was the final piece of paperwork we needed to be able to send our dossier to China. Now we wait about 2 weeks to get our dossier certified and authenticated (no idea what that means but the county and feds do it), then it will be sent to China.
I don't know if you have been following our story or not, but if you have, then you know that this road has been bumpy to say the least. When we first chose China as the country we wanted to adopt from, we did so because of the countries that allow US adoptions, it "seemed" to be the most streamlined in its process. But it seems that every "i" we dot and "t" we cross seems to be just another mishap or loophole or rare situation. But what God has been showing me in this, is that there is no "streamlined process" in this life. There are no guarantees. Every situation that is "under control" is just one phone call from being "out of control". And...that is why we need HIM. These bumps have been the very things that He has used to show His mercy and love to us. I only "thought" I wanted an easy road.
And furthermore, didn't Jesus say in this world we would have troubles? Didn't He say that following Him wouldn't be easy? I was cheating myself by wanting the easy road. That isn't following Him. I remember before we decided to take this adoption road and I heard a sermon or read a book, can't remember, but the person was talking about truly following Christ. He said basically, that if your life is comfortable, you might need to check yourself and make sure you are really following the Lord. He said that following the Lord would cause you to be uncomfortable. Well I wondered about that, whether it was true or not, but I see now the point he was trying to make. We were in a place a while back that was comfortable. But for all intensive purposes, it appeared that we were serving the Lord. Don't get me wrong, that was our intention for sure. But I think its easy to build your own idea of serving the Lord and then ask Him to bless it. And I think that is what we did. It was fun. But there was no sacrifice. We didn't have to give up anything. Christ gave it all. We gave nothing.
I don't mean to say that we are all high and mighty now and holy, far from it. But I do have a new sense of what it means to serve the Lord. I really do think that in order to fully understand and be able to appreciate and receive His providence, mercy and grace, there must be sacrifice on our part. This adoption is FULL of sacrifice. I have had to rely on the Holy Spirit to keep me humble so many times already in the past 8 months its ridiculous. My flesh has cried out on several occasions and wanted to cuss a few people out. It really makes you realize how very sinful and selfish you really are. I know more now than ever what a wretch I am and how much I need Christ.
So that brings me to the latest lesson that the Lord has taught me and then I will share a little about the fundraiser supper we just had. I have been praying for weeks about this fundraiser supper. I have been so scared to pray for an amount of money we needed or desired. I just kept praying for the Lord to be glorified in what we did and say before during and after the fundraiser.
Our church has really come along side us in this adoption, and really just in life. They have been there for us so many times in so many ways. We are so blessed to have such a close knit fellowship of believers and families, in NCBC. They really had everything already taken care of as far as the food goes. I asked my sister in law to handle the silent auction and she did a great job. So back to my preparation. I was praying for the Lord to be glorified when He reminded me of something I had learned before but was so good to walk through again.
You see, adoption mirrors and tells the story of the Gospel, and glorifies God. There are alot of big words that describe the process of salvation, none of which I am experienced enough to teach on, so I enlisted the help of Wayne Greudem in his Systematic Theology to help me a little in my study. This is in my own words, the ways that adoption give us a "picture" of salvation.
1. Fisher did not do anything to deserve us adopting him, nor did he do anything to cause us to choose him. He does not help the process along or complete it.
We do not, nor can we do anything, to deserve God saving us, nor can we do anything to help the process along or complete it.
2. We chose Fisher, he did not choose us.
God chose us at the foundation of the world to be His children, we did not, nor do we "choose" Him.
3. We endure great hardship during the adoption process as the adopting parents. We endure financial hardship, emotional hardship and physical hardships.
Christ suffered in every way and died for the payment of our sins in order to make us righteous before God.
4. Fisher has been given a new name.
We are born again through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. God gives us a new nature at salvation.
5. Fisher will legally become a Wanninger on paper in a government office to be "legal".
We are justified, or given right legal standing with God through Christ our Savior.
6. Fisher will be legally adopted by us and become part of our family. He will enjoy all the privileges of being our son. He will live in our home, we will take care of him and he will enjoy an inheritance as a Wanninger. (Hopefully we will still have something left LOL)
We are adopted by God through Christ and given membership in His family. We become His children and have the right to an eternal inheritance.
7. We will teach Fisher our language and our customs. As our child, we will teach Him about God and His love and His law and we will instruct him in the way he should go.
After conversion, the Holy Spirit guides believers and shows them the way to go. He teaches us through God's word about His love and His laws. He helps us to live according to His laws.
8. We will have tough times when Fisher comes home. He will probably want to go back at some point, to what is familiar to him, what he knows. We will persevere and finish what we started, through total dependance upon Christ.
We will also have tough times as believers, time when we are tempted to go back to old ways, familiar ways. But true Christians will persevere through Christ who will finish the work He started in us.
I am sure there are other ways that adoption mirrors the Gospel. I feel like that is why God loves adoption. I know for sure that He is supporting us and providing for us in ways I could have never dreamed possible. I would have never known some of the depths of His goodness had we not taken this road. It is hard. It is expensive. But it is such a good thing, and I can't wait until Fisher comes home!
Now, for those of you that want to know how the fundraiser was, it was wonderful. We had a blast! The kids choir from our church sang and it was beautiful! The kids played and had fun and the live auction was a trip! As if all of that wasn't enough, Greg's brother and his family sent in a huge donation and when we add that in and factor out what we spent we raised about $5800!!! That will pay our final agency payment of $2776 and give us $3000 to put toward our travel expenses which will cost over $17,000. So you could say we are half way there! We are simply speechless. To God be ALL the glory!
One side note is that along the way we are budgeting and planning our finances and what we contribute and what we need to raise. We had budgeted that this fundraiser needed to bring $2500 and we hoped that we would get a matching grant as well which would double that for a total of $5000. I will have you know, that we were not approved for the matching grant, but as a very wise friend told me, God is a God of love, not rules. HE WAS OUR MATCHING GRANT!!!! He exceeded our goal for that fundraiser by almost $800!
We still have a ways to go, but we are confident that God will continue to bless our efforts and support us emotionally and financially. Thank you so much to all of you who donated, prayed, sent encouraging notes, ate, bid, cooked, baked, cleaned, counted money, walked around toddlers, sang, ran audio visual, decorated tables, organized auctions, made signs, and just showed up! Oh please I hope I haven't forgotten anything. If I did I am so sorry. We love you all and dearly appreciate you!
Maybe I won't wait so long to post next time and the entry won't be so long...sorry :).
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ." Ephesians 1:3-10 (My emphasis added)
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