Post from Nate - sorry, no pictures.

Well, I had a little time over my lunch hour, we're only 3 days from leaving to get Anara, and I had yet to post to this blog--so I figured it was high time I did.

First of all, before I talk about the adoption and all that has been going through my head regarding that, today is a big day for my dad. Today it was announced that he has been promoted to Editor of the News-Sentinel. He's been in position to get this for some time, but the announcement today and the story about it in the paper were nice recognition of his years of hard work and deservedness of his new title. He feels unworthy, of course, but I sent him a note this morning letting him know how proud I am--not just that he got this promotion, but that his life is an example of commitment and loyalty, and that he is where he is having always put God and family first. Thanks, Dad, and congratulations.

Here is a link to the story:
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/17025764.htm

If you read the story, you may have noticed that the very last sentence refers to Kerry and Beth's "four grandchildren." It didn't occur to me until about five hours after reading it that one of those "four" is Anara! I had just been thinking about how at ease I feel about bringing home a new child, with all of the complexities and struggles, knowing that we have such strong family and friendships to support us, and that we don't have to do it alone. Through much of this process, I've centered on what Amanda and I can, or will try to, offer her. Anara, like Violet, is God's child and we have simply been given the awesome responsibility and opportunity to raise her, care for her, and train her up in the way she should go. Anyway, she'll be getting some wonderful grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends that God has already blessed us with and will no doubt use to influence her life in a positive way.

Which leads me to the next thing I've been thinking about a lot and wanting to post. I am SO thankful to all of you who have given us your support through this process--definitely for the monetary gifts (more on that in a second), but especially for the encouraging words and prayers. God's blessings have been so obvious to see in so many things that have happened with this adoption, and I believe many are the results of the prayers made on our behalf. We hope that each of you can feel that you played a special part in making it possible for Anara to have a family and a home.

As for the financial part of this, first of all, I can't believe that it has to be so expensive to do something so basic and so desperately needed as providing a home to an orphan. It's not right, and hopefully that will change someday. But it doesn't have to be a deterrent even now, as we have learned. I don't know what everyone reading this really thinks about asking friends and family or the church for money to help with the costs of adopting a child. Here are my feelings on it, though.

There are children without mothers or fathers and God has commanded us in his Word to look after them. Doing that unfortunately takes a lot of money that most middle-class families don't have readily at hand. We can, and did, use several means at our disposal, including taking out a loan and taking advantage of my company's reimbursements, to cover costs. But there was still a need, and we decided that if there was any cause for which it was appropriate to ask for financial support from family and friends, providing a home to an orphan needed no argument. Up to this point, people have taken the opportunity to give toward our adoption to the tune of almost $8000, and it's come from all different kinds of people in all sorts of ways, including a family whose little girls sent us what they had saved up in dimes after many weeks. The generosity we've seen is truly precious to us.

We live in the richest country in the world, and the means are there for most of us to take advantage of that to help others...sometimes all it takes is to ask, even if it means going against the grain of our culture's individualistic, make-your-own-way mentality. All that is to say, again, thank you to those of you who were able to contribute your resources toward bringing Anara home. Anara can be eternally grateful for your generosity, and we hope that she will get to meet each of you soon.

People keep asking me if I'm excited about the trip. I usually say something to the effect of "Yes and no." I'm mostly confident that what we're doing is a good thing, and that God will take care of us and everything will happen according to his will. I'm looking forward to travelling to a different country and learning about a different culture. And of course I'm looking forward to meeting Anara and holding her for the first time. But I still just have more of a sense of feeling like this is just the right thing for us to do. It may or may not be "fun"...I don't know and don't really care because I know it will be a rich experience either way. Leaving Violet will be hard, not because we'll worry about her, but just because we'll miss her. It should go fast, though, and I anticipate a pretty sweet homecoming. I'm especially looking forward to our TWO kids meeting for the first time.

I hope to post more later, both before and especially during the trip. We don't know what kind of internet access we'll have while there, though, so stay tuned.