Shifted and Shepherded

Here is another picture of our adorable children, minus the two yet to be.  :) When people hear that we are adopting, there are two questions they almost always ask. 1. Why Colombia? 2. Some variation of: How long will it take? I spoke to the Colombia question in my second blog post (click here to read). I would like to take this post to lay out our prospective timeline for bringing our kids home. I am also going to be very honest about the money involved in Colombian adoption. Any fundraising we do - which is gong to be a lot, so my apologies if you are sick of that already - will be banked until large payments are due. But we are also setting aside a significant portion for travel expenses. You see, any money given to our gofundme account (All amounts welcome!) goes straight to Lifeline, which is how it should be. But that money, as well as any reimbursements or tax credits we get, cannot be put toward travel to get our children. We pay that out of pocket. And we will...

It’s all about balance. Mountain pose. Our family is already our family. But at the same time we aren’t. Because there are more of us, waiting, lost, yet unknown . . . in Colombia. When Chad prays at bedtime or at dinner, he often says, “Thank you for the time we got to spend as a family today.” And now I always think about how not all of us spent that time together. Because not all of us are together yet. Throughout the day I say words or phrases and immediately try to say them again in my head, but in Spanish. Duolingo says I’m 42% fluent. But I guess “muffin” isn’t part of fluency. This morning I realized that if we brought Lolo and Lala home tomorrow, I wouldn’t know how to tell them I had made muffins. Or cupcakes. Or eggs on toast. I shift my weight between hopeful and naive. I predict that I will do a lot more drawing once they’re home. I can draw a muffin. Maybe I need one of those small, portable white boards to hang around my neck so I can easily communicate. Palms t...

Morning, Wednesday, January 31 : Wake up and check the adoption fundraising account. Thankful for the generosity of friends and loved ones. Truly Thankful. Secretly send a side glance at the difference between what we have been given so far and what we need. Resolve to pray more and trust God. All day Wednesday, January 31 : Obsessively check fundraising site every other hour (oh, me of little faith and even less patience) waiting for it to jump. Make mental and physical lists of things to sell, people to approach, art to make to raise money. Basically deny the peace and rest that Jesus continually extends to us through His word, intercession, and communion. Repent. Evening, Wednesday, January 31 : Reminded by the Holy Spirit to be still and wait. The Lord is over this and in this. Not my job - or at all within my power - to accomplish anything on my own. Talk with Chad about my struggle to be still. He encourages me. Proceed to tag several celebrities on Twitter with links to...

This morning started with cuddles and tickles with our kids in our bed. They love to come into our bedroom on Saturday mornings and crawl under the covers. No matter how sleepy I am, it is one of my favorite times of the week. How will we fit four kids into our queen bed for snuggles? That will be a fun, crazy mess. Then I baked double chocolate chip muffins and made eggs on toast - Brent and Eirinn's favorite breakfast. Good thing eggs are cheap because we will need a full dozen every Saturday starting next year. Eirinn should be able to help make them then. Once we were all sat at table and ready to eat, I opened the EXTENSIVE adoption manual and starter kit. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Why don't I feel more stressed about this? Why do I just feel happy? As if reading my mind, Chad said to me, "This is what we are supposed to be doing." Meaning, this is God's will for us. He is our portion. We are experiencing the goodness and kindness lavished on us by a God who ...

Welcome! The Brogan family - Chad and Christa, plus the two crazy kiddos pictured above - has begun the journey of adoption. Through this blog, we hope to share all the details of the process. Before now we were pretty clueless about the minutia of international adoption. We have friends who have been through it, but our personal knowledge and experience was nonexistent. If you follow this blog, you will learn as we learn, rejoice as we rejoice, and cry as we cry. We will start this first post with some backstory. Psalm 16:5   Lord , you give me stability and prosperity; you make my future secure. A little over three years ago, the Lord placed the call for adoption on my heart. At that time, He had not yet placed that calling on the heart of my husband. My (then) small group began regularly praying about adoption for the Brogans. We wanted to be open to God's will, not our own desires or cultural influences. So our small group prayer was not just that my DH would be open...