Another incredibly busy week is behind us. This year I am feeling the stress even more than usual. It seems having M in school has added a couple of extra holiday activities, and we’ve been working hard on the next step in our adoption paperwork at the same time. I think we’ve also done more “fun” things this year because we can actually get out and do things together as a family since K is older and is well enough to do things with us. All this adds up to being much busier than we prefer, but we’re making it. We’re looking forward to Friday when most of the stress will be over. Between now and then we still have a LOT to do.
This morning we drove to Lansing to get the state seal on most of our adoption documents. Now we wait for a few days for a couple more documents to make their way back to us from other states. We hope to send everything together to Washington DC before the end of the year. Each week feels like we are making a lot of progress towards finishing our part of the paperwork. Soon we’ll just be waiting (and figuring out where we are going to live in Nairobi, likely packing up our whole house, figuring out what we are going to do about M’s schooling, among other things).
Here are some miracles we would ask you to pray for along with us.
1. A House to live in Nairobi, preferably in an area where we would feel safe enough for me to stay by myself with the girls. (G will likely be traveling some by himself while we are there,) Our dream would be to be able to rent (VERY CHEAP or free) the home of a missionary who would be in the states for the exact time that we will be in Kenya. We would prefer a large place where we could house visitors as we are expecting several people and a couple of church groups to stay with us while we are there. That’s not asking for much, is it?
2. Someone to rent our place while we are gone. We have a strong lead on this one, but we have to be able to have cheap rent in Nairobi in order for it to work out for our possible renters.
3. Financial provision. We are going to check into applying for a couple more adoption grants when we have time and can meet the deadlines. We realistically can’t proceed with that until January, which cuts things really close. We are SO thankful for our full matching grant that will cover most of our next payment to our agency. Basically, after we pay for all the authentications and official stamps that we need, we will have about $500 towards the $6,000 we will need to take with us to Nairobi. (More on that in an upcoming blog). This doesn’t include money needed to pay for plane tickets or money to get settled in Nairobi. As you can see, we need God to come through again. Another grant would be SO helpful.
4. Future adjustment for our whole family. Things are going to be changing dramatically for the Austins in just a couple of months. We would love for you to pray that M and K adjust well to a very different lifestyle as well as the adjustment of adding more children to our family. Please also pray that our Kenyan daughter(s) will adjust to us with as little stress to them as possible.
It seems like this a time in our lives that we are taking big steps of faith and we need to see God come through in HUGE ways. Thanks for praying with us about this.
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