Christmas Time is Here

December 10, 2012

Well, the Christmas season is flying by. We finally got our tree up last weekend and are still decorating it.  We are not putting up as much as we normally do.  Who has time?  Working, taking care of the family, church activities, working on adoption homestudy and shopping.  Decorating is low on my list of priorities this year.  It's truly not that important.  What is important is how we spent the first weekend of December.

We took a family trip to Arkansas.  We met with  Pastor Andy from Crossway Church. Our church is partnering with them this summer to serve  in the local  May Day celebration for the Marshallese community.  God led us to this people group and this church during the early stages of our adoption journey and here we are,  discussing our summer missions trip to serve these people who have become so dear to our hearts. Our adoption has become about a whole community, not simply one baby.  Our church wants to adopt the Marshallese church and form a missions partnership.  God is awesome the way he puts so many pieces together to bring forth His plan.
We stayed in the church mission house which was nice and roomy.  On Saturday our family went to help serve breakfast to the homeless.  Our two big kids served food, Joel gave a devotion and I kept an eye on Elijah.  As breakfast was ending, Elijah played outside with some children who had come to eat breakfast with their Mom.  We saw the "compassion center"  which is the churches thrift store ministry. They have a huge food pantry in the back of the store where they gather food to share with those in need.  Pastor Andy was wonderful to show us around and host us all weekend.  We then had lunch with the pastor of the Marshallese church, Mithan was his name. His lovely wife Robin and a sweet couple from their church also ate with us.  It was so nice to have some time to talk about what ways our church could serve their congregation. Because the church is made of up Marshallese people, we discussed the needs in that community and how we may help during the May Day celebration.  We were able to meet some other Marshallese people and make some great contacts with in that community.
We were able to have some family time on Saturday. We visited our attorneys office, took photos at the old court house and walked around the town square on December 1st, to see the Christmas lights and Santa. On Sunday, we attended the churches Christmas musical. That was awesome!  It opened up like a TSO concert.  When we got out of our van and began to walk inside the church, the truck parked next to us had the word "Joy" in the tag number. That is our word for this Christmas season because our baby will be named Kalea Joy.  GOD gets glory and we get JOY!   That is a well known saying around our church. Anyway, back to the trip.  The opening congregational song was a beautiful arrangement of Joy to the world.  I began to cry at that point and did off and on through out the program. God has given us great Joy.
We ate lunch with Pastor Andy and then headed to the Marshallese church which met at 2PM.   It was so surreal to see and meet and sit in Sunday Service with a group of people that I never knew existed until God led us to them.  I kept thinking, only God could have led us here. There is no way we could have dreamed this up.  God is making our path so clear on this journey and it is simply amazing.

We had planned to leave on Sunday after the Marshallese service. However, we were not able to schedule a time to meet with our attorney until Sunday evening so we decided to stay one extra night and boy I'm glad we did. On Sunday afternoon, we ended up going to meet with a Marshallese lady in her home and she gave us lots of information about the Marshallese culture. She told us there was a small shop where a Marshallese lady named Karmen  sold food and handicrafts. We were so excited to find the shop and talk with her and buy some souvenirs  We also stumbled across a church having a Gospel Day celebration. We were able to catch a glimpse of this community worshiping and praising God as they celebrated the day Missionaries brought the gospel to their islands.

The last event of the day was when we met with our attorney and her husband for dinner.  We felt so confident that God had led us to her but especially when we met her face to face. She told us many stories of how God had put families together and the miracles she had seen through adoption. Her husband was emotional talking about all God has done since she has worked with adoptions. It was wonderful to hear from them and confirm once again that God is leading every step of this journey.  Our minds were blown. God is so good and it is such a privilege to be on this journey that He is so clearly leading.

Merry Christmas! May we all focus on what is important this Christmas season. It is the miracle of Jesus birth, the miracle of His life and the miracle of His Grace that saves us.

Psalms 126:3
The LORD has done great things for us and we are filled with JOY!