Where Do We Go From Here?

Great Question! For those of you that we have not been blessed to talk with in detail about this experience, I hope to somehow capture some of our thoughts, prayers, hopes, revelations, a little of what God has done thus far through this time.

Knowing Nastya has already changed us all a great deal in our thinking and in our perspective about life. We have absolutely loved having her here. It has not all been easy, but it has certainly been full of love and joy. If she is blessed by us even one iota as much as she has blessed us, then I know her heart is full. It has been so amazing to see this timid, pale, exhausted child blossom into such a loving, outgoing, radiant, happy little girl. Our days have been filled with running and playing outdoors, loving on the pets, riding bikes (did I mention she did this for the first time and learned in about 24 hours?!), riding horses, and just more normal stuff - cooking, cleaning, watching movies, playing games, and just being together. We have all fallen in love with this child and are already grieving that she has to return in a short time. We are praying and asking God to faithfully reveal His perfect plan for our family. We know that His plan is absolutely perfect and He promises to reveal it to us. It is such a strange place to be in. Before Nastya walked off the plane, orphans were just people that others worried about, just stories I've read about in countless books and blogs, just the lives children lived before they were adopted by friends we know, just statistics that were hard to comprehend. So many, such sadness. But now there is one. One who is in our home. One whom we have grown to love and care for deeply. What does that mean?


We know that God brought this child here for this time. We also know that in the past when we have been faced with huge decisions, we have diligently sought the Lord to give us direction. Every time He has been incredibly faithful to lead us in the paths He has for our family. Would He forsake us now? No. I can rest in that assurance. I know He says to me, "Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things that you do not know" Jeremiah 33:3. And He says that He is our Protector, our Saviour, our Shepherd, our Strength, and that His grace is sufficient for us. I rest in this truth. I know that God has protected us from some stupid, bull-headed decisions in the past - such grace! He has saved me when I did not deserve it - He called me to Himself. I was the one who was lost in my own sinfulness and did not even know I needed to be saved, and He dramatically got my attention and caused me to know His lovingkindness and His grace and to know Him personally. To call Him Father. To call Him Lord. To call Him Saviour. You ask - why is all this relevant now? Well it is relevant because the Lord did not walk away from my mess and He did not think I was too risky or too imperfect or too messed up to bother with saving. No - He loved me when I was disobedient and didn't really care what He thought. And it is relevant because I want (only by the grace of God), to do whatever His will is. I wholeheartedly believe that we would all choose His plan for our lives if we could see the whole picture from His perspective. I believe that He loves me perfectly, that He is wholly good, that He is omniscient, and that He is able to all things. So I know I can trust Him to not only have a perfect plan but to reveal that plan. And I know that I can trust Him to give me the grace and the strength to do whatever He calls me to do. Last, I know that He does call me to lay down my life just as Jesus modeled. I struggle with that and this has caused me to see my own selfisness. Selfishness, you say, but you are hosting an orphan...how could you be selfish?! Oh but I am! I have seen my own selfishness more clearly this week than I have in a long time! I am and when I think about our future and the changes adopting this child may bring, I think about selfish things. I think about ease of life, vacations (with and without my children), not having the financial burden of another child, etc, etc, etc. Oh and how I don't want to see that selfishness, but it is there and I just pray and ask God to give me the grace (undeserved) to have His love and His joy. I believe there is joy in sacrifice and servitude. I have been blessed to experience that joy this week. And please don't think I'm saying that vactions and different pleasures in life are bad - they are great and I hope to have a lot of them!! But I don't want to love them so much that they drive my life. But again, God is faithful and gives the grace to love when it is easy and when it is hard, because He gives us His love.

So all that to say, it is summed up much better in God's own words, and this has become a regular prayer of mine this week.

Colossians 1:9-11 "For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy"

Really read this verse above - it is such awesome, peaceful truth. We ask you to pray with us that this would be true in our lives! In all this, I have said I believe all that I have said above before now, but wow - this time with Nastya and considering adopting her along with all the fears, concerns, unknowns, sacrifices and possible obstacles involved in that decision - we really have to decide to trust God, to trust this truth, to rest in His love and power. It is a unique time and we look forward to seeing His plan revealed one step at a time.

Wow! It's hard to know where to start - I am waaay behind again in keeping up with the blog. It's been a little crazy with Christmas and being at my parents' and learning Ukrainian :) I could write a post with all the following titles:

"Nastya Meets, Rides, and Loves Horses"

"We're Famous!!" (we made the front page of our local paper and will soon be on tv!!!)

"Nastya Learns To Ride a Bike for the First Time!"

"Determination", "Strong Will", "Loving, Sweet Spirit", "Fearless"

"Christmas Joys"

"Many Questions...", "Lost In Translation",

and my current favorite from today - "Ukrainian Girl Meets Texas Cactus!!!"


Well, in my mind I have written the blog entries that go with each of these blog titles - they are all amazing stories. But I don't think I have the time to write them all! I'm too busy with the next adventure right now. And I desperately need sleep!

Hopefully tomorrow I will have more time to elaborate. In the meantime, thank you for your prayers. And thank you to our family for you love and support. God has poured out grace on us all through this and we are blessed by the assurance that He will continue to do so and will lead us the paths He has for us. Glory goes to Him - great things He has done and will continue to do. If you are led to, continue to pray especially for wisdom for us and that we will clearly hear His voice in decisions and grace to love this child with His everlasting love.

Happy 6th Birthday to My Sweet Boy

It is hard to believe that my sweet Jadon can be six!! Well not hard when I see how big he is and most of all how mature and kind and loving he is. I LOVE this boy! I thank God for him - he brings me so much joy and I am so thankful that I have the privilege and awesome responsibility of being his mom. We celebrated with cake and ice cream and singing. Then he opened his favorite gift of all - a bb gun. He has been asking for one since he was around four and is so proud to be old enough to have a "real" gun now. He and his Daddy practiced shooting targets all afternoon and had a great time. He is learning all about responisibility and caution and gun safety and just having a blast putting holes through targets!

I love Jadon's heartbeat - he has had such compassion and love for Nastya, kindness to Allee and Benjamin, and a desire to obey us and to obey the Lord. He is a gentle, sweet boy and it has been wonderful to watch him grow and mature this year. Thank you Lord for creating Jadon just the way You have and placing him in our family!

A Picture At Last!

We're still having technical difficulties but we took this one on Allee's camera. How cute is she ?!? More pictures later! The other lady in the picture is Laura (Larissa in Ukraine - our translator. We are so thankful for her!

Today Allee had a lesson in learning Russian/Ukrainian and Nastya learned English. Laura is sweet to so patiently teach them! Allee is cracking me up because she is trying to say everything in Ukraine but mixes it up all the time and she also puts some type of Ukrainian accent into her English :) Too funny! Only Allee... :) But communication is getting better.

Nastya just still seems pretty reserved with us - I guess that is expected - when I hug her she is so hesitant to hug back. I think she's just unsure of us still because she is very affectionate with Laura and they only met on the airplane here. But she is obviously very verbal and it really upsets her when she can't communicate. So of course she is more comfortable with Laura because they can talk. If any of you reading who have done this - any advice is welcome!!! But overall I think it's going well and Nastya seems very happy to be here.

She's Here!

Nastya finally made it to Texas around midnight last night! She is a precious, sweet girl with a gentle, shy smile. It was a rough start, but is much better now! I want to be real on here about things - so here goes...

Let me back up at bit and go through the events of the night. We (all of us hosting) met a kind woman named Leslie at a restaurant to talk a bit before the plane arrived. Leslie has hosted the same boy three times and was having him come again for Christmas. She hopes to adopt him - please pray for the obstacles to be overcome for this child to have a family. So we all talked about her experiences, which was enlightening since this is new for the rest of us. It was a very nice time and eye-opening in many ways.

So after several cups of coffee :) it was finally time to go meet the children at the airport. We stood anxiously waiting for them to come down the escalator to the baggage claim area. Finally we spotted them, but my first thought was - "Where's Nastya?" Then a cute little blond with a shy smile was walking right up to me - she must have seen my picture, and I finally recognized her. She looks so different from the picture, partly because her hair has grown out a lot. Most of all though, she is about as tall as my six year old son even though she is nine. I kept thinking maybe she isn't really nine but we confirmed that she is. It breaks my heart to see the reality of malnutrition - you can know the facts but to see it - it is truly overwhelming. Although I expected her to be little for her age, Zach and I were both shocked. So to be honest, the first meeting was a bit awkward. I hugged her and spoke a little of my Ukrainian phrases. She timidly said "hello". She smiled the whole time but neither one of us really knew what to say and just took a lot of pictures and smiled. I looked around and watched the other children meet their host families. We had Oksana (6) with Becca, Oksana (6) with Camille, Sasha (9) with Roxanne, and Sergey (8) with Leslie. The six year olds were a little more open to hugs, etc, but - as you would expect the older girls were a little more reserved. So we soon met the translator - Laura -asked a few questions (my list had been forgotten for the moment), and walked to our car. On the ride home Nastya would talk a bit, I would talk a bit, I tried out a bit of the Ukrainian phrases I had learned and most of all we were just all tired.

We finally arrived home and she was excited to see our bird and hesitantly toured the house with me. I told her it was time to put on her pajamas and realized she had TONS of layers of clothes. Is this how they pack for the kids?!? Seriously - she must have been burning up on the plane. So we got into bed and I read her a book and told her "dobranich" - "good night". She began to cry. I told her it was okay and tried to figure out what was wrong - but figured she was just overwhelmed and overtired. The crying continued quite a awhile until finally she fell asleep around 4:00 in the morning. Come to find out (later today) she had not slept in almost 24 hours! It was very difficult to see her upset and I felt so sad for her. I can't imagine how frightening it is to fly halfway across the world to a family you have never met who has a different language,customs, sounds, environment, everything!

We both slept until close to 9:00 on Friday and then had a nice breakfast. I am glad to see that she eats well! We then called the translator and explained it was time for a bath. She was a little unsure but ended up totally loving a big bubble bath. I found a bit of clothes that fit her and we headed to Becca's (where Laura - our translator is staying). She started to relax and played and talked with Oksana awhile.

We then went to Target! There were 4 adults and 7 kids all looking through the clothes and piling stuff into the cart! I chose a few things out of the pile that she made that I thought she needed. To make the shopping trip even more chaotic :), Zach arrived with Allee, Jadon, and Ben. They were so happy to meet her - Ben ran up and gave her a huge hug - it was so precious. She became a little overwhelmed because she didn't know what they were saying, but our sweet translator stepped in and helped. Laura ended up going back to our house and we all played in the backyard with the dogs. Nastya absoulutely adores the animals - the 2 big dogs, the cats, the bird - the pets have really helped her to feel comfortable. She loves to jump on the trampoline, drive Ben's little motorized car, swing, run - it is so wonderful to see her enjoying playing. I am so thankful for the gorgeous weather we have had thi week! I think she is much more comfortable with us all now and is doing great learning some English words. She seems to be very smart and certainly knows how to play Uno as she beat us all last night! Leslie L. - I'm glad you mentioned on your blog that there a few different rules that they use for Uno in Ukraine :)

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us. The Lord is answering those prayers. I have had peace through all of this even though it's been a bit crazy and I know that's from God. Keep praying - especially that Nastya will feel comfortable and loved and that we can be able to communicate! I would love to know her thoughts!

Okay, that's it for now. I won't always be so wordy - I just didn't want to forget these things and haven't had a moment to post until now. I forgot to mention that I dropped and broke my camera just before we went to pick her up at the airport. I am using my mom's camera but need to get the cable to download. I promise pictures soon! Nastya loves the camera and has taken lots and lots of pictures!

24 hours to go!

I can't believe the time has finally come, but in just a few hours (4:3o am here in Texas), all the hosted children will board a plane in Kiev and fly across the ocean to New York! They will then go through customs and board their last flight that will take them to varying communities in the United States. There are five children and two escorts flying to the airport here, and we will be picking them up very late at midnight tomorrow. I imagine they are excited and nervous and soon to be very tired from a long journey! Much of the same ways we are feeling too! I have no idea whether to expect Nastya to be exhausted from the travel or wired from all the stimulation of new experiences. But we will soon find out!

Today has been an interesting and emotional day. Let me give some background information. I am incredibly blessed to be able to be a part of a few moms at my childrens' school who meet on Wednesday mornings to pray for our children, their teachers, and the school. It is truly a privilege to pray with these ladies and to be able to come to the Lord together and pray for each others' children. We always come away encouraged from spending time talking to our Lord and Father and laying our concerns, requests, and joys before Him. And to know that He has heard our prayers and to often times see Him at work in our lives - it is one of the best parts of my week. The format that we follow is from Moms In Touch International, and anyone can start a group!

All that to say - one of the moms heard that we were hosting and wanted to host also, but she didn't think that she would be able to do so until after the deadline. But then last Wednesday, I got a call from our agency asking if there was anyone I knew who could a little girl whose host family was unable to host at the last minute. I knew this family would love to host and they got all their paperwork together, told their children (one of whom is sweet friend of Allee's), and began praying for their hosted child (a nine year old girl named Alena). We have been so excited that it all worked out and spent a good portion of our prayer time, praying for these girls and their time with our families.

About 30 minutes after leaving the prayer time, Roxanne (Alena's host mom) called me with the heartbreaking news that Alena was not able to come. Her orphanage had some type of illness going through it and even though Alena was not sick, the orphanage was quarantined until the children were well. This affects Alena and 7 other children who were planning to come. We are so sad for their disappointment and are hoping that each one of them will be able to come in the Spring hosting trip. Roxanne was of course very sad as well and we were all a little confused about why all this had happenned this way. Well about an hour later I recieved a call that another child - Sasha - had all her paperwork ready to go but suddenly needed a host home. (I never did get the full story on why.) Anyways, Roxanne and her family are now excited to be hosting Sasha. We will never know why this all happenned this way, but I do know that God is control and has a purpose in how all this is happenning. We will continue to pray for the disappointed children who are unable to come this Christmas. But we are so excited that Sasha is able come. It is going to be some fun girl time for Allee, her friend, and these two Ukrainian girls to all get together!

After I recover from being up WAY late tomorrow night, I will post how the arrival goes and hopefully some pictures! Please pray that all goes smoothly with such long travel and that Nastya feels very comfortable and loved with our family and that we are able to communicate what is needed.

Christmas in Sulphur Springs

This weekend we traveled to have Christmas with Zach parent's in Sulphur Springs. It was a wonderful time to spend with family and to just relax a bit! And we enjoyed the annual Potts Christmas Party with lots of family we had not been able to visit with for awhile. It was great to catch up with everyone. We are so thankful to have such a loving family. Here are a few pictures from our weekend.



Everyone enjoyed opening gifts



Allee was especially excited to recieve an awesome digital camera!



Zach had a great time hunting ducks with his brother and cousins.

Christmas Cookie Day!!!

This past weekend we had our annual Christmas Cookie Day! It is always at my house, we always use yummy homemade dough, we always use the same shapes, our family and friends usually join us, we always make a TON of cookies, and the adults are always completely exhausted by the time it's over :) We also listen to wonderful Christmas music and this year we added the soon-to-be tradition of Zach cooking his wonderful stew for dinner. We needed some protein after eating more cookies, dough, and icing than could possibly be healthy.

It is so much fun to see what the more competitive participants turn out,

(Way to go Ash - you won the cookie contest!)

what the younger participants create,

and to tap into the creative juices of the fathers!

Good times!!

Visas are printed!!! I must admit that I was getting a little worried - not super concerned (well maybe at times) - but at least considering the possibility of the visas being refused or not printed on time. I on one hand believed that the Lord had led us to host Nastya and therefore was confident that He would overcome the obstacles and open the doors for the children to come, but on the other hand had to accept that I only understand in part and He sees things fully. And that I could trust Him even if it didn't turn out the way I thought it should. Of course, knowing that in my head and meshing that with what I feel, are two different things. But then I guess that is always the walk of faith - trust is easy when things go the way I want, but much more difficult but also much deeper, when things do not go the way I want. And I discovered (again) that my faith is weak, but praise God that He is always faithful!

All that to say, we greatly appreciate each of you who have been praying. The children arrive in Austin at midnight next Thursday, so it will be a late night for us all! I am sure that they will all be very tired from the long journey and the 8 hour time change.

On another note, I had a very interesting meeting today. A friend who I recently met at bible study is a nurse and works for a cardiologist, who is from Ukraine. This kind man has offered to help translate anytime we can't reach the other translator or would rather him translate. He also invited our family and the other hosting families to his house on January 5th. They are having a large Ukrainian Christmas celebration with a few other Ukrainian people around our area. I had no idea there were other Ukrainian families around. We are really excited to be able to experience a bit of the culture and I'm sure it will be very comforting to the hosted children to have some familiar food, language, music, and traditions! It was also just another reminder that God is at work in this because who but God could have caused me to meet this new friend who works for one of the only Ukrainian speaking people in our area, who also really wants to help!

A Ukrainian Christmas...

James 1:27 " Pure and undefiled religon before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world."

Here's the story ~ For many years but especially over the last year and a half, we have been burdened by the very reality of the many orphans in the world. It is heartbreaking the more we chose to learn about the reality, hear the numbers, the statistics, and the more personal, individual stories. I have believed/hoped in my heart for many years that we would one day be led by the Lord to play some role in orphan ministry. It has been my own little quiet prayer that one day we could help. I did not know when or how that would take place.

Slowly over the past 18 months, certain people have been put into our lives, through whom we have had the privilege to watch the miracle of adoption take place. We have watched children come from orphanages in different places in the world go from malnourished and alone to be placed in families. We have the truth of God's Word be accomplished Psalm 68:6 "God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity" It has truly been a privilege to watch these families and children, and to see things happen that only God could accomplish. We have also seen the very real struggles and sometimes heartbreak that they have endured in their journeys.

Over a year ago we attended a Hope For Orphans Family Life conference. It was amazing and we learned a great deal. We prayed but did not feel led to pursue anything further at that point. I continued to watch others, experience grief for these children, and to ask God, "How do You want us to help?".

Incredibly, my sister and her husband decided to adopt from Ethiopia. I was blown away. Wow - how exciting - my very own family was now going to be part of this! I thought - maybe God just put this desire into my heart so I would talk and pray and be able to be a part of my sister's adoption. And that is a big part of it. They are currently getting super-close to the end of paper work and will then be waiting for the referral of their new baby and my new niece or nephew!

Then, in late September, through rather random circumstances, I met my new friend Becca Hill. Becca had adopted from Ukraine, so even before we met, I was excited because that was the country I have felt so drawn to and had spent time learning about the conditions specific to this country. I met Becca and her sweet daughter Molly, and we discovered we had quite a bit in common. Then she kept telling me about this hosting program that would bring Ukrainian orphans to the US for Christmas. The goal was to bless these children with a great Christmas and to experience a loving family, a special vacation, and to share the love of Christ with them. I just said, "No, not now - can't possibly, but I'm so excited that others are doing this - I'll pray for them." But after a few weeks, I couldn't get it off my mind and asked Zach to pray about hosting a girl for Christmas. We prayed for many days and both felt the Lord's direction and peace that this was His will for us to host a specific child on the list.

Her name is Nastya. She is precious. She is nine years old. Unknown to us at the time, but this child we felt led to choose from the list was one of the only girls on that list who was still available. We know very little about her - just a picture, a few sketchy details from her past, and a tentative birthday. We know she speaks Ukrainian, so we ordered a cd and booklet to help us learn phrases. The kids LOVE learning the phrases - of course my boys' favorite is "Do you want to go to the bathroom? - Ho-chesh tu-a-let?" Gotta love boys :)

She comes on December 20th and will be with our family for three weeks. We are excited to have this opportunity. Here's the big HOWEVER! - We need prayer for this right now! There seems to be a bit of a snag in getting the visas printed for all the children coming from Ukraine. The agency is working on this and has a verbal approval but still needs a little more paperwork before the visas can actually be printed. And they can't buy the tickets until they have the visas, and we are only 2 weeks from when they are scheduled to come. So, we are praying for all obstacles to be overcome and trusting that God is in control and is able to do all things, but that He calls us to pray and works through those prayers. Please pray with us! We will update when we have more information!!

Matthew 9:36 "But when He (Jesus) saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd."

It's Starting to Look A Lot Like Christmas...

Here's what I spent my morning doing...while my sweet husband took the kids to breakfast and a little shopping of their own.

I love this idea doing names with stick-on letters. I saw it on someone's blog last year (I can't remember who - if it was you, just remember, 'imitation is the highest form of flattery':)).


And here's what Benjamin did while we were in the other room...



I guess he was a little over anxious, but I think it is now clear we have to wait until Christmas!
And at least I now know that he can recognize his own name!

I DID IT!!

Okay, okay...I guess it's about time. I have stalked others on their blogs for sometime, so I suppose I should have my own. Despite the fact that my family thinks that I have real-life "I Love Lucy" episodes going on in my home, I'm still not convinced that my blog world will be nearly as entertaining as the many I enjoy reading. Silly, I know. But here is why I am finally giving in and starting my own blog...
1) So that the ridiculous things my children, husband, and self do can be laughed at instead of agonized over. I mean a few weeks ago when Ben and Jadon thought it was a good idea to put the hose into the dryer exhaust vent and turn it on... That is funny now...but it could have been then had I shared it with the blog world.
2) So that the joys and struggles of life can be shared with our family and friends - even if there is not enough time to retell the stories 20 times, at least I can write about them once. I think this does help friends keep up with each others lives even if they can't be together very often.
3) So that I can keep a journal of memories I don't want to forget as we go through life. And because I believe that writing about the small, everyday joys and blessings helps me to notice them, remember them and to treasure them.
4) So that maybe, someone else can read about what the Lord is doing in our lives and in ourselves and be encouraged, as I have been by reading many others. Not that we have it all together by any means, which is maybe why I have hesitated to write about our lives, but all the glory goes to God because He is graciously working in our lives and in our family. And we want to share that with you!

So here goes to all who want to follow along...let us know if you stop by!