Praising God!!

All I can do is praise the Lord! He is working so many miracles with this adoption. We drove 4 hours to Lusaka on Friday to drop off the paperwork at the adoption committee and we were expecting to have to wait at least 2 weeks before they would sit, review it and give us our effective date of notice. The effective date of notice states that we can go to court 90 days from that date! The adoption committee has to approve you to adopt after your 1 year fostering (they are a little flexible with the fostering though). If they don't want you to adopt they have the power to stop your adoption completely as does social welfare here in Ndola. So....we gave them the paperwork...the minister of social services was the lady we met with..she looked it over and asked us if we could come back Monday as it takes 24 hours for them to review the paperwork!! We were like okay!! (we were definitely not going to question the time frame) Because it is a 4 hour drive we asked if it would be possible for them to mail it too us!! She kind of hummed and hawed for awhile...finally she was like I don't think it will get to you if I mail it...because your out of town I will rush it and do it today...can you come back at 15 and get it...UMMM ABSOLUTELY!! Praise the Lord, we were speechless!!!

We also went to the National Registration building to check in on the application for the girls birth certificates that we had sent in in March! We found out that they were done...but...that the registration number that they had given to the twins had already been given out to other kids...Someone had made a mistake, and the birth certificates needed to be reprinted. We asked if they could be done today...but unfortunately not until Monday...Thankfully one of Grace's care givers was going to Lusaka Monday, and could pick them up for us, so we now have them too. The only things we still need to finish the Zambian side of this adoption are their passports and that final court date!

It has been so humbling to watch the Lord work, to see what amazing blessings the twins are and to realize how little faith I had!! I am realizing more and more how angry I was that he had taken this away from us. How much I felt it was my right and that I wasn't content in the Lord alone and all of the other amazing blessings he had given to me. One of the caregivers at Buseko commented to me that God had truly blessed me!! It made me want to cry to think of how much I have and I still wasn't content to wait on his timing!! I can truly say that I am thankful for everything I have learned, and I'm grieved for the things that I prevented myself from learning. If i had had my way, would I have my girls, would I have the relationship that I know have with my husband, would I be here where I have the opportunity to be taught so much by these kids? Praise the Lord for his mercy and grace!!

The kids here are amazing and I am so enjoying getting to know them better! Not a day goes by that I don't have someone knocking on my door asking to see me or the babies. Some of them will come just to say goodnight to me! I was doing a few pieces of laundry by hand the other day and they helped me to rinse it out since I guess I hadn't done it quite enough, or so they told me..lol...they showed me how to find Ntungulus, which are red fruit that grow underground and taste kind of like lemons! Such cheerful, happy kids!

The girls are doing so well, I have them on a schedule that is working really well! I'm starting to give them some more solid foods, which they mostly play with instead of eating but you have to start somewhere! Their little personality's and quirks are so cute! I can't wait for you all to meet them, they are so beautiful!