Well its been a while, but forgive us because we have been really busy. In the past month we have completely finished our Homestudy, Referral, and now our Dossier (with the exception of our USCIS Fingerprints)! Our homestudy has been written and approved. This major milestone is now behind us. I have to stop here and thank everyone who has prayed for us up to this point because we have felt the power of your prayers. I also must be a little selfish and ask you not to stop because we need them now more than ever, and that, my friends, is the real reason for this post.
I hate to wait. I know that I am not alone in this as I have NEVER met another person with a pulse who enjoys waiting. Waiting in line, waiting for your wife (or husband), waiting for payday; no matter the occasion most people typically hate to wait. And, if you are like me, you have hated to wait for a long time. Since we were kids we have been ingrained with impatience and we pass this on in our genetic makeup like height or hair color. As I write this, my kids are driving me nuts about opening a Christmas present early because… they hate to wait. And in the world of waiting, there are two types of waiting you can do: definite and indefinite. Definite waiting is a little more bearable, because, like in the case of Christmas, my kids know when exactly their torture will come to an end. Indefinite waiting, well that’s another story. Just ask anyone who has been out of work or waited on news about a loved one; depending on the circumstances, it can sometimes be torture.
When all you can do is wait, it seems like there is nothing to do. And this is especially difficult because we are a nation of “doers”. We are the multitasking, overachieving, constantly busy people who invented the microwave and picture in a picture television. We’ve got 24 hour news and instant coffee makers at the ready so we can stay up to watch it. We even recently invented a phone that we can talk and text to send and receive messages while we drive/run/walk (and we are probably listening to music or a podcast while we are doing this too!). Is it any wonder why we don’t like to wait?
I think that the reason we hate to wait is that we seem to have so little control when we are in “the mean time”. Or better, we are reminded of how little control we have in the first place. When we wait we are powerless and dependant on someone or something else. If you are waiting in a checkout line, you are powerless and at the total mercy of the employee checking out the person in front of you, or you are at the mercy of the customer who at the last minute pulls out a checkbook and begins to balance it before making the check out to the store (who does this???, I mean a check, really?, you can see I am totally patient). It is this reminder of lack of control at which we chafe. This is probably why it is God’s chosen way in which he readies us, prepares us, and disciplines us. It is in the waiting where growth, character, and spiritual discipline is developed.
You don’t really see waiting though. In the movies, when a character has to change, get in shape, or train it usually happens in the course of one song on the soundtrack. On television, problems are solved in an hour or less, or if it is a really big problem, you might have a “to be continued” before Cliff Huxtable comes in to explain it and make it alright. And in the Bible it is no different; you don’t see what happens while waiting. Moses left Egypt and waited decades before the Lord told him to return to free the people. David was made king and then waited years before he took the throne and much of that time is unaccounted for. Even Jesus waited as we get the awesome account of His birth, and then we don’t hear much until he is 30 years old.
And so we enter the land of “the mean time”. The only thing worse than waiting on the indefinite is waiting on the government—two governments. As we enter this time we ask for your prayers. Pray that we might wait as Paul describes in Romans 8:25 “But we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” We will also be asking in the coming weeks for you to partner with us and pray for specific things and specific times. Our documents now go the US and Ethiopian governments to be scrutinized and translated and we will be praying for a quick and bump free process.
Also as we get updates from the orphanage we are learning more about Ubang and Chad’s life and the story has been a sad one. Although I cannot share it with you in full here, please know that these two kids have had a difficult childhood, even more so that we had first heard. Please be in prayer for them as they share their stories with the house mothers in Addis Abba.
Brian
