Education is so crucial. Without it how are we supposed to know how to take care of ourselves and others. Actually God used a lot of the Old Testament educating us on life. The law of Moses has taught us how to take care of our health, spirit and emotions. Education and learning are so important to live our lives. Now imagine if we stopping schooling at 6th grade and never went again. Who would the doctors be, or the lawyers, or the school teachers? Education allows us to be used where God has us in the Body of Christ.
Imagine this judges in India are not required to continue their education once they have graduated college and are in their position. Do you see the significance in this? Well we heard from our rep last week that he discovered through his visits with our lawyer, CARA and the Ripa that the Judge who is handling our case didn't even get past the second sentence of our affidavit because he found out we have four children and my husband is an engineer. Apparently he thought my husband made to much to be just an engineer and that there had to be something shady going on. CARA actually went down and sat with him to help him understand what Indian law was on family sizes and adoption. They don't have a limit.
So where are we now... Waiting again on the preparation of a one page explanation of motivation of adoption of Haddie. Our hopes are that the lawyer can get the judge to read the whole page and hear our plea. When I heard this from our rep my heart sank. But he feels there is still hope and we are not going to give up. God is bigger then all of this and will prevail with His will whatever it be.
The rainbow was His reminder and promise to Noah. He has been showing us a lot of these lately so we will continue to hold hope that our daughter will be coming home with us in this coming year.
Let me take some time to explain why the long absence. In June I got rather sick as I explained in the last two posts. In August I began stuttering everyday. I went to my neurologist and he put me on meds to stop the hemiplegic migraines I was getting causing the stuttering and neurological symptoms. The meds did not help though and this continued. On the 28th of September I went for an EEG which sent me into a seizure from the flashing lights. I was sent home with tons of questions and no clue what had just happened.
Later that night I was laying in bed and I started having a seizure. Andrew sent the boys to get my mom who was next door. As I lay there not being able to control my body our two older boys looked at me and asked their dad if I was going to die. After calling the doctor we got in the car and started to drive to a hospital. But when another seizure came on Andrew brought me to the local fire station which took me down to Tucson to the hospital. There they put me in the ICU while I seized continuously. They put so many drugs into my system to stop them that I began hallucinating and really don't remember much of my time in the Tucson hospital. After not being able to figure out what was causing the 25 seizures a day so Andrew asked that they transfer us up to Phoenix, to a specialty seizure hospital.
While in Phoenix I continued to have about 25 seizures daily they hooked my head up to so many machines and watched my every move from a video camera. One night I had a 45 minute seizure and laid there feeling my moms hand on my arm as I continued to shake. I could hear and feel everything during my seizures. As I seized I cried out to the Lord in my Head, "Why!! Please God just stop this!" This went on for seven days random things set me off. I laid in bed listening to my husband try to pull me out of the seizures with encouragement and pleading. I was so out of it and the only answers from the Lord I was getting was from one song that was continuously stuck in my head during the seizures. Only one verse was stuck in my head about thanking God and praising Him. I can't remember the exact words or who sang the song right now but I know it was about thanking Him. At the time I didn't see the meaning.
On the seventh day of this ordeal the seizures finally stopped and I was released with a questionable diagnose one that the doctors couldn't agree on. But it was not epilepsy, thank you Jesus! The moment my kids entered the room to the hotel we stayed at that night I knew what the song meant. The Lord had spared my life and brought me back to my husband and children. I praised Him as my husband and I drove home.
One hour away from our house we hit the mountains at that moment my head felt like it was going to explode and I started having a seizure. After the seizure I looked at my husband and knew this was the answer. The elevation changes that caused similar symptoms five years ago in New Mexico were to blame. We had moved four years earlier because of similar symptoms and learned that elevation was to blame but I had completely forgotten. When released from the hospital the doctors didn't really understand what was happening and I fought with the questions of what did happen and why. I finally got to a point where I was ok with not finding all those answers out but God showed us the moment we hit a higher elevation.
Even though my head was going nuts I was in awe with how God just showed me what the trigger for the seizures was. He is the Great Physician! We spent a month in our house at over 4000 ft until we finally made our way down and finally moved to Phoenix. Which has been a total miracle and I can now think clearer and continue on this process. During the hospital stay Andrew and I discussed the possible complications this may have put on our adoption. We got to a point where we just gave our daughter up to the Lord not knowing what life was going to be like afterwards. Needless to say God showed us what was wrong and how to fix it. I now have an altitude drug I take when changing altitude higher then 2000 ft. And I have had no other seizures since that drive home. Jesus has healed me and provided the answers we needed. And He also showed us why we have not been to India yet.
God you are incredible!
As we now wait for our day to meet sweet Hadassah Bharathi Moore; we have a new spring in our step. We know God has it all in His hands and we know His timing is perfect no matter the trials.
Well after a very trying time I am updating our Haddie blog. In September I spent 7 days in the hospital with seizures. After a couple months recovering we have since moved and now in the Phoenix area. So that means changing a bunch of adoption paperwork is being done and lots of life changes. But God is faithful and we have learned so much throughout the last few months about God's provision.
As far as our adoption we have only heard silence. But I know God allowed that for a very important reason. I now understand why; if the health stuff would have happened in India it could have been much worse. So now that I am on the mend I am praying He will start opening doors. Which He is doing as we speak.
Our adoption Rep is in Hyderbad right now trying to figure out what is going on. His hopes with this visit are to push to get us a court date and give us the opportunity to go get Haddie. So please be in prayer as we wait to hear from our rep. Also pray for her heart and ours as we get closer to seeing our little girl.
It has been over four months since we were promised a court date to finalize the adoption. Throughout this four months we have not heard anything directly from the Indian government or the orphanage themeselves. Good news though our agency in the states sent a rep yesterday to the Ripa to see what was going on. He was greeted with suprise and shock. They had completely forgotten about our case! Both the lawyer and the Ripa had forgotten about the adoption. CRAZY...
Now throughout this whirlwind of four months I have been incredably sick, in limbo on where and when we are moving, started homeschooling our awesome children again, and fighting to stay hopeful for Haddie. And the Ripa simply forgot... But God knows what He is doing. I have struggled to keep this FACT in my mindset throughout the past few months. The struggles that I have been wrestling with are: will this ever happen, maybe I am not ready for her and God doesn't want this, maybe it is a big conspiracy, and do I even deserve to mother another child.
As the selfish thoughts fill my head, God brings me back to what about Haddie. Imagine what she might be feeling. She has met a couple women who have taken pictures of her at the orphanage but can't understand why. They seem interested but nothing has happened yet. Am I going to have a mommy and daddy come to get me? Will I get to go like my friends have got to go? My heart breaks to think of the confusion she may be dealing with right now. But every moment I think of her I give her right back to The Lord and pray that He fill that worry and anticipation, with peace for both her and us her mommy and daddy.
Although we do not know the time and date we will get to hold our daughter, we do know we can trust and believe God knows best and His timing is always perfect.
"Wait on The Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on The Lord" (Psalm 27:14).
Still no court date... Actually the state where Hyderabad is, has experienced a split so it has delayed a lot of court proceedings. So we are still waiting. We have though recieved a few pictures of Haddie from wonderful women whom have picked up their daughters from the same orphanage in the last couple months. So here is a sneek peek of our daughter Hadassah Bharathi Moore!!! Look to your left....
We are still trying to raise money for our upcoming trip so if you know anyone who would like to donate to a wonderful cause please send them a link to this blog or a link to our youcare page which is on the right side of this page.
As for how we are doing with all of these changes in life. God is holding us together. I am feeling much better after getting off a biologic medication, it was slowly poisioning my body, the kids are doing awesome I am homeschooling them and we still don't know where we are moving in a month but really I am not worried about it. We would just like to recieve that much anticipated call that we are ready to go get Haddie. The rest will fall into place as the time comes.
What God has shown us in the last month... That He has a reason for everything (if we would have gone to India recently I would have been very sick there); that He can bring us through a lot of change in a short time; that He is ever present in our lives even when we can't understand why things happen the way they do.
Please continue to pray for Haddie's homecoming and the hearts of our children to adjust well when she gets here. Thank you for reading our blog and please continue to share it.
So it has been awhile since our last entry. Within this time period I have been pretty sick. Most importantly though we have not heard from the Ripa about a court date. Even though they stated they would send us a date in early June we have not heard anything. Which makes us sad and frustrated but at the same time reminds us that God knows what He is doing. With my health I honestly think it would have been very difficult.
Things are getting better though I am improving slowly and getting answers from doctors so that I can continue improving. We have had the honor of receiving pictures from a wonderful acquaintance who is picking her little girl in India as I write. We also got some pictures of her in a group setting which shows her smiling. Such a lovely little look at our beautiful daughter. In the picture she is one of the only children standing while the rest are sitting almost like she was saying "its me mom".
Oh how we long to hold her and bring her home. In the mean time we are still waiting to hear where we are moving and praying that we can bring her home before that move so we won't have to redo a ton of paper work and changes to the adoption process.
Jeremiah 29:11
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares The Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future".
As we wait for you Haddie we hold on to the promise our Lord gives us. We trust He is preparing your heart and ours. Although we are not physically together God is building and readying our hearts for each other. We love you little one...
Prayers...
Please be praying for the parents who are traveling to India right now that their travel is safe and productive.
Pray for Haddie's health and emotional being.
Pray for our court date and the many changes we have going on as we anticipate Haddie's homecoming.
This has been quiet an eventful week. School has ended for the kids, we had a bout of the stomache flu, we sent in our request for our i800 extention, and we recieved and updated photo and measurments of Haddie. This was a huge suprise because it normally takes forever to get anything from our Ripa or orphanage! She is so beautiful and looks so tiny. She is 26 pounds and 3 ft 1 inch tall.
I just want to get her home and help her gain some weight with healthy foods. This week we also found out that the court will be emailing us with a court date in the next two weeks, so we are waiting on pins and needles for that day. We are also still waiting to find out were we are moving.
God is so good though... Even with the anticipation of our upcoming move and adding Haddie to our family I have been holding it together. I got to a point where I just had to give it all over to The Lord because honestly it can make a person crazy. Moving so much we have learned that our roots are in our family and our Lord, not in our home. Home is our family.... And it will not be complete until Haddie gets home to take her spot in it.
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you".
This verse gives me so much comfort to know that even with all the unknowns, God gives us His Spirit to guide us and show us His ways and truth. It is the only way to live life in a world that is becoming more lost everyday.
When things are at a standstill in this adoption I tend to get a little low. Recently I remembered a website my friend told me about or actually it is a group of families who have adopted from India online. I joined the group and through that met a women who's daughter is in the same orphanage as ours. She introduced me to a Facebook page of 8 other women who have a child in Hyderabad!
So I, with Andrew's advice, I broke my one rule of no Facebook accounts and signed up under a assumed name to join the group of wonderful women going through the process of adopting from India. Come to find out that most of these women are adopting from the same orphanage! God is so good!!! This has been such a wonderful and encouraging find.
Also we just found out yesterday that our paper reached the court and that our agency will be contacting them to make sure they arrived and are being processed. Hopefully we can get a court date soon!
Please pray for Haddie as God prepares her emotionally for us. Pray that we can get into the courts soon. And please pray for patience.
Just when your thinking 'why God' He sometimes gives you a glimpse into why. Today is the day we should have been in court and it is four days past Haddie's fifth birthday. We missed another one of her birthdays which breaks our hearts but we are trusting God. About the glimpse; God showed us today that it had to happen the way it did to get things moving in India. Just yesterday our adoption agency was given a court petition for the adoption to get started in Hyderabad. This could have taken many more months without their mistake. There may be other reasoning behind why it happened they way it did, but we are pleased and thankful that we get to see a little glimpse into why.
Hopefully we will be getting the call soon to go to court and start finalizing the adoption so we can bring our little 5 year old home with us.
Thank you Lord for the little glimpses and for the honor of being able to see you at work in our lives. Protect and prepare Haddie's heart and ours as we move forward in the completion on our family.
So to all those who are actually taking the time to read this, we have had a change in plans. You heard it right this adoption is a one of a kind according to our wonderful reps from the adoption agency. We found out on Tuesday early morning that India had made a mistake and it wasn't our little girl but another little girl who was ready to have a court hearing. This was a very hard pill to swallow. We were so close... Our adoption agency has been great through the whole thing they share our disappointment and have since contacted the Ripa and government with strong yet helpful words of truth about how this has effected us and the family of the little girl who it was actually for. The agency has never seen this happen before so I pray this is the last time for us and for anyone to suffer the emotional and financial effects of this mistake.
When we found out that we were going; God had given me an uneasiness but I worked through it just in hopes of holding Haddie. He showed me He was still in control in so many ways through those couple days. For instance I was on the way to San Francisco to get visas and He put two wonderful women on my flight. Women I have known for many years and whom I look up to. They prayed with me and comforted me through the flight and encouraged the road we had ahead. When I found out through an email that we for sure would not be going a since of peace came over me almost like God was saying, "not yet but soon". The Lord is so faithful and through the time we found out we were going, till the time we found out we weren't I prayed God would show me and He did through His Holy Spirit.
On the way back the Lord reminded me that whenever thing falls apart I need to keep holding on to the hope that He does not let go...
His beauty is never ending...(my view from the plane home)
While cleaning my house on Friday I picked up a little jacket for Haddie that Sarai was walking around with and put it in her bag I have ready for her. As I held on to it I longed to hold on to her. An hour later I recieved a phone call from our adoption agency! He informed me they recieved an email which stated that they want us there for the 23rd of April court date. I was in shock when he told me and he was in shock that they think it is normal to call parents up and get them to India in a weeks time. I was just thrilled to have some news. The adoption agency rep told me that this has never happened in his 15 years of working with Indian adoptions. The email they had sent him contained the wrong name on it. So we decided we would make all the reservations like we are going but if they did actually contact the wrong people we will have to put all of it on hold.
So we are now packing, have our flights, rooms, and the other one hundred things needed to travel to India to meet your daughter. At least we think we have it all together... I am traveling to San Francisco to get visas for Andrew and I in such a short time frame. Pray we can get them please.
One snag though after the court day they will put in for her passport which means that it might be a month till we can bring her home. This means we will have to leave on the 25th and have to leave our little girl there. Oh it breaks my heart to think about it.
Please be in prayer for us as we embark on this adventure. Pray for her heart to be open to us and pray for ours as we bond with her. I know and believe God's timing is always the best and the way this came around is amazing. I just dread leaving her behind.....
So we are still waiting to hear from India about the court date. Some of the things going through our minds right now...will that ever happen, what is Haddie doing right now, does she even know we are waiting for her, are we being scammed :-), does adoption get any easier and many other questions.
I was praying about this the other day and the Lord revealed to me that my desire for Him should be similar to the desire and anticipation I feel when thinking about getting Haddie. I wonder if the Lord felt that way towards me when I was far from Him. Did He yearn to comfort me? Did He agonize over the anticipation of me surrendering to Him? All the anticipation that comes with adopting or really anything in life doesn't compare to the anticipation of meeting Jesus face to face. Imagine that excitement and celebration!
We are in the process of purchasing shirts for a Haddie fundraiser. We have them put together but just need to order them. So if you would like to purchase one to help support our adventure let us know.
The front of the shirt says: What is pure Religion?
The back says: "Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for the orphans and widows
in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you" (James 1:27).
And at the bottom of the back: India now has one less orphan, Thank you
First off still no date for India so continue to pray for things to get moving.
As for fund raising we have had $535 raised already. What a complete blessing, we are so thankful to those of you who have donated.
Someone also referred me to a movie on Netflix about India. The documentary is called Its a Girl. It is about the gendercide that goes on in both India and in China. It is a very common thing for women to kill there girl babies right after they are born by smothering them or having them drink bleach. How horrible! Why! It said that there is a high rate of deaths of girl babies (that is what they call them in India) by the time they are 5 years of age. What is going to happen when all the girl babies are gone and all there is are men to populate thier countries.
How can a mother devalue a life her body held for 9 months and God chose to give her. I pray that The Lord has mercy on these women and men who in most cases give these women no other choice but to get rid of the girls.
One of the most difficult things for me is waiting. I recently informed my husband that he can not tell me something until he knows for sure if he wants to do it. Only because I have a very hard time waiting and not just jumping on it. For instance we will be moving in the next six months because Andrew's project will be over and that means moving on to another project. I am the planner type who months before figures out where we will live, what school our children will go to, and then I start packing. Right now we have no clue where we will be moving, only that we are moving.
Ahhhhhh.....
And then when I think about Haddie and how we are simply waiting for a date to go pick her up. Why can't I just call India and set it up through the court system. I know I talked about patience in the last blog, but alas I am back in the spiral of not having it.
Bottom line nothing is certain and we do not know what will happen today let alone tomorrow. But I will try to hold on to God's promise "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matthew 6-34). And that He works all things out for those who love Him. Please remind me of this when I start to spiral again.
Still waiting for word from India about filing for a court date. I have to stop myself from thinking about it too much because I get very anxious and stressed if I do think about it. I have started collecting clothing for Haddie and I am fixing to purchase a car seat for her. It seems so surreal when I ponder what it will be like to travel to India and see her for the first time. Andrew and I just sit and imagine our reactions and hers.
What do you think she will be thinking? Will she be scared? Will we? Will she just know us and bond right off the bat? Will we get all the paperwork done while we are there? All these thoughts and so many more are going through our minds. Does she even know we are planning, loving, and hoping for her. Did she get the picture book we sent of her family for her?
So many ifs and maybes and guesses...
What I do know for sure is that God tells us: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:6-7).
Please pray that India gets things rolling soon because we are fixing to move in July or August. We want Haddie to be home before this. God's will be done...
Imagine a world that consists of never leaving one place filled with other children and laying in bed wishing for something more and someone who will love you. As I sit here in a warm home, belly full and heart full of love for my family; I am left wondering what about my daughter. Thinking about the fact that she is a half world away lonely, starving, and unsure of anything in life. Oh how I pray she can feel the love that we have for her already. The love, warmth, comfort and hope she needs is waiting patiently for her as God prepares her for us.
We heard from Holt, who heard from ACA in India, that we are waiting for the ACA to get the official NOC copy and then they will make a court date. Which means we need a lot of prayer. We are so close yet still not there to get her. Oh how we long for that day...
"But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint" (Isaiah 40:31).
Wonderful News! We just received word that we got our NOC notification was given. So things are moving along. So exciting. We are now waiting for news about the court date. Moore (More) updates to come.
