One week later

Last Friday, after some amazing friends called everyone they knew, or baked a million things, or sat out in the sun selling lemonade, we suddenly had a combined amount of money that we were NOT expecting. We were feeling so amazingly blessed that day. We kept looking at each other just speechless at how God had provided above and beyond what we could have ever expected. For us, this was the ultimate confirmation....we were in God's will. We were doing what he wanted us to do. This child was ours.

We rode this high all week.

Then yesterday came. One week later. A call from our agent (as we were walking out of the Passport office, by the way..). And these words...

"we have given your {un-official} referral to another family. They had their paperwork already in country. They were waiting for a healthy child. But for whatever reason, changed their minds and decided they would accept a child with special medical needs. So, they are first in line. And they will get the baby."

Sigh.

I held in my tears until I got off the phone with her. I saved them for Mitch. Lucky him.

I don't know how to explain how that felt. I knew that this was a possibility. The fact that this was an "un-official" referral meant that until our paperwork was in the Congo, we would have no real "claim" on him. We were hurrying. I was emailing people and annoying people to death trying to get things done. But, in all reality, I honestly did not think there would be people lining up to take on this special needs child. And besides the logistics of it all....he felt like he was ours. I felt like God said so. 

So, when those words came out of her mouth, well....I felt like I had lost a child. My heart was broken and I was confused.

Why did God take us down this path? Why would He bring us to this place if this child wasn't really ours? Yes, I was very grateful that this baby would be getting a family soon, and medicine even sooner. But, he was supposed to be OUR baby. Not theirs. What is God trying to do here? Haven't we grown enough? Why does God have to keep teaching us things? What are we doing wrong?  I mean, we felt very strongly we were in God's will, and still do actually, so where does this leave us? What are we supposed to do now? What is the deal? (and lots more angry, spoiled brat kind of things like that)

A day later, I can't tell you I understand any more. I spent a lot of time yesterday feeling sad and crying. Today, I feel more hopeful. Still confused, but hopeful.

We know that there is a reason for this. We know that God has something else planned. Maybe he brought us to this place because the next referral we get will be the exact same scenario. Maybe he wanted us to pray for that baby in a dark and dangerous time in his little life. Maybe we were just there to stand in the gap between loneliness and a family for him. Maybe God used it to grow our hearts for orphans with special needs. Maybe our next referral will be soon and we will be able to do things quickly since we have all our funding ready. 

Whatever the reason, we know that God will reveal it to us someday. As a friend reminded me, the day we bring our new child home, we will all be able to look around at each other, and say "ooohhh, this is why God did that. THIS is what He had planned for them all along."

Man, I am ready for that day.

So, to answer some questions that are probably in most of your minds:

- Yes, the attorney fees for the Congo will still be the same. So, the amazing amount of money all our friends poured their hearts and souls into is still much needed and necessary. (so thank you again sweet friends. my heart is overwhelmed with love from each of you)

- The wait time for another referral will not be long. A matter of a few months to maybe just weeks. Which will mean that travel will not be too far off after that. So, we are hopeful that we will be able to travel and bring our child home within 6 months. 

- We are leaving our home study open to a medically special needs child. We can't ignore the fact that God opened our eyes to the giant need out there and asked our obedience. We will remain faithful to that and see what God has in store. 

Please pray for our hearts. Mitch has a good head and broad shoulders and is handling this much better than me. He can see God's sovereignty more clearly than me at times and I am grateful for it. I am still confused and a little frustrated, but am resting in God's faithfulness and what He has already done. 

Thank you to our friends and family who rejoiced with us last week, and who grieved with us this week. There will be more rejoicing ahead I know it. Don't give up on us yet.

48 hours

Standing on this mountaintop

Looking just how far we’ve come

Knowing that for every step

You were with us

Kneeling on this battle ground

Seeing just how much You’ve done

Knowing every victory

Was Your power in us

Scars and struggles on the way

But with joy our hearts can say

Yes, our hearts can say

Never once did we ever walk alone

Never once did You leave us on our own

You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Carried by Your constant grace

Held within Your perfect peace

Never once, no, we never walk alone

Every step we are breathing in Your grace

Evermore we’ll be breathing out Your praise

You are faithful, God, You are faithful.

(Matt Redman)

48 hours y'all. That's all it takes sometimes. 48 hours for God's people to come together and show unconditional love and support. To be obedient and generous beyond measure. 48 hours for God to not only provide all we needed, but exceed it. 

As of tonight, friends and strangers have given us over $16,000. 

Can you even flipping believe that?!!!

Our mouths are wide open in awe and our hearts are ridiculously full.

Thank you to our friends that didn't let us feel defeated. For those special people that made calls and shared our story, planned extravagant lemonade stands, baked yummy things, sat in the heat with smiles on their faces, and then rejoiced with us at the end. 

Thank you especially to each of you that gave. Every single penny mattered to us. We saw the body come alive and active all around us. And tonight, we are feeling loved by Jesus and loved by you all. What more could we ask for?

It has been a good 48 hours.

Now on to the business of bringing that baby home.....

Everything you Got

I'm not even sure where to begin (which is probably why I chose to totally remodel the blog at 11pm instead of starting this post.) So much has happened over the last few months....and trying to squeeze all of that into a trim, short-and-to-the-point blog post is just not working in my brain. So, bear with me...this may be a long and messy one. (I'm apologizing ahead of time for any ramblings and unnecessary information.) But stick with it....there's a good ending :)

So, I guess I should back up to my last post in April. I talked about how God had brought us to a place of surrendering our "idea" of how our adoption was going to play out. When we began this adoption, we (more specifically I) wanted an "as healthy as possible" baby girl. Which is what the majority of people in the adoption world seem to want. Because they are adorable for sure, but results in "supply/demand" type adoptions, which we wanted to avoid.  And as we got deeper and deeper into God's word and heart for the orphan, we realized that God wanted something different for our family anyway. So, we decided we would be open to a boy. Then we felt like God said to be open to sibling groups (it seems so 'no big deal' to just type out those decisions, but I have to tell you that they were gut wrenching on our knees kind of decisions). But, all that brings us up to my last post in April

So since April....

We begin hearing some more disappointing things about Uganda. Like wait times were longer because there were more unethical things happening and government was trying to safe guard against that (which we have come to realize is just kind of the nature of the beast as far as international adoptions go). But after some advice from our agency, we began considering changing countries (another gut-wrenching decision). There is way more to this story, which I may share some day....but the basics are this: after praying and praying and researching and talking we made the choice to officially change programs to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC...formerly Zaire). DRC neighbors Uganda to the West and is just as war torn now as Uganda and Rwanda were 15 years ago. You know that jerk Kony? Yeah, he lives in the Congo now and is still wreaking havoc. The Congo is a beautiful country with LOTS of natural resources, but unfortunately they have never been able to use them for the benefit of their own people because of the greed and power of a few. The poverty and civil strife there has resulted in years of extreme and unthinkable violence and murder, sexual abuse, HIV/AIDS, and lots and lots of orphans. The need is great, and while the ideal situation for an orphan is really for them to be able to stay in their own country and be adopted by a local family, the need in the Congo is just too gigantic. There are too many children and no resources for their own people to care for them. It is so unbelievably sad. So our hearts were hooked and we made the decision to pursue adoption through the DRC.

Two days after our official "switch" we got an email from our agent. It was pretty simple, maybe just three or four sentences. She wrote to us telling us that there was a baby boy in the Congo ready for adoption if we were interested.

WHAT??? two days?? and we get an unofficial referral?? That just doesn't happen in the world of adoption. It takes months for a "referral"......but then I read the next sentence and it explained why there was such an urgency. This sweet baby boy has some pretty serious medical needs. Ones that may last a life time or perhaps God will choose to heal him of them....we are unsure. (btw we are not at liberty to disclose his specific needs, so please don't be offended if we don't give you the whole scoop).

But despite that last sentence in her email, and the unknown of it all and the cost that it might incur, we just knew that this was our child. I don't know how to explain it. We didn't have his whole file. We didn't get a picture. There was no name. There was nothing to invoke an emotional connection with him. But we both knew it. At different times that day, God said to both of us "you want the 'unadoptable' the 'hard to place'?...well, here he is. And he is yours. "

Although we both felt pretty strongly that we had heard from God, we knew that the responsible thing to do was to continue to pray, research, talk to some doctors, etc. We spent some pretty serious moments seeking God's heart in this and there wasn't a moment it wasn't on our minds.


There was a Sunday that fell in the middle of the days we were praying over this decision. And this was the first thing that popped up on our sermon notes that day...

(what are all of us if we are not adopted by God?...."from rejected to accepted")

and then this was next......

'fulfilling your purpose will take everything you've got'.....read:adoption is not for weenies. suck it up and do the hard things, and do it with everything you've got.

and then there was this one.....

(Shut the front door, Jason Brown. Get OUT OF MY HEAD!!!)

I cried like a baby in church. God answered my questions/fears with scripture (hmmm...imagine that).  

1) we are called to Kingdom work (all of us) but this was our chance to play a teeny tiny role int that.

2) This will not be easy. It will take everything we've got.

3) Give our entire attention to what God is doing right. now. And don't let the "unknowns" steal the joy.

So there it was. We made our decision. We had a son!!!  And he was sick and needed a family. The race to bring him home began.

Some super great positives about the DRC:

-very short wait time in between referral and judgement

-very short travel time (less than two weeks in country vs. 6 weeks in Uganda)

-the need is immense and so the Congolese people are more supportive of international adoptions

-everything is done for us before we arrive in country by attorneys hired by our agency (which is incredible and totally ethical and legit by the way). The attorneys serve as our "proxy". They have power of attorney over our court case and are able to manage the file from start to finish...which results in our short time in country.

Some negatives about DRC:

-the Congo is not exactly the safest place to travel. Although our agency reassures us that there have been no issues with other families that have traveled, there are warnings against all travel there right now because of the civil strife. So, there will be no sight-seeing during our short stay. Bummer :/

-adoption fees from DRC are much higher than Uganda. Like MUCH higher. The attorneys I mentioned earlier? Well, they don't work for free, and just like in the US, government processing and documentation is not free either. The grand total for all of that is $15,000. Yes. You read that right. That is $15,000 on top of what we have already saved/fundraised/paid in the last year. 

I have to be honest here and tell you that when I found this out, I bawled like a big fat wimp. Sure, it's just another bump in the road that will lead us to the baby God has for us. But a $15, 000 bump?!?! That's a mighty big bump to climb over for the Fickeys. I got super discouraged and honestly had a moment where I thought "good grief...this is never. gonna. happen." But, lucky for me I have a pretty steady and unwavering husband, a supportive mom, and some crazy, enthusiastic, nothing-stands-in-our-way friends. God will do this. He will move mountains for this child I know it. We don't have a clear plan for the remaining money we will need yet. But God knows how that's going to happen. And we have faith in that. As one of my crazy enthusiastic friends, Misty, said "I mean it's not like there aren't any planes going to the Congo or something. It's just money. No big deal. " And I'm sure God feels the same way....it's just money, Katie, I've got that. 

I know some people may not understand this. They may not understand how we could love someone we have never held. They may think that extra $15,000 is a crazy amount of money to be spending on someone we've never met and is not as healthy as can be. They may think that it's just stupid to take on something so daunting and unknown.... How will it affect the rest of your family? Will your other kids get enough attention? How will you afford it? I totally get it. And I probably would have thought the same thing in recent years. But, here's the deal. For whatever reason, this child is supposed to be in our home and in our family.  Our family that already consists of three kids we would die for. And if Brody or Addie or Sam had medical issues, there would be no stopping us from finding the answers and the right doctors. There would be no amount of money that could keep us from getting to them. And I'm sure we are not the only ones that feel that way about our kids. And this baby, well....he's our kid. 

So, now we begin our journey to fight the fight for him and bring him home. Will you pray for us? Pray that we are able to move quickly. That he would have good medical care while he is waiting. That God would provide the extra money we need. 

We absolutely LOVE our community of friends and believers. As we have shared our story with our closest people, we have gotten nothing but support and love. It warms my heart (and makes me teary) to think about the incredibly special people God has gifted us with in our lives right now. How he ordained these specific close relationships for this specific time in our lives. I wouldn't change it for anything. We know it takes a "village to raise a child" and we are so blessed to be a part of our "village". And we know this baby will get more than enough love when he gets home.

Still think I'm crazy? Watch this video.....the whole thing. It's amazing.