Life just gets busy sometimes

I apologize for the long break from blogging.  Life just gets a bit busy sometimes.  I've been in one of those "take it one day at a time" kind of modes.  Between starting up our weekly Bible studies, we also had the Bible study teacher dinner one evening, a Just Desserts event for women at the church another evening, a Meet the Teacher event at both David's school and my school, that took up two evenings, and a preparation evening for the upcoming Adoption conference this coming weekend.  Add a soccer game, a birthday party, housecleaning, normal church activities, a new walking group with other church lady friends, and grading papers/lesson planning, and you get the point.  The rest of this month doesn't look like it's going to be any different.  (Let's see, two nights of soccer practice, a night of Bible study, a monthly writer's group meeting, setting up for the Adoption conference, volunteering at the Adoption conference, etc.) Thankfully, we've all managed to stay healthy, so that has helped with the pace lately.  Mike and David are out playing around on their boy toys this morning, so I have a few moments to myself while I'm waiting for the washer to get done.

Our Esther study has been amazing so far.  We've had 20 plus women each week, with at least one or two missing each time.  Everyone has been very open to sharing and discussion, which really makes the study come so much more alive (I think, anyway).  It's so great to hear how God is speaking to the other women and to find out what He's doing in their lives.  This is the second study I've taught where I found out during the first class that one of the women has just recently moved here from Indiana and joined the Bible study in hopes of connecting with other women.  Small world!

The other night, Mike was working late, so David and I drove out to Rockwall to help prepare the binders for the Adoption Conference. (I wanted to go to meet other people in the group since we don't normally attend that campus, David wanted to go for the free pizza).  Anyway, while there I connected with another lady in the group named Rachel.  Come to find out, we had so much more in common than just our name.  She has family that lives in Indiana really close to where we used to live, so she goes up there every year or two.  She's an elementary school teacher, and her first foster care adoption happened to be of a 14 year old Hispanic boy.  What a neat little connection we made.  I look forward to seeing her again during the conference on Saturday, and I'm glad to have connected with someone from the group.

David has had an interesting start to his school year.  He finally got a male teacher this year, and he absolutely loves him.  What a difference that has made in his whole attitude toward school and even his attitude at home.  He was so miserable last year, but now that he is so fond of his teacher and the way he teaches, David actually looks forward to going to school every day again and even enjoys his homework.  He is very eager to do his best and to show his teacher just how well he can do.  I'm so thankful for the way it's worked out for him.

Normally by now, soccer would have been in full swing for him, but that's been a little different this year.  The coach of his team was unable to keep coaching, and Mike really didn't want to take over coaching the team again due to time and the frustration of working with kids that are too involved in too many things that they're just not committed.  So we decided to let the team disband, and we registered David for any team that had a spot.  Well, the season started yesterday with the opening games, and as of Friday night, David still didn't have a team.  Then late Friday night, we got a call from a coach saying that David had just been added to his roster, so he was welcome to come out to the first game on Saturday morning at 9:30.  David was a bit nervous because he hadn't met the team or his new coach and didn't even have a uniform, but the color of the uniform was yellow, so he wore his bright yellow Colombia soccer jersey and played in that.  I was so proud of his bravery, and he ended up playing really well.  He took the first shot at a goal in the game, and then assisted in one or two other goals made.  The other parents noticed that he was pretty good, so I'm really happy for him.  He did end up knowing two other players, so that helped.  I hope this turns out to be a good little team for him because he sure does love soccer.  He's made so many sacrifices through this adoption process, I hated for him to not be able to play soccer this season, too.

As far as the adoption is going, we're back to playing the waiting game.  At the moment, our home study is being edited and reviewed by both agencies (the Texas home study agency and our international agency in New York) for approval.  Once it's approved and they actually give us the final notarized report, we have to quickly get it sent to Austin to get apostilled, then it will go to Colombia to get translated asap and then we'll find out if they will give us the okay to continue with the process or not.  It hasn't mattered at all how quickly we have done our part and complied with everything, or how much we have insisted that we're on a very tight time schedule, it still is seeming to drag on (at least to me).  I don't know what God has worked out in the end, whether time will run out for Julian or not, but I know He's already there and has everything orchestrated according to His plan. (Some days I have to remind myself of that fact many times or I will very quickly get filled with incredible anxiety).

Things seem to finally be looking up for Julian right where he is, though, and I am eternally grateful for how God has let us witness the many miracles He has done for him (and has let us be a part of those miracles).  He's found an opportunity to continue his studies again, so this week he'll be starting a new set of classes in the same field that he was studying before.  He seems happier now than he  has in a very long time, and he's been able to reconnect with likely the only positive aspect of his childhood. I will admit, it has been hard for me to step back and let him flounder around, but God put us in the place where we had no choice because we no longer had a single resource to help him other than our constant love.  Now we're seeing how He has continued to step in and take care of that boy in ways we never could have thought of on our own.

That's it in a nutshell regarding our personal life.  School has been a real challenge for me this year, as I have a class that's not as easy to teach as some others have been (not that there's ever an easy class to teach, but some are easier than others).  I go home pretty frustrated some days, so I'm having to rethink some of my strategies.  Meeting with the parents, one by one, seems to be helping with a few of the issues, so it looks like I need to just make more time to do that.  If you think about it, pray for me!  I hope to have a few more things figured out and put in place before I have to get evaluated this year!