Following God

Today is the weekend here in Bangladesh and a much needed time of rest for Nadeem and me. We'd like to thank Angela for posting all of our pictures for us. Thanks to God for allowing us to communciate with all of you back home. Thanks to all of you for continuing to pray! It is amazing to hear from you and to discover how God is working "behind the scenes" to give us the support we need. He has given scriptures to people, prompted people to pray in the middle of the night, given ways to pray, and brought us to your minds over and over. We hope that you, too, are amazed by God. This story is much larger than us and Kalina. We've received comments about how easy this has been and how God is working miracles. That made me want to share with you some background on how big and strong God is and how weak and small we are. By nature, I'm a homebody. I don't like to travel, and I like the comforts of my home. When I was sick with mercury poisoning for 12 years, I developed a fear of traveling because I always felt so bad and trips usually resulted in problems for me. I can't stand to camp, and I only stay in hotels when I'm away from home. I'm an introvert and like time to myself. I can't bear the heat and stay inside in the summer. I've always felt uncomfortable in Nadeem's culture. Also, I've always been really bothered by the treatment of women in other parts of the world. I like my life to be predictable and under my control. I'm sharing this to say that when you follow God, He'll call you to do things you would never pick on your own and then He'll give you the strength to be able to do it so there will be no doubt who strengthened you. I never in a million years would have thought that I would ever go to Bangladesh, much less to adopt a child, much much less without a plan! When God put this in our hearts last fall, to be honest, our response was NO WAY! You've got to be kidding! God wasn't. He continued to prompt us to follow Him. We've found that sometimes that means battle, like in court yesterday. Sometimes it means waiting without seeing a hint of God's plan and simply trusting. This does not come easily or naturally. For both of us, we began praying a couple of years ago to know God better and to have more faith and to experience God's power, not our so called power. We read about God in the Bible and how you should love Him most and how He's powerful. That wasn't our reality. God has been answering our prayers but not in the easy way we desired. We wanted to wake up and be filled with faith and intimacy with God the next day! God had another path in mind. First He cleared out all the things we loved: our church home, my small group for Bible study, my exercise class that I love, my summer job, certain relationships that we treasure, and this year for me my teaching job. We love to be busy and to feel good about ourselves because of what we do and from what people say about us. God gave both of us time when we were forced to seek Him and spend a lot of time with Him. It was agonizing, really. We would ask to go back to our fun activities and relationships because sitting still felt really scary. Through this, though, God helped us know Him better! I believe that we had to get to a point where we could trust Him and know Him so that when He said go to Bangladesh with no plan that we would do it. I had to quit my teaching job that I love with no idea at all of how or when this adoption would work out. Why? Because God spoke to our hearts that I was to let go of that job. We sat in darkness and confusion for about 4 months before God showed us how to adopt from Bangladesh. Every step of the way has been led by God. We have had no control. Sometimes I pray for God to show me the big picture. How will all this turn out? If I had known about court up front, I think I'd still be at home hanging out with my cats! I think that faith usually means that you take one step at a time, knowing that God is going ahead of you, working all things together for your good (Romans 8:28). Just like when you're a little child on the edge of the pool, and your dad says "jump", you have to trust God to catch you. Is it easy to trust and to follow God? NO! This does not come naturally. The bottom line is that it's all about love. When you start to understand that you're deeply loved by God, you begin to trust more and to be willing to follow Him and go love others....even a baby across the globe.