Visas and more waiting

On Friday, one day before leaving,  in the midst of trying to pack up all our belongings our visa paperwork arrived!   Jesus is providing just in the nick of time, as usual.  :-)  The next morning we sent off our passports and visa applications.  Thanks for praying!

We are still waiting for one of the doctors to talk to the other doctors before they can fix a surgery date. Please pray that they can talk to each other and tell us a date tomorrow.  We really need to start making plans!

We are leaving here to drive back to Minnesota on August 1st.  As of now we have no place to stay.  If you know of any place to stay from August 1st to maybe Mid September, please let us know!

Progress

Today was a good day, for me, Jeff.  I took the kids to a playground with a water park and sand play area.  Miriam, Elijah and David spent a long time in the sand area making mud for piggies.  It was a very elaborate and very important job.  Tomorrow they are planning to make poop for gorillas.   Also very important, since we discovered the last time we went to the zoo that gorillas do, in fact, from personal experience, eat poop.  Both jobs are very messy, therefore they need to take baths three times a day.

While I was there I got a call from Rebecca.  She talked to two different doctors today and things are moving along pretty well!  The basic plan at this point is that they will make some space behind his eyelid and put in a hard plastic conformer.  Then they will over time put in larger and larger conformers.  The great news is that we should only need one surgery and they can send the conformers with us for us to put in ourselves!  They will schedule the surgery for as soon as they can.  It looks like we may be going back to Minnesota, but only for a little while.  At least, that is as much of a guess as we have for today.  It's progress, so we are grateful.

As far as our visa paperwork, it still has not arrived.   Please pray that it shows up!   If it has been lost, it could be very hard to replace.  We are leaving our apartment here in Ft Collins this Saturday, so the paperwork needs to arrive by then!

Thanks for praying!

-Jeff

Waiting

Waiting

I know it has been a long time since we have posted anything here.   Given all the crazy chaos of our lives right now we decided to use this space as a way to keep you up to date on our lives without filling up your email inbox.  I (Jeff) will try to keep a nearly daily update on our saga these next few weeks.

Today, we finally got an email from Isaac's primary surgeon.   He told us that to move forward we need  to come in and see one of the plastic surgeons we have seen before.   The two of them will be the main people in charge of Isaac's care.  After Isaac sees this other doctor they can make a plan for Isaac's care.  So, Rebecca and Isaac are flying to Minnesota this weekend, arriving Sunday and returning to Colorado on Tuesday.   I will be taking care of the rest of the kids here.

This, at least, is a beginning to an answer to prayer.  It still doesn't answer any of the questions of what our lives will look like for the next few months or years, but at least it is some progress.

In another major life plot line, we are still waiting on our visa paperwork.  Just waiting.   This morning, I thought about how little control I have of any of these things and I just had to laugh.  It's either laugh or cry, so Jesus helped me to laugh.  On Wednesday Rebecca was invited to give a talk about perseverance.  Perseverance isn't about keeping going when we get what we want.   It is about what we do when we don't get what we want.  The main question is 'Am I ok if God doesn't give me anything that I want, but instead helps me to know and love him?  Is that enough?'  Today we are just waiting and we don't know what he is going to do.  But I think, for just a moment this morning, that he was enough.  I'm trusting that Jesus will also send us back to East Asia on August 1st, but even if he doesn't, he is enough.