Yesterday marked 1 more month until N. will start reviewing our paperwork and working on matching us with those precious children we've been waiting for a year to see! I am getting excited, can you tell? I am trying to stay realistic though because there could be more delays at anytime as I've said before. N. is making steady progress though. We should hear any day now that they have released more referrals to the 2009 families...there have been rumors for a few weeks that they have matched over 100 families. Yay!
Ryan and I have been passing the time by doing some projects around our house. We painted our bedroom and did some decorating. I will post some pics later. We replanted our flower bed. I have been researching adoption and attachment resources, chatting with some families on FB that have adopted siblings to get some tips. I'm reading a book called The Connected Child right now on healthy attachments. Ryan is reading lots of things such as Radical by David Platt, and Hello I love you by Ted Kluck(which is a father's perspective on the adoption process)-I was very impressed that he ordered this on his own accord. Something cool that we have really enjoyed doing is Ryan has been reading to me; we started with Night by Elie Wiesel and now we're reading The Chronicles of Narnia series. Parents, you should read these books to your kids. It gives you just one more opportunity to talk about the gospel with your kids because of the symbolism C.S. Lewis uses in the books. I can't wait to read them to ours. Well, Ryan does really good at narrating these so he may have to read these to our kids. He does voices for some of the characters...it's very entertaining. He's probably going to appreciate me telling that part to you all. ;-) We have been visiting family pretty often and Clint came to stay with us a few days last week so that has made the last month or so really fly by.
Ryan had the honor and privilege of preaching at our home church this past Sunday. He preached Romans 3:21-26....wow there's alot of meat in that passage. God has been speaking to him about some things that came out of this passage. Good stuff! One of the things I learned is don't quote vs. 23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" without telling the person the good news in vs. 24 "and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." This was a proud moment for me...you could tell he was seeking to bring glory to Jesus Christ and not himself.
So long for now,
Jessica
