One Year

One year ago this weekend someone dropped a pebble into the middle of a pond.

This was the weekend when my husband surprised me for my birthday!
He had been out of town and when he came home, he arrived bearing gifts!
He and the kids gave me the silver heart necklace you normally see me wearing, and
a new vacuum cleaner (don't gasp... it was a request!).
It was late in the evening, so I went and put the kids in the bed and came back down to have some time with my newly-home hubby!
It was then that he presented me with another gift!
I opened the gift and found a new Bible cover/carrying case.
I take a lot of notes and stick all kinds of things into my Bible and my old one was not working out well. The new one has a flap that folds out with a notepad and several pen holder loops! I hear it... "oooohhh! Aaaahhh!!"
After telling him how good of a job he had done, he said to open the Bible cover!
(I'm thinking... okaaaay... I can see on the tag what it does... what's the big deal?)
But I figured he was proud of his choice, so I opened it.
Inside one of the pockets was a check.
Not just any check...
but a check written out to the agency for the application fee!
I instantly burst into tears.
Not pretty little "single glistening tear down the cheek" crying...
sobbing-can't-catch-my-breath crying.
We hugged and laughed about my hysterics and began dreaming about the day sometime in the future when we would bring a baby home!
Little did we know what the Lord had planned!

On the other side of the world, on this same day...
A family in Ethiopia was in trouble.
Faced with two horrible choices...
Stay together and watch three small children starve to death
or
relinquish them with heavy hearts and hope for their future.
On the other side of the world, our children's birth family made the impossible decision and our three babies entered the Holt care center.

Later in December, when we saw their faces and read their paperwork,
we would see this date and know.
We would know that our first step in obedience had not gone unnoticed.

Today I sit here and look back on this past year...
the decisions we made along the way...
the difficulty in waiting...
the slow updates...
the lack of photo updates...
the money...
the fundraising...
the sleepless nights...
the emotional highs and lows...

Nothing compares to that September day in Ethiopia...
when a family was broken, and another was formed.