Why?

Have you ever been in a situation in life where you just don't understand "why" things are happening the way they are?  You cry out to God in search for answers and the only response you hear seems to be silence.  As Christ followers, we grow up learning and come to believe that God is in control and everything happens for a reason.  We hear countless times that we may never know this side of heaven.  Well how cool is it when you realize that the silence you thought you heard was in fact a deep breath that was getting ready to exhale the "why" with a booming, joyful, all powerful, loving voice!  That is what recently happened in the Yarbrough home.....

As you know, a year ago we started the adoption process again.  I just knew I heard God say we were to adopt 2 girls.  Well, we were almost immediately granted pre-approval for Lyric and began the long paper chase process.  We never heard God tell us who the second child was.  We decided it was like Abraham.  Maybe God was just seeing if we would be faithful to him by just being willing to adopt 2 older girls at one time.  Time passed, and we were logged into China's adoption system on February 14th this year.  We were hoping and should have received an expedite, but it did not happen.  What should have taken 2-3 months took over 5 months.  We should have had Lyric in June, but as you know, it did not happen.  Then we thought no later than August, but it did not happen.  We found ourselves asking "why?".  After we received our final approval from China, things went fairly quickly on the US immigration side of things and we planned on being in China the end of September or the first of October.  Then the Visa Center made a minor mistake, but it took almost 2 weeks to resolve. It was in the middle of the 2 week wait we began to ask "why" again.  Why did this happen?  Why has this taken so long?  Why can't they fix this quickly?  All the while telling our daughter that God was in control and we would get Lyric exactly when He decided.  Well, it was in the wait that God revealed the "why"....

Friday, August 29th, Brandon and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary.  We actually went on a date. Wait, that was not nearly exciting enough...we went on a 7 hour date!!!!!  We left the girls with some of our dear friends and headed to a late lunch and a movie. (I am going to insert a plug here for the movie "When the Game Stands Tall".  I am a big football fan and that was a fantastic movie!)  As we drove to Bridge Street, Brandon, in an all too familiar voice, says "Have you seen the email from Kelcey?". My heart stopped...(it was the "we're doing it again" voice).  I said no and began pulling up the email.  Kelcey is our family coordinator at AWAA.  She sent an email advocating for a little girl that is turning 14 in January.  Many of you know that children cannot be adopted from China after their 14th birthday.   I pulled up the email, looked at her picture and immediately called AWAA.  We asked if anyone had come forward to commit to giving her a family and they said that a family was talking about it.  We said we would pray for the family.  We asked them if the other family did not move forward, would be possible for us to adopt her since we are so late in the game getting ready to be issued our last bit of paperwork before travel.  They said it would be possible.  I hung up the phone but a piece of me knew that the conversation was not over.

I spent the weekend with knots in my stomach.  What on earth were we thinking about doing?  How on earth would we do it? What on earth would people think and say?  Then there came a peace.  We were thinking about providing a precious orphan a home.  There was no way on earth we could do it, but there was a way in Heaven.

Tuesday morning, I called AWAA.  The family was talking with their social worker (which you have to do before you move forward with your decision to adopt a child).  Later in the day we decided to go ahead and review her file since we are so close to travel.  To our surprise, there was a video of her.  I fell in love!  I could not get her out of my head or heart.   I called AWAA the next day to see if the other family made a decision.  Well, they had been torn between 2 girls.  When we chose to review the one little girl's file, they chose to review the other!
Our minds were made up, this little girl was ours!

I immediately realized that she was the "why".  All the delays were for her.  The mistake at the Visa Center was for her.  God did not change His call for 2 girls, He just orchestrated it in such a way that only He can receive the glory for it!

By the end of this year, we will be a family of 6!  Funny how today, 5 years ago, we were just a family of 2, getting packed and preparing to go to China for the first and what we thought was the last time for a long time.

Oh!  I guess you want to know her name....Tilly Lynn Yarbrough.  She is sooooo beautiful and precious.  I don't know if I have stopped smiling in days. We can't share any information about her yet and we can't post her picture, but it should not take long before we can.

 It is just so exciting when you not only know you are are being held in the Father's hand, but you can feel it and see it!  That is how the last few days have been like for me.

We are excited, but with our excitement comes fear.  Please pray for us as we figure out how on earth we are going to raise about $25,000 more dollars in probably less than 2 months.  We are $10,000 short for Lyric's adoption and it will be at least $15,000 for the second adoption process.  Oh..we also don't have a vehicle big enough for all of us! (the thought of that is so weird, yet awesome!)  I know God is faithful.  I know He can provide.  He always has.

The Difference in a Tear

I have shed many a tear in my life.  Tears of fear and sadness.  Tears of hurt and confusion.  Tears of anger and dismay.  I have cried many a tear of joy!!!  Tonight, however, my tears were different and I don't have a label for them.  I don't think I want a label.  I want it to be indescribable............

In the world of international adoption we sometimes refer to the process as stages of a pregnacy.  The first trimester is the paperwork process, which can actually take the time of a full term pregnacy ( ours took 7 months).  The second trimester is the time spent waiting after you mail your paperwork to China until you receive your final approval from China and in our case it took 5 1/2 months!  The third trimester is the time you wait from the final approval until "Gotcha Day"!  This stage can take up to 4 months.

I have never been blessed to hear the sound of my children's heartbeat in my womb or seen their beautiful faces on a 3D ultra-sound, but I think that the indiscrible feeling that a mother experiences is the equivalent to my experience tonight.  I did not get to hear a heartbeat, but I got to hear one of the most precious voices God created.  Tonight I got to talk with Lyric!!!!!  The tears that I don't have nor want a label for flowed as I listened to our big girls reunite and chat on the computer.  Phoebe taught her some English and Lyric spoke it quite well.  I told her I loved her and she said "I love you" back.  (I love you in Mandarin flows beautifully off the tongue).

Speaking of love....Love Without Boundaries is an organization that helps thousands of orphans in China.  They were the way we found both Phoebe and Lyric.  They started amazing programs in the girl's orphanage.  The link below is a short video about what children in orphanages think adoption is all about.  Lyric is in the video.  She is the third child you will see.  Keep watching and listen closely and you will hear her beautiful voice.

Love Without Boundaries' "What is Adoption?"

Drum Roll Please........

First of all, I am sorry it has been so long since I have posted.  The wait for Lyric got really long and in the wait, I had to re-enroll in the school of "Trust God"!!!!!  I failed most my classes but I have come to realize that God's love for me is not dependent on me or how well or poorly I perform!  God can't help but love....He is love!!  He has shown me in His "silence" that He is my constant, my Rock.  His word is true.  He is good.  He is good no matter how big my hurt is or tantrum is, no matter how I rant and rave for answers.  He does not owe me answers, He is God.   He is not the cause of my pain, but is the Comfort in my pain.  It has taken the last 6 months for me to believe in my core what my brain has always known, God is good even when life is bad.  Then to seal it with a Heavenly kiss, my pastor spoke on this subject Sunday!!!!  I have not graduated from the school of "Trust" but I have a lot to look back on and hold fast to the next time the storm winds blow.

Ok.....why am I posting after such a long absence from the keyboard??????  Drum roll please.......
After waiting 5 and a half months we just received our approval!!!  I would like to present Lyric LaWren Yarbrough.

We are so excited!  We should travel close to the end of October to China.  There is so much to do.  I can't believe that in a few short months, she will be with us.  Please continue to pray for all of us. There is a ton of paperwork to do this week and more to follow.  There are still funds to raise.  She is still half a world away.  Pray and ask God for a hedge of protection around her.  Pray not only for Lyric,  but for all the fatherless.  Cry out to our Adoptive Father for men and women  who will answer the call to care for the orphan and to be the voice for the oppressed.

Love is not always easy....

When I came home a few weeks ago from work, Brandon showed me this slideshow he put together. Of course I cried like a baby!!!!  It is of the first week of Phoebe's adoption in China.  Phoebe has given us permission to use it.  She was hesitant at first, but when we told her that God might use it to bring another child home, she immediately agreed!  What a sweet heart she has.  This slideshow is sad.  It shows a little girl who is angry, hurt, scared, confused, and who's world is spinning out of control.  It is a picture of a life without Jesus.  It is set to "Worth It" by Francesca Battistelli (love her!). This is the slideshow that is shown at the end of the service I spoke at Sunday and that I mentioned in my last post. Click on the link labeled "Worth It Slideshow" below to watch.

As you watch it, prayerfully consider the following questions:

1)        Is God calling you to care for the orphan?

2)        Who is the person that needs your AGAPE love.  The unconditional hard-to-do love…I pray your heart melted for that person.  They need Jesus and Jesus needs you to love them to Him.

3)       Are you willing to be the hands, the feet, and heartbeat of God?

Love is not always easy, but it is always worth it.

Worth It Slideshow

God's Story in Our Family

Yesterday morning, we were honored to be part of the morning worship service at Fairhaven Church in Demopolis where I grew up.  They have such a sweet fellowship.  They loved on my family and blessed our hearts.

Many people think it is crazy that I can stand and sing to thousands, but to utter one word without music leaves me frozen!  But it is true.  I almost cancelled a couple of weeks ago due to my fear.  But then, I claim that God has not given me a spirit of fear!  I pray I can always have the courage to do what He ask and that my life and the life of my family will always bring Him glory!

If you would like a narative on our journey, you can go to fairhavenchurch.net (can't figure out why this is not making a link...sorry) Scroll to the bottom and under live streaming, click on the route (mobile device, lap top..) you wish to watch.  It is the entire service.  In the beginning, I believe as the preacher said, Satan's imps were doing their best to distract us with the sound messing up...God took care of that quickly and everything worked out.

There is a special song in the service.  It is Lyric's Song.  As you know that is the name we have given our daughter waiting for us in China.  My amazingly talented friend, Deana Wood wrote it for us.  I love it and barely can get through it.  It talks about a "better love, a fire fierce, and gentle dove." See that is what it is about.  Yes, a child is given a forever family.  Yes a child is shown the love of a momma and daddy.  Yes a child is complety taken care of, but more than all that.....a child is shown the love of God.  It is a better love than we can give.  It is a fierce fire, yet it is gentle as a dove.  I pray that my girls will know this Love.  I pray my girls will love Jesus.  I pray they have a relationship with Him.

I hope you enjoy God's Story in Our Lives.....so far!!!

God bless

Oh....at the end of the service we showed a slideshow set to Worth It by Francessca Battistelli.  We are working on getting it uploaded to the blog, but so far have been unsuccessful.  Hope to have it soon so you can experience that moment with us.

Dreams......

We all have dreams.  Sometimes they come to reality a little bit different than we expect and sometimes they change as we grow.  Sometimes we chase the wrong dreams. Sometimes they are crushed.  Sometimes our dreams are delayed because we feel the need to share them with others who don't believe and discourage us. But sometimes they come true right before our eyes.  That is the case with my family.  I have the most beautifully messed up wonderful family in the world.  Yesterday I was telling someone how all my girls came to me and said that no one can tell me they are not meant to be my girls!  All three of their stories are incredible.  They are my dream come true!  You know pieces of Eden's and Phoebe's stories....you are very close to hearing about Lyric's story.  We were logged in to China's system yesterday (Happy Valentine's day from our Father!)  Now we are being told that we will wait about 2-4 months for the next step which will allow us to share a little bit about Lyric.  My gut says something different.  My gut says the process will go quickly.  It may just be the fire that God has ignited for this child in my heart, but I am excited to see what the time frame will be.

I am a bit nervous about the finances of this journey, but I believe God is whispering to trust and be still and see what He does.  I keep going back to Sara Young's writings in Jesus Calling for January 9th:  "If you decide on a course of action that is lined up with my will, nothing on Heaven or Earth can stop you!" I am so in love with Jesus.  I love that He is near, that He cares for me and my family.  That He chose to put us together.  That He gave me a husband who has a heart the size of Texas for the orphan and pushes me to adoption when all I can see are my circumstances.

Going back to dreams....
Over the Christmas holiday, we were in South Alabama visiting family.  After we came home, Austin, one of Brandon's cousins, sends me a message on Facebook.  He told me of a dream he had and I was moved to tears and chills and laughter,  and quite frankly....have you ever seen the movie End of the Spear?  If not, I recommend it.  There is a moment when the missionaries are being attacked by the the tribe they are there to minister to and the tribe stops chasing them and looks scared to death.  Later in the movie, one of the tribe members tells the son of one of the missionaries that they saw hundreds of people on the mountain behind the missionaries and became afraid and ran.  The feeling I got in the movie was the same feeling I got reading about this dream of Austin's.  The bible says we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses (the saints of old)....I wonder if that is who Austin saw!!!

This his Facebook message:
"Hey,  I just had a realization of a dream I had the other night.  I saw 4 people running down this path as hard as they could, never stopping.  I couldn't make out any faces, then I began to notice there were all these people standing on the side of the path.  I then realized they were angels all the way down the path.
The 4 people ran day and night, never stopping.  Then they got to the end and there was a literal hoop of fire they jumped through without even stopping to think about it.  Then more people came and stood around the hoop looking and waiting on something.  Then the 4 people emerged from the hoop, but they had one more person with them.  Everyone was so overjoyed and happy.  Then I woke up, felt crazy and asked God to explain what it all meant.  The next day it was all I could think about.
That next night, I had the same dream but at the very end, I saw that the people running were a family and the only face I could make out was the mother .....It was YOU!  .....and your journey to bring home another child."

Deliverance

Deliverance......"You are a hiding place for me, You Lord preserve me from trouble.  You surround me with songs and shouts of deliverance."  Psalm 32:7

So much to say...so little time to say it.  First of all, we have a daughter in China waiting for us!!!!  We have received our pre-approval.  We have sent off paperwork to immigration to be fingerprinted and to the state to be certified! Things are moving right along.  I wish that I could share about our beautiful daughter who is waiting for us in China, but it is against our agency's policies to publically share until we have our Referral Acceptance from China, and since our paperwork is not done yet, we won't receive that for a few months.  As soon as we can share her picture, we will!!!!

I want to give you an update (a few actually) since I have not shared in a few weeks!  Let me start by saying God is GREAT and I am sooo thankful that He is in control.  My husband works for the government. Just a few weeks after we started the adoption process this summer, our family was affected by sequestration.  Financially, it was hard, but it was a blessing to get to spend more time with him.  The sequestration ended early and life got back to normal.  Then we locked a file on a child in China and sent the paperwork that told China our intent to adopt her.  Normally you get an answer back (the pre approval or PA for short) within a week.  We saw family after family get matched and get PA, but ours never came.  Last Tuesday, October first, I prayed for God to please let us get our PA, that I was getting very worried that something was wrong.  I started homeschool with the girls and then the phone rings.  It was Brandon calling from work to tell me that we got our PA!!!  I was so excited!!!!  About 10 minutes later, the phone rings again.....it was Brandon.  He simply said, "They are sending us home."  Wow.  My world, like so many other's was being invaded by the the government shut down.  That night I went to meet with an amazing group of women at Huntsville Night Light, a community Bible study that meets at my church each Tuesday night.  I am the worship leader and my dear friend and mentor is the teacher. The lesson was on deliverance!!!! My God is so much bigger than my circumstances.  He is tender and loving.  He is holy and just.  He is mighty.  He loves us.  He hurts for us.  Let me tell you what I know to be truth.  Every day that I whined and complained to Him about not having our PA, He was holding me.  He was gently and quietly saying "not now, I know when you need it."  You see, my heavenly Daddy knew when He asked us to take this journey that we would shortly walk through sequestration and the shut down.  He knew when we accepted our daughter's file that her PA would be delayed and I venture to say that He did that for us.  He knew that on Tuesday, October 1st my husband would call and tell me he was coming home.  He knew that on that day just minutes before we got that hard news, we would need good news.... the news that China said yes and that we had a daughter!!!!  What grace and love He granted us.  We don't deserve it, but really, who does.  That is why it is called Grace!  I wish I could love God like He loves me.  Oh....He also orchestrated our yard sale timing.  We had it last Saturday and it just so happened that Brandon was off that week due to the shut down and was able to help me sooooo much!!!  The love we were shown on that day was unbelievable.  We had friends show up as early as  5:20 to help!!  Some came with doughnuts!!  We had friends stay for hours.  My bestie stayed all day!!!!! (5:20am-5:30ish pm)!!!!  Grammy ran the angel table and PawPaw watched the little one!  Friends made cookies as thank yous to our guests.  To all of you that helped, you are gifts to my family.  You practiced pure love and religion...you helped the orphaned!!!  For those of you who shopped, you practiced pure religion.....you helped the orphaned!!!  Thank you for your ministry to us.  We are forever greatful!

On another note...fundraising!!!  The yard sale was a success.  It was not what I had hoped for and prayed for, but I am learning some things.  Before we started this adoption, I wanted to throw out a Gideon's Fleece... Oh how God laughed at that. (So did Brandon when he saw how God laughed).  God showed me then that this journey was going to be different.  He showed me that we were going to get closer and it was going to be a bumpy journey.  He told me that I was going to be worked on and molded into something He could better use.  I should have known we would not raise the "x" amount of money I wanted us to on the yard sale, but I also should have known it would be right at what we needed.  I think that is how God is going to operate this time.  This is the second time in this adoption process that God gave us just enough money just when the bill for a specific part of the adoption was due.  I am thankful that He is taking the time to walk with us daily....no not daily, every second of every day He is walking right with us.  That is unbelievable to me.  The God of the universe is intimately part of our life!!!  I am so thankful for that.  I pray that He is with our daughter in China.  I pray a hedge of protection around her.  I pray that her care takers will be kind to her.  I pray that she has a sense of hope.  I wish I could hold her right now!  I wish I could cook her a meal and she could eat til her heart was content.  I can wish away, but the fact is, it will be months before we meet her.   She is in God's hands.  I know He is holding her.  He loves the orphaned.  Please join us in praying Psalm 32:7, a psalm of deliverance over our sweet child who is waiting for her forever family.