Uno Dos Tres Quatro

Uno Dos Tres Quatro Cinco... This is how we would count in Spanish to begin to number the children that we have been receiving files on lately. Let me first begin by saying we are in the hands of a Mighty God. One who has control over everything. I pray you know this. I pray he continues to make this known daily to me and my family.

To update you: We are done with our home study, about half way done with our dossier and are waiting to hear from USCIS (US Immigration) for approval of our family as we speak. It sounds like we are coming along, and we are, but don’t let me fool you, although God’s timing is perfect and he knows when and for who exactly we will be in Colombia for, we still have a long way to go! But it’s definitely progressing well!

So as we count in Spanish or English or the exciting mix of both a.k.a Spanglish that I am ever so excited to hear echoing down my halls (yes that’s in the dictionary-Spanglish-I checked!) As we contemplate over kiddo’s files we also pray. We pray that God will give us that “there they are” moment when we first hear of them or see them in a pdf file that will most likely come at some random hour of the day and lead me to jumping out of my chair and my co-workers laughing at me. We pray for them at night. We have immediately known that some are not ours but still we want to pray for them.

Last week we were looking over the files of a sibling group. As I re-researched on WebMD and Mayo Clinic all the huge long medical words that I did not go to school for… which side note: no matter how many times you look up medical conditions they always change when you look at individual kids…crazy cool how complex our bodies are that God made!

Anyway…my point in writing this was to share this beautiful realization we had! That feeling when you have been trying to describe something and WINNER finally are able to put it into words! Halleluiah! As we prayed for these kids we laid in bed and I just could not stop thinking of things to pray over them:

Lord help them deal with “fill in the blank”

Lord surround them with love tonight

Lord be present in their lives

Lord let them lean on each other

Lord help him focus in his studies

Lord help them diagnose her more clearly

Lord let them know they are wanted

Lord show them they are desired

Lord give patience to the workers keeping them

Lord let them feel safe right now

Lord show their future family who they are 

Lord help her know she is beautiful

Lord tell him he belongs to a King

God help US to discern!!

As we said our amen together I still laid there and couldn’t shut my mind up! Holy Spirit don’t you want me to get a good night sleep! I hear:

Pray for their bodies to heal

Pray for their biological mom

Pray for them to be calm

Call out their names to me

Pray for opportunities to arise for them

Pray for them to have fun being kids

Pray for them to know someone is coming for them (maybe us maybe not)

Pray for their extended family who can’t care for them

Pray for the government as they decide who their future family will be

Pray for their paperwork that it is translated correctly

Pray that someone will show them Jesus and teach them about him

Pray that they don’t give up hope of a family

Pray for her to know that she is cherished

On and on I couldn’t get my mind to calm down with things I felt specifically I should be praying for them for. Honestly they were coming to fast into my mind that I had a hard time keeping up with what to pray for. Some were so specific (some I cannot share due to confidentiality promised to their government)

Pray for her face

Pray for his emotions

Pray for his artistic side to explode and him enjoy being creative

Pray she knows that she looks different for a reason and that She was made in God’s image

Finally after laying there and feeling I was going to fall asleep from being tired of praying (sad I know) I had this sense of calmness… like Hey I’m done for right now. Weird to explain but I immediately felt the Holy Spirit say quietly to my heart…

“You are praying so much for them right now because no one else has before.”

 I turned to Nick and said Hey I think I’ve figured out why I can keep thinking of things to pray for for these kids (not just this sibling group but other kids too)

We are blessed to go to a great church, I work in an awesome Christian school, I am around many Christian families and friends on a daily basis. I realized that these kids I’m around get prayed for! maybe not on a daily basis, depending on home situations, but I know for a fact that our teachers pray for their kids, I know for a fact that my friends pray for their own children, I know that people at church are lifting up their children to the Lord on a daily basis. With the exception of people praying “Lord help the orphans” or our agencies daily prayer time for the kids that are placed in their hands to advocate for these kids are NEVER PRAYED FOR. Or at least that is my assumption. I would love to be wrong but I’m pretty sure no one else in the world is sitting in bed praying for ____, ______, & ______ or praying for _____ & _______ or for little ______.

I suddenly felt a great sense of privilege as I thought of a passage that explains this so well. In my weakness to pray for these kids that we know nothing except for 2 pages of info about…. We pray in our weakness and the Spirit intercedes for us!

How cool that God chose last week to use Nick and I to pray for these kids that we may never meet, but to go to sleep knowing they had been prayed for specifically and BY NAME, was such a peaceful feeling.

  

Romans 8:23-27 says: ²³ Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

²⁶ In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

As he searches our hearts he knows the mind of the Spirit. How cool that when we would have had no other way to pray for these kids and not known what to ask for, the Holy Spirit totally takes care of it on our behalf and also on theirs.

Lord thank you for giving us the privilege to be the ones to pray for these kids! Lord our heart is that many more of them would be prayed for BY NAME and that we would cry  out to you when they are unable to or do not know to. Lord I pray you hear our hearts and answer our prayers for these kiddos. Thank you for being the great advocate for us! Thank you for speaking to us in such a cool way and letting us hear from you in such a clear way. May you continue to speak clearly to us daily, and may we continue to trust you and your promises even when we feel like we can’t hear you.

Thanks friends for sticking with us through this. I ask that you would pray for a specific child one you know by name from somewhere specific. It doesn't have to be an orphan, but think of someone that may have not recently or EVER been prayed for! Ask the Lord how to pray for them and see what happens! May he bless you through it!

Till they are home,