Lazarus and Moses

We continue to intercede for our daughters and are so grateful to the many of you who have committed to stand with us in this process. Thank you for your blog posts, your emails, your texts, your cards and your phone calls. You are giving us the hope we need to endure.

Today I was praying for the girls and I was reminded of two passages in Scripture that seemed relevant to our situation. In John 11, we are told that Jesus "cried with a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come forth'. And he that was dead came forth." I am asking God to call our girls to "come forth" and come home. If God can call a dead man from the grave when all hope seemed lost, He can call my children home regardless of what any official says. I was also thinking of when God used Moses to tell Pharaoh "Let my people go" (Exodus 8). I am praying that God will move in the hearts of the "pharaohs" in our situation to let our children come home. God made a way in the desert for the Israelites and He can make a way for my children to be released to come home. Once again, we covet your prayers as we pray that all obstacles will be removed so that the many waiting children affected by this delay can come home now.

I asked God today to affirm in my heart that He is at work. This evening, a neighbor who goes to our church stopped by to check up on our situation. After giving him our less-than-expected news, he told us had a story to share that might give us hope. He was recently out of the area on business and encountered a doctor who does aid work in Ethiopia. He told the man about us and our experience thus far. The man began to share about a beautiful eight year old girl that he is helping to support in Ethiopia. She is being raised by nuns because her mother is involved in prostitution. He asked our neighbor if he wanted to see some pictures and mentioned how much he longed for her to be adopted by a family. Our neighbor said he felt this was a "divine appointment" because when we looked at her picture he knew they needed to adopt her. He came by to share the good news with us. He and his wife are in the early stages of the process of trying to figure out how all of this will happen. We will have an Ethiopian neighbor for our little girls to play with just a few blocks away thanks to God moving in the hearts of a compassionate family. Our neighbor's 17 year old son even offered to give up his room for her because he wants to do whatever he can to make this little girl his new sister.

So God is at work to redeem and to save and we wait expectantly for news of our deliverance. We need to cancel our plane tickets in two days but we are not yet ruling out a miracle this week.