more pictures................

Okay, here are some pictures of the inside of the condo. The blue bed is in the guest room, and then there is the boys room (except for it is pink!!)above is the living room!

Ryan & I started spanish lessons a couple weeks ago, and I am loving it!! We are reviewing a lot right now, but I hope to master enough phrases to help me out while I am there. There is a large spanish speaking population where we live now, and I have found a dear soul from church who teaches spanish and is willing to help us out!! Actually there are a lot of people in the congregation who are learning to speak spanish, and quite often there is a portion of the service done in spanish!! Very cool for us, who are trying to learn! This is just one more blessing of being right where God wants us!

A few pictures of our place in Antigua............

Well, I tried to pull up all of the pictures of our condo, but could only get 2 at this time. So this is the view from the front gate looking toward our condo, and the other one is the pool, and our condo in the background! We have a gated community, and 2 guards there 24/7, so for all of you who are nervous, we got a safe spot to stay!! There is a nice green area for the boys to play! The location is about a 15 min. walk to the central plaza, and 10 min. to la tienda!(store) It is actually only a long block away from the hotel we stayed at during our visit trip! The town is very walkable(except for the cobblestone roads!) I will be posting some more pictures of the condo, and some of the pictures of Antigua that we took on our first trip! It is such a cool city, lots of very old buildings, and the rest of the city is just continuous walls. It is so different than anything we had ever seen before, and I am excited to go back! There are a lot of very modern stores, hotels, and restaurants, however it is so hard to tell what and where they are because of the walls. I have a picture of the outside wall of our condo which I will post next time, and from the outside it doesn't look like any thing special, but once inside, it is amazing!

We got news this week about another friend who got their baby's birth certificate!! YAY!! One of our friends picked up their daughter this week(double YAY!), and they held Anaya, and gave her love for us and said she was "perfect, healthy, and beautiful!" I hope to be getting a picture of her, from them soon!! We are continuing our prayer that Anaya's b.c. will be released very soon, and truly have confidence in the power of God over the evil of this world! We are also praising God, that in a month we get to hold our precious daughter once again!!

Guess what Easton got.....

His passport! That's right, he's going to Guatemala too!

We have plans in the works to travel down to Guatemala to be with our baby. I NEED to BE her mommy, I have a heart divided, and I can stand it NO MORE!! Look out Anaya, here we come!!!

I am planning to go down with Dylan, Jayden, and Spencer, along with my sister Jen! We are leaving on April 28! Unless of course, we get her birth certificate sooner than anticipated, that would be great! But for now, we are planning to stay in a condo in Antigua, Guatemala. Ryan and Easton will be coming down on May 2 (the same day Jen returns home). We will be there to celebrate Anaya's first birthday together!

Ryan will be leaving on May 6, and sister Steph will be flying down to stay for a while. At this time the rest of the trip is open ended, we are aware of the fact that we could get another preview, and then we would have to head back home without our daughter. That is an awful thought, and we pray that will not happen, but we didn't want to miss her very first b-day either! If however we do get her b.c. sometime before May 12, me and the boys will stay until the adoption is completed!!

How long will that be you may ask? That is still a mystery, it all depends on when we get that long awaited birth certificate! We are supposed to hear by the week of April 21. However, this IS Guatemala, and who knows what they will do. But for now, we are counting down the days until we get to see our daughter/sister!!

I will post pictures of the condo later (it takes forever, and it is late!) If anyone is interested in joining us in Guatemala we may have a week avalible!!!! Think of the fun, 5 kids in a third world country! What an adventure!;D

Count your blessings...................

This week I am going to focus on counting my blessings, rather than dwelling on the one thing I don't have, Anaya(she is not a thing, I know!) I have 4 beautiful, healthy boys, and a very loving and wonderful husband, family, friends(old and new), great house, and the list could go on and on. I thought I was just going to cry this week, since it will be my first Easter with a daughter, and I still can't get her that Easter dress!! But instead I will focus on the real reason for the holiday, and give thanks that I serve a living God!!
One of the bad things about being a pastor/pastors wife, is that most of the time when Ryan has to preach, the thing he is preaching on seems to be something that we are struggling with. Take the last 2 weeks for example, Ryan had to preach on God being our refuge in times of distress (enter major distress when we weren't issued our b.c.) and then this week, on the righteousness of God (did you see my post a few days back?) I was not convinced that God was right!! He has a few weeks off from preaching now so hopefully we can go for a while without any spiritual struggles!!
We will be getting another picture and update of Anaya again this week, so that is always something we look forward to! Our friends are leaving on Tues. to be with their daughter and celebrate her 6th b-day with her before they bring her home late the following week! We met them when we were visiting Anaya, and are so excited they are done!! We always said that we wanted them to get her ASAP because she knows what is going on, and misses them. One more thing to be thankful for!

1 down 5 to go.....................

God carried me through this week, and I am so grateful that He did. I knew He would. It has been a tough week, we were so happy (and sad at the same time, that's exhausting!;))we found out that another dear friend got their daughters birth certificate this week!! We are glad some of the sweet babies will be going home soon. At the same time, we realize Anaya will still be there when all of her friends are leaving! I know she is young, but I wonder if she will wonder where we are. We ARE coming sweet baby girl!!
We have 1 week down, and 5 to go.
We are still praying for a miracle, and know God can do that if he chooses, but it looks like the civil registry will probably take the 30+ days again, so we are prepared to wait. Right now we are praying it won't happen again, there seems to be nothing we can do, but wait, and pray. They could preview us again, and again, and as far as we can tell no one is able to help. So when we do get it, it will be nothing short of a miracle!! Our agency has been getting about 50% of the files out and the other 50% getting previews! But we(and one more family) hold the title for the longest stay in civil registry, to date!! Yeah!!
Last week, I found peace in Isaiah 43:2, and this week, I kept reading and found the rest of the passage pretty cool. Isaiah 43:5&6 "Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, "Give them up!" and to the south, "Do not hold them back." Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth.
Give her up I say, don't hold her back!!
Well, thanks for praying for us, we are so grateful for your love and concern.

pictures, as promised...................

Well, I have figured it out!! I know you are all so proud of me, miss 27 words per min. in high school, has her own blog!! What you don't know is how long it takes me to do this this thing!!

I don't have the pictures of the boys rooms on this computer, so maybe another day I will post some more! So that is all for now !!

God is still on the throne..............

Although I feel like He made a huge mistake, I have had the weekend to contemplate our situation, and I have come to the conclusion that God is still on the throne. I am glad that he is not up there popping Rolaids and thinking "wow, I didn't see that one coming, now what?"( Like I was here on earth.) No, he knew full well that we would endure, yet another set back in this adoption. Now the usual question is Why? But, I don't know why, probably never will, but I do know that God said in Isaiah 43:2"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze."(NIV) So that tells me that sometimes "things" are going to happen, but I will be okay!! And that is where I am right now. I am okay. Things could be worse, and I am going to try to make the best of this situation. I have a few ideas on how I could make lemonade out of the lemons "life" just handed me, so please be in prayer for us as we seek some direction from God as to what to do next!!
I have found a huge blessing in the midst of this, and that is our new church family, (not that the old church family was/is not a blessing, because you are!!) But, several people, like 8 or so families up here, are either adopting or have adopted recently, and they understand exactly what we are going through. Someone last night commented that the devil is working overtime on delaying these adoptions, for whatever reason. So that just made resolve swell up within me, and everyone there, to just keep all of the precious children in our prayers. God is bigger and He will do mighty things, just we wait and see!!
Tomorrow, If I can figure it out, I will post some pictures of our new home, as many of you have not seen it yet! I am not all that talented at this blogging thing yet, so bear with me as I learn! We are not allowed to post pictures of Anaya on the web, so that is why I don't have her on here, but I will try to post some of the boys, as it has been a while since we have seen many of you!!

Not good news...................

Well, we finally received the call, and instead of the good news we've been praying for, we got... NOT good news!! Unfortunately, we got yet another preview. What this means is, instead of picking up our baby in a few weeks, we will still be waiting on our baby's birth certificate! The civil registry has asked for another document, which our agency has gotten, and resubmitted our file, but they now put us in the back room for another 30 business days. (which is 6 weeks or more with Easter coming up) We are happy for friends who got their baby's birth certificate, and will live vicariously through them for a while, I guess!! This also means that we will more than likely miss our baby's first birthday!! While I realize, we will have many more, it is just one more milestone that we miss. Now we are trying to decide if we should visit her, or just wait it out. The last time I left her was AWFUL, so I really don't want to do that again, however, it has been 9 months since I held her in my arms, and I am missing her very much!
God has given me an inner peace, that I know it will be okay. But for today, I am sad!

waiting...............

Day 32 and still we wait!! I hate waiting, especially when what I am waiting for is so important! As my dear friend Jenifer (who is also waiting on her baby Ana's birth certificate) put it, "Its like being scheduled for a C-section, going in, and them telling you that they want you to wait another 6 weeks before they will deliver! Then after the 6 weeks, they still say come back later!!" That is what our lives have been lately, waiting!!! I must say, God has been so good to me, and most of the time he has given me peace. Last week, there were a few days when I was without, but this week, when I should be on pins and needles, I am at perfect peace!!!Isaiah 26:3You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.Thank you Lord for your peace!!
So, while we wait we are worshiping God for his awesomeness in such a difficult time!!! And still praying for good news today!! Today would be a great day for our birth certificate, as it is Anaya's 10 month birthday!!! Come on Lord, bring our daughter home!!

We came across this video last night and it was exactly where we are right now!!
9:45:00 AM
by Stacy