January 25th - The diary and Kouts

     It has been quite some time since we last had news that could be shared on the blog. It might seem as though the whole process has come screeching to a halt, I tend to think of it more as the calm before the storm. When entering into this there are so many questions to be asked; is this the right path to take, what about the timing, can we afford it, how will this impact other areas of life just to name a few. We've all been there asking the difficult questions and once past that point the excitement and wonder kicks in to full gear. Well suffice it to that our excitement really took off once we found out back in October that this could actually be happening. Then the great time of telling our church family, going live with this blog and on facebook. At that point there was much to catch everyone up on, then the new hit arrived, the news was already given, there have been times of waiting, exchanges of emails but nothing too earth shattering really.

     We have been building up to our trip to Indiana in February and there has been much to get in place on this side of the ocean before traversing to the other side of the Atlantic. Leading a church as we do, and in our case one that meets in two locations means that walking away for a period of time as a month is not an easy endeavor because there is always something to be done, and certainly on a Sunday morning there is always some kind of responsibility. The way that the calendar has worked for our meetings in Indiana is that the mandatory ones are on the 7th, 14th and another one later in the month of February. We didn't choose the dates they were given to us, but the Sundays that coincide with our trip are 4 Sundays in a row where there is either a larger gathering that we are not responsible for, or it is an All Together meeting in West where there were already other people in charge of that gathering. That means for 4 weeks in a row we did not have any planned responsibility at the meetings, this is the first time since we moved to this country in '08 that has happened. It may seem like a small thing but in our lives that is actually a really big thing, how God has orchestrated the time for us, literally in this case.

     Last night we received an email with some more dates for meetings with an adoption specialist in Northern Indiana. We knew that we would have a couple of meetings in Indy and then a couple closer to Goshen. There has been one place that both of us said we really want to get to on this trip, one location that we don't want to miss this time and that place is Kouts and the surrounding area. There are many people that we have known for a long time, and friends we have not been able to see on the last couple of trips to Indiana. So where does our adoption specialist live that's right Kouts, out of all the towns, cities, hamlets in Northern Indiana that she could live in she's from Kouts, that small town known most for the Pork Fest each summer. This means we are headed  there at least 2 maybe 3 times. That's a little gift from God to us, as He has paid attention to the smallest of details on our behalf. So we leave in a week and a half, there are many details to be tied up on this end, but it seems as though some of the details on that end are already being take care of.