February 13th - Up and Down All Around

About the only sure thing we know about this trip is that we are here for at least a month, what happens within that month is what we are unsure about. So far this calendar year has been full of ups and downs, I'm sure that is normal for many people but the swings we've had felt quite drastic. As you may have read in earlier posts we were asked to move by our landlord because he is going to sell the property, and the original date for moving out was while were here in America. It's hard enough moving house, try doing it when you're not in the country. Anyway we did in fact get that changed to where we can move at the end of March instead which gives us a little under three weeks once we're back, but we have a place to go to. When you're in the middle of indecision it is easy to worry and worst-case scenario, but that is when God is at his best in the eleventh hour. We handed in the papers on the new rented house on the Saturday before leaving for the US, so not much extra time, a couple of days to be exact.

While there has been uncertainty on the housing front in Overton there is of course uncertainty and the potential for the canyon of worry to have to be crossed while walking through our training and interviews here as well. Wednesday was a day where we relaxed a bit in the morning, then did a couple of errands, hung out with Karisa at IHOP (they have some great breakfast food, the kind of chow we don't usually get in the UK) and heard all about her latest travels. Eventually after Rebecca had gone back to her old school West Side where she taught we ended up at Meijer, now this may not sound interesting especially to those of you in Michiana but for us who are used to shopping at Lidl or the Co-op, Meijer is like another world. Take your largest Tesco and then add another half of one on to that and you have the Meijer we go to. It has everything to say the least, and choice is what hits us in the face the first few times we darken it's doors. For example we were in the cereal aisle and Rebecca said just grab one of them that's on sale, sounds easiest enough so which of the 85 varieties that have a sale price do I choose, at Lidl I simply pick up the only Fruit and Fibre choice and put it in the trolley. Enough about our shopping, we did get out unscathed and back to our home away from home for a while.
We were quite nervous because coming on Thursday morning was the first part of our home-study, ironic in that we don't have a home to study here. It is more of a study of us, are we cut out to be adoptive parents, what are our strengths, weaknesses, stories of life etc... In short we of course loved this as it was great to share with our adoption specialist over the dining room table about life. It was not intimidating rather very relaxed and interesting as we shared and listened to her stories and thoughts. We found out that there are three of these sessions so as the first three hours drew to a close we started to look forward to the next meeting this time in Kouts not here in our little house in Goshen.