May 17th - Phone conversations and more

 Rebecca's conversation between her and a delightful little 6 year old:

Child:  "So, when are you going to South Africa to get your baby?  It is South Africa right?"

Me: "Close, it's America."

Child:  "Ok, so when are you getting your baby?"

Me: "When they call us and tell us then we will get our baby.  We are just waiting for the phone to ring."

Child:  "So, when they call you, then you will have your baby?"

Me:  "Yes, but how old are you?"

Child:  "I'm 6!"

Me:  "Ok, well, it might happen when you are 6 or it might happen when you are 7, we just don't know."

Child:  "Ok, but I think it will happen when I am 6 because I will be 6 for a long time!"

Me:  " I hope it happens when you are 6 too, but I will tell you when it happens, we just have to wait for the phone to ring."

     I'll bet if you think about it you can remember times when you've been seated by the phone or had your mobile in your hand just waiting for that call. I can remember when I was going to get a phone call from an elementary school that I was hoping to work for and the expectation of the ring superceded almost everything else. I also remember back when I was 17 and excited about getting a first real job and expecting Pizza Hut to call to say whether or not I was going to be part of the team of making pizzas and pastas. Those are decent examples but in all reality the phone was going to ring soon enough with the answers to my employment questions on the other end of the line. For us presently we know that there is a phone call or email out there at some point which will most likely be very life-changing but the fact is we don't know when this important call may come.
     As you can imagine the question that we now face almost daily is 'do you know when you get a baby' and of course answering this almost daily can be a bit of a drain. With the adoption not happening until the timing is right we have no choice but to carry on living our daily lives. It's like this, when I get up in the morning I tend to think about eating breakfast, taking a shower, looking to see how the Rangers did in the previous nights ballgame, thinking through what I need to before going out, and checking email to see if there are any pressing issues. I don't immediatley run to the phone, sit down next to it and wait for a call from the agency in America. If that were all there was daily then that would drive us to craziness, but alas there is so much more in our lives than the adoption process which we have entered and have gotten well past the starting gate. There is the reality of leading the West Region of Basingstoke Community Churches, there are village relationships and activities, there is sharing our house/life with Lizzie, there is our wide range of relationships in America that we value, etc... so there is more to do daily than wait by the phone.

not my daily life but an example of a daily life

     What a blessing that while we wait in faith we are encountering many other opportunties to see God at work in our daily lives. Since our lives are about being and not just off doing this and doing that I think that we are able to keep this balance of waiting while going about daily living in a healthy balance.