MY 30TH BIRTHDAY IN AFRICA

We began our LONG journey to Africa at about 5:30 in the morning on Tuesday, July 30th. Roughly 36 hours later we finally arrived at the lodge where we stayed for the week. So our first full day in Africa was ironically on my 30th birthday, August 1st.

I began my morning with my blow dryer blowing up.  I obviously didn't realize the plug adaptor can only handle so much. Normally something like that would have quite possibly ruined my day but I laughed about it and considered it a blessing to not have to worry about my hair and the long process of styling it for a week.

David surprised me with birthday video messages from those closest to me. Wow.... that was really incredible! The hubs got big brownie points for that. Thank you to all of you who sent videos and tried to send videos. I know some of them didn't come through but it meant the world to me!! I believe I cried through most of them!

After breakfast we walked to Makwati school (I am not sure that is spelled correctly but it looks right so I'll go with it). Let me just say, that in itself was worth the 36 hours of traveling and leaving my kids for a week! I have never felt so much love from complete strangers before! They literally tackled us and surrounded us with beautiful, joyful smiles! If I ever doubted that I could love a child not biologically mine before that doubt was completely gone.....never to return. I instantly loved all those kids and soaked up their affection!

I have never been around kids that were so joyful & genuinely happy! They have nothing as far as possessions go yet they know a peace and contentment that I can only dream my kids would know. They wear mismatched, dirty clothes and many of them didn't even have shoes on. They didn't seem to care about any of that though. Their smiles were contagious and their affection made my heart swell! To say David was on cloud 9 is an understatement! He was totally in his element and it was obvious that children are definitely his calling!

The whole day I kept thinking about the child God has picked out for us to adopt! I am more excited and anxious now than ever before to dive into this process. The day before we left for Africa our adoption application was approved. Our next step is the home study but we have to come up with $2,100 before we can move forward. So far we have about $800 and I must admit I am stressing a little about the rest. Normally we would have that money tucked away but in our quest to completely rid our lives of car debt we used our savings to pay cash for David's car. I know God did that on purpose though because he wants to show us that he can and will provide for what he has called us to do. As soon as our home study is done we can apply for adoption grants. Hopefully we will be able to get some grants to help pay for the rest.

We have some things planned for fundraising but those are going to take some time to get together. I have some events this fall & winter that I am going to set up at and sell jewelry made by women in Africa.  My car is up for sale and if we can get it sold we plan to buy something cheaper and use as much of the money from that as we can toward our adoption. David is going to try to find some side jobs like painting to help us raise money.  We will do whatever it takes..... so everything at the Wallace's is for sale (with the exception of our kids...haha)! The life of a child is worth more to us than our "stuff." We trust God that everything will happen in his timing. So pray that God will give us patience! 

For now I leave you with this verse that God showed me the morning after we visited the school.....
"Listen, my beloved brother, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?" James 2:5

Acutally all of James 2 is good stuff! I encourage you to read it!