Our Letter ...

This is a letter we've written up for a few friends and family. Also wanted to post it here. Happy reading! :)
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"When does God begin His special plan in a life? Is it when He gives a promise or when He finally brings the promise to pass? Although it may not always be obvious to us, there seems to be one distinct moment when God begins a new story in each of our lives. He writes words on our hearts that long to be spoken and strain to be lived out. Then with His own great hand, He begins to write the script. Experience by experience through seemingly ordinary days, He supernaturally orders our lives. Only when we look back and reflect on what appeared to have been the ordinary events of life does it become clear what a miracle the Lord has performed." - The Strength of Mercy, Jan Beazely.

On January 4th we heard a sermon on adoption. A message of how we, as children of God, were orphaned children, lost without a home, until Christ came and adopted us into the Kingdom of God. And what a price He paid that we would have a place to call home, a forever family. His sacrifice was great, the reward greater still. What a beautiful representation of adoption. Independently, we were both deeply provoked, stirred, painfully and wonderfully moved to a moment of action. We were both silent on the car ride home from church, broken-hearted for the orphaned children and afraid of the awakening we both were feeling, but not quite ready to articulate outloud.

We have always had a little seed in our hearts to adopt a child someday, but with 3 little ones at home, adoption had been tucked away until "another day," at best. At least, so we thought. After that service, our hearts could not be silenced. Not another day was going to pass without us taking the next step toward reducing the number of orphans by one. On January 20th, after countless hours of prayer, discussion, meeting with adoptive families, and 100 hours of research on adoption agencies, we turned in our application to adopt through WACAP's Ethiopia program. It every sense of the word and to some people around us, it did not necessarily "make sense" for us to adopt. We weren't looking for more things to fill our life with, the financial expense is heavy, nor do we feel like amazing parents, or super qualified to do this. And we talked with much wiser people than us, to address all of these concerns. But the urgency would not relent and it began to feel like an act of obedience to us. We really cannot look lightly at what a transformation took place in our heart that Sunday. We walked into the service that day, sure our family was "complete" with five, and we walked out of the service, assured that someone else would be joining our family. It is amazing what the Holy Spirit can do in minutes, that we could not even have conjured up in years. One of our favorite parts of the process thus far, is the assurance that He spoke to us that day, and the unity we've experienced in being confident of this. How turbulent the waters would be, had we not been in agreement, even ever so slightly. That's not to say that the process has gone without some unexpected turns, but we were forced to "not doubt in the dark, what God had shown us in the light."

One of our unexpected turns, is how quickly the process has gone for us. It will only be six months from the time we applied to adopt, to the time she will be in our arms. We're approaching a week and a half until we leave for Ethiopia to meet our daughter and bring her home. We just couldn't be more excited. Another one of our unexpected turns was that Wai Tim was laid-off from his job of three years, 9 weeks after we applied to the adoption agency. Of course at that time, people inquired whether or not we were still going to adopt. And though we paused to ask ourselves the same question, we decided we believed that when the Lord called us to adopt it had nothing to do with money, so we didn’t feel any less called to do it because of the "lack" of money either. So we plugged on. Wai Tim has been so diligently looking for work, but times are tough for everyone, and he is still looking. We have moved back to Lake Chelan for the time being, as his dad has graciously allowed him to work on their family orchard until something else becomes available.

We wanted to take this time to share with you an update on our lives and introduce you to our new, beautiful daughter, Esther. On April 4th, she was found along what is locally known as the "Mewat River", at what they believe was around 7 days old. The police took her to a nearby orphanage where she stayed for two months. She has now been transferred down to a transition house run by our adoption agency, where she will remain until we pick her up.

We are also writing to petition you to be praying for us, our baby girl, and our travels. As the Lord leads, we are jealous for your prayers! Sometimes we have a stirring in our heart that there might be more to this trip than just picking up Esther. We are traveling to Ethiopia a week early to visit orphanages and just see if there is anything else the Lord would want to reveal to our heart while we are there. Please pray that our spirit will be soft to hear and receive His heart and direction. And for sweet Esther, please pray that she would feel "chosen" all the days of her life, and never "orphaned," that she would live in the assurance of God's mighty love and favor over her. Please pray for her protection, and that her health would be strong and freed from all illness.

Lastly, we ask that you pray for direction and provision for our family--for Wai Tim's employment and financial resources to cover our adoption fees. At times we've been sticking our head in the sand, and plugging our fingers in our ears and signing, "Flintstones, meet the Flintstones ... " to try and drown out reality. And it's fun while it lasts. At times there are moments of fear. But like I told Wai Tim the night he lost his job ... we still have everything that matters. I keep praying for a swift, clear direction of the Lord's hand in moving Wai Tim to his next new job. Neither of us care where or what, but just to have the assurance that it is where He desires for us to be. Though, that is not how He has directed us in the past. Our experience is that we fumble around alone, in what feels like the dark, without any sense of real direction, and then sort of fall into place. It isn't until much later that we can look back and realize, we were never alone, nor in the dark, and we ended up right where He was directing us all along. So the good news is, we'll probably end up where He wants us. The bad news is, we have no idea how, where, or when we'll get there.

We have partnered with LifeSong for Orphans, a non-profit organization that is dedicated to help meet the needs of orphan children around the world. LifeSong has established an account in our name, that allows others to make donations towards helping fund our adoption. All donations made are tax-deductible to the giver, and a receipt will be issued automatically. 100% of the donations made in our name with go directly to only our adoption. Our desire is to raise $13,000 by August 13th--every penny counts. If you are moved to do so, the details are at the bottom.

This has been an exciting journey, and certainly one that goes down in the memory books for us. We anticipate our trip to Ethiopia will also go down as one of the memorable times of our life. We are trying to document as much as can, both for ourselves and for Esther to read someday. We also post updates on many stages of our life and the adoption process at www.waiandkari.blogspot.com. We don't want to romanticize our experience or over-spiritualize it to say that this has been a perfect process and God couldn't have done this without us. No! We just simply tried to listen as best as we could, and be faithful to what we believe He is asking of our life. That's all. And is it not a call for all of us to "care for the orphans and the widows?" So even if we "heard wrong" that Sunday, we have the peace the Lord still has us in the palm of His hand, even in our potentially naive attempts to fulfill His commands. We feel speechless and so incredibly thankful to be a small piece of His very large masterpiece.

"In this life we cannot do great things, we can only do small things with great love."- Mother Teresa (whom Esther will take the middle-name "Teresa")

We love you,
Wai Tim & Kari
www.waiandkari.blogspot.com
Note: Donations can be made out to LifeSong and sent to: LifeSong for Orphans, PO Box 40 / 202 Ford St., Gridley, IL 61744. Please be sure to include “Petersen 873 Adoption” in the memo." Thank you so much.