Prayer Warriors Needed

Hello everyone.  Sitting down to share some prayer requests that are needed here in the Saeger house. About a month ago (when we were on vacation in Minnesota actually) my sister noticed a lump on the side of my neck.  We've done a few tests and all of them have directed us toward the need to biopsy the area. The biopsy will be done Monday afternoon in Orange City.  Please pray for an accurate specimen, for the Doctor to have compassion for me-I'm an emotional wreck, please pray that the mass is benign and that the solution would be one that is minimally invasive.  Please pray for there to be no other areas of concern. Please pray for my family as they surround me.  Please pray that God's intention is for me to spend MANY more years enjoying my wonderful husband and kids.  I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of angry with God right now.  Why me?  Why now?  Haven't I been faithful?!?!  I feel lost, confused, abandoned.  Trying to keep things as normal as possible and stay busy but this has been one of the hardest weeks of my life.  Please pray that the next few days will move quickly and that we will feel God's presence and peace.

Updates & Haiti! (WARNING- LONG POST!)

Life is beginning to settle down a bit here, Scott returned to work this week after four LONG weeks off.  He is doing well and I think he's just as glad as I am to be working back into a routine.  When you are not used to being home together and one of you isn't feeling their best, things can get a little hairy, just sayin....  We have been busy during those 4 weeks and got to spend some time with both sides of the family doing summer stuff and making memories.

In the adoption part of our life, things are moving forward, YEAH!  My fingerprints cleared through the FBI process and any day now we should get word that the home study has had final approval and we can submit the rest of our documents for the dossier.  This is great news and each time we move a step closer, even if it's small my heart swells with excitement for the day we get to meet the newest member/s of our family.  At times I get anxious about the amount of time we will have to wait for this day but have made peace with the fact that this is all about God's timing and my human nature to want to rush it interferes with His will for us.

The rest of our summer is going to fly by I'm afraid, I'm leaving for Haiti early Tuesday morning and by the time I'm back, there will only be a few weeks left before school starts, ouch!  I am excited about the opportunity to go back to Haiti and pray for a week that is a blessing for everyone involved.  Our mission for the week will be distribution of school supplies and shoes.  This sounds like an easy task, but for those who will be receiving these items this is an intense process.  I can only imagine walking but one day in these parent's lives where they struggle to provide, feed, clothe, and care for their children.  These people are in survival mode and so the excitement of receiving new things also comes with the fear of being overlooked or left out, thus creating a potentially dangerous situation for everyone involved.  Haitians are not violent people, they are desperate people, desperately wanting what we take for granted every single day here, basic things like a pencil and a pair of shoes.   To add to the picture, these children will be walking down the mountain to receive their supplies, a 2-3 hour walk, one way.  They will not complain, they are strong, tough and could put us to shame.  Our goal is to give them water when they arrive and hopefully a meal before they leave.  When I ponder this process I question how far would my 3 and 5 year old walk to receive pair of used shoes and a back pack with a few supplies in it (keep in mind this is not a Spiderman folder or an Angry Bird pencil box, this is basic stuff-yellow No. 2 pencil, maybe a wooden ruler in a ziploc baggie).  Such a humbling picture I get in my head, I know the answer, it's not even comparable.  I am also hoping to go visit a special set of twin girls that I got to meet in February.  As a family we committed to purchasing some goats for them and their mom, hopefully they were delivered to her this week and there will be time to reconnect with her while I'm there.  These twin babies broke.my.heart when I was there in February.  Their mom brought them to the mission and they were in a fragile place.  So, so tiny and in my heart I questioned and felt like they were possibly so, so unloved by their struggling mama.  Prayer warriors have surrounded this little family and from what I'm told they are doing well, can't wait to see it first hand!  Overall I'm looking forward to a little time away from the commodities of American life, Facebook, work, silly things that consume my time and energy.  I'm looking forward to the mode of praying for my daily bread, safety, and all the blessings being so in touch with Jesus brings.  Honestly, going to Haiti (or any 3rd world country) is something I think everyone should get to experience.  I'm not saying you have to go, return, and completely change how you live your life but I do think seeing first hand how much in our life we take for granted, how much we rely on self instead of God, how consumed we are with "stuff", how much time we waste online when we could be serving our neighbor or community is a good self-check for everyone, me included.  I'd like to leave you with a few prayer requests (and a video) if you don't mind, until next time, for His Glory....Christy

PRAYER REQUESTS:
1.  For my sister Amy as she ventures to Haiti with me.  The enemy is filling her head with doubts and worries about her safety and leaving her family behind for a week.  Please pray that her week will be filled to the brim with blessings that only God can give.  Pray that she finds her purpose for allowing me to drag her with me to a crazy beautiful place.
2.  For safety for all involved and for an orderly, calm distribution process to be found.
3.  For health and well being for our team.
4.  For energy to get through our day in the Haitian heat and for peaceful sleep in the evening.
5.  For those we leave at home.  That the Lord would give them peace that we are ok and provide them energy to be single-parents.
6.  For team unity.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nnqOI4mVKc)

Greetings from Room 112

Greetings from room 112!  We've had another eventful week at our house and have found ourselves bonding over IV tubing and ice chips.  Mr. Scott's laid up recooperating from the effects of a ruptured appendix and thus a serious infection in his abdominal cavity.  He's headed in the right direction but we won't be going anywhere quickly, guess we will enjoy the quietness of no kids while we can and take advantage of the extra time on our hands to update everyone on what's up in our adoption world. 

First things first, we want to thank everyone once again for the tremendous support shown to us during our fundraising efforts.  The parties were a HUGE success and we are overwhelmingly humbled by your generosity.  EVERY purchase made is a blessing and an encouragement to us.  There are people we have never met, who thus know NOTHING about us, entrust us with donations and significant purchases, we stand in awe of God's promise to provide. It was fun to answer questions and share our story with those who asked as well.  Since the party, we have continued to receive orders and cards with checks and notes of encouragement, I hardly know how to respond (if you have encountered me in one of these "moments" I appologize for my social awkwardness, seriously I am stunned everytime this happens!).  NEVER in my life did I expect people to be so supportive, to give so willingly, to understand and support us in something that I thought few people had a passion about, I'm clearly wrong.  My ultimate goal for this process has always been that God would be glorified in everything step, decision, and action and that when given the chance we would properly represent Him and His will for us.  There is no doubt the actions of those who have surrounded us have fully glorified Him and I can only hope that we have done our job half that well.  Here are some fun totals of how things turned out!

Vibella Sales.....$1500!
Thirty-One Sales....$3600!
Donations....$795!

That all equals one AMAZING party!!  THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!!!!

Outside of the fundraising we are happy to report that our home study visits are complete and we are currently waiting on my fingerprints to clear FBI (Scott's passed no problem but apparently I have faint fingerprints that the scanner won't read.  We've sent off my second set and are hoping these come through cleared soon).  Once the fingerprints pass we can fill in the blanks on the actual home study report and get that approved by the necessary people.  We will also then finish up the loose ends on the rest of the items that need to be submitted for the dossier.  What's left is easy stuff like pictures of our home/family and copies of things like passports etc.  At that point (when the dossier is complete) we will submit for translation and then it can be submitted to the courts in Ethiopia.  If approved, we then become an official "waiting" family.  Woohoo!  One of the things people ask about is what kind of a child/children we are open to and how many.  We have at this point put in writing that we are open to 1-2 children between the ages of 0-18 months at time of referral boy or girl.  We would like to maintain birthorder within our current family and these are the parameters that will allow us to do that. 

I think that's all the excitement I have for today and so I sign off in a spirit of thankfulness, even in the midst of unexpected bumps in the road this week.  God is good, all the time. 

Lord, I Need You

As we move into a week filled with fundraising and parties, nervousness and anxiety plague my heart.  I pray that we've done our part and I yearn for the faithfulness to trust God to do the rest.  The financial aspect of adoption has been a stressor for me and I have often found myself desperate for a way to make this all make sense on paper.  But you see that's not really what God wants me to learn from this challenge.  I know he's wanting me to sit back and let him "show me his stuff!" and being the human being I am, I often in some capacity send the same message right back to him.  Up until this point we have been able to make each payment that has been due, but by the time our dossier is approved later this summer, we will owe close to another $12,000, most of which I have no earthly idea as to where it will come from.  Just like anything else the Lord places in our life we have two choices as my mom would say, "you're either going to like it or lump it, you decide!"  So I've chosen to "like" it, to see it as a challenge of my faithfulness in my Creator, to sit back and trust that this is in His control, to realize that making myself vulnerable to my community and friends is going to be ok because He goes with me, to remember that this call in our life is so much bigger than anything I can manage myself, and so I'm hour by hour making the choice to trust God for all I need and honestly, it's a really great place to be...

Adoption Fundraiser-Save The Date!

(click on picture to see larger)

ViBella Jewelry-  www.vibellajewelry.com

Thirty-One Gifts-  www.mythirtyone.com/akoelewyn

Hope to see you there!

Oversize Load

 

It's been one of those weeks (months actually!) where life is feeling a little out of control.  I was driving the other day and got behind this semi-load of bales with an "oversize load" sign on the back, I thought to myself "I know exactly what you mean!"  You see these bales had to have been sitting all winter, they were a little worse for ware.  When the driver started picking up speed, you guessed it, hay flew everywhere, they had a heck of a time "keeping it all together," and I had a hard time keeping my eyes on the road.  That's sort of how life is in our house too.  For far too long we've been doing the comfortable thing, sitting around doing "status-quo" but now God's got us out on the hi-way of a crazy life called to do hard things that stretch us.   There are days we feel a bit frazzled, like there is a little bit too much wind in our hair, a bit like we may fall apart at even the slightest curve, a bit like we can't keep our focus.  I knew when we said "yes" to adoption it wouldn't be easy, I knew there would be spiritual warfare in our hearts and minds, I knew we would be discouraged but I also knew that the ONE who called us on this journey would be right there holding us up.  

 

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” 

JOSHUA 1:9

 

So, when appointments get rescheduled last minute, and home study visits get cancelled because of snow and then the flu, when someone thinks the many hours we put into our homework isn't enough, or when finances keep us awake at night, we are focusing on HIS word...Do not be afraid about the money, I've got this.  Do not be discouraged that things aren't happening on your timeline, Mine's better anyway.  I have never left your side and I don't plan on leaving any time soon.-GOD

Leaving you with a few pictures, have a great weekend!

Fingerprints for our FBI check...

more fingerprints...

 

bloodwork and shots for homestudy and dossier!