Retraction

If you receive our prayer updates by email, you may have read today that we're prepping for our trip to Bolivia. If you haven't, you might want to catch up here before you read on.

And now, let me unsay everything I said, sort of.  You see, just after I submitted that letter for printing, posting on my website, and emailing to all of you, we found out that we can't go to Bolivia just yet. UGH!  I could go into all the gruesome details of the visits and phone calls with immigration officers that lead us to this untimely realization, but that'd be excruciating for most of you, and humiliating for me as it was my own failure to understand the system that got us into this mess.

The simple version is that at this point in Angie's process toward permanent residency in the U.S. we can't leave the U.S. or they likely won't let her back in. Whoops. To defend myself just the tiniest bit, we really have sought legal counsel, as you'll know if you're a lawyer-type in our sphere, but our adoption and immigration case is REALLY complicated and unique, hence I've been deciphering most of the legal jargon on my own.

So, now we're stuck with plane tickets we're not sure we can transfer due to black out dates and such, plans for parties, appointments, and meetings to be rescheduled, and about 70 pounds of goods, shipped from around the States, ready for us to haul to Bolivia, including a tablet computer, a keyboard, an ultrasound machine, a birthday package for one of our new vets on the field, Bible study workbooks, candy, bubbles, and gifts for the kiddos at the orphanage, the list goes on.....

If you had the misfortune of accidentally calling the day this news came to us, you know I was pretty devastated to say the least. And a sense of deja vu started to set in as I remembered a similar realization almost exactly one year ago, of exactly the opposite nature; we HAD to go back to Bolivia for U.S. immigration purposes, five days after our honeymoon, for four months! You can brush up on that fun news here.

But this go around, I recovered a little more quickly, because my nostalgia didn't end at the awful day when we learned of our fate to spend the first month of our marriage in separate countries, and the next three in Bolivia's hottest season, without any of our stuff. By God's grace, I also reflected back on just how trustworthy the Lord was in those four months. Instead of being a newlywed disaster, it turned into a sweet time of bonding and ministry together, maybe not something I'd recommend other bride and grooms try right out of the gate, but a period I wouldn't trade in our history. Check out all the blessings that experience brought us here.

We can all say that we trust God, but I'm the first to doubt His sovereignty when things start to fall apart. I wouldn't say that of course. I'd pray, "Lord, we know You're sovereign..." But when the airline we purchased tickets with to move home from the mission field last year shut down taking with them all of our money, when a nationwide census in Bolivia ruined our long awaited travel plans, or when Angie started puberty the month she turned ten and one month before we turned her world upside down with our wedding, my panic would reveal my true feelings, that God has let me down, that He wasn't looking out for me on this one. So, it was super generous of Him to teach me this lesson in such a remedial way. First, He allows a mess, He allows me to choose to trust Him or doubt, next He shows up in that mess and makes His purposes obvious. Then, He sends a follow-up mess so remarkably similar that even I can see the parallels, and again He allows me to choose. This time, even as dense as I am, I choose to trust Him.

August 2nd, we have an interview with immigration. Lord willing, we'll be granted Angie's permanent residency and be allowed to travel. And again, if God permits, we'll try to make our trip back to Bolivia for all the things listed in the prayer letter above, just before she starts school late August. Please, join us in prayer for all of this. And feel free to learn from the lessons God's teaching me, so maybe He'll spare you your own teachable trials. The disciples doubted Jesus could feed the thousands, even after He'd just proven He could a few weeks before, in the gospel of Mark. So, I guess we're in good company even if it takes a few attempts to get through to us...