- 3/31/2007 6:32:28 AMDay 9 - Saturday - The FleeceI set my alarm for 5:30 this morning. I wasn't going to see much of Peggy so I wanted to be able to spend a little time with here this morning. I also wanted to make sure I knew the times and instructions for todays visit to Appleton.
I started reading my email...more big concerns. The Blohoiak family has their daughter Lydia at the Mayo clinic to study her brain tumor. A couple from Oconto Falls is having their 3rd baby and apparently half of the baby's heart is either dead or malformed and it will have open heart surgery. The CMA district announced that the missionaries were going to have to take a 7% pay cut due to lack of giving. Some other very wealthy individuals bailed them out and now there will be no pay cut but this still reflects a big problem with missionary giving in the church. The large financial donations were nice but they are only a temporary solution to a long term problem. In addition to all of this I will have my annual performance review at work this next week and I'm beginning to be stressed about that. I also have a big lesson to work on for Wednesday night youth group. Pressure, stress, more pressure, more stress. I hope a diamond pops out soon.
I prayed about how much there was going on in my little world. Earlier in the week I read an article about "baby-drops" in Germany and how many women were killing or abandoning their children. There is so much going on - so much to pray about. I am thankful that God is a big God and nothing is beyond the scope of his ability to solve even though the sum of things is way beyond my ability to comprehend.
I started thinking about Gideon's fleece. I had been considering using a fleece to help me make the decision regarding Yuri and I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it for fear of a "wrong answer" - meaning one that I couldn't get my heart and mind to agree with. I thought of the consequences of throwing out a fleece and what happened to Gideon. Yes, Israel won the battle but it was not the way Gideon thought it would be.
So I began to mull over the details. What would the sign be? There are a few things that I thought would have worked out over the past year that didn't. For example, I had an opportunity to write a Journal program for another ministry last year. In the end, the deal fell through. I also worked up multiple prototypes for other websites. In many cases, I was very certain that it would work out but in the end it didn't. What if one or more of them called back? That would be a nice fleece.
I'm not a big lottery ticket person. I understand quite well my odds of wining, so I make it a habit of not playing. I realize it is only a dollar but it is the principle of the thing. I don't make it a habit of giving $3 to the Presidential campaign, I don't go to Oneida and give my money to the Indians and I don't buy lottery tickets. That is not to say that I haven't bought them in the past but I can say today that I honestly don't remember the last time I purchased one.
Yesterday Peggy said that she felt that the reason the amount for the adoption was so high was so that it would definitely have to be a God-thing if this was going to work... this smells like a fleece in the making. Now for the terms...
Peggy had always said that in the event we ever won such a large amount of money, she wanted to give half to the church. I have never bought into that idea and kept quiet about it. I had always believe that the church would get at least 10% of the winnings but I didn't know what else after that. I just knew they would receive a large portion.
Then I considered all the other families who were in the same boat we're in. Considering adoption but choking on the cost. What if the terms were as follows:
- Uncle Sam takes his cut
- 10% immediately to the church
- $50k set into an account for our adoption related expenses + a buffer for the unknown
- The remainder distributed to the other host families adopting children from this trip.
As I sat in the morning with Peggy, I noticed a book that I had checked out from the library - "How should we then live?" by Francis Schaeffer. Prior to the email telling us about the hosting, I was well on my way into a deep reading kick. I was consuming more reading than I had done in a while. Since Yuri came into our lives, I have not been reading very much at all. I think the Lord has been working-over my soul anyway. Scripture says "The Lord disciplines those he loves" and he prunes them as well. All the parts that don't produce good fruit are thrown into the fire. I can say for certain that pruning hurts. This particular pruning has been like cutting new teeth - when your jaw aches and your gums bleed and you just want to chew on everything. It hurts when you chew but you have that urge to bite down hard anyway. Or perhaps when you go to take a deep breath and you get a sharp pain in your lungs and you realize that you have to breathe deep anyway to get past the pain.
Peggy got ready, said "good-bye" and headed to the church to meet up with other women to attend the Women's Break-Away in Chilton. We hung out until 8:20. I told Yuri we were going in the "machina" and "bye-bye". He pointed to a photo that was taken when we were at the Vacation Bible School and said "schoola?". I said, "yes" and he quickly got his shoes on. I grabbed $1 in change from the penny jar from on top of the refrigerator and we headed out for Appleton. The drive was relatively quick and uneventful.
At first we went into the church and the kids practiced their song near the alter. Tomorrow there will be a second service where we will go across the street into the school gym and do it all over again. Most of the kids seemed to sing with a little enthusiasm. Yuri was easily distracted. I wondered if he realized or had been told that the end of the visit is near. He was extremely quiet on the way home. Then again, Peggy and Emily were not in the van and he was hungry.
On the way home from practice, we stopped at the Piggly Wiggly. James and I went in to pick up coffee, bread, milk and some sandwich fixings. The first stop was to the service counter where I bought a Powerball Ticket with change from our penny jar. James showed some concern and said, "I don't think I've ever seen anyone from our family buy one of those before. I don't think this is a good idea... walking around with all of that money!? What if you get robbed?"
I'm not sure he grasped the notion of "not having won yet". I told him that if Yuri were to stay with us, it was going to cost about half of our house. So in addition to paying for Yuri, we would still have to pay for our house. I said, "you know how you go to camp every year? That would stop." I didn't want to lay a guilt trip on him but I want him to be as fully aware of the the gravity of this decision. A few nights before, Emily had said in regards to adopting Yuri, "what is there to think about?" I don't think it occurred to her that she is not around very much anymore and Peggy and I don't have a secret stash of money some where.
Other friends of ours have suggested things like, "we can do a fund raiser!" The scope and detail of doing such things is very large and we have no estimates of the success of their success. What if we did a fund raiser and raised $1000 (which is more than we raise in a church youth group event)? That would be nice but only a drop in a very large bucket.
I told James not to breath a word this to anyone. I said, "practice keeping your mouth shut. Don't let this be anything that accidentally slips out of your mouth. I will tell the family. Not you." He asked why and I said, "do you remember the story of Gideon?" I didn't want to go into detail at the store about Gideons fleece, so I told him to read the story when he got home.
When we arrived at home, we made some very nice and thick sandwiches. Ham, turkey, salami, cheese with ranch dressing and pickles on the side. Yuri ate well and wanted cookies and/or chips and/or anything sweet he could get his hands on. I told him "no" repeatedly but I didn't raise my voice. It was just a flat, monotone, firm "no".
After lunch we watched one of our favorite movies (Napoleon Dynamite) while Ellie and Yuri played Legos. I don't think you have to understand English to get the core of that story because there isn't one. I took a nap on the couch. After the movie and my nap, I decided to work on my journal for a little bit but Yuri was very antsy. I decided to get him drawing and coloring so I fetched his paper, markers and colored pencils and began to draw pictures for him and Ellie. A truck and a fish. He colored his truck and that was the end of his drawing time.
Off and on he watched Megan putting together a toy roller coaster. He also played with a remote control car. We also watched the finished version of the Light-House video of this particular trip. Yuri was very interested in watching it. We saw images of his orphanage. From the video, it seems that they still have a fair amount of snow over there. I hope things look better in the summer because from what I saw... it looked liked a dumpy prison. Our prison here in Green Bay looks like the Hilton compared to that place. I pointed to the buildings on the screen and said to Yuri, "what is this". "Dom" he said.
