God Is In the Details

Many people have called or emailed to tell me how proud they are of Peter and I, or to express what a good thing we've done in finding a family for Dzintars. It's nice to hear those words, but we're not the ones who deserve the praise for this. Ultimately the Lord orchestrated all of this--we only said yes to participating and playing a small role. To God be the glory!

And if anyone besides the Lord deserves some credit for this story it's Dzintars. Who after 14 years of heartbreak, disappointment and loss was still brave enough to say yes to a trip to a foreign country to live with a family he knew nothing about and who didn't even speak his language. You may be thinking "What kid wouldn't WANT to come to America?" Sadly, many of them have had their heads filled with garbage as to the reasons why Americans would desire to bring them here. So it was an act of bravery to board that plane, believe me! And despite his painful past, his heart was still soft enough to give and receive love and his story has impacted hundreds of lives.

But let's just look back on the details and events that brought him here and you will see...only God could have written this story!

• Long, long, LONGGG ago as I prepared to graduate from high school I was adamant that I attend Azusa Pacific University-no other school would do-even the ones ON the beach. Trust me, my dad tried...
• Between my sophomore and junior year I joined other students from APU on a missions trip to Russia and my eyes were opened to the needs of the orphan. My heart was stirred but I had no idea what I was going to do.
• Senior year I apply to be a resident advisor in the freshmen dorm where I met my friend Ann. After graduation we lost touch.
• Sometime in 2006 some dude named Mark Zuckerberg creates facebook and changes all our lives forever. This is KEY to this entire story.
• Ann and I reconnect on facebook, thanks Mark Z!
• Ann hosts a child through NHFC and starts posting about the organization and so my desire to "one day" host begins...
• In 2010 a church group from Georgia went on a missions trip to visit orphans in Latvia. One of them wanted to go to an orphanage in a far off region of the county, but it would be a long journey and they almost decided against it! Thankfully they went, and that's where Dz enters the story. He found advocates in these ladies and one in particular is of special importance to this story. More on her later...
• About that time I became a "blog junkie" and start stalking bloggers like Angela at Babe Of My Heart . Whose heart I LOVED!! Seriously, she rocks and she writes from her heart and it's beautiful and inspiring and challenging. She makes you want to be a better person. And she lives on the other side of the country so I just quietly stalked her blog for several years and she was none the wiser.
• This February I felt more and more drawn to the list of kids available for hosting, but after mentioning it to my husband we decided to wait until we had an extra bedroom to house a kid in. Even then, I couldn't pull myself from that list, I was drawn to many of them and fell in love a few times;)
• Despite our decision against hosting this summer, I still inquired about a few kids, not a teenager mind you. Cause that would be NUTS seeing as how my kids were only 4 and 2. Despite my best efforts to find a suitable child of a younger age, I kept being referred back to Dzintars.
• I finally relented and decided to gather more information on this child everyone seemed to love so much. I was told to contact Angie (on facebook of course), one of the ladies from the church in Georgia who had met Dz while on a church mission trip. She'd been advocating for him for YEARS.
• Still we decided against hosting, despite the fact that Dz had a scholarship for half the hosting amount the other half was still enough to keep us from committing. The time to choose a child for summer hosting passes and is officially closed with Dz STILL on the list.
• The orphan court in Latvia decides to give NHFC one more week to find host families for the remaining kids! Yay! I begin using facebook to advocate for Dz and the other kids who had touched my heart.
• Once again the FINAL day to choose a child comes and still he sits waiting with half his fees funded.
• I get a call from my NHFC coordinator, someone we have never met has donated the remainder of Dzintar's fees in the hopes that WE would host him this summer.
• Yikes! In that 11th hour God decided to remove our lame excuse regarding our lack of money and shove us off the cliff and into summer hosting.
• We pray about it all morning and then decide to accept and we sign on to host Dzintars.
• I spend the day in awe of the Lord and thanking him for this person (you know who you are) who loved this kid enough from afar to cover all his fees. Altering the course of his life forever.
• I decide to start a blog to share our hosting adventures with my family and friends.
• I find out that Andrea over at Babe of My Heart is also hosting through NHFC this summer. Hmmm! Small world. Who knew?? I friend request her on facebook and we become online friends.
• Dzintars arrives and is amazing--I chronicle his time with us on my blog. I have a TERRIBLE memory, so I used my blog as a way of documenting everything mostly for myself but also for my family who lives elsewhere and couldn't meet him.  
• Three weeks into our hosting period I begin advocating for a forever family for Dzintars. His story is shared by family and friends on facebook and hearts are moved and the blog begins to  reach people I do not even know.
• In an effort to reach more people with my advocating efforts I decide to ask my new friend and fellow host mama Andrea to blog about Dzintars, she's been doing this far longer than I and she has so many connections in the adoption community. Somehow I just knew her reach would be wider and possibly the link we needed to find Dz a family. You can see that post here.
• I get a call from a family in Northern California wanting more information about Dzintars. I forget to ask where they heard about him...
• Dzintars is then featured on another popular blog, No Greater Joy Mom and my inbox explodes with emails with "Dzintars" written in the subject line. Apparently he's touched many lives. His adoption agency receives more calls about him than any child ever.
• One and a half weeks later I get the call I've waiting seven weeks for. Dzintars has a committed family! Better yet, they're right here in CA!!
• After connecting with the family via email I come to find out their friend had seen the post on Andrea's blog about Dzintars and emailed them saying "I think this is your son!" If you'd like to read more about that special email you can do so here!The rest is history...

So while some would say Peter and I did this, I would say we all did! ALL these people are key to this story. If you remove any one of them the whole story falls apart, the puzzle would not be complete. We do not deserve any accolades for the way this story played out, maybe we should praise Mark Zuckerberg for creating facebook because certainly the social network played a key role in this story:) We only did was we felt God was calling us to do, the rest was up to HIM.