Women Of Faith

I just got back from an amazing weekend away, so amazing in fact, I'm having a hard time finding the right words to describe it!

So by now, most of you know the story of how we came to host Dzintars...but for those who are just joining us I'll include the "condensed version" here. I felt called to host a child this summer and was keeping tabs on the photolisting of available kids, I fell in love several times with kids on the list and each time I asked about another kid I was always told "no, we recommend you choose Dzintars." I didn't WANT to host Dzintars, I had NO DESIRE to bring a 14 year old into our house. I thought it would be much easier to host a younger child, one that would have more in common with our then 4 and 2.5 year old kids. But my “oh so wise” Regional Coordinator advised against it. Finally I relented and when she told me once more about Dzintars I decided to take her up on her offer of talking to a woman who had actually met him.

Enter Angie in Georgia.

Angie and a team from her church went on a mission trip to Latvia in 2010 and she had actually spent time with Dzintars in his orphanage and had firsthand knowledge of his sweetness and desire for love and a family. I didn't WANT to call this perfect stranger, I'm an introvert and talking to people I don't know is not on my list of fun things to do. But I did. She told me what she could recall and for most people our “relationship” would have ended there...but God had other plans.

While I continued to feel called to host a child, as a family we were unable to decide if the “timing” was right. It costs $2950 to host a child and we just didn’t have the money, nor were we sure we could raise that much money in the time left before he’d arrive. The “matching” period for the kids ended and I was crushed to see Dzintars and so many others that I’d been drawn to had not been chosen. This story should end there…but by the Grace of God the orphan court in Latvia agreed to give New Horizons one more week to try and find families for the remaining kids…on the VERY last day of that week I got a call from my afore mentioned “oh so wise Regional Coordinator” who said “I just got a call from someone who wants to put a full scholarship on Dzintars with the hopes that YOUR family will host him.” I’ll leave it up to you to figure out who that was, she doesn’t like to be in the spotlight…I immediately called Peter and told him what I’d just learned and asked him to pray for a few hours and then get back to me.

Obviously we agreed and said YES to hosting Dzintars.  

Angie and I became Facebook friends and kept in contact online. By the time Dz arrived she was a source of regular encouragement for me J

After much stress and laying at the feet of the cross begging God to find an adoptive family for the special boy in our home, we were elated when a week after Dz returned to Latvia I received a call from a family in Sacramento, CA that wanted to make him a permanent member of their family!

Enter Stacy (and Adam and their five sons). Stacy and I also became Facebook friends as I shared everything I knew about Dzintars with her.

Never in my WILDEST dreams would I have thought I’d ever be more than Facebook friends with these ladies. NEVER. I’m an introvert by nature, remember?? I don’t just go around building relationships with people I don’t know. About two months ago, while the three of us were talking back and forth on Facebook this crazy idea popped into my head….what if we did meet. It just so happened that there was a Women of Faith conference in Stacy’s area and I’d been really feeling called to attend WOF this year, but the one in my area was while we were on vacation. So I throw out this wild idea, totally expecting Stacy and Angie (especially Angie, seeing as how she’s in Georgia and flights to CA aren’t cheap) to tell me how crazy that was, or list a million reasons why it wouldn’t work. Turns out they are as crazy as I am, and Angie immediately checked her calendar and found she was in fact wide open for the weekend of the conference, then she hopped on the internet to see how much a flight would cost, and was shocked to find her normally very difficult to use Delta miles would cover the costs of a DIRECT flight to Sacramento. She bought the ticket and our plan for a girls only weekend was underway!

As my friend was driving me to the airport last Friday she asked “So? Are you nervous to meet Stacy and Angie?” I suddenly realized that I hadn’t stopped to give much thought to the fact that I was about to spend three nights and four days with two women I really didn’t know. Eeek, I was suddenly a little panic stricken…turns out I didn’t need to be nervous at all.

I can’t even put into words how impactful this weekend has been. Women of Faith was incredibly powerful, standing beside these two women, who not only share my passion for orphans but who are also part of Dzintars’ story left me in awe of God. God is so big, so infinite. Only God could take three women who were complete strangers, who could have gone their entire lives and never met, from “Facebook” friends to deeply connected, Spirit-filled friendships in a matter of months! Our only link being a boy in an orphanage on the other side of the world. My mind cannot comprehend the vastness of His plans and how much He longs to meet us where we are at and pour out His blessings.

While we started our weekend as “strangers” we certainly didn’t end it that way. We stayed up WAY TOO LATE every night and found out why women our age don’t normally have sleepovers, let alone 3 days in a row. There was little sleeping going on in room 5206 and Starbucks certainly benefited by our late nights and early mornings. But every second of our time spent sharing and investing in each other was absolutely worth it.

I know God well enough to know that he didn’t NEED me to accomplish His purposes and plan in Dzintars’ life. I believe He always intended for Dzintars to be adopted by Adam and Stacy and had we not hosted him God would still have brought him into their family. But He invited me to go on this journey with him, to enter into something so beautiful and redemptive, something I could never have foreseen or imagined. Had I let my own fears win, I would have missed it all! The outcome for Dzintars would have been the same because God can accomplish His purposes with or without my “help”¸ but had I not agreed I would have missed out on so many blessings that have occurred along the way. Surely, I would have missed out on two amazing friends that I now cherish!
 

Stacy, Me and Angie.



 

During the conference the worship band played a song called “Beautiful Things” by a band named Gundor. As I let the words wash over me I realized how applicable they were to Dzintars story and all that has happened in his life and in ours because we said "yes" to hosting him. If you've never heard the song take a moment and watch this video, it's so beautiful and the words are so powerful.

The chorus says:

“You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us.”

To most people, Dzintars  life was little more than dust, his life seemed hopeless, but not to our God. Out of the “dust” of this one kids’ life He has made so many beautiful things, a child once an orphan will have a family, ten other orphans are now being hosted because their host families stumbled upon Dzintars’ story on my blog or Facebook, and two women whose paths would NEVER had crossed with mine are now my friends. To see this story unfold and blessing upon blessing poured out, has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. Just when I think it can't get any better, IT DOES!! If you don’t think God cares for the fatherless, you might want to think again! He cares to the point of death of a cross and will weave the most complicated and beautiful story out of the “dust” to redeem what has been lost for these kids!

And if spending time with the girls and time with my Jesus learning from some amazing speakers like Angie Smith of http://angiesmithonline.com/ (who is awesome and amazingly talented by the way) at Women of Faith, wasn’t enough for one weekend, I also got the privilege of meeting Stacy’s husband,  Adam and their five boys! Wow! Seriously Dzintars, you don’t know it yet, but you are one blessed kid!! Not only are your mom and dad AWESOME, but your brothers are pretty rockin’ themselves! I have no doubt that God intended for you to join their family all along. They already love you and can’t wait for you to get here! As far as your family is concerned, you’re already “theirs” you just have a different address for the time being.

I totally failed in the photographer department and barely used my camera all weekend. And since three of his brothers are teenagers and I didn't break out the camera till the morning we left they were still sound asleep...Dz will fit right in;)

Me and sweet Teddy:)

 

Indy and Teddy, aren't they adorable???

 

If you don’t believe God is real I’m here to tell you that He is. And He loves you more than you could possibly imagine. Enough to use a boy who society and circumstance had cast aside and weave a story so beautiful sometimes I can’t even believe it and I’m living it!!!