The Waiting Game

The house is completely finished with repairs and ready to have people live in it! Exciting! The down side is that right now our house moms pretty much have nothing to do while we wait, and wait. Our goal of having the house done in January happened, but it's not open yet since we still haven't gotten the green light from child services that allows us to take in girls.

The beginning of last week, we learned that the lawyer from child services who was helping us get all our paperwork in order for approval is no longer working, due to other circumstances. Our lawyer who was helping us with other legal affairs before December had surgery done right before Christmas break and was on medical leave until last week. It was pretty cool seeing how God orchestrated the transition so smoothly. Our lawyer is super good at what she does and has a great heart to see this process go through, and she's been on top of everything since we met with her late last week and debriefed her on where we were at in the process with the first lawyer. We found out that a few papers were overlooked, so it will probably take until late next week to obtain those, but she's pretty confident we'll be able to head into child services headquarters by the end of next week to get their final approval and a date set for the home inspection.
We're so close - yet it seems like we've been saying that for a while already.

It's been hard to know what to write about these last few weeks because, while I keep busy everyday with constant paperwork, translating, and internal processes, externally we've been playing the waiting game. But through my sister's wise words, God reminded me a few days ago of how important it is to take this time to focus on the things to be thankful for such as:
~ a huge wonderful, beautiful safe house ready and waiting to welcome each precious girl who will be calling it home
~ time - to breath, to get more plugged into the local church and community
~ our staff - a guard with a deep rich voice who sings worship songs while cleaning the yard and a heart to do nothing but serve his Savior, two house moms (or caretakers) who cheerfully go about setting up the house and come up with new ideas every day of things they'll be able to do with the girls once the home is approved, my bosses who are beyond incredible in patience and example of what it means to listen to God, and an indispensable fellow personal assitant who is able to do things I can't or have no clue about (and always, constantly is making us laugh!).
~ connections with more ministries and a group of friends that came from attending a four-day conference two weeks ago - I'd been praying for a group of friends to connect with and although we're scattered throughout the island and didn't know eachother before that conference, we're staying in touch through chat groups and already planning a weekend of camping in the mountains around Easter time.

God has continued to lead us so clearly to the correct connections in the departments we will be working so closely with. Our program is different from anything set up in the Dominican right now, so we're breaking some new ground, which could easily be a whole lot more complicated without the right people on our side. It seems like each time we crest a hill and say, "This is it - this is so exactly where we should be." God brings one more connection and opens a whole new field of possibility ahead of us. It's exciting! And while I sit here writing about it I wonder at my own little narrow mindedness and tendency to be so impatient!

While our hearts may be full and ready to burst with anticipation and desire to see precious souls find healing, I keep thinking about how much fuller God's heart must be. The Father, who sees each precious life He created suffering every day and going through abuse every night...how full His heart must be.
I pray for a heart like His.
And I pray for His will to be done.