Welcome to the new year!

Happy New Year!!

I hope everyone has had a very merry Christmas and a very happy new year. A new year is here and it is full of opportunity. I always get excited when a new year rolls around. What resolution can I make? Well, as you guys already know, we are going to adopt soon. Here is where we stand with that. We got our bathroom remodelled, thanks to some very good friends, still have a couple of classes left to take, need to fix some other things around the house, and we NEED the program to open. We had decided to adopt from Taiwan but with the agency we picked the Taiwan program wasn't going to open until the first of the year. Now they tell us it will be spring or early summer. This waiting is killing me. I get all excited and start getting things ready and then I wait. Rinse and repeat. I guess I need to get used to this because this is the way it will be during the adoption but I would just like to get started.

I have subscribed to the agency e-newsletter so I have been reading stories from other countries they work in and it makes me want to change my mind and go to different/all of the countries. It breaks my heart to know what these children endure and then to think about what we think is hardship. Paul says we can't adopt every child and I guess that is true. I am now praying for more people to look at adoption closer. I was never opposed to adopting and always knew that the children in the orphanages would be better off in a loving home but the more I learn, the more my eyes open, and the more my heart hurts for these children.

All of this has got me to thinking about what I can do. I am hoping that I can find some places around here where I can volunteer. Something to bring good to this crazy world. If any of you have any suggestions to this please let me know.

I know that some of my friends and family have faced some hard times this year and I will continue to pray for you. I may not show it but I think of these things often. More often than not these worries keep me up at night. I think we can get weighed down by all of our worries and troubles and not want to go on but we must. God has a bigger plan for all us. He loves us very much. We may not be able to see what he is doing but he will work all things for his good. All of this reminds me of one of my most favorite scenes from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Samwise always knows just what to say...

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.
Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for

I also hope, for all of you, that you can find/bring some more good to this world this year.