What's up this week?

Seems that we've always got something interesting to look forward to lately, doesn't it? Well, it should be an interesting couple of weeks in front of us as we await reaction from the ministry about our case.

We spoke with Bogdan yesterday at baseball practice. He said that he spoke with the judge Friday and that he was very pleased to hear about Aleksandra Kowalczyk and her interest in helping us out. He will be going on vacation for a couple of weeks sometime in either July or August and has his last court appointment scheduled for late June. However, he said that as long as he is in town he will convene a sort of ad hoc hearing to finalize our case whenever we get the green light from the ministry!

Bogdan worked diligently Friday to gather all of the necessary documents for Ms. Kowalczyk and will be organizing them and trying to get them out by courier tomorrow. He is also including a note asking for their quickest judgement, citing that the kids would be starting school in the states on August 15 and we are wanting to have some time with them there beforehand so they can acclimate a bit.

I was praying about this all today and just thinking how excited I am to see how this plays out. God dropped last week's phone call on us, seemingly out of nowhere and at just the right time. I was just praying, asking that He provide another huge blessing like that by way of timeline. We'll see.

I've started reading a book I've had around for several years now called "If you want to walk on water, you've got to step out of the boat". For some reason it's never felt like the right time to read it. Don't know if you know what I mean. It's just always been there, waiting for the right time (although Vicki's read it twice I think). And as has been the case with other books of mine, I'm finding that it is really speaking to me now.

I bring that up as we have "talked" a lot about faith through this entire process. The author, John Ortberg, mentioned today that while people talk a lot about needing to have more faith in life, what they really need to do is just get to know God better. Doesn't that sound simple enough?

I read that and began thinking about how over the past two years I have been doing just that. This has been an amazing time of deconstruction, as I've taken apart the beliefs I've held to for so many years, and reconstruction, as I've put it all back together ensuring that everything I hold to be true is in line with God's Word...not just "what I've always heard." That process has really changed me. No, I'm not perfect...most of the time I feel pretty inadequate. But I can say for sure that I know God so much better. I've seen Him work in so many different ways, always showing Himself faithful to His own character, to His Word.

I guess looking at our perspective through all of the challenges we've faced, I can unequivocally stand in agreement with Ortberg. I can say that our faith has grown immensely, but really that has been the result of getting to know God so much more...having to trust Him completely, knowing that we aren't able to truly accomplish anything by ourselves.

What a journey this has been!