Can You Say Overwhelmed?

People always laugh when I say I am busy from October to January. It's true, but this year its even more true with Little Guy in Gymnastics. We have practices and meets to go to. Our weeks are full, and our weekends are filling up as well. Throw in birthdays, cookie exchanges, Santa Breakfasts, Christmas, Parties, and whatever else comes up and I am surprised I am still standing when January rolls around. So let's add on top of that, the fact that next June, we are planning starting the adoption process. Seems like it should be simple enough, right? You pick a country, pick a child, and bring them home! Nooooo.... I knew it was an involved process, but until I started researching it, I had no idea how involved. For years I have always wanted to adopt a little girl from China, but as I read more, and pray more about this decision, I find my heart led to Africa. The past month or so, I felt like a slightly deranged person, China! No India! No, Romania? Ethiopia! Wait... Haiti? It is HARD. And I wondered how I would know when I hit the right country. My first inclination, since we put an 8 mo waiting and praying time frame on ourselves before we officially start this journey, was to pray, and work on our finances, pay off bills, and starting an aggressive savings account to put us in a good starting position. That is what my brain wants to do. My heart wants to look, and read, and research children, and their countries, and the laws. I have signed up on websites to receive emails on waiting children. Typically that is 2-3 emails a day. Today, I opened one for a little 4 yr old girl, from the Congo. I am pretty sure she didn't mean to, but she climbed inside my heart. How does that happen from just a photo? Adding planning to adopt to our plate is overwhelming enough, now add in the financial aspect of it! $33,000 That's the amount it will take. I can't say I understand the purpose of a lot of the fees. I feel like it should benefit the child, maybe the orphanage, but instead I feel like the country is using it for its own purposes. I could be wrong though. It makes you think about all those commercials, where they talk about how for $1 a day, or .50c a day you could feed a starving child, or provide fresh water. But it takes $33,000 to give a child a loving forever family and home?? Shouldn't that go to build another building, or dig a well, or make the country a better, cleaner, better fed place? It is overwhelming because I wonder how we will raise that much on our own. And that is when God reminds us, we won't be. He is going to provide for us. Through donations, fundraising, and however else He sees fit to lead us! Pretty awesome if you ask me! Bookie asked me this morning, "So, how far along are we in our adopting a child?" Today I didn't have much of an answer, hopefully that changes very soon! Questions like that? I am overwhelmed, but with love and awe that our children want to open our home to a child who has none, and I want to be overwhelmed like that every day.