One stage completed.

I hope my clock is set back to my normal early US schedule, but time will be the teller of whether this is true. We did stay up until 8 last night, so that should help.

Today- Sunday- we have the privilege of being back with our full family in a service to openly worship the King of kings and Lord of all lord. We can celebrate His leading us to this place of adopting John David and changing our lives and his in this horizontal picture of what He has done for us vertically. There are some stages of earthly adoption, much like there are stages in our Christian life.

If the process is his vertical adoption, then John has just been accepted into the family and now there is a long road of sanctification to be conformed to the image of a child of the Family he has been adopted into.

We have completed the transaction of paperwork between 2 nations that don't necessarily see eye to eye on many things, but it has been agreed that John can be a US citizen and a member of our family. That is pretty amazing in itself. But there is a lot of work that needs to happen so he will be recognized, by others, as both a US citizen and a member of our family. The "formal" part has been done, but the inside change that needs to take place for him to be recognized as who he truly is will take time.

I am so thankful that God takes His time on us as He shapes and hammers us into the children He has called us to be. He adopts us into His Family to be productive members of His Kingdom, making us into vessels He can use to do His work, even though He could do it much better on His own.

Please pray for John and our family as we work through the next few months. We need wisdom to know how hard to push and how much to let him go through this process. He is missing all that has been taken out of his life- though in the end he will be much better off. For one who likes change, this is hard for me to accept as less than a poor attitude- so I need to be careful. For T this hits close to home, since she doesn't like change. God has placed us in this place for a purpose and we want to continue to follow where He is leading.

Thanks again for all your prayers and comments along the way. May He continue His working in our lives and in John until we are all complete in Him.