One Year Later AND Glory update.

Wow. Although it has been the hardest year of my life, I made it. It has been a year full of tears, growing, God's amazing grace, small victories, and watching God's mighty plan unfold right before my eyes. He has literally turned my mourning into dancing and turned my sorrow into joy. His ways our so much higher than our ways. I have seen it time and time again. Looking back over the year my heart is so full of thankfulness for where we are, and that this is the life we get to live. I remember when we first moved here and were living with our friends before our house was ready. They ate Tanzanian for lunch every day and I remember how terrified I and my kids were of the food. We would not touch it, let alone take a bite of it. Now I laugh looking back at that. My kids and I are now eating Tanzanian food every day. I know to some that may not seem huge, but trust me, it is! I also laugh looking back at the first time we went on a walk with the kids on the dirt roads here. We were all literally tripping all over ourselves, and the kids all had scraped up knees and tears by the time we were done. I used to not be able to breath when Brian was driving us around town I was so nervous, and when we went by the police check stations I thought I would pass out from fear. The unknown of our everyday lives was just too much for me to handle most days.
I am not the person I was when I stepped off the plane a year ago. It is very hard to describe the change that has occurred in me. I feel stronger, yet am more aware of my weakness apart from Christ than ever before. As I deal with the heartache of living away from family and friends, deal with culture shock daily, and just all the small details and hardships of living in a third world country, I cannot help but fall more in love with Christ as I lean on Him alone to lead me.
This month alone has been so full of opportunities to trust Him with every situation and have joy all the while, even when I cannot see what the next step is. An example of this would be concerning our Glory girl. Glory is the precious baby girl we met when we first came to Tanzania last year that both Brian and I fell in love with instantly. This past year we have taken the trip to visit her multiple times, watching her grow up and taking any chance we get to spend time with her. We have wanted to adopt her from the moment we laid eyes on her, and have fought an uphill battle to pursue this. Recently we found her birth mother and set up a time to meet with her and her grandmother. There is a major background to this story that I won't go into details about, but trust me when I say it has been an emotional ride with many ups and downs, tears and confusion. At our meeting with them we found out that Glory's bio mom was in an abusive situation and needed help. They were very excited about us wanting to adopt Glory, but b/c of the background we could not just go and sign rights over without first getting her cleared through the police. Brian and I cried with her and told her that we would pray about how we could help, although at the time were unsure of what to do. On the hour and a half ride home from that meeting I cried the whole way, deep cries from my heart. Even though this woman had made some horrible decisions that could cause me to resent her, I was overflowing with compassion for her and her situation. I also cried as I felt the Lord begin to prepare my heart for what could happen. What if we did help her bio mom get out of this horrible situation and she decided she wanted Glory back? Would I be able to handle this? Would I still help this woman? Did I love Glory enough to lay down what I wanted for what is best for her? I cried and cried as I knew that we loved her enough and no matter what, we wanted what was best for her.
A couple of weeks later (which was just this weekend) we were back in Arusha so that our family in town could meet Glory. We went and they met her and of course fell right in love with her. While at the baby home she is at we talked with the social worker who told us that her bio mom was in major distress, and the situation had worsened. We decided right then to call her and go pick her up and bring her home with us. So we did. When we went to meet her she also had her mother with her. Surprises like this are a very common thing in our lives here. :)
So we all piled into our car and started the trip home, on the way picking up one of my dear friends to help translate for us. That night I made them both dinner (which they told me they never were allowed to eat lunch or dinner where they were before, and I believe them after watching them eat that meal) and we sat down and had a good conversation with both women. They expressed such thankfulness for us coming to get them, and wondered how did we know that they had been praying for so long for someone to save them from the situation they were in? During the conversation with them {through my friend translating} I heard something that didn't settle well with me. So I had my friend ask Glory's bio mom if she was wanting to keep her now? She told us yes, she was wanting to keep Glory. I had to excuse myself from the table and went into the bathroom and cried. My friend who had been translating came and hugged me and we cried together. My fears of what could happen were coming true. Don't get me wrong, I was not mad at her at all, my heart was just breaking. We have gotten so attached to Glory and love her with such a deep love, as if she is already ours. So after our talk we took them to a hostel down the road from us to stay for the next couple of nights. The next step is to meet with our Pastor here to see how we can help get everything worked out with her bio mom and where we go from here. This morning we picked them up for church and during worship I just stared at her bio mom and wept. I am so full of love for her, I know it has to be from God. I have no clue what will unfold in the near future concerning all of this, but I have such an overwhelming peace that God is in control and will work all things for His good, and I choose to praise Him through it all. Whether we have the incredible blessing of adding Glory to our family or her rejoining her bio family and helping them to flourish as a family, it will all be worth it. Right now this is what stopping for the one looks like for us, and I am so thankful it is our Glory girl.