Year of Jubilee
The past few months have been a whirlwind with the holidays, ministry, illnesses, relationships, an opinionated pre-teen, a hyper middle child, and a fierce boss baby, oh, and a slightttt over-reliance on coffee and McDonalds’ hot fudge sundaes… It has definitely been a full, challenging, but rich season for us. But even with the busyness of life, there has not been a day or even a few hours that went by without B’s face on our minds. The constant balancing of wondering how she’s doing and longing to hold her, with the constant sinking feeling that she’s so far away, in every way possible. Because there is no cookie-cutter timeline, we can’t predict when B will come home. It could be late this year, or even next year. But we would like to share a couple of exciting things that have happened recently. First, we finished our dossier and filled out the official paperwork for her legal name… Jubilee B. Choi. Even typing it out feels unreal, since this is a name that resurfaced in our minds from ten years ago! Secondly, B has been generally stable considering the condition she has. All of her lab work and tests are up to date, and her wonderful foster mother is taking good care of her. Lastly, the Lord has provided every dollar to cover all the adoption fees- $45,000. We are still waiting for final grants to come in and are anticipating that all our travel expenses will be covered as well. It has been crazy amazing to see where/who the funds have been coming from. We thank our family, friends, and grants that gave financially, and equally importantly, prayed for and encouraged us! We are so so grateful.
The Lord has been teaching us to hold all things loosely, for everything belongs to Him and it is He who gives and takes away. To be clear that nothing is really ours, not our possessions, our dreams, our church, our family, not even our own lives. And to confess, we personally have been so fickle with our hands- one moment wide open to be used for God’s glory, then the next moment tightly closed to who, when, where, what God has called us to. We have come to the realization that our hands need to be surrendered. And it is good to be surrendered to a God who knows, loves, and cares for us. We have been asking God to let this truly be the year that our child comes home to us, the year of Jubilee, but even if it isn’t as we had hoped, that God will carry us every step of the way.
Notes on “Jubilee”- protection for the poor, freedom for the slaves, celebration, debt has been paid, covenant between God and Israel, rest for the land, reliance on God's provision, Jesus is Jubilee, freedom as slaves to sin, God our healer, God gives second chances, God delivers, God meets our needs, He is good news, He hears our cries for justice, He conquered sin, He saves.
