Why we need prayers today

I already feel like we just spout out these near daily requests for prayer as if you had nothing else to do. I don't get a chance to hear from all of you everyday about how to pray for you, or your kids, or your circumstances. We don't even know how to begin thanking you for the prayers you have offered up for us, and the blessings that your support has already given. Today we learned that the officials in Khab will not budge on the homestudy agency issue. As long as our homestudy agency is on the "blacklist" they will not let us proceed.

The good news is that our agency has been very active in trying to clear their name. The bad news is that no one actually knows whether or not that can be done. We are moving on in faith that the Lord can make this happen. Just yesterday we were reminded by what happened when Joshua followed the Lord's words and march around Jericho. If he can tear down those walls 1400 BC, then he can make 1 line of 1 report be changed. I don't know that this is the enemy attacking, but I do know that Leigh and I have placed some stakes in the ground, and claimed some territory that the enemy can't have. So this could just be one of those attacks.

Please pray for our spirits. This has been an especially hard day for Leigh. I was mad two weeks ago, so I was not surprised today. She however was mad. Our church is spending the next 40 days focusing on 40 days of victory. Follow along at http://www.40daysofvictory.blogspot.com/ . I hope that it doesn't take 40 days for our agency's name to come off of the list, but I know what I will be praying everyday until that happens. And it looks like it will take 30 or so of these 40 days for our paperwork to be updated and be back in Russia ready to be registered once our homestudy agency is "re-approved".

It really is not easy to open up to a computer screen, but it is probably easier to do that then to open up to all of you as a group. Thanks for your patience as we come with our seemingly never ending urgent needs for prayer. It is just that when you know your child/ren are laying in an orphanage somewhere, and it seems as if there is nothing that you can do, calling out to God is all you an come up with. And asking our friends to be intercessors for us is the only other answer. You have told us that if there was anything you could do to speed it up, you would. Well the only think that I know that all of you can do is pray. Pray for us to have continued peace knowing that all of this will happen in God's time. That it is part of a wonderful plan that he has for our family. A plan that he has known since the beginning of time. A plan that we may not even fully understand here on this planet.

For some who read this blog, this faith that we place in God's plan may seem odd. You may have never had the opportunity to move in a direction that you were not completely in control of. Or you may have specifically stated that it was of your own doing and that God or any other supreme being could not have any part in your life. I am here today to ask you to reconsider that. To let your heart believe that the stories and the miracles that we share in this blog are not coincidence, or luck but they are the Divine movements of a God that it is indeed a pleasure to serve.

Again, thanks for all of the prayers that have already been lifted up on our baby/ies behalf. And please pray, especially in this next 40 days that we can put this yet another roadblock behind us.

Bryan (and Leigh)