This is how it went down - Part 2 - Road to referral

So we received an email at about 9:45pm,
on January 10th,
inviting us to apply to this new agency,
YWAM/CHI
and that they just might have a little 2 year old boy that was referral ready!!!!!

We were excited and freaking out a little
at the thought of leaving something that we had invested 2 years into.
Derek went to bed because he wasn't feeling well at all.
He texted me from bed just before he went to sleep,
"God is moving"
I stayed up to work on the YWAM application until about 1am.

At about 4:15am,
my cell phone rings.
a call that would change our lives...

Derek's dad was being taken to the hospital.
Shortly thereafter,
we had learned that he had gone to be with Jesus.
Our world was rocked.

He was very young, 64.

Derek and his dad worked together every single day
at the family business.
Although they had just recently merged with
a larger engineering firm.
Praise the Lord for this blessing.

Later that day, as I was waiting in carpool line for Ellison,
Derek called me and said,
"do you realize that God just put the widow and the orphan
in our lives within just a few hours of each other?
Heather, we are living James 1:27."


Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: 
to look after orphans and widows in their distress 
and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
James 1:27


So the next several days were a complete emotional roller coaster.
That's an understatement.
We were constantly filling out new adoption paperwork,
planning a funeral,
filling out more paperwork,
visitation,
gathering homestudy documents
funeral,
reading required books,
taking care of Derek's mom,
watching Karyn Purvis video series,
trying to figure out a cause of death,
filling out discussion questions and workbook,
and the list goes on and on.

crazy, sad, horrible, happy, exciting, joyful
time in our lives,
all rolled into one.
God gave us this huge bright spot (of a possible referral)
during this awful time in our lives.
As my friend said perfectly,
"beauty out of ashes"

family football game at the ranch
lots of great times were spent there..
He loved that place!

I could post a million pictures...

And Mister (as I fondly called him),
was always so proud of the fact that we were adopting.
He would have been very excited about Little Man!

Dad, Mister, Grandad, Din Din...
you are greatly missed.

to be continued...