Well, studies are going okay. I'm just about ready to finish off another paper, and so far my new schedule has been working well. I've only got about six weeks of classes left, and then I graduate on May 24th!!!!! I'm sure they'll hear Lisa rejoicing all the way in Addis Ababa! lol
But this blog isn't about my progress in completing my MDiv. It's about our journey to adopt our first child, and, wow, do we have a big part of that story to share!
About a week ago I was leaving the office when Anita, one of my co-workers and closest friends, said, "Hey, Ray. Someone stopped by and put something in your mailbox." So I went over to my box and saw a white envelope.
Whoever dropped it off had typed "To: Mr. Raymond and Lisa Hammond" on a computer, printed it, cut it out and taped it to the envelope. I held it up to the light and could see the outline of a bill but couldn't tell the denomination. Thanking Anita for letting me know, I put it in my pocket and went home.
After pulling into the driveway and parking the car, I entered the house, greeted Lisa and said, "I think someone gave us some money for the adoption," and proceeded to tell her about the envelope. She was as curious as I was about it, so she told me to open it.
I opened the envelope and stopped, staring inside it. My hands began to tremble a bit and tears came to my eyes. Lisa, who was standing a few feet from me washing dishes, said, "What is it?" "It's a stack of hundreds," I replied, my voice barely above a whisper. She started to cry and came over to where I was standing. I began counting and realized that someone had just given us $1,000. I was speechless. There was nothing inside to indicate who had been so generous to us. Only another computer generated, cut-out message that simply said, "Hope this helps with the adoption. God bless!"
God bless indeed! We knew from the start of this journey that God was going to provide for us as only he can when it came to financing the adoption. We have been saving and doing our part, but we knew that God would have to make up the difference. He has been providing for us since day one of our marriage almost seven years ago, and we have never doubted his provision. But this latest time blew us both away. He is so good; in fact, his goodness and steadfast love is so great that we can only struggle to find adequate words to express it. Yet despite our inability to adequately verbalize it, we shout our praise out to him, for there is no god like our God. None compare to him. He is the one who said, "I am the first and the last; apart from me there is no God," (Isa. 44:6b).
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Sleepy Time
Hey everyone. Been on vacation for a couple of days trying to get caught up on my seminary studies. I was able to get a 14 page paper completed, so that's good. But I have a lot more to do and hope that I can knock off a couple of smaller papers in the next two days.
In mid-January, Lisa started talking about getting a crib. Somewhere along the line she decided to search Craigslist for one, and she found a couple of promising ones only to get return replies that the cribs had already been sold. In mid-February, she found one posted by someone in Hamlin -- which is like 15 minutes from our house.
We went to look at it and really liked it, so we ended up buying it. It's like 4 years old, and we got it for a good p
rice. I don't know anything about crib styles, but it's a cherry finish and it looks pretty sweet. It goes together really easily, and it can also convert into a toddler bed. In the pic above, you can see the cats underneath it trying to figure out what it is! [btw, if u click on the pix, they will enlarge] Thankfully, they didn't get the idea to jump inside of it, but they'll prolly figure it out sooner or later.
For Christmas, I had bought Lisa a bedding set for a crib, so once it was
put together, she wanted to see how the sheet, bumper pad and comforter would look. The pix to the right show the crib decked out in the crib set. You might be able to see the chairs behind the crib, which is in the living room. The night we got the crib, I set it up in the kitchen and then we carried it into the living room to take some pix. I didn't want to set it up in the baby's room because it hasn't been
transformed from a home office yet. So there's a couple of desks, a file cabinet, a bookcase and some miscellaneous stuff that would have made setting up a crib a difficult thing to do. I figured that, once I got it put together, Lisa and I could just pick it up, carry it in there and set it down in a space along the wall where it would be out of the way for when we move the other stuff out of there.
Of course, I never figured on the doorway being too narrow for the crib to fit through! lol! I figured that since it went through the doorway from the kitchen to the living room it would fit fine going into the baby's room. But it didn't. And even if it had, I'm not sure we could've made the turn required to enter the room anyway. So I took it all apart and carried it in piece by piece. Now it's stacked in the corner, and I prolly won't put it together until sometime in mid-May because by then I'll have graduated!!
Well, gotta go, but one more thing before I do. Lisa told me that a couple of you want to hear the song I wrote. That's a bit of a stretch for me to put it on the site for peeps to hear, but I'll get over it and figure out a way to get it on there so you can hear it.
In mid-January, Lisa started talking about getting a crib. Somewhere along the line she decided to search Craigslist for one, and she found a couple of promising ones only to get return replies that the cribs had already been sold. In mid-February, she found one posted by someone in Hamlin -- which is like 15 minutes from our house.
We went to look at it and really liked it, so we ended up buying it. It's like 4 years old, and we got it for a good p
rice. I don't know anything about crib styles, but it's a cherry finish and it looks pretty sweet. It goes together really easily, and it can also convert into a toddler bed. In the pic above, you can see the cats underneath it trying to figure out what it is! [btw, if u click on the pix, they will enlarge] Thankfully, they didn't get the idea to jump inside of it, but they'll prolly figure it out sooner or later.For Christmas, I had bought Lisa a bedding set for a crib, so once it was
put together, she wanted to see how the sheet, bumper pad and comforter would look. The pix to the right show the crib decked out in the crib set. You might be able to see the chairs behind the crib, which is in the living room. The night we got the crib, I set it up in the kitchen and then we carried it into the living room to take some pix. I didn't want to set it up in the baby's room because it hasn't been
transformed from a home office yet. So there's a couple of desks, a file cabinet, a bookcase and some miscellaneous stuff that would have made setting up a crib a difficult thing to do. I figured that, once I got it put together, Lisa and I could just pick it up, carry it in there and set it down in a space along the wall where it would be out of the way for when we move the other stuff out of there.Of course, I never figured on the doorway being too narrow for the crib to fit through! lol! I figured that since it went through the doorway from the kitchen to the living room it would fit fine going into the baby's room. But it didn't. And even if it had, I'm not sure we could've made the turn required to enter the room anyway. So I took it all apart and carried it in piece by piece. Now it's stacked in the corner, and I prolly won't put it together until sometime in mid-May because by then I'll have graduated!!
Well, gotta go, but one more thing before I do. Lisa told me that a couple of you want to hear the song I wrote. That's a bit of a stretch for me to put it on the site for peeps to hear, but I'll get over it and figure out a way to get it on there so you can hear it.
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