It’s no secret. Living in a foreign country is even harder than we imagined. We don’t speak the language and our taste buds haven’t exactly adjusted. We can’t drive ourselves anywhere. The phone service is spotty. We’re always lost 😂. There is a little girl who is VERY overwhelmed and scared relying on us for everything. We love her with our whole hearts, but we barely know her. We have a five year old who thankfully does trust and respect us, but she’s frustrated and lonely. We are COMPLETELY at the mercy of the Indian government and even if we decided tomorrow we are DONE! And we are going home.. we literally cannot without abandoning our daughter. We’re quite literally stuck. Yesterday it started to get to us again. I mean have you ever stayed in a hotel room for a month? No? I don’t recommend it lol! Today though…

Our sweet friends Heather and Tony invited us to their English speaking church. This was something I really wanted to do while fostering. We woke up to a pretty good uneventful morning. I was convinced it would be great and God would “honor us” for being obedient and going to church even with a new daughter in India. The church is about 20-30 minutes from the hotel depending on traffic. We get half way there and I realize we have NO CELL SERVICE. Nada, zip, zilc. This is my nightmare. Being lost, stuck, and not having service. I start to panic a bit as often times the Uber drivers don’t know exactly where we are going and we have to gps it. I also don’t know what the church looks like and have no way to contact Heather. We get there and I don’t see it. We are going to have to get out of this uber and I don’t see it. I start to panic a bit. Aj and I yell at each other a bit 😂. Then I see a sign, we ask the security guard and sure enough we are there. We make our way inside and our friends are not there. My anxiety starts to go up… oh man we’re not going to see them and we don’t know how to get home. Immediately a nice usher directs us to a seat and says he’ll find them. And you guys I’m almost crying. I don’t do well with lack of control. I’m so mad at God. I’m literally yelling in my head! We’re trying to honor you! We’re here for you! Why can’t you do ANYTHING the way I want it!! And then I take a deep breath and the worship music starts. I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face by the Holy Spirit saying “prove it”. And so I took a deep breath and I started praising him with all that I had. Angry, scared, literally lost, and alone.

I hear this verse in my head. I let go and let God in. I thank him and tell him a trust him. I turn to my left and my friends are being delivered by the usher that promised us he would. All is ok. The worship was INCREDIBLE. It was like every song we sang was written for our time here. I haven’t heard a lot of them before and it was like they were songs in my heart. I cried like a baby and felt such relief and renewal. Surrounded by my daughters culture. This is what I can tell them about. This is a memory I can share. In awe of hands raised and the warmth in my heart of being surrounded by believers. It felt just like home.

Today’s service was also about plugging in and serving in your church and how crucial it is to our relationship with God. How important it is to be a part of it. We serve at home. It got really hard before we left. We’re in a small church at home. We both serve at a high level. We believe in our church mission but it’s hard not to get burnt out. Today we were able to be fed in our greatest time of need. God is so merciful.

Our cups were filled and then we got to go to lunch with our sweet friends who just “get it”. They get adoption. They understood not to feed my new child who was literally calling her momma and asking for food. They get that kids are hard sometimes. It was amazing. Plus the food was good! The girls were amazing and just as we finish eating I got one bar of service. Just enough to call our uber. As soon as we got in the car my service went out again. The car ride home was full of this….

When we got to the hotel room cleaning had spent a significant amount of time making our room completely clean again. There is a play area set up for Adelyn to play on downstairs and Ansley went right down for a nap. Our spirit is renewed. So we may still be “stuck” but it doesn’t feel quit as big today.