Blessed

Some days, I feel like I just want to stick my head under water so that somehow all my problems disappear.  There have been times over the past few weeks, that I have felt completely overwhelmed and yet blessed beyond measure.  The past few days have been filled with preparations for bringing Vika home including finishing up all but two documents needed for our dossier.  Yes, isn't God AWESOME!!!  Thanks to a wonderful friend, who has been putting up with meticulously notarizing our thousands of documents, our awesome social worker, great doctors, a lot of answered prayers, and many people willing to complete our forms the way they need to be done, we are getting very close to bringing Vika home.  Our I600A is on its way, and we are pushing for very fast approval to be submitted as soon as possible.

As you can imagine, there is a lot that is involved with an international adoption.  There have been many times, when I just want to say, "It's too much!  I CAN'T do this!"  Then I am reminded that I don't have to do this.  God is doing it for me. I just have to let Him handle it.  Because we are getting very close to bringing Vika home, we also have very little time to raise the money we need to be able to do that.  Yes, there is not a price you could ever place on a life.  But there is a price to redeem a life.  Jesus paid the greatest price to redeem us so that we could be adopted into His family.  God has blessed us with a grant that was already raised on behalf of Vika by some wonderful families who loved Vika before we ever knew about her.  Because of these precious families, we only have about $15,000 left to raise.

Now, you can argue and say that this is a lot of money to raise in ONE month, but I beg to differ.  Take for example the average money an American spends for one drink at a very famous coffee chain:  $4.05.  Now,  this coffee chain sells approximately 4 million coffee drinks a day (If you don't believe me, get the facts here).   If ONLY 4,000 people gave up that one coffee drink and instead gave it to redeem a life, we would have raised all of what we needed!  And surely, we can all live without one cup of coffee.  :)  For another illustration how a little can make a big difference you can read this little story.  Before you argue that your $5 can't possibly make a difference, it does make a difference to the one that you give it to.  Whether that is to the big coffee chain or to one little, precious girl who is completely dependent on someone else to advocate for her.  Just this weekend, some very precious friends of ours gave us $500 toward our adoption fund.  We are so overwhelmed by their selfless giving! God is so amazing! 

God can make what appears worthless

We have been working on preparing several fundraisers, but we also want to give you an opportunity to be blessed how the Lord blessed us.  We have met and made wonderful new friends as we have shared what God is doing in our lives.  It has been amazing how much we have been able to share our faith with complete strangers because of our girls, who will tell anyone who will listen about Vika, our adoption, and the Lord.  During our years of infertility, I begged the Lord to give us children so that He could be glorified in them.  I never imagined how God would answer that prayer.

...into something beautiful

I had no idea what the Lord was doing in the years of praying for our first child.  God often works very "quietly" in our lives.  God placed everyone of us here with a very special purpose.  As Christians, He wants us to glorify Him in everything that we do and say.  1 Peter 3:15 says, "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear."  God has opened an opportunity for us to do that because of a little, precious girl named Vika.  If you would like that opportunity and want to make a commitment to raise a certain amount for bringing Vika home, please email me at caekoenig @ gmail. com [take out the spaces].  We have put together a fundraising "package" with ideas for fundraising and information and pictures on Vika and Reece's Rainbow (where people can make a tax deductible donation to our adoption fund), etc.  We will be posting about our fundraisers very soon so that you can participate if you like.

Wait for It!!!