At Last

December 1, 2013

Dear Friends,

            “What if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—?” Romans 9:23

            According to my brief research, there are only 6 “What if?” questions in the Bible.  You may ask, ‘What if there is more than that?’  There could be, but probably not many more.  Three out of the six are found in Romans, where Paul is asking about the possibility of the salvation of the gentiles—people who were not Jewish and would not, according to the Jews themselves, be worthy of salvation from God.  One is found in John’s gospel.  One is in Acts.  The only one in the Old Testament is in Genesis. We tend to ask a lot of “What if?” kinds of questions—and they usually involve a great deal of doubt and fear.  My point is this—there are only 6 in the entire Bible—almost exclusively from the New Testament.  Imagining the future with doubt did not seem to be part of the vocabulary or the line of thinking of many of those writing down what would become part of scripture for God’s people.

            As you read this, we are likely just about to receive our new daughter, Vivienne, in Zhengzhou, China.  What a thought!  Part of my reason for including the word, “likely” is that we are a week away from our departure.  Because Kelly and I both work for religious institutions, the process for completing our visa applications to enter China is a bit complex.  If you are part of the media, military or a religious institution, there are limitations on the length of a visa permitting one to stay in the country.  We will probably receive 30 day visas, so we don’t have a lot of extra time in case there’s any sort of delay.

Since we are part of the highly restricted category, we’ve felt a bit like the gentiles—kind of on the outside.  Anybody working for any other industry, company or corporation who does not have these restrictions could have applied weeks ago.  As it turns out for us, we have had to follow some more rigid guidelines.

As we await the visas to arrive, potentially the day before we are set to depart, we are a bit anxious.  “What if?” questions are running through our heads.  We have coveted the prayers of those who know we are cutting things close.  At one point I said to Kelly, “Why don’t we just deal with what we expect to happen instead of the ‘what if’ questions?”  I am not sure I totally believed it myself, but there are so many circumstances beyond our control as a part of this journey, I thought we might as well start practicing our flexible stance on the process—even before we leave.  As it turns out, we have had exactly what we’ve needed every step of the way.  We did make a few mistakes on a few forms, but overall we’ve moved through this past 13 months without any major hiccups.  It has not been without its stressful moments, but we have only had control over so many things at a time.  It turns out we cannot control the Postal Service, or the processing times, or the lines we’ve stood in, or the people we’ve met along the way.  All we’ve been able to do is what has been right in front of us.

            And that’s the real message, isn’t it?  We may lack patience, we may have control issues, and we may just have to give it up to God in prayer in the end.  It’s better, I think, to start with the prayer instead.  We can’t wait to see you again and share this exciting new addition to our family. 

Peace, Love, Hope and Joy,  Tim, Kelly, Micah and Liam. . . and Vivi