Our Dossier was mailed to China on June 21st!!! WHEW!! We are so excited to be at this point in our adoption process. Now we wait to hear back from China that we are logged in to their system. We have to have our "log in" number to receive a new referral of a child on the databank of Chinese orphans. Hopefully in the next couple of months, we will know who God has chosen to place in our family! We can't wait to know her! We have been told by our agency that once we are matched with a specific child, we should travel to China to bring her home in approximately six months.
We are so excited about our Both Hands project! God led us to a very special widower and we are so thankful for the opportunity to help out around his house. When we began looking for a widow for our project, we talked to our pastors, the WELCOME center, the Elmore Baptist Association and no one knew of a widow/er that needed any help around his/her house. I thought, this is hard to believe! Praise the Lord that we can't find a widow that needs any help! BUT...we need a widow that needs some help!! We continued to pray that God would lead us to a widow or widower. Meanwhile, we were very intently trying to get our Dossier documents ready to be mailed and we were also praying about team members for our project. As God brought certain people to my mind, I made a list of people to ask to be on our Both Hands team. The team will help us fix up the widow/ers home and also help with the fundraising by sending letters asking for sponsorships for their work on project day, in addition to the letters Greg and I send. As I prayed about team members and a widow, a friend kept coming to mind. I kept thinking..."Am I suppose to ask her to be on our team?" We didn't have a widow yet, and something didn't feel like it fit just right, so I wrote her name down on my list, but I waited. The day after we put our Dossier in the mail to AGCI, I felt the urge to contact her, so I emailed her and told her about the Both Hands project. I told her we were getting a little anxious because we couldn't find a widow that needs help anywhere! I asked her if she would happen to know of a widow or widower that needed some help around the home. Maybe one with tornado damage, but not necessarily. I said..."We feel like we will be doing jobs around his/her home like replacing plumbing fixtures, electrical fixtures, painting, landscaping, light repairs, etc..."
Her reply was, "Oh, mylanta! I could just cry...My dad is a widower...for five and a half years now...and we sure could use some help." She went on to explain that he had a bathtub that needed to be installed and hooked up to the plumbing, some wainscoting and trim needed to be put up, tree limbs needing to be trimmed, bushes needing to be trimmed, skirting needed fixing, screen needing fixing, bathroom tile needed completing. I got chills when I read her email! Her list of needs almost perfectly lined up with what Greg and I imagined we might be doing! After Greg and I discussed it, we felt that God had definitely brought us together with Mr Greg Strecker.
We went and visited with him that weekend and we were amazed to hear his story!! He was born in the Ukraine in 1938. His mother was Ukrainian and his father was of German descent. When Greg was young, his father was executed by the Russian KGB. Greg, along with his mother and brother moved around Europe trying to escape the hand of communism as Stalin and then Hitler rose in power. When Mr Strecker was an adolescent, they came to Brazil and he was successful in the different jobs he took. He was very good at everything he did and whereever he went he brought success to the businesses he was working for! Then Castro gained power in Cuba. They had come halfway across the world to escape Communism and here it was knocking at their backdoor again! About that time, he and his mother and brother finally received their VISA's to enter the United States of America! I've never met anyone so proud to be an AMERICAN!!! When he speaks of this country, tears come to his eyes. When he came to the US, they told him he had every right of a citizen, except he couldn't vote. He was immediatly drafted into the US army. He served four years and then met and married his wife, Patricia, in 1964. Mr Strecker became a US citizen the day his oldest son, Andrew was born, December 7, 1965. Mrs Strecker passed away in October 2005. Mr Strecker is no longer able to keep up with all the needs around his home and we are DELIGHTED that we have the priviledge to help him! There are so many more details and miracles of his life that I have left out. If you ever get the chance to hear his testimony, it is awesome!!
Our project day is July 9th and we will post a video on the blog or you can go to our Both Hands page at http://bothhandsfoundation.org/greg-and-angie-jones.aspx to see it soon after our project day!
Thank you so much for your prayers and keeping up with us! Sorry so long between blogs, it is hard to find an extra minute. I can't wait to share our project video with you when we complete our Both Hands project. I am so thankful that God worked it out so that our Both Hands project is happening now, while we are in a waiting stage with our adoption. His way and His time is always PERFECT!
Both Hands, One for the Widow, One for the Orphan.
