Team Sublett is looking for a breakthrough…will you pray?

OK, are you ready for a little more Team Sublett normalcy?  Meet Isaac.

Isaac (Yuan Zhong Xu) is a spunky little 13 year old living in Inner Mongolia, China.  He’s looking for a family.  We’ve known about him for a few months, and we believe that we’re his family.  Let me give you a little back story.

Months ago we were on track to adopt two little boys from Ethiopia.  We had our paperwork in process, and even have some money in Ethiopia to get the ball rolling.  Then the Ethiopian government discovered some corruption in their adoption system and cut way back on the number of adoptions they were processing.  That meant that the wait time would increase, and we heard God say that he was closing that door for us.

We looked into some domestic adoption options and a foster-to-adopt case, but the doors closed.  Kim heard the Lord tell her that he was going to open doors for us somewhere, and that we needed to pay attention to what he was doing around us.

That’s when Charlie entered the picture.  Our lawyer told us to guard our hearts, knowing that so many domestic adoptions involving teenaged mothers never pan out.  But we believed that God was opening doors, so we committed to seeing Charlie’s adoption through.  You know that story.  We have a court date to finalize Charlie’s adoption in November.

Isaac was a different case.  He’s 13, and will age out of the adoption process on his next birthday–October 30.  Our caseworker didn’t offer us much hope, but told us that since our paperwork from China was current (thanks to recent adoptions!) we had a head start.  She told us that if we wanted to proceed, she’d push our paperwork through and pray (I love the fact that we’ve got praying caseworkers!)  Again, we believed that God was opening a door for us to walk through.  So we (Kim) went to work on the paper-process.

To make a long story short, we got our referral last week, and Isaac is set to become the newest member of Team Sublett!  He’s been informed about us, and we’ve sent him a Welcome to the Family package!

I’ll give you more of the story in the weeks to come, but I’m asking for your prayers:
1.  We’d like to take all of the older Sublett children on this trip.  Please pray that God provides the resources to do that.  We’re waiting to hear about a couple of grants, but I figure if God can provide to get some of us there, why can’t he provide to get all of us there?  🙂  We have less than a month to go!
2.  Josie’s passport is hung up in the process.  There are some papers that we never got that are vital for the approval of her passport.  Please pray that her passport arrives in time.  We’re at the stage where we need to get our travel documents to the people so they can arrange our travel.  We definitely want to take Josie with us so that she can translate for Isaac.
3.  Isaac’s a 13 year old boy, which makes him a great fit for our family.  Please pray for his transition into Team Sublett and our life here in America.  Ask God to prepare his heart for us, and for Jesus!

I suspect that some/many of you may be questioning our sanity.  This will make 4 adoptions in less than 2 years.  All I can tell you is that we’ve said Yes to Jesus.  We will be family to any and all the children that he brings our way.  Is it easy?  No way.  There are frustrations and difficult days and obstacles and fears and concerns.  But it’s good, and it’s right, and it’s fitting, and it’s us.  This is who we are, what we do.

The lawyer didn’t expect Charlie to join our family.  The caseworker didn’t think that our paperwork could get processed in time.  But when God opens a door, that door is open!  We’re entering this door with eyes wide open, fixed on Jesus, who has called us to be family.  I know that it’s close to the deadline, but we’re believing that God has opened this door.

Will you pray with us, asking God to help us bring Isaac home?