Six Days and Please Pray

We celebrated Christmas tonight and I can tell you things are becoming much more concrete as we get closer and closer!

I can't begin to describe the conflicting emotions that come along with this whole process. In James 1:27 we read "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is to care for the orphans and widows in their distress." I have to admit there are times I wish I had not ever read this verse but I did and the passion to give these three children a family is so real! I cannot begin to tell you how desperately I want to be in Ukraine this Christmas but at the same time how desperately I want to be at home with Hannah, Annette, and Ivy.

I like to be in control. I like to joke. I like to be disagreeable. Right now and this might not be "spiritual" but I am really scared. I have to trust my in-laws to care for our girls. I have to trust Abel to run my business. I have to trust Dave to watch our house. I have to trust God to get us through this.

In Evan Almighty there is a quote that really hit me about how God doesn't give patience or faith he puts you in situations that require patience and faith. We have chosen to put ourselves in a situation that will require dependence on God. In Exodus 17 the Israelite battle was won when Aaron and Hur held Moses' hands high. These next couple months will not be easy and we need you to please "hold our hands up" in this journey. Please partner with us in prayer.

Steve

This song sums up how I am feeling tonight!

One Week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well we got Hannah moved from her room upstairs to the basement.

This took 2 days!!

Friday November 30th will be


Christmas Steve!


Melissa and I are leaving on December 7th for Ukraine and we don't know when we will be back so we are doing a small Christmas tomorrow! Hannah decided it just be called Christmas STEVE in honor of me!

We Leave in 1 WEEK!!!!!!

I have been accused of knowing one line of every possible song and all the lines of NO songs! I have a bad habit of singing my single line according to what is going on. So in honor of that I have included the following video:

The Final Countdown by Europe!

We are now just $1,516.88 from Full Budget Funding!!!!!

Please pray for us over these next 7 days. Please pray that God will prepare our new children, our existing children and Melissa and I for the tough road ahead.

One last thing, please pray for the other 149,999,997 other orphaned children worldwide!

Best Regards,

Steve Eimers

(If you subscribe and get updates; sorry I edited so many times!!!)

Warm and Toasty

(Me in the new Coat and a fur hat I got at the
Goodwill last year for Steve to wear in Moldova. )



The "baby sister" of an old friend of mine from high school (aka, my brother Daniel's high school girlfriend.*wink,wink*) saw that I was looking for a warm and toasty winter coat for wearing in Ukraine. Look what arrived in the mail on Saturday!

Thank you, Mandie!

-Melissa

Thanks at Thanksgiving time

Thanksgiving is coming up. Next week!! I was hoping to be all packed by then--still am!
I am so thankful in so many ways that I can not even begin with mere type to express it!

Kelli has a blog where she shares things that are special in her life. Right now she is "hosting" a Thanksgiving week. This means that if you go to her site you will find a list of links of others who are participating by posting on their own blogs things they are thankful for, Thanksgiving recipes or activities, etc... I am participating here and I hope on our family blog as well if I get the time.

For my part, I am going to tell you what stands out in this year as the thing I am most thankful for!
You Guessed it!!!

The biggest and most amazing thing that has happened/is happening in our lives this year is our adoption of three Ukrainian orphans! When we started this process, it was around this time last year. We announced our plans to some startled and some pleased faces in the family and our circle of friends. We knew it would be expensive; we knew to expect an emotional challenge; we even knew some of the risks involved. The biggest thing we knew, and still know, is that there was simply no good reason for us not to bring the count of helpless, stranded orphans worldwide down by three!

The financial costs have been huge--as much as we make in a year--including both the direct and indirect expenses. We had some saved but this was a lot more than we realized at first! We are now only $4,000 from where we need to be! God has provided again and again through his people and even through people who do not profess his name! this has been most exciting to me to see the way he has worked in others to bring about "salvation" for three little orphans in a far-away orphanage in a country wounded by years of communism.

Emotionally, it has been just what we had anticipated. A roller-coaster! Some days we have been on cloud nine--others, in despair. Do you know what? Every time we were feeling low, God was there! I am not joking with you--early on, most of our gifts came in $100 increments and many of them showed up just when we were feeling down! One time, a man at Shoney's pulled up beside us in the parking lot and gave us $100 bill because the girls had mentioned our adoption and we had given him a prayer card! We don't know him and may never see him again but by doing God's will, he blessed us just when we were feeling very overwhelmed by it all.

We are leaving in twenty-three days and will be meeting our newest children for the first time. We will spend Christmas with them this year there in Ukraine in an orphanage somewhere. And we can't help but notice that we are celebrating the arrival of Jesus who has made it possible for us to be adopted into the Family of God at the same time we are adopting these children into our family.

Our prayer is that they will accept our family and eventually join us in God's Family, too.

We have so much to be thankful for. We didn't hear a 'voice' from God telling us to go and adopt these children but we stepped out in the faith that when God said that we should help orphans and that what we do for the least of humanity is as if we are doing the same for him, he meant it. I think we would have needed a special call from God not to act!

How about you? Will you consider the plight of the father-less? Will you consider being a family for a child who is alone? If it is a sacrifice (and what child isn't?), will you consider making the sacrifice, remembering that Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice for your adoption?

Or maybe you have not been adopted into God's family. Jesus has already paid your way! All you need to do is to accept him! You can find out how here.

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving and remember Who we are thanking!!
Praise be to God!

Amazing...

(Hannah in the Knoxville airport)

Rick(Laurie's fiance), Hannah, Laurie and Mary(two of Steve's sisters)

(Good ol' Honest Abe)

(At the funeral of Great Grandma Payne.
Hannah is on Grandma Eimers' lap in the front row. Steve's dad, Roger, is officiating)

(Beautiful fall foliage in the Northeast.)

I have an amazing story to tell you...

Steve's Grandmother passed on to Heaven just recently and he was able to fly to NY for the funeral on the spur of the moment despite the adoption fund raising efforts because his sister, she works as a flight attendant for United, was able to give him some buddy passes very affordably!

I was so glad for Steve that he was able to go and we were even able to have Hannah go with him. She is eight and old enough for this to be important to her. That was great... but it's not the amazing part.

The plane trip involved a stop in Washington DC. Steve and Hannah ended up staying the night there since his two sisters, Laurie and Mary live there and were flying up the next day. That way they could all fly together and Hannah was thrilled to be driven around for a late night tour of the sights of DC. She even go to ride the subway! But even though that was a huge thrill for Hannah, it still wasn't the amazing part!

On the flight from Knoxville to DC, Steve sat next to a man who commented that Hannah looks just like his daughter looked at that age. Steve told him that we have two more at home. "Is she the oldest?" The man asked.

"Well, she is for now", Steve answered him.

"Oh, are you adopting?"

"yes: three children"

"Internationally? "

"Ukraine."

(Here is one part of the amazing part...)

"Oh! I am a missionary to Donetsk!" (Donetsk is the 2nd largest city in Ukraine.)

Isn't that so cool?! Steve had literally only hours before decided to take this trip, let alone this exact flight and here he was sitting next to a man who works in Ukraine as a missionary!! This man gave Steve his contact information and, since he will be in the States for a while, said that if we end up in Donetsk, we can stay in his flat! That would be a huge savings!

But keep your hats on; there is another amazing part:

Then in NY, Steve stopped by the home of a friend of ours. She wasn't home but her family said that she was down at her church. So, he drove over there. He couldn't find her so he went and used the restroom and prepared to leave when he bumped into the pastor of the church. The pastor's shirt read: "God's love for Ukraine"!! Needless to say, Steve struck up a conversation with him! He said that if we are in Western Ukraine to contact him and he will find us housing with some of their missionaries there!!

Coincidence? I doubt it!
See? I told you it was amazing!

For you are great and do amazing things.
You alone are God.
Psalm 86:10

Moving the blog, and Some Good news

We've switched the blog back to the blogger site and once we have raised the rest of the funds, the blogger site will be our only one. It is much easier to manage and to control the design. We have moved all the posts from the other site to this one and though maybe there was an easier way, we did it one at a time, individually. This means that they all are archived in October! Sorry for any confusion that may cause.

Also, the picture of the children in the title bar at the top of the page was taken at a deaf orphanage/school in Moldova, which is one of the countries bordering Ukraine. He was there for a mission trip this past winter. Thought you might like to know that.

And finally, and most excitingly: We have reached only $5,900 to go!! "That's a lot of money!" you might say. And you'd be right! But remember that we have a goal of 30+ Thousand and that this is just a small portion that is left. Praise the Lord! Thank you all who have been such a blessing to us! I think I am posting this before our "thermometer" registers it. I just couldn't wait to tell you!

Our plane tickets are in hand! Tomorrow they join our passports in the saftey deposit box at the bank. We have to use paper tickets because going and coming home again we will use FIVE different airlines! At least that is how it stands at this point.

Steve' sister Laurie is a flight attendant for United and is going to attempt to work our flight on the way over to Ukraine. She is also planning to come back with us on the return trip along with Steve's mom to help us navigate with three Russian-speaking children in the airports and through customs and all.

Just over a month now! I wish I could clean the house and pack and then just sit and wait for the day to come! Can't do that of course! The kids like to eat every day--several times! And I don't think I can get them to sit on the couch with their hands folded neatly in their laps for the next 5 weeks. I suppose they will want to play with toys and continue wearing a new outfit each day which means I will have to cook, clean, do laundry, school...(I am joking here for those of you that gasped in horror there)

I don't know If I will ever feel ready! I think that when the time comes I'll just have to leave. It will all be here when I get back!

M.