"Today is Derrick's birthday!"

Isaiah 58:11 "The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and he will strengthen your frame."

Today is Derrick's birthday.  We haven't had power in almost the past 24 hours.  There is no water in our bathroom.  It is about to storm.  Todd called me a few hours ago and he and Coleman are home safe and sound.  Thank you Lord.  I need to send paperwork to the State of Alabama for my Embassy interview but since we have no power, I cannot use the scanner and therefore, this will be another delay.  It's so hard to explain life here.  I am so used to "multitasking" and over here, there is no such thing.  It doesn't exist.  I am rambling today but I know if my battery doesn't run out with this computer or the internet doesn't decide to turn off, God will reveal to me what He is wanting me to see today.  He has given me what I have prayed for...to be with Joan and Derrick, to move them to a safer place, to know they are loved.  The bonding we have had here has been amazing.  The time I have been here has helped me know Joan and Derrick better.  Yesterday, Laurel, Kenneth and I took them to have HIV testing and chest x-rays to send to DHR...(which now I cannot email to them).  The first clinic we went to was one of the best and it was very near us.  I cannot begin to describe how primative it was.  The nurses wear dresses.  We had to walk outside and upstairs to go for the "lab" work.  I should have taken a picture but I didn't want to seem shocked or rude.  Derrick went first because Joan was already crying.  I knew not to feed them before we went because their past history has been that they will throw up on you.  Derrick actually did better than Joan. I had to tie Joan up with a "pretzel move" that looked like something I had seen at "rastling" before.  She was terrified.  Her crying made me so sad because she was truly terrified.  It was just a finger prick...to me anyway.  But to them, it was torture.  I saw how fragile they are.  I saw fear in Joan for the first time.  I wondered what was going through her mind.  Most children are afraid of the doctor.  As mother's we comfort them and console them.  In this moment, all I could do is hold her, pray for her and love her.  I have a feeling that was a glimpse of what we are going to have to do a lot of when we get home, and we will get home.  After that episode, I decided to just go straight for the chest x-rays for them for the tb test.  That would be one less time they would have to be tortured.  So, we drove across town to another clinic and waited about 2 hours for the doctor.  While we were there, people noticed us.  Laurel and I were the only white people in the clinic.  Derrick was sitting in my lap, singing to me...I guess...I really have no idea what he was saying but he was loving me.  Two men sat down beside me and wanted to know our relationship.  I told them our family was adopting these children.  They met Joan and started talking to her.  I had to explain to them that she was deaf.  Their interest immediately peaked.  They were muslims they told me, not Christians.  I explained to them about our faith.  They saw me more as an American rather than a Christian.  They even said maybe Derrick would be the next Obama.  I laughed and said maybe so...They said they didn't know a single person in their own country that would take two children from different races on the other side of the world and love them like we love them.  Those two men were shown the love of Jesus Christ through our family yesterday.  If that is why God has me here in this place with no power, no water, little communication, food I can't eat because it will make me sick, roosters crowing, dogs barking, smell of smoke, the fruit bat that sounds like an alarm clock going off all night, and the man with the megaphone on his house that sings for the mosque every morning at 5:30a.m. etc. then I say TO GOD BE THE GLORY!  My homesick feelings are about me.  They are not about God.  God wants my knees at the foot of the cross.  God wants me to give the glory to HIM through my suffering.  God knows, I would not choose to suffer.  God knows, that if I could go home right now, I would.  He has designed this time for me to be refined.  He has designed this time for me to "enlarge my territory".  I got to witness to two muslims yesterday.  That wouldn't have happened in Birmingham, AL on Eagle Valley Lane.  God smiled on my conversation with those men yesterday.  God put me in that clinic waiting for hours for a reason.  It was a good reason and it is all GOD.  Okay, see I told you when I got through with this I would know what God was trying to show me.  He is so faithful!  He is merciful!  He is mighty!

All my love,
Amiee

p.s.  The HIV and the Chest X-Rays were negative...another praise to our Lord!