Merry Christmas!!!

It's Christmas week! I don't know why I am surprised every year that it comes so fast. But it always seems to! I was ready for it this year. I didn't feel too stressed or overwhelmed. I think I chose that for myself consciously. I don't like feeling like I have to perform or do all the expected things that a lot of people do during this season. It isn't because I don't care, cause I do!! I just decieded to limit the things I chose to stress about. I made a good list of gifts I wanted to get for people in my family. I love buying gifts for them and knowing that they will love (like?) them.  I did not however choose to do gifts for teachers, Sunday school teachers, mailmen, garbage men, and the like. I LOVE all of these people and value what they do for me in my life, and the lives of our children. I just chose not to add that to the stress of the season. It is too overwhelming for me. I feared that I was in jeopardy of doing these things out of the "have" to of the season rather that the "heart" of the season. I plan to show our appreciation to all these "extra" people in my life but maybe not during this specific season. Call me rude, call me unthoughtful (is that a word?). But you can ask anyone that lives in this house, when mom gets stressed it ain't pretty!

So this brings me to my next confession.......I did not do Christmas Cards this year either. There are a couple of reasons for this. One, I didn't get a great picture of the family this year. Second, if I'm being honest, I was a little sad to send them out. Why??? Because our family looks exactly like it did last year, and that makes me sad. I wanted our family to look different this year!! I want our daughter and sister to be with us! I want the picture to change and it didn't. Our prayer is that it will look different next year. Only God knows if that is true. 

There really is not a great update on the waiting front. Lesotho is still referring children to the USA but at a very slow pace. There were three referrals to the USA in 2014. We hope and pray there are more this coming year. There have been some improvements in communication between Lesotho and the US regarding how the US wants adoptions to go. The prayer is that things have been better communicated and kinks have been ironed out and we will see more match meetings and more referrals to the US this year! Please pray for that. There are children waiting for families and families waiting for children. Everyday these kids are not with their families is a day they are missing out! There have been multiple times this year where I would be sitting at a concert of one of the kids or out to dinner with my families or at a soccer game or volleyball game and thought, I wish she was here to be part of this. She is missing being part of HER family! And we are missing her being a part of our family too.

So, we are coming up on a year since our paperwork went to Lesotho. We have been officially waiting for almost a year. In some ways it went really fast but in others it has been long. As we look forward to 2015 we have great anticipation of a year that our family will look different! It is very likely that it won't but I will continue to pray that it does. Not only for us, but for all the other families waiting out there.

I would also like to take this opportunity to once again thank all the family and friends who have supported us in this journey. Be it a prayer, phone call, text, card in the mail, gift card or donation to the adoption fund. You have no idea how much ALL of that means to us. I get very overwhelmed when someone thinks of us in this season. There is so  much going on in the world and with your families that to stop and think of little ole' us is humbling, really, it is. It brings me to tears whenever it happens. The donations to the adoption fund have been incredible. We are a little less than half funded. Our expected total for this adoption is about $30,000. We have received almost half of that from various donations and fundraising. AMAZING!!!! I am excited to see what 2015 brings.

Merry Christmas From the Freriks Family!

"For unto us a Child is born, to us a Son is given" Isaiah 9:6