God stories for Thailand...Counting Fish

So Friday afternoon I was SO discouraged when we received our agency packet. It was a whole bunch of paperwork to fill out and training to do and bills to pay, and it wasn't even our dossier stuff yet! I called our agency and asked some questions, but I'll have to speak with the person in charge this week to answer some of my specific questions. I was just simply overwhelmed. I totalled up what we owe at the moment and it was more than I thought, and I could not begin to figure out where that money was coming from.

This is how God answered when I cried out to Him:

• Our church's missions weekend was this past weekend. Friday night was a jewelry party for Women at Risk International, a group that ministers to and helps rescue women and children involved in the slave trade around the world. I knew they worked in Thailand, which is why I really wanted to go. I had balanced our checkbook that afternoon and had no idea how we would even get through the month, but I really wanted to purchase something small to support them. I don't even wear much jewelry! I got there just as the consultants were finishing their sharing and the group prayed together. I got to talk with a consultant about their connections to Thailand, and then I just walked around, browsed, and chatted with my friends. I noticed one of the tables had some books, so I decided to buy two of those: Sold and Princess. While I waited for the line to go down, I just walked around and talked to other women from church. Later, while I was still waiting, a friend came up to me and said, "I think God told me He wants me to buy you something here. What would you like?" I was astounded! We talked about it for a minute and I showed her the books. She took them from me and walked away, saying, "I'm buying these for you." !!! (If you know me at all, you know how much I love books, too!!)
• A few people came up to me and said they have things for us to sell at the garage sale. OK, more than a few, all since Friday.
• Sunday morning, during worship, we sang two songs from Urbana 2000, which was the convention where we both felt called to cross-cultural adoption. We cried as we sang "Santo Eres Santo" and "Jesus Shall Reign." The guest speaker gave a wonderful sermon on missions as well.
• Today, I sat down with that packet from our agency and actually filled the entire thing out! It really didn't take that long. I flagged a few things for Pete to sign and us to find out. We still need to do the training, but it felt great to get that done.
• I got a hold of the person who will be printing our t-shirts and started the process on that. Hopefully in the next week or two we will be posting on both our blogs how you can order those shirts!
• We got a phone call tonight from someone who has a lot to donate to our garage sale, including furniture! (I specifically told someone on the phone not an hour before that we did NOT have any furniture yet!)
• Tonight I sat down to balance the checkbook with the statements we just received. I found a bank error in our favor that I need to call about tomorrow for about $71. (They sent a charge through 3 times instead of just once.) Then, I realized another error on our own end to the tune of almost $500!!

I was VERY encouraged by this post this afternoon, so we've decided to keep track of these instances for our adoption.

God, you are SO good!

It's the little things, you know?!