How are the Cows?

As I was contemplating this post I was reminded of two things:

1) I can find no evidence of our Father speaking to people in cow (although He did "open the mouth of the donkey" - Numbers 22:28 - I wonder who was more surprised, Balaam, or that pitiful donkey. Bless her heart.)

2) A fun song. "The Worship Song Song," which pokes fun at modern "church music." One lyric is "here's another out of context verse about hope!" It makes me laugh. 

And number 3 (cause I just thought of one more), some of you may just be joining this long blogerific adoption journey and have no idea we had cows. 

You're like, "what cows?" 

So to clarify, we do NOT have cows. (yet) 
Cows have been rather.... symbolic...in this and other financially daunting ventures in my life. You can read all about that in another post here. And what cows and God and money have to do with each other - at least in my mind. Simple as it is. 

So here's the story, then the breakdown.

Along with all the normal mama things I think about all the time, all things adoption are constantly on my mind as well. And I've been noticing cow, goat, and sheep pastures for many months. MANY months. I find them peaceful, enchanting, and greatly encouraging. And "the cattle on a thousand hills," and God's promises and faithfulness are brought quickly to mind. 

Last weekend a majority of the children joined me for our annual Mother's Day outing. And of course we passed many pastures. But the one that most stood out as we drove was a huge pasture of beautiful green, rolling hills, some big shade tress and miles of fancy fence. But where were all the livestock?

These are not the actual cows we saw, just some world wide
web cows from an online English news paper I know nothing
about. They're just cute.

We went around curves and over hills. The pasture was huge! 
The grass wasn't very tall. There had to be some animal somewhere. 

Then, just before the pretty fence ended all the cows were gathered near a gate. 
And my little heart said, "Oh, He's gathering them together." 

As much as I'd like to know exactly (everything) how all this adoption stuff will pan out, it is enough to know Who does. And that He hasn't forgotten. He's just out gathering cows.

So as we wait we trust. 

And blog. 

And transfer records to google sheets so we can share all the nitty gritty boring bits with the curious, nosy, concerned, or math snobs. Plus, we've asked on repeat for HELP! So we should be clear about what we need help with. (Total transparency) And this will be a good place to send folks.

As I mentioned in the last post these helpful spread sheets are posted on the right hand side of the blog home screen (of your on a PC) under the heading "Pages." 
On a phone you'll find a drop down search bar under the header. 
Gosh! That's clear as mud! (Took my mother several minutes on the phone with me to find it on her computer - sigh) So I'll just leave them linked below as well.

So, to sum up, the cows are coming. We don't know how they'll get here. But we don't own them anyway. 

Love ya!

PS - no word from the far off kids this week. Keep praying for good health and opened borders.

Google Sheets
Expected Ukrainian Adoptions Fees - this is the simplified version of the estimated need. Where there is a variable or range (like travel or mailing cost) we estimated in the middle. 
Adoption Expenses - this is everything that has actually been paid to date. All the things (minus fundraisers - those are shared as we go)
Adoption Grants - this is my personal spreed sheet of where we have applied or plan to apply soon. (I have no idea why it's green or how to fix it - I'm very new to all the google doc things). This has already proven helpful to some adopting friends.