Drips at night

Drip...Drip, Drip...Drip...Drip, Drip, Drip...Drip...

These are not the sounds you expect to hear while feeding the baby in the middle of the night.  Especially when you are on the first floor of the house.  And the room where the noises are coming from is not under a bathroom.

My sleep-deprived mind first thought a gerbil must be lose.  They do live in that room and this is a pleasure we've not yet had.  I knew it didn't sound exactly like that, but while sitting in the rocking chair in the room next door, I couldn't wrap my midnight-mind around it.

When Victor was ready for a break in eating, I went to investigate.  Standing in the room with the light on I knew I was in the right room but it still took a few moments to realize that the noise was a drip and the drip was coming from the ceiling.  But with no bathroom above it?  No storm outside?  What could be going on?

Let me pause to say that there is one time when it's a good thing that your girls are messy.  The pile of clothes in the middle of the floor caught some of the drips and most of the drips?  They had landed on one of the very clean but used-for-a-doll-preemie-diapers that had been sent home from the hospital with Victor because they were too small.  It was perfectly positioned for the task.

I, of course, woke the Good Doctor whose sleep deprived brain functions worse than mind.  I'll spare you the details.

He made his way to the floor above to investigate.  The two upstairs bedrooms each have their own air conditioning unit.  Each unit's run-off drains into PVC piping that runs the length of the house through the upstairs crawlspace.  Apparently one of those connectors had never been glued and after several years had begun to sag and leak.

It was clear this had been going on for quite some time.  This crawlspace is where we keep our out-grown, waiting to be hand-me-down clothing.  One properly placed bag had been turned into a mold growing experiment while we waited unawares for tonight's overflow to begin.  When our younger girls get to size 14/16, don't be surprised if they don't have too much to wear.  That bag received our thanks but was promptly given a proper burial.

You know, I've heard these stories over and over again among our adopting friends.  The furnace breaks, the basement floods, the cars stop working, formerly healthy bodies fail us.  Redemption is costly in so many ways.  Since we began this journey with Victor, we've had a cancer scare, each of our vehicles has been in the shop - some several times, and now this.

But we don't give up.  We press on.  We trust.  This comes after two miraculous gifts from God this week.  We received the gift of a full size mattress for a double bed that had been using a twin mattress (yes, it did look funny but it was functional so who cares?) and Mariana received a much-needed scholarship to cover her camp deposit for next year.  These gifts did not randomly arrive just days before our middle-of-the-night set-back.  God sent them at just the right time so that my now wide-awake brain could say "thank you" and remember that God is good.  All the time.  All the time.  God is good.

So what do we do?  We pray.  We make sure we're prepared.  We cut back where we can.  We make cookies.

Not for us, Silly.  Even before tonight's mishap we had decided that it's time to start fundraising again.  Our adopttogether site has provided us with 1/4 of our adoption expenses so far and for that we are so thankful!  During the month of October we will once again be making pregnant cookies (because we were, after all, expecting) - an Oreo stuffed inside a chocolate chip cookie.  Be thinking about a college student or someone away from home or even just a friend who needs a pick-me-up.  We'll post the information soon and will be taking orders.  We'll mail them anywhere in the US.  Who can you bless and contribute to Victor's homecoming at the same time?

My friend, don't give up when living in God's Will.  Press on.

Galatians 6:9  Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

We know the end of the story!