A Beloved's Journey

The months have seemed to drag on in the adoption front. I am currently waiting to be approved to adopt in India by the Indian Central Authority (CARA). This process usually takes an average of three months. We are currently knocking on the door of nine months waiting. Over these past nine months I have been learning some Indian cooking and some hindi words and buying some things that I know will be needed (such as a bed with a trundler so I can share a room with her for the first month or so). But doing all these things doesn't make the frustration of waiting any easier. The positive of this waiting is that I know that something will come of this... eventually. The difficulty is I can do absolutely nothing to make the process go faster. There is good news though! The minimum wait for me, with the specifications I have given to India, is 2-3 years (wait the good part is coming!) I believed that the 2 year waiting time started from when I was accepted by CARA but it actually ...

I'm sitting in my lounge and there is a delicious aroma wafting through from the kitchen. Not because I am cooking something but because I have chopped up some ingredients ready to cook this evening. On Tuesday this week I went over to my neighbours house and had my first 'cooking class.' I still don't know what the curry is called but it was delicious and I learnt a lot about Indian cooking. My neighbours are from North India so their cooking is very different from curries found in Southern India. PJ showed me many of her spices kept in glass jars or Tupperware containers (no small cardboard boxes from the supermarket). She had star anise, black and green cardamon, bay leaf, turmeric, cumin seeds and the list goes on. I learned that black cardamon is used for a spicer flavour as are red onions whereas green cardamon and white onions are used for a sweeter flavour. I also learned that red chillies are not as good for you as green chillies as red chillies can burn your...

On Thursday afternoon I hopped on a plane and headed to Auckland for my course on adoption. I made sure I had a glass of wine before I left so that I was calm for the journey which was surprisingly without turbulence considering all the cloud around.  I ubered to my airBnB with a lovely man who had lived in Auckland for 20 years but was originally from India. I talked about my journey of adoption and he shared about his dreams for his daughters (one who had recently survived lukemia) and his desire to move to Christchurch.  On arrival to my airBnB I worked out that it was 20 minutes walk to One Tree Hill. I decided to pack my umbrella and jacket just in case and headed off for a wee adventure. Yes, it was 20 minutes walk to One Tree Hill but then you had to climb it! Luckily I bought my umbrella as it started to rain as I ascended. My jacket came in handy when I reached the top as the wind was blowing a gale. I was told the view from the top was amazing...

Me, Lisa Harper and Mum Most of you will know about Lisa Harper and how her story has significantly impacted my own. If you don't follow this link to read my blog about this incredible woman. https://abelovedsjourney.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-people-who-inspire-us.html I wanted to include this story in my post about Sistas but I found that there was too much information that would take away from the insights I had gained over the weekend. Going after your dreams is not always easy. And with chasing this one I learned a lot about myself, God's calling and perseverance through the journey. When I found out that Lisa was speaking at Sistas I contacted Sistas to see if it would be possible to meet with her. They seemed positive about this and said they would see what they could do. I didn't hear from them for awhile so emailed them again a few months later to see if progress had been made, to which they responded that it was difficult to organise and that I should e...

It is difficult to sum up the incredible time at Sistas 19 over the weekend. There were plenty of tears, amazing speakers, much laughing and bonding with others and hearing God speak. I had never been to the Sistas conference in Auckland (a Christian conference for women) but Lisa Harper was speaking this year and I wanted to take the opportunity to meet her. It was an amazing weekend listening to inspiring women about God, worshipping our Creator, catching up with friends and making dreams come true. The mornings started at 6:45, leaving the hotel at 8 to catch a bus and arrive at Conference by 9:15 - 9:30am. At 9:30pm we hopped back on a bus, arriving back at our hotel some time after 10 and rolling into bed before 11 to do it all again the next day.  We had a treat with incredible women of God inspiring us to love louder. Love ourselves, our God and His people. On Friday and Saturday we heard from the energetic Christine Caine. She is a fire-house of passion for God's ...

Today, on this 11th September, I have finished paying off the $10,000 loan that I received late last year. I began paying this off in January and have managed to pay it off in 9 months and 8 days with God's grace, two fundraisers and some pretty epic budgeting skills. It feels good but I know the celebration will be in my next pay when that money will go to increase my savings towards adoption. How did I celebrate? Well not with anything today but recently I bought a beautiful darker-skinned doll for Bunny and that felt like a way to celebrate. In the next week or so I will take my incredible friend, who lent me the money, out for a meal to celebrate. And tomorrow I hop on a plane and fly to Auckland to attend the Sistas Conference and hopefully meet Lisa Harper and her daughter Missy. I'm so excited, I don't know how much sleep I will get tonight. I've been beavering away over the past few days sewing a baby blanket as they are collecting these at the conference to...

Things have been very quiet on the adoption front lately as my documents sit on someone's desk in India waiting to be looked at. I need to get used to this though. Once my documents are checked I will be waiting for months or even years to be matched. It's a lesson in patient waiting. So in the mean time lets talk cooking! I love creating delicious food. If it doesn't taste good why make it?! Near the beginning of this year I started what I thought would be a tradition of having pancakes at the start of every school holidays. A celebratory type thing. This has turned into pancakes every weekend because who doesn't like celebrating weekends?! But these aren't just any pancakes. I use the recipe in Chelsea Winter's book 'EAT'. I don't have the rights to share this recipe with you but I would suggest you buy this book anyway as the recipe is not available online and there are many great recipes in it. Trust me, I've cooked over 75% of the main...