Wow! What an Easter! Praise JESUS! HE IS ALIVE!!!

First, we got up and went to church with our friend, Laura. It was a church plant, here in Odessa, focused primarily toward university students, and conducted in Russian & English. We had a really sweet time worshiping with our Ukrainian brothers & sisters in Christ. They sang contemporary worship songs in English & Russian, then the pastor led a Bible study. He spoke in English and had a Russian translator.

Afterwards, we went to lunch at a very nice cafeteria, on the second floor of a large grocery store. Lynn & I have both really enjoyed the Ukrainian foods. Lynn has not been near as adventurous as I, but she definitely has gotten outside her normal box. Following lunch, we shopped for a few last items for evening dinner; and looked for some new shoes for Alyona.

Once we arrived back at our flat, we had the pleasure of watching our home church service, LIVE, via Internet streaming. It was so absolutely awesome to be more than 4500 miles from home, yet we were able to participate in celebrating resurrection Sunday with our dear friends at home, in Brandon, MS!!

Later on, we enjoyed Easter dinner with several Americans who live here in Odessa. It was so fun to dine & fellowship & play games together.

One other incredible "event" occurred today. We had heard a few days ago about a change to the tax laws regarding adoptions. Today, we learned more specific details regarding the changes. For at least the last few years, adoptive parents have been eligible for an ~$12,000 tax credit for each adopted child. While that in itself is good, it is of little benefit to families which normally already receive income tax refunds. Well... just recently, Congress just revised the tax credit in three very important ways. 1st) They extended the credit for another year. It now is valid for adoptions finalized by Dec 31st, 2011. 2nd) They increased the credit amount from ~$12,000 to $13,170. And 3rd) They changed it from a plain ol’ "tax credit" to a "refundable tax credit". This is a very significant change. What this means is that, “if your tax liability for the year of your adoption is less than the amount of credit you are applying for, the IRS will refund the portion of the unused credit. This means you could receive some or all of the balance as a refund on your federal taxes.”

This news regarding the tax credit is especially significant to me because not only was it was an answer to prayer regarding financial provision, it also was an amazing demonstration of God’s sovereignty and divine timing. See, when we started down this road of adoption, not only did I feel God’s calling to adopt. I also felt His prompting to truly trust Him to provide the finances to accomplish it. He kept impressing on me that we would not have to pay for the expenses from our own funds. Some may say, “OK, so what?” But as we started looking at the details it quickly became apparent the total adoption was going to cost us northwards of $30,000; and THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS is a whole lot of money for this humble Network Operations Supervisor. We had absolutely no clue where we would ever come up with that kind of green stuff. As the months progressed, our human side continually wanted to rise up and “help” God with various fundraising activities. We even had a few friends offer to plan & coordinate fundraisers for us. While I still couldn’t see how the funds would come in, I definitely did not have a peace about pursuing these various activities. So, we waited. As we completed all the paperwork and submitted our dossier, and the date for travel approached, our human logic absolutely insisted we needed to be doing “something” to raise funds. Still, I felt Him asking us to trust Him. Because significant money was not arriving prior us leaving, I was really, really questioning if I had truly been hearing from God at all. The Spirit within me, though, kept saying, “Wait… Wait… Wait…” A few weeks before we left I even mentioned to Lynn that I felt we were being challenged to demonstrate our faith by figuratively “stepping into the river Jordan”. In other words, we were being asked to purchase the tickets and actually leave for Ukraine before the funds would become available. Now, with the donations received to date and this information regarding the newly refundable tax credit, it appears that all of our anticipated adoption expenses will be covered!!! Praise JESUS!! When I realized the significance of this I literally broke into tears. God so wants to work in our lives and bless us. If only we will allow Him to work through us to share those blessing with others...

Tim