Thankful

On this Thanksgiving weekend, we thought we would pause a moment to take our eyes off our troubles, our hectic packing life (and the thousands of tiny decisions that entails), and the steady stream of people walking through our house buying things from us. Instead, we want to look at things we're thankful for...

We're thankful for the prayers that have gone up on our behalf. You've sung songs for us, you've knelt for us, you've lit candles, you've wept, you've allowed your heart to be broken along with us. We have definitely felt carried around on the backs of prayers this week.

We're thankful for the many, many emails, comments, and Facebook wall posts that have been a tangible voice of encouragement to our family in this trying time. Our gratitude and appreciation for your kinds words of support and love know no bounds.

We're thankful for the family that is going to be renting our house, as well as buying most of the furniture and appliances in it. It truly is astounding the way God connected us and we feel such a peace about turning this place over to such wonderful people (people who, by the way, celebrated Thanksgiving with us by bringing over a massive spread of all the normal Thanksgiving food, and who have been instrumental in helping us pack and set up our weeklong garage sale).

We're thankful that we've been able to sell almost all our belongings here, blessing the missions community in Jinja and Ugandans in the process. The money we've made will certainly help us start over, though it won't go nearly as far in the United States as it goes here in Uganda.

We're thankful that we don't have to drive ourselves three hours to the airport in Entebbe. It really is a big deal.

We're thankful that we have a fully furnished house to live in through the end of December to help us settle in and reestablish our presence in Tulsa.

We're thankful for our church family back in Tulsa, who have been an enormous encouragement to us. We are ready to collapse in their collective arms when we get back.

We're thankful for our families in Tulsa, who love us unconditionally and have supported us all along our adoption journey. They have lost a grandson, a nephew, a cousin--and yet they are still filled with hope.

We're thankful for each other, because without each other, we would just fall apart. I can see my kids growing even closer, more tight-knit, through this time, and I know that, when they reach adulthood, they will be a collective force to be reckoned with. Michelle and I are even closer friends now than we've ever been, and we both agree that there's no one on earth we'd rather spend time with.

We're thankful for the financial support that you have sent our way over the last year. It really is mind-blowing to think of people parting with their hard-earned cash in order to help our family stay afloat. It's going to be difficult to start from scratch once again, but we're getting there, and we have you to thank.

And it wouldn't be Thanksgiving weekend if we didn't talk a little bit about "Black Friday." I know everyone is gearing up for the Christmas shopping season, and so on a day when everyone is getting their special holiday deals, we would like to ask if you would consider making us one of your holiday specials. Our friend Dave suggested on our Facebook pages that all our Facebook friends donate ten dollars each to us to help us begin writing this new chapter of our lives, and we thought we'd share his idea with you. If you'd like to participate, donation instructions are at the top, right-hand side of this web page.

And finally, we're thankful for the people who worked on our behalf (Debbie and Janet) to get us back to Tulsa as quickly as possible. It's official: we're flying home on December 4th.

The Death of a Dream

Dear friends--

We have difficult news to deliver. I wish this post could be about the wonderful vehicle we were able to buy with your support, or about the marvelous home God has blessed us with. But it is not.

Instead, we're posting this message simply to say that we've suffered a great tragedy and loss in our family and we are now making plans to return to the United States.

Sterling will not be coming with us. He can no longer be in our family.

As you can imagine, this is a heartbreaking turn of events for us, and we have many levels of grief to process through. Until we've done that, I'm going to ask that you please respect our privacy in this difficult time and not ask us the obvious questions of "Why?" and "What happened?" There will be a time for that, but that time is not now.

We now have the monumental task of shepherding our children through the loss of their brother, as well as finding healing for many other emotional wounds we've all suffered. We have been talking this through with our pastor in Tulsa and have been praying significantly, and we feel God is bringing our time to Jinja to a close so that we can return to the US and find much of this healing in the arms of our families and our church community.

Please pray for our family as we recover from the shock of this tragedy. Please pray for Sterling as he embarks on his new adventure of life without us. And please pray about supporting us financially as we once more embark on the costly process of relocating our family and starting over. Donation instructions are at the top right-hand side of this website.

Thank you so much for supporting us as we've undertaken this task. We need you now more than ever.

Love,
Adam, Michelle, Emma, Noah, Dorothy, and Charlotte Palmer