Growing Berries....

Six Months and another home study.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:22:00 +0000

Six months waiting for our ET babycakes. There is finally a glimpse of hope for movement in this process. We waiting. I'm excited at the prospect of movement and praying that God's will would be done in the lives of orphans in ET. Whatever that will may be! Six months seems CRAZY. It's gone by very very quickly. That's half a year, people!

In other news, our first (and maybe only) home study visit for our foster care license is this Sunday! Super excited! I feel so different going into this home study than I did the first one. I suppose practice makes ~~lazy~~ perfect right? I don't feel nearly as stressed about the house being perfect or about answering personal questions. At this point, my life (finances, personal life, marriage, parenting, friendships, etc) is an open book with no secrets. It's kind of strange to be in a constant state of sharing our personal lives with what is the equivalent of total strangers - but hey, that's adoption! If it were my baby in need of a home I'd hope the workers did their jobs thoroughly as well.

Our house is ready. For the most part. Hoping she's going to understand our crazy gardening mess as we have shop lights hanging from the ceiling above our dining table which is full of newly planted seeds just waiting to germinate. It's so cold in our dining room they may be waiting all growing season to get warm enough to sprout! We've got the bedroom ready and it's surreal to look at and think there will be little people living in there, potentially very soon! And to look at it and know that one of those beds is for our ET baby as well is completely crazy. With ET I have purposely avoided buying anything or setting up any space as to avoid disappointment - but getting ready for foster care made it necessary to demonstrate we have the room and resources for both - so now it's there... staring me down. It's now going to be a constant reminder of this roller coaster we're on!

I really should have taken before and after pics of the upstairs transformation, but alas, I only took after pics so you'll really need to use your imagination.

First, imagine this room filled to the brim with sewing machines, fabric, yarn, paint, easels, et.c

Next, imagine this room completely full of random assortment of .... junk, all the way full, not just half way like it is now.

Now, this is the room after removing 2/3rds the junk and moving all said craftiness from previous room in.

And here's the previous art room, now with cute little people beds! Looking like a room ready for little people!!

So, second home study - here we come!

Playtime with Grandma Beth!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 02:55:00 +0000

Five months and a growing ministry.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:32:00 +0000

Well, its been 5 months since our paperwork left for Ethiopia. Still have a long time to wait. While our social worker for ET (ethiopia) is telling us that we will fall at the far end of our estimated wait time (8-14 months) but that we will, most likely be in the wait time.... I have a sneaky suspicion that it will be more than 14 months. Either way, if your counting down from 14 instead of up from 0 - then we are now in the single digit months (9) left to wait! We shall see. In other adoption news, we are in the process of officially signing our Concurrent Adoption Risk Statement so that when our foster licensure is finished (probably mid-March) we can begin taking placements!

In other news...

I don't typically write a lot of detail about ministry. A variety of reasons, mainly just because it's such an abstract thing and each persons ministry is so different that it often feels hard to make any concise conclusion on the matter. However, today I just feel like talking ministry.

For example, how does one equate growth or success when it comes to building the Kingdom of God? The Kingdom is such a backwards, upside-down, skewed thing that to those of us suffering in our mortal forms growth seems like shrinking and success feels much like failure. We've been doing a lot of new things lately in our ministry here in Cincinnati. New mentoring programs for youth. New logos and websites and volunteer manuals and policies. New, and wonderful volunteers. New approach to how we collect and prepare food.

So much new. So much that feels like growth.

And yet, ironically all of these different things have done one thing consistently: created a situation where I feel that there is a shrinking. For example, as we created a mentoring program designed to hold students accountable to mentoring contracts and punctuality and appropriate mentee behavior we knew that student would be forced to choose. Choose to participate and receive the benefits of such participation. Or choose to leave. Sadly, a few students have chosen to leave as opposed to be held accountable to appropriate behavior. It has given me so many sleepless nights and so much heartache as I have lost the regular contact I once had with students I've been building relationships with over the course of the last 6 years. While I know that this is growth in the ministry as a whole as we weed out those that have been a distraction to the others who are really seeking to learn... It feels a whole lot more like shrinking.

I know that that is part of Kingdom building. It's the whole parable of the sowing of the seeds. Different soils. Some fertile, some shallow and rocky, some full of weeds and thorns, some too hot and dry, some too heavily traveled and open to predators. It seems that the hearts and lives of our urban young people are either fertile, or a horrible mixture of these other types. The kids face so much struggle: People in their lives who will come and steal and eat and destroy the seed of hope we plant, hard situations that cause a shallowness that simply won't allow the seed to take root, peer pressure springing up and choking out those precious new seeds of hope trying to rise to the surface, or a harsh environment creating too much heat to allow the new shoots to survive. It seems that our kids are dealing with all these things at the same time. It keeps me up nights thinking and scheming how to help improve the soil, how to manipulate the variables to create an optimal growing environment.

I feel this way, and these children do not biologically, legally, or even informally belong to me. I feel the same longing to see them know Christ and succeed that I feel about Z or L. I long for everyone in the world to feel the same passion for them that I feel so that with help we really can save a generation of students that are so bright, so full of passion, so longing to be loved and to love. We can help them become some thing great. I know we can.

But right now, it feels a bit like shrinking.

Good, good day. Picture Post.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 02:57:00 +0000

Good friend Sarah gave us not one, but TWO beds for our foster/adopt journeys! Can't wait to put them together and get them out of the living room!

Making snowflakes at the nursing home with Grandma Loie

Spending time with Grandma Loie

Foster Care and other adventures in family growth.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:38:00 +0000

Alright. When we were doing, but not doing, but still unknowingly doing this Ethiopian adoption - we started foster care training. So after rejoining the Ethiopia program we thought and prayed about what to do about this process that'd we'd begun for foster care. Well, we decided to continue and get our foster care license and we restarted our training yesterday.

It looks like we'll be licensed somewhere around the end of February if all goes as planned. Our last training class will be February 12th and then the home study worker will come out and do our home study which should not (fingers crossed) take more than a few weeks. So, after our license comes in there is potential for us to get a placement right away! Or, of course, as all things orphan care can always go - we could wait.

All in God's time, and hopefully people won't stand in the way of His will.

But, I have to say, after feeling discouraged about adoption and feeling like maybe I've been reading Him all wrong - I really feel like he's working things out. Every time there is a weird road block, he takes care of it.

For example, we needed a new fire inspection for the foster care home study. So a guy comes out and freaks out about the smallest problems with our house. Our outlet covers are off because ~~we started painting the kitchen a year ago and haven't finished~~ we're painting. Our fire extinguisher sits on the counter instead of being mounted on the wall. Our basement is a mess of VW parts that a "child could get hurt on" (why would an infant be in the basement unsupervised??). So, then, after all that he never called back and would not return our calls. So I called a different inspector, she came out that same day and approved us!

Well, show up to training yesterday and look through our forms again to realize she didn't sign the back of the form! So I called her today and she came back out and signed the form. She told me that it was weird I called her today cause the other guy was talking to her about us and saying we were going to "have to call him back" to deal with our issues (specifically he was not happy with the disarray of a green house Abe is building in the yard). She just told him, "I went out and approved them. They do not have to call you back!" She told me, "I'm not concerned with your yard, I'm trying to make sure you are safe in a fire in your house not in your yard!"

So, that's worked out. She even approved sleeping arrangements on the third floor, which means this weekend I get to start setting up a bedroom for what will hopefully be new additions soon!

Inkredible Shrinking Me

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:25:00 +0000

I've added a new tab at the top of this blog linking to my weightloss/healthy living blog. I'm gonna get healthy for real this time.

Thank you MLK

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:02:00 +0000

An adoptive mama I know posted this quote today and even though our adoption isn't final and in reality L isn't legally part of our family my whole family life and ministry is a testimony to the change that MLK helped in bringing about in this country. I'm so thankful for his legacy and the beautiful life he's contributed to me having because of his obedience to Christ in fighting for justice and equality.

I have a dream....that one day little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

Provision

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 23:23:00 +0000

I've been thinking a lot about the word "provision" lately. I think that sometimes I spend so much time praying and asking God to provide for the things I want or need that I forget to actually watch for the ways in which he's already working on it.

For example, I've been praying constantly for God to provide for our ministry both in provision of workers as well as funding and material resources. At every turn it feels like, "HELLO, are you there God? Are you going to provide?" Then something crazy happens and say, our treasurer quits. Meaning we have to find a new one. I'm shaking my head saying, hello? Is this provision??

But wait...

RANDOM phone call from a friend who will be our treasurer, has experience in non-profit record keeping, and will do it for free?

Ah, now that's provision. Not just what we need, but MORE. And not when we wanted it, but that when it happened - He worked it for good.

So then, I'm thinking. This whole adoption business is not happening as I would like it to. I know not all of you are as up to date with Ethiopian adoption processes as I am - but suffice it to say things are moving SLOWLY. There are some current changes happening and right now it feels as if we're at a stand still. This is frustrating.

But wait...

All of a sudden there are workers for ministry, coming out of the wood work! Now I'm thinking, this adoption waiting business is not as I'd like it to be. I'm not even positive that it's "all in God's timing" as a lot of folks would say (although of course it might truly be, as I will not pretend to know the will of God) as I find it hard to believe God desires orphans to wait long periods of time in orphanages when loving families are waiting... but....

I do believe with all my heart that God is using this waiting period to work all things together for good in the life of our family. I believe that as I pray for provision he may not be raining manna from heaven the instant I ask, but as I wait and watch I can see a process of provision unfolding.

Workers for the ministry to allow me to focus more on mothering. (An essential when bringing home an internationally adopted child.)
Funding to allow the ministry to continue, grow and thrive that will eventually mean Abe doesn't have to work two jobs.
Time to put all of it together and be READY when the time comes to travel.

I do think that God is providing these things as we wait. So that's exciting!

I'm trusting that on the other side of things (and the other side of the world), God is providing for our child what they need to be healthy and strong; and for their first mother the things she needs to heal; and for Ethiopia the systems and resources they need to care for their children and families.

God truly is a God of provision. I'm praying for him to provide these things and I'm praying for him to work in a way that allows us to bring a child in need of a family into ours.

But still waiting....

Four months waiting and more....

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:46:00 +0000

Alright everyone, we've been waiting 4 months (well, in 4 more days it will be 4 months). In some ways it seems like 4 is a lot. Four is so much better than 1 or 2 or 3. But 4 is not as good as say... 8 or 10 or 12.... Although at this point it seems like it's going to be more than the 14 that was originally the max end of our agencies wait time estimates. Which is ok. I'm telling myself that this is just like all the other things in my life that I've waited on God for that have been an awesome story of His work in the world when all is said and done. I do believe it will be.

In other news, I've made some progress towards our goals in these last two months since I posted. I really need to make a goal to post more, but this has been a BUSY time for us. Here's a photo explanation of what we've been up to:

We had an awesome set of food drives for the ministry and are now almost fully stocked!

Z got to make a gingerbread house at a Chick-fil-a craft night. Talk about a frustrating craft for mama's. The thing wouldn't stay together!

We made paper star lanterns for grandma's and Aunt Sarah for Christmas!

And Christmas cookies!

L opening the start of his college preparation stuff. Who doesn't want a laundry basket and dishes for Christmas?!

Z loved his presents and having Grandma Beth and Papa Brian in town!

Made home made flour tortillas as part of my effort to cook at home more. We've only eaten out once a week for two weeks AND I've gone to bed each night with a clean kitchen. It really is a Christmas miracle.

Started the new People of Promise Leadership Initiative for the youth in the ministry. It went awesome! Can't wait til next week!

And finally, Z is turning into a tool man.

Overall, we've had an awesome holiday season and I'm a bit sorry its over. But the good news is we're on the right track! We're enjoying our life as a family and working towards making ministry better and better.

2

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 04:33:00 +0000

So I was totally supposed to post this a week ago, but I just haven't been able to force myself to do it. I keep telling myself I'm going to blog and write more. I used to write all the time, even got a couple of articles published - it was very therapeutic and a great hobby. Seems like I just can't collect my thoughts anymore. I have such heaviness in my mind all the time and I just can't seem to collect it all into any sort of form that anyone but me would understand.

We're now 2 months DTE. I could write a lot about what it feels like to be at this point finally, but I can't get past the disappointment that I feel that it took us this long to get to this point. We're just at the beginning of our wait and I feel like if we had not been so stubborn we'd be a lot further in the process by now. Of course, I have no idea what God intended or did not intend or if we were in or out of his will. I only know where we are now, and of course where I'd like to be.

I continue to drive myself insane thinking about how we might be able to do two concurrent adoptions, one with a shorter wait while we wait for our Ethiopian sweetheart. We can't necessarily afford two private adoptions at the same time, but oh how I long to get a move on towards growing our family. I keep thinking about getting older, how I don't want to be too old before we get to the number of kids we would love to have. I am slightly obsessed with this and it's really not healthy.

But hey, good news is: God knows me. He knows the desires of my heart. He knows that I love being a mother. And he is typically faithful to bless me with the desires of my heart. So even if it isn't as fast as I'd like it to be - I am believing that He will bless me with the family I desire. I'm believing that he's going to give me the children he wants me to have, however they may come to me. I'm also believing that he'll guide those children, all of them, to become what ever it is He wants them to be.

I would write to you about the progress we've made towards our "Waiting Goals" but truth is, I don't know how much progress we've really made towards those specific goals. We've been working HARD towards expanding and growing the ministry in order to better help our community and we hope that this will lead in the right direction for our family life as well. We've been working towards getting college visits together for L and just always trying to spend time with and teach Z all the things a 2 year old should know (although I often think he knows much more!).

Hopefully I'll write more, I just haven't been able to find many words through the heaviness of my heart longing for a child I don't yet have and between the business of ministry and family. It's a lot. But I'm here, still waiting.

One

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 12:55:00 +0000

Well, it's been one month waiting for our referral. One down, 7-13+ to go! I've been living in a constant state of what if.

What if it's more like 18 months?

What if something goes wrong in our personal life and messes everything up?

What if I'm not cut out to wait this long?

And it's only been ONE month!

Well, I said at the beginning that I had goals to accomplish while waiting. So here's where we are on the goals:

1. Be Healthier!

Gotta say, this could have gone better. I've been going to Weight Watchers meetings since mid-summer and have only lost 5 pounds. I have only lost about a half a pound in this month waiting. I definitely am going to have to step it up and get healthier. I need to have more energy!

2. Be more organized!

This is going well! This month I rearranged the living room to put Z's toys along the one wall and not in the middle of the floor. This has giving us a lot more room to play and work and not feel so cramped. I also cleaned the desk and organized the paperwork!

In addition to working on the living room I also worked on the kitchen and set up some new shelving that cleaned off the counters and left me with much more usable counter space!

The next project is to clear out the upstairs storage room and move my crafting stuff in there to create a true 4th bedroom upstairs. This will definitely be documented with pictures as it will be quite the transformation!

3. Get a better budget!

Still need to work on this. Made some good strides, but still am not where I'd like to be. We did pay off one student loan this month that we've been working on 6 years now!! But we also still ate out much more than we should have and spent too much on food. This is so linked to my problems with getting healthy! New habits coming soon!

We also had to make some repairs on the house again. Ah, the joys of a 100 year old home! At least the gutter won't be leaking all winter!

4. Making more time for family!

This one is going pretty well! We've got a lot of great ideas for moving the ministry forward and had some great talks with the director of Shepherd Community Center in Indy a few weeks ago that have given us a renewed vision for what we need to do to make this ministry sustainable. Sustainable ministry = more family time! So we're excited about that. Here's some pics for you to enjoy of our family time today at the Lebanon Rail Road!

Just getting going on the train!

Z looking out the window. He loves trains!

Mama, me and Z. T wouldn't come out until Abe coerced him too. He said trains are dangerous to walk on!

On the pumpkin farm!

Z the pumpkin face!

T the pumpkin face!

Sleeping boys!

Overall, I think I've made ok progress for the first month waiting. More progress to come. More time to pass. More waiting to do. Closer and closer to Ethiopia we creep. :-)

Abe turns 30!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:45:00 +0000

Today is a special day! Today, my wonderful husband turns 30!

It was almost 10 years ago that we met and became practically instant best friends. He of course liked me more initially than I liked him, but I also wasn't in the most mature part of my life then. I can't begin to thank God enough for Abe and for the life we have together and the amazing son we have. There are days when its difficult to be both husband and wife and co-workers - but the majority of time I look around at my life and I can't even imagine it being better.

I've been watching some of the footage/media about the Occupy Wall Street protests and I have to say, I just don't get it. I'm a more liberal Christian than most people realize, but I still don't get it. On their website there is a link to a site called "We are the 99%". The website shows people holding up hand written signs declaring why they are part of the 99% of the world's poorest people. I have to tell you, this website makes me so angry.

One of the people complains,

"Also, after over 5 years in the workforce, not counting my retail years as a teenager, I have yet to hold one full-time job, or earn more than $22k/year."

Another,

"I dropped out of medical school 2 years ago because I decided to be a midwife, and you can be anything you want, right? Now, I don’t think I can afford to get another master’s degree - I’ll be lucky to get my BSN. I can’t move in with my parents because I’m afraid of my large, homophobic (and also unemployed) brother, so I’m not sure what I’ll do when I wear out my welcome at friends’ houses."

Another,

"We live within our means, we own our cars, yet cannot accumulate much savings. We live responsibly, and consider ourselves “citizens” and not “consumers.” We find it troubling that living simply can still accrue so much debt."

Another,

"This was supposed to be the “American dream”. Turns out graduating with all A’s from an Ivy League university has earned me: $15,000 in student loan debt, of which I’ve managed to pay off $5,000, unemployment and underemployment, the basic medicare offered by my state (and I’m fortunate to even have that), stress, and depression. And I’m one of the lucky ones who’s not on the verge of hunger or homelessness—as long as my family members or I don’t get seriously sick."

This is just a sample. There are folks on there that I genuinely have compassion for. A lot of people struggling with illness that can't afford medical care - I have a deep sense of compassion for that. However, I find that my situation in life is much the same as many of these people saying they are the "99%". If I were to write something for this webpage it would look something like this:

Husband (30) and I (28) graduated college with $92K in combined student loans. After graduation my husband had a series of three different, yet equally horrible jobs in the span of a year never finding one that paid well but didn't require awful physical labor. Finally landed a good job. My husband is a pastor, so this means he's now working two jobs for a combined 70-80 hour work week. I work from home part time for $100 a week. We live in a horrible school district and are dreading the sacrifices we will make to afford a quality education for our son. 2/3rds of our income is dependent on the generosity of others. If people stop giving to charitable organizations, we will be forced put our son in expensive day care so I can get a full time job which may or may not actually cover the costs of day care. After student loan payments and every day expenses we are unable to save any significant amount of money.

But here's the deal. Even after debt and living pay check to pay check and worrying about fundraising in this economy and what to do about education, health care, getting ahead, not falling behind - the deal is:

I am not the 99%. I live in a world where I have luxury at my fingertips. I think a lot of these people are forgetting that our struggles are struggles we have because we want too much. We struggle and fight to get more and more stuff and in the process we worry about what we look like compared to the millionaires and corporations in this country. But the deal is, we are comparing ourselves in the wrong direction. Instead of looking up the corporate ladder and saying, "These people are the problem! Why don't I have as much as them!" We ought to be realizing that we shouldn't be fighting for ourselves. If you want to look up at those with wealth we must first look in the mirror! We are not the 99%.

(By the way, I'm not sure they can win their battle without really harming the rest of the "war")

We have to stop judging by an American standard. You may be the 99% here. But that's a skewed vision! In American we need to quit just caring only about ourselves, on every level of income. We need to realize that the world is hurting much worse than we are and begin to be thankful for what we have, use it in a way that really matters, and quit being lazy consumers just want, want, wanting more.

I am sure by now you're asking what this has to do with Abe turning 30! Thinking about how great my life is, how awesome my husband is and how blessed I am that he was born - made me think how grateful I am that we were not born in a place with high infant mortality, with an AIDS pandemic, with destitute poverty, with the chance that we could share this amazing life together. But I also know, the people in those places are worth just as much as we are. God loves them just as much. He doesn't want them to suffer, and he doesn't want us to forget about them because we are in pursuit of some long, lost "American dream".

How I love Fall.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 20:52:00 +0000

I love fall.

During the summer things are a bit chaotic and there is no real schedule and things just don't flow as well. We seem to be in a constant state of motion as we plan and lead mission groups all summer long. I love having the groups come and participate in our mission and it's an amazing experience to partner with people from all over the country in ministry here, but by the end of summer - I'm ready for fall!

I love when the weather cools and the neighbors get nicer and the trees turn gorgeous colors. My house is no longer a stifling 90 degrees. It's awesome!

But fall is also a reminder that things are coming to a close. Our garden is starting to really fade and we've brought in most of the plants we hope to have bear out the winter indoors. Z's birthday has come and gone and now he's this busy busy two year old with a temper and a definitely mind of his own! No more baby, pure toddler loveliness now! I am ready for a new beginning in many areas of my life and I hope that the coming year will bring that.

I am excited to see what God has in store for our family and I'm hoping beyond hoping that a miracle will happen and by this time next year we will at least have a referral of our next beautiful baby (or toddler!). I'm super excited about what God is doing in our ministry. I know I often sound a bit burnt out and tired (which is often true) but God's hand is at work in our ministry and in our community and he is using us and the people around us to truly make an impact on our little part of the world. I can't wait to see where it all goes next!

Almost awesome.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 00:47:00 +0000

This weekend is the Street Painting festival in a nearby neighborhood. We're super excited because our '71 VW Bus was chosen for the ArtCars portion of the festival! Here's the beginning of the transformation. It should be completely finished tomorrow so I'll post an update then, but I was excited to show the progress!

The striking similarities between urban ministry and adoption.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:31:00 +0000

The past few weeks I've been struggling a lot, thinking a lot about the future of our ministry here in Northside and thinking a ton (as usual) about our adoption process.

There are so many similarities between what we do in ministry here and adoption. Adoption is not the only way in which Christians are called to "defend the cause orphans" (Isaiah 1:17) As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to say adoption is actually a very small fraction of the way in which we are called to care for orphans. Often in the Bible orphans are referred to as fatherless as opposed to simply using the word orphan. (What I'm about to say is not in any way meant to be insulting to single parents.) When I look around me, I see so many fatherless children. So many boys growing up with no male role model, just wandering the streets and trying to figure out what it means to be a man.

When I look at our world and the brokenness in it I'm left wondering what in the world can we do? I see broken homes, broken school systems, racism in our community, selfishness, greed, loneliness, violence...

And that's just on my street.

When I begin to ponder the HIV/AIDS and poverty crises happening in Africa and the famine currently in the Horn of Africa - it just all seems to much. I am currently reading There is No Me Without You by Melissa Fay Greene and the way in which she writes about the multi-faceted reasons for the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa has begun to haunt me. The role that the Western world of wealth and greed has played in the deaths of so many people and the creation of millions of African orphans disgusts me.

I think the two are connected. I think that all poverty that we see in the world, be it in Africa or be it in Northside, all has the same root cause: selfishness. When I hear the arguments presented for how we ought to deal with poor both here and there I hear a lot of talk about fixing a "problem". I hear about how we need to correct people's behaviors, we need to teach people how to be more socially acceptable, we need to correct bad habits. And while that may sometimes be true - we won't ever help anyone out of poverty by looking down at them. We won't ever help the fatherless by simply attempting to correct their behavior. We won't ever be able to change a situation if we are only doing it for our good instead of for the good of the people who need help. For in the end, we must see that we all need help. We all need change.

First, we must learn to love each other. We have to learn to put others before ourselves. Only then can we step back and truly see how to help those throughout the world living in generational poverty, sickness, and loneliness. Adoption is part of that story. Adoption takes children with no home and gives them a home and a family. But it's only a tiny part. For the 1 child that is adopted there are millions more who aren't. And those millions, both here and there, need people to reach out in love and show them they are important, loved, and have purpose. We need to begin to share resources, to share relationship, to share ourselves with people around us who are hurting.

It's been a tough year for me as I'm quite discouraged often feeling like there are too few people who are truly committed to the cause of caring for the poor and fatherless. But I know that there is One who cares. And He is with us. I know there are many who feel the same, who feel alone. But we are not alone. Hallelujah.

Today is the Day.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 20:01:00 +0000

DTE Day.

Today our dossier is on its way to Ethiopia! This means we're really here, we're really waiting to find out who our child is. Not that we haven't always been waiting. Even when we thought we had changed to a different adoption route, we hadn't really. God hadn't let us in on the secret that we've really been waiting for this child the entire time. How amazing is that?

I keep trying to imagine what my family will look like once this child is here with us. I know it'll be enough to make me crazy with waiting. But I'm posting this so that when I get feeling crazy I can come back here and see how beautiful my family is even now. I feel like I can't possibly wait any longer to meet my child, but I don't want to get so caught up in obsessing over my new child that I forget about and miss the important moments in the family I already have. I'm sure we'll have many more amazing moments in the time we'll be waiting on our new family member, I don't want to miss out on those while longing for new moments.

I can't even imagine how wonderful it will be to add a new face to our family photos. But for now, our family is still beautiful. Incomplete maybe, but beautiful none the less.

Not DTE yet, but...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:17:00 +0000

I've started to plan what I'll focus on during what could end up being a very long wait for a referral. I've got a few goals in mind and I think knowing that I'm waiting on a referral could give me an all new motivation to accomplish these goals:

1. Be Healthier!

I for sure need to lose weight for several reason: I am uncomfortable in my body, I know I'm not as healthy as I could be, I hear the Ethiopian court does not like parents with "high BMI", I want to live a long time, I want to be more active and have more energy!

2. Be more organized!

I started a project to organize and declutter my house at the beginning of summer after hearing about the book Organized Simplicity by Tsh Oxenreider. I was very motivated before it got really hot and then all those consecutive weeks of 100+ degrees made my AC free home run between 86 and 90 degrees and all motivation for cleaning and organizing was lost. The plan for the winter is to get busy and get the house organized and free of useless items. If it isn't beautiful or useful it's gone! We're planning to clean out the small room upstairs we use for storage and move my sewing/crafting stuff in there and then have a true fourth bedroom for guests and use part of the bedroom as a play room for Zeke to play with some of his larger indoor toys.

I'm also going to try and organize my time better and be more productive. I've used Tsh's "Daily Docket" the past few days and it's really helped me to organize my day and to get more done, and faster! I want to be able to have more of a schedule as Zeke gets older so I'm good and disciplined before we have to make any kinds of decisions about homeschool vs. finding a good school.

3. Get a better budget!

We're doing fine financially but we have goals that we won't be able to reach with our current budget. Over the past 6 months we've slowly made some good changes but this summer we spent a lot on home improvement and I'm feeling like maybe we lost site of the goal. I know that isn't the case really, the improvements we made were mostly necessary for the safety of Zeke to be able to play around the house (fencing in the yard), but I have a real desire to meet our financial goals. We long to be free of student loan debt, so we're planning to really focus on making that happen in the next few years. It'll be a long time before we're truly free of our education debt, but it cut it back significantly would be a huge weight off our shoulders. We're so blessed to be able to have such a wonderful life and God has provided so much for us financially that it almost seems crazy to complain, as if we don't have enough when we have so much more than enough! But I want to have more so that we can be more generous with our helping of others.

4. Making more time for family!

There are several things that need to change in order for this one to happen. Some we've already done like - we've gotten rid of our cable for several reasons: saving money, saving time, saving Zeke from unnecessary evil entering his brain. It's been such a blessing to be without that distraction!

Unfortunately as a family in ministry it seems that ministry is the biggest distraction from family time. It's really difficult since Abe has to work outside the ministry in order to support us financially. So between him working and doing ministry and me with Zeke and doing ministry - connecting the three of us to do something other than ministry seems like an impossible task. There are ways in which the ministry brings us closer together since we both work together in the same place. But sometimes working together is difficult as you begin to feel like the only topic you know how to talk about is ministry!

I've been thinking so hard about this one in thinking about adding to our family and it will be vitally important to our adopted child and to Zeke to have time with both parents to bond and to feel important and loved. Some changes have to be made to make that happen. Every time I think we might be headed in the right direction - we're getting more volunteers, we might be headed towards being able to hire staff, things are slowing down in the fall season - something else happens and we take three steps back - we lose our volunteers, our supervisors add additional responsibilities, we find more work coming out of every hiding space!

So, right now it's an adventure in figuring out what to say "Yes!" to and what to say "No." to. It seems like we're needing to pray all the time that the people around us would understand when we need to say no. And we're constantly praying that God would send more workers into this field with us!

So yeah, Those are the goals:

1. Be Healthier!
2. Be more organized!
3. Get a better budget!
4. Making more time for family!

All four of these things play together. If I get more organized with a better budget I'm going to plan meals better and eat better and be healthier - all of which will mean more time with family! Pray for us as we work towards these goals while we wait and pray for our next baby!

Never would have thought.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:03:00 +0000

Two short weeks ago we were not even thinking that adopting from Ethiopia would ever be a possibility for us again. And now here we are today - our completed dossier mailed in to our agency!

I rushed and rushed and rushed to get all those papers together as quickly as possible. Who ever knew just how picky you have to be when preparing paperwork for international use. No corrections, no white out, no scratch out, no staple marks, all dates and names matching perfectly including initials, etc. etc. etc.

I ended up have to redo several papers because people in doctors offices or banks simply refused to follow instructions. I had a goal to have it all notarized and county certified in order to be able to drive it all to Columbus last Friday to be state sealed and that way Abe and I could make a weekend of it and celebrate my birthday! With each paper I had to redo I got more and more agitated that people apparently could not listen when I told them how important it would be for the papers to be perfectly accurate. Even the Hamilton County clerk messed up one of the certifications!! It was a constant reminder over these weeks that everyone is human and that this adoption truly is a work of God in our lives. It has required the participation of so many different people over the past couple of years and it will require even more to come. I am so thankful for all the people who helped us do (and redo) this paperwork over the past week and a half. I can't begin to thank you enough for the role you are playing in our family and the life of our child.

So, It got accomplished! We went to the Secretary of State's office on Friday and got everything state sealed!

here we are waiting for our papers

all sealed!

Yesterday I went and made 3 photocopies of the entire dossier. Because I could not remove any staples I had to hand collate the entire thing and it took me about 2 hours at Staples. People kept staring at my with my giant pile of papers wondering what the heck I was doing. I am so thankful that my mom volunteered to watch Z cause I know there is no way we would have made it through!

this is about 3/4 of the way through copying

all collated and ready to mail!

Took it to Fed-ex and mailed it to the agency! The Fed-ex guy says it will arrive today. I sure hope he's right. I can't wait to get all the authentication in DC done and for us to officially be on the waiting list and have a DTE (Dossier-to-Ethiopia) date!

I'll update you again when that happens!

And Z turns two in a week! His party is this Saturday!

Getting the Dossier Done

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:23:00 +0000

We've been running around crazy since we got the news that we'd be rejoining the Ethiopia adoption program trying to get our dossier together quickly! We've been waiting a year and a half now to be officially "waiting" and I can't wait to finally actually be there!

For those of you who don't know what a dossier (doss-ee-ay) is, it's a giant stack of official papers telling the Ethiopian government all about our family and our motivation to adopt an Ethiopian child. It all has to be notarized perfectly, county certified and state sealed. Then all 30ish pages have to be copied four times and mailed to our agency. Our agency will then mail them to Washington D.C. and have them authenticated again and then they will finally be on their way to Ethiopia!

Once they arrive in Ethiopia we will be considered "DTE" (Dossier to Ethiopia) and will be officially waiting for a referral!

The only things we are still waiting on for our dossier are our employment verification letters and two reference letters from friends. Once we have those we'll finish the county certification and then hopefully on Friday we'll drive to Columbus and have everything state sealed! That means it could very well be in the mail by next Monday!

Once we are DTE we'll be waiting 6-12 or more months for a referral. A long wait, but well worth it.

In the middle of all of this paperwork gathering I decided to go to IKEA to get these adorable dolls I'd be eyeing for a few weeks wishing only I'd had a reason to buy them! I got one for Zeke and one to give to our future child when we pick him/her up in Ethiopia! I also got a book called "Seeds of Love" to read with Zeke over our wait. The book is great, it talks all about mommy and daddy going on a trip on an airplane to pick up a little sister. Such a cute book.

And that's our update! Sure I'll have lots more to say after our trip to Columbus!

Been Gone Too Long

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 03:22:00 +0000

Things have been so incredibly busy this summer I just haven't had time to update this. With ministry being so full of mission groups and VBS and camps this summer we've barely had time to slow down and breathe. My grandparents have also just recently moved into a nursing facility and the transition has been difficult on them and on our family. The facility is about 45 minutes north of where we live and it's taken a lot of time to be there with them and to try and reassure them that we aren't abandoning them to someone else's care.

In the middle of all of that is just the everyday's of parenting Ezekiel. And boy is he growing. He's gotten so huge and talking up a storm! He's got an amazing imagination and tonight we even played "drive-thru" and he pulled his alphabet train up to the back of the chair, looked through the opening and said "order chicken", "thank you!", "ok, see ya!" Got back on his train and drove off! He's learning the sounds of his letters and singing songs and talking in full 5 word sentences! This afternoon we took Tay out for his 17th birthday and it made me realize that it won't feel like that long and it'll be Zeke's 17th birthday. It's incredible how fast time flies when you are enjoying life so much.

In adoption news, we've completed our third week of foster care pre-service training with SAFY of Ohio. We're really excited to attempt to adopt through the foster care system. We know it might be a long and difficult process, but we will be giving much needed help to families and children and we're really looking forward to getting licensed and getting our first placement. Our hope will be to eventually adopt, but we know that God has the plan in place and it'll all be in His timing. Please be praying for us as we complete the process and get licensed that I'd be patient with the process. Doing yet another set of training and a whole new home study is a bit frustrating to me. Seems like there has to be light at the end of the tunnel somewhere!

Life is Good

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:56:00 +0000

Even though we still don't understand why things went the way they did with the adoption and still struggle in our minds and heart with how to grow our family - things in life are GOOD. Zeke is growing and learning so many new things every day. He knows he's becoming a big boy and is always wanting to sit at the big table to eat and do everything else that big kids do. He's learned all his letters and some numbers and shapes and it's hard to believe with the amount he's talking and doing that he's only a year and a half old. And at the same time, I find myself thinking "What!? He's a year and a half OLD?!" I know when his second birthday comes I might cry. That feels like the official crossing over into kid-life from baby-life. Time to quit counting his age in months. He'll be "tall" instead of "long" and if I know Zeke he'll be talking in 3 word sentences by then! Hah, just kidding... Kind of...

Things in ministry are going well too. We're doing this thing where I started having a few of the kids from church over on Tuesday afternoons to learn to cook and bake. We've made cookies and this week we made pizza. Next week they say they want to make blueberry muffins! My specialty! Maybe I'll have them smash up some blackberries to put in too. Nothing like a blueberry muffin with some smashed up blackberries in it!

With all the drama in the neighborhood and the church about what to do with the kids and how to help them, I just want them to have a safe and loving place to be - even just for an hour or two. We're having awesome fun and eating yummy food. And hopefully they are learning something about cooking! The kids took tons of photos of the cooking but just now when I tried to load them on the computer they disappeared from the camera! You'll have to wait til next week for some pics.

Two steps done!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 03:29:00 +0000

Well, our adoption process is moving forward little by little!

We completed our adoption and I was able to go pick up all our copies so I have them available to send in with our dossier and other such important packs of paper!

Also, on Friday we mailed in our I-600A application to the US immigration office. This is basically us requesting the US government to approve us to bring an orphan into the country. We will then receive an appointment to get fingerprinted (AGAIN! AH!) and then hopefully a few weeks later we'll get our I-171H approval in the mail! I hope by then to have everything in the dossier ready to go so when it arrives we'll be able to send in the dossier and get waiting!

I'm totally nervous about this. I know in my mind that God will provide all the necessary pieces to bring a precious child into our family, but I'm nervous. And I'm excited. And anxious. And happy. All at the same time.

Interviews: Check!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 15:14:00 +0000

Well, Our home study interviews are complete! They went really well and it was a really nice experience. Our social worker is typing them up as I'm typing this post and hopefully we'll have a draft to us and to Bethany by the end of the day tomorrow!

After we all get to review it and make sure it's ok and accurately reflects us as a family and Bethany reviews it to make sure it's what is needed for Ethiopia then it'll be finalized and we'll receive all the copies we need to send off to USCIS to get immigration approval and to add to our dossier and to send off to apply for some adoption grants! I'm so happy to be so close to having this part of the journey completed. It's a big step and makes this feel a lot more real.

I continue to be shocked at how much Satan tries to prevent orphan care. He knows how important children are to the kingdom of God and it seems he fights so hard to put children in harms way. I have felt so much lately that children are SO important to Jesus. Not just "orphans" but all children. God wants us to be good parents to our children. He wants children to be in families, and for those families to be full of his LOVE.

So many things have been happening in the process of Ethiopian adoptions that you can definitely feel the work of evil trying to work to harm children, but the good news is that God is bigger. God has the power to help mend families and keep birth families together. God has the power to help orphans find families. God has the power to raise up prospective adoptive families and encourage them to adopt. To support them as they feel Satan attack them emotionally, spiritually, physically, and financially. God is bigger. God is bigger than a government, a process, an agency, or any thing or any one else who may get in the way of the care of orphans and families.

And I'm glad.

First Home Study Visit

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 15:50:00 +0000

So, our home visit is over! Our social worker and the other worker she is training came to the house yesterday afternoon and toured our home, interviewed us with some follow up questions concerning our autobiographical papers we filled out, and filled out a safety check on our home. It looks like everything is pretty much in order and there are only a few hurdles left in the way of finishing this forever long home study!

First, we are two training hours short. So this weekend we'll have to do some online classes and get the rest of our hours taken care of.

Second, we have to go in to the Catholic Charities office for our individual interviews. This will happen next Wednesday. Once those interviews are finished and everything is typed up they'll send us a draft and Bethany (our placing agency) a draft and we'll approve the draft. After that they'll take us before their staff for approval and hopefully the process will be finished at that staff meeting on February 16th!

In general, the visit went well. I was so nervous and nothing I said seemed to be right. I ask that you also pray for our individual interviews next week that we'd be able to say what we mean and that we'd be able to have great interviews!

Thanks so much for all your prayers and support through this adoption process.

Holidays!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 02:09:00 +0000

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas! We sure did. There is nothing better than celebrating Christ! We had lots of family in and lots of good food. It was great!

In adoption news we are finally at the tail end of our home study. We are waiting on our references to come in and then interviews and hopefully we'll have an approved home study! We are so thankful we've been able to get together all the funds we need for our first set of agency fees. God has blessed us so much in this area! We're living on much less than we were before and being quite frugal!

I would also love to share this link with you that talks about positive adoption language. We've been asked a LOT over the holidays whether we'll ever have children of "our own" again or if we'll "just adopt". It isn't "just adopting" at all! It's such a huge responsibility to be entrusted with someone else's biological child and to take on that responsibility is such a blessing. And rest assured, once we bring our child home they will most definitely be our "own" child. Our REAL child, just as much as Zeke is.

Biology plays no role in the love of a child. It's all heart and soul. And my heart already loves my child, wherever they are now.