Drawn from Water

I just stumbled upon this organization a few days ago. In Africa there is a tribe that believes in superstition and they kill children when they are considered to be taboo to the community. For one, if a child's front teeth come in before their bottom teeth, they will kill that child.

The Drawn from Water ministry rescued the first children from this 200 year cultural practice. They have set up an orphanage for these children and plan to continue rescues. There is a family from CA who is moving there in 4 weeks to run the orphanage for one year.

Since this is a very new ministry, which began in January 2009, they have a lot of needs. Please check out the website and consider helping in any way you can.

HaPPy BirTHdaY AVERY!!!!

Our sweet Avery is SIX today!!

Just a few facts about our girl:

• She has a smile permanently planted on her face about 95% of the time, even when she is sleeping!
• She loves music and would play CDs all day long if she could. She will try to play songs by ear on the piano.
• She gets carried around a lot! All she has to do is raise her arms in the air and there is always someone who can't resist picking her up.
• She has a beautiful voice and loves to sing!
• She is easy going and easy to please.
• She loves posing for pictures.
• She remembers people's names, their siblings, parents and last names too. We will be sitting in church, someone will walk in and she will say, there is so and so. I barely know so and so! Her memory amazes me. After the first few weeks of school, she could name the first and last names of each child in her class.
• She loves to snuggle, hug and kiss!
• She is a girly girl. She loves to dress up, wear makeup, jewelry and hair accessories.
• She gets mommy all to herself on Tuesdays. She loves to put puzzles together, help with laundry, help in the kitchen and play outside.
• On Thursdays, while mommy is at Bible Study, she gets time with her Grandparent's where she will play store, dress up and make cookies.
• She knows how to get what she wants. There is something about her sweet personality that is so irresistable.
  

Funny stories:

Yesterday during the girls' violin lessons, I sent Avery and Olivia to den of our teacher's house to read a book. When I went to retrieve Olivia for her lesson, they were watching TV. It was on a commercial and Olivia jumped up and turned it off. Avery asked to turn it back on because she was right in the middle of a show. I asked what show she was watching and she said, she was watching the Dr Phil show! She said, "it is really good mommy - he's talking about people on drugs and stuff like that." Huh!!??! I thought, Oh no!! My baby now knows about drugs!!!" I of course had a little talk with both Olivia and Avery.

She loves American Idol (a family favorite) and offers her opinions. She will make comments like, "Paula, get some clothes on!" "Danny's on, shh, I want to hear him." "Adam has fingernail polish on?! Huh?!" Oh, by the way, she knows each judge and contestant by name. I can never remember the new judge's name but she could tell you.

Today Avery brought cookies to school. She told me that she had enough extras to give to all the teachers in the school. But she didn't give any to the janitor or the cooks because their hands are too dirty.

Difficult week.....

This should be a post telling you our exciting news about our referral. We did get a referral this week. The call came on Monday just before 4:00 p.m. We celebrated for a couple days. We were thrilled to finally after all this time to have a referral. However, yesterday morning we received devastating news and it became clear that this child will not be joining our family after all.

This has been a great loss to our entire family. This is the worst loss we have ever experienced as a family. We are grieving. This is painful.

We had pictures of this sweet child. The girls each brought pictures to school to show their friends. Steve left for work one morning this week with his picture in his hands, like a proud father to a new son. We thought this was our son and brother. We began making plans for him. His picture still hangs on our refrigerator. We studied each part of his body from the top of his head down to his cute little feet.

I started to have visions of watching him go down the slide, taking a stroll around the neighborhood, running in the back yard, playing with the neighbor kids.

Then we got the news yesterday. We were not willing to give up at first. Maybe there was a mistake. We held out hope through a heart wrenching day utnil late last night when it became very clear.

We have been waiting for a very long time for this referral. I don't know why God put us through this experience. Why did we have to suffer so much? Why did my girls have to learn about this kind of loss and suffering?

Through this experience, I learned how weak I really am. I kept thinking about the verse when Jesus says, "when you love the least of these, you love me too." I was so confused.

Now, in the midst of grief and suffering, I'm starting to understand why. I am weak, that is true. But God strengthens us through our weakness. It's hard to see the joy in this experience but I know that God is using this experience to prepare us even more. God will reveal his perfect plan for our adoption, when the joy of all this will come. But for now, we are overwhelmed with sadness.

We may bring our girls to Ethiopia

Steve and I have talked quite seriously lately about bringing the girls on our trip to Ethiopia. When we first started the process, we had not planned to bring them. We thought that if they didn't come, we could focus more on our new son.

We started to change our minds when our oldest, Lauren asked if she could come along. I never imagined any of the girls wanting to go with having to get shots and all.

Then, it dawned on me that they will have to get some of the same shots anyway even if they stay home. This was news that wasn't very well welcomed by the girls by the way. But we already have survived the first Hep A shot, so they will survive the rest as well.

We are thinking how neat it would be to have our whole family experience this part of the journey together. I want our girls to see where their brother was born, the sights and smells and flavors of his culture. Stepping foot in the birthplace of their brother's country is not the same as reading about it in a book or looking at pictures.

Also, I have read that including the entire family on the trip is good for attachment. If the girls don't come, there will be one extra attachment step to encounter when we return home.

I would like to bring the girls along regardless but it does depend on a couple things. For one, financially this would be a stretch for us. It would cost us up to $6,000 more in airline tickets alone. But then again, I can't think of any better time for my girls to go. So, regardless of the extra cost, we could just bite the bullet and make it work.

Secondly, I don't care to pull the girls out of school for 2 weeks. Our decision to bring them will be much easier if we are able to travel this summer. In order to travel before September however, we would have to receive our referral very soon.

Despite a few challenges, today we are leaning even more strongly towards bringing them after a phone conversation I had with a friend. After being out of town all weekend, I returned home with a phone message from a friend who is a missionary in China. She was visiting in our area for a short time. She is an amazing woman who has so many interesting experiences to share. I admire and trust her wisdom. Our conversation quickly went by and lasted for one hour!

Anyway, I told her about our thoughts of bringing the girls. She said, "if you can do it, bring them." And then she recalled a time talking to a girl from China who was adopted by Americans. This American family brought their entire family to China when they picked up their daughter. The little girl told my friend with a big smile on her face that "her whole family came to get her." My friend said, "how neat it would be if your son could say that and how much that would mean to him."

I told my friend that her story brought tears to my eyes and she said it brought tears to her eyes too.

I was convinced. Now, we need to pray for confirmation from God.

Good Byes

I just returned from a spirit filled weekend. It began with an overnight women's retreat. Then off to the cities with some friends to see Chris Tomlin in concert. But not before attending a church service at Church of the Open Doors where Joel Hanson leads the worship music. Wow! My cup is overflowing!!

Between my retreat and trip out of town, I only got 10 minutes to say "good bye" to my girls before Steve shuffled them off to grandmas for the night.


We don't leave our girls overnight often but when we do, my girls grieve over us leaving. All three of them clung to me. They cried real tears of grief, not wanting to say 'good-bye'. My heart also pulled as I promise them that I will pray for each one of them and their time with their grandparents. We also promised them that we would return.



This experience was a good way to explain to my oldest daughter Lauren that we will soon be grieving for the loss of her brother's first family. The feeling she felt when we left for one night will be similar to what her brother will experience when he is relinquished by his first family. Only his family will not be coming back to get him.

I explained to Lauren that his loss will touch our family deeply and that we will most likely grieve right along with him. I knew I could talk about this with Lauren because she is old enough to understand and strong enough to handle the pain of this reality.

Olivia and Avery are aware of the potential circumstances around their brother, which will lead him to join our family. We have talked about the pain of this loss as a whole family. So, I know they can feel the pain of this loss. I just don't know how deep this touches their hearts. They are young and a little more fragile. Not that I want to make light of the circumstances, but for now, I would like to protect their hearts and comfort them when this reality does go deeper for them.

Red Letters

My heart is heavy today after reading this book by Tom Davis over the weekend. The subtitle is "Living a Faith that Bleeds". He writes about the orphans, the sick, the poor and the suffering all over the world.

The statistics are shocking. Just to name a few:

26 million children will die each year to CURABLE diseases!

2.9 million people died of AIDS in 2006 alone! Death from AIDS is preventable!

4500 children will die EACH DAY due to illnesses from unclean drinking water!


Davis challenges us to do more to help the suffering. If we all did our part, there would not be human trafficking. If we all did our part there wouldn't need to be such a thing as orphanages. if we all did our part, each person should have access to clean drinking water.

Despite the staggering statistics, there are good efforts put forward all over the world to help those less fortunate. One area of need that has been on my heart lately, is the need for more clean drinking water.

There are amazing efforts being put forth to bring water to the thirsty all over our world. Charity Water, for one is an organization set up to dig wells where there is not any clean running water in villages all over the world. Yesterday was World Water Day and in honor of this day, let me share how my 8 year old niece has made a difference:


My 8 year old niece, E felt a tug at her heart when she read about the 1.1 billion people in the world without clean drinking water. She didn't let her age hold her back from making a difference. She acted and invited her girl scouts group over for a fun spa party. Each girl could give a free will donation that would go directly towards Charity Water. What meant more than the money she raised for her party was the awareness to several families about an organization and a need that is unknown to many. E may not ever know the larger impact she has made with this simple gesture.

I'm grieving for those who are hurting in our world. Last night I even cried myself to sleep thinking about all the needless suffering. I feel ashamed to have so much with almost half the population of the world not having access to clean drinking water, something we take for granted each day.

Tom Davis sets up a challenge at the end of his book for us to help end suffering in our world. If your heart is calling you to help, please pray and then read his book.

Still Waiting

I have a confession to make. Our extended wait time for referral has discouraged me greatly over the past few weeks.

My discouragement has led to much doubt. I've started to question the journey we have chosen to follow.

We have watched families with our agency who were waiting just weeks before us and in some cases waiting after us receive their referrals for toddler boys. Some of these families have become friends of mine through blogging and the forum. They have sent us words of encouragement and have written about us on their blogs, expressing disbelief that our family is still waiting. These families have had their sons home with them for several months.

It doesn't add up. It doesn't make sense. When I communicate with our specialist, she offers very little encouragement, like, "hang in there" or there are "several families still in front of you". How could there be several families still in front of us??!!

It seems like God has been quiet in this adoption process the past few weeks. I have been overwhelmed with doubt. I don't feel very proud of these feelings because God has confirmed many steps of this journey along the way. But now I'm questioning, "Why is it taking so long God?"

It's a long story as to how I happened upon Isaiah 55 one day, but I will tell you that I know without a doubt that God directed me to this particular chapter several months ago for a reason. When I first read this chapter, I understood it to tell me that I need to do something more to help the thirsty, (hence the title of the chapter - "Invitation to the Thirsty").

However, I have always felt like it was telling me something even more than this. Over the past several months, I have read this chapter over and over, looking for answers to why we haven't received our referral. At one time I wondered if this scripture would shed more light on the timing of our referral. Recently, I sat up late in bed one night, trying to read into the verses, hoping for something more to be revealed to me.

Then I picked up the book, Red Letters by Tom Davis. This has been an eye opening book written about the AIDS and orphan crisis's in the world, particularly in Africa. In his first chapter he talks about how "our God is indeed a God of mystery." Then he quotes Isaiah 55: 8 - 9:

"I don't think the way you think.
The way you work isn't the way I work."
God's Decree.

"For as the sky soars high above earth,
so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
and the way I think is beyond the way you think."

After reading these verses for about the 50th time, it finally spoke to me. I don't know why I finally got it, maybe because this is a different Bible version than mine, but all of a sudden, I knew what God was trying to tell me.

God was not revealing any kind of timing for our referral. He was telling me that this journey will be perfectly carried out His way. He does not orchestrate journeys in a predictable way. His way will always be a mystery because he doesn't think the way we do.

Here I am thinking, if someone waiting just 10 days before me for a referral can have their child home already, we should have our child home already also. But God does not work this way.

To add to this, I was reminded by Beth Moore during my Bible Study this morning that God is in everything, even during mundane times. I've been guilty of thinking that maybe God is not in this adoption anymore because of inactivity, when in fact He may be directing a lot of details "behind the scenes", details that may remain a mystery to me, for the way God "works, isn't the way I work". There is activity going on - we just don't always see it.

God's timing does make sense to Him because He sees the whole picture. I only know what I see, not what I don't see. You would think that this far in the journey I would know better than not to trust God. Isaiah 55 to me is about trusting God and not about trying to figure everything out.

On a side note, we have chosen a name for our son, which is another amazing story that I will post about once we are ready to make it public.

Birthday Celebration!!

Our little artist Olivia designed this poster (above)

and this card (below)

They LOVE their Daddy!

We had a fun day celebrating Steve's 42nd Birthday. I started the day rising at 5:30 to make homemade caramel rolls. I worked hard on these rolls but became impatient when they didn't seem to be rising. Well, we didn't have more time to watch them rise, so I baked them anyway. Three hours after I began laboring over these rolls, we sat down to have our breakfast. I don't know where I went wrong, other than maybe not allowing them to raise long enough but the rolls were um not good. Next time, I think the bakery kind will taste just fine.

Then I threw together an egg bake, made a fruit salad and went to church with the family. After church we had Steve's family over for brunch, which turned out much better than the caramel rolls.

We enjoyed spring temperature weather today. After our company left, we headed out to the local ski hill and the girls skied while Steve and I had fun hanging out in the chalet with friends. It was a beautiful evening to ski.

The girls slept good last night and had a hard time getting up for school. I felt sorry for them. I would not want to go to school today either.

Hope you had a fun day Honey! Your family loves you so much!! Thanks for being such a good husband and daddy and taking care of us!!