Do Something!

We ALL live in luxury! If you are reading this blog, that means you have access to a computer which means you are richer than about 94% of the rest of the people on earth! The fact that I can purchase a coffee drink or take my kids out to pizza occasionally probably puts me in the top 2% of the world's wealthiest people!

I got thinking about this after reading Amy's great post about the latest spending on a football stadium.

I don't know exactly what this means. I'm not sure selling everything I have would be the wisest use of our money, but at the same time if I see a brother or sister in need and do nothing, all the while drinking my $4 cup of coffee (that I really do enjoy!), then what does that say about my faith? What does my lack of action, even though I feel compassion, really mean?

Tough questions for sure! Does this mean that I don't take my kids to the water park next week when we know there are hurting and hungry children in the orphanage they used to live in? That sounds like a no brainer when I actually type it out - but yet it seems like a hard decision to make on a daily basis. . . why is that!?

I don't know exactly. . . but I do know that I can do SOMETHING - even if it is just $20 to Project Home, or $50 to buy food for the orphanage, or cooking dinner for a tired single mom, or providing respite care for a tired foster mom, or adopting a child (or six! LOL!).

We CAN all do something!

What if?

What if God moved in the hearts of a young couple, just starting out, without a lot of money, to adopt a child?

AND, they obeyed?

What if God put it on their hearts again and again during the next 10 years to adopt another child, and then another?

AND, they obeyed?

What if God called them to live a life of faith and trust in Him as they left behind the things of this world and instead invested in the lives of His precious children?

AND, they obeyed?

THEN, you would be looking at the incredible (yet true) lives of Kim and Ben and their ten (yes, TEN!) precious adopted gifts from God: now being raised in a loving and godly home to be warriors in His kingdom!

Now,

What if this family was in need of a home in which they could raise these ten children (and maybe more) in the love and admonition of the Lord?

What if, in an amazing turn of events that some call the "state of the economy", such a home could be had for only 200,000.00, but only if you have cash?

What if this couple doesn't have 200,000.00 in cash (at least partly because they have invested close to 100,000.00 in adopting 10 children!)?

What if God has already given his people a picture of what the body of Christ could actually look like?

All the believers were together and had everything in common.

Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.
Acts 2:44-45

What if only 10,000 (of the self-proclaimed 159 million) Christians in America decided that just for THIS week, they PERSONALLY would give up something, sell something, or find an extra odd job so that they could give just $20.00 towards helping this family have a home in which to raise their precious children?

What if?

I mean, can you imagine what an INCREDIBLE blessing this would be? What an amazing story of God's people joining together to care for orphans and to love their brothers and sisters in Christ!

I know times are tough financially right now for so many people and I certainly don't have 200,000.00 just lying around (and I doubt many of my readers do either). . . but, can I come up with 20.00? The real answer is YES - if it is important enough to me, I can certainly find 20.00 that would help Kim and Ben buy a home in which to raise their children in righteousness! I can't help but believe that there are at least 10,000 other families who can certainly do the same.

And so, believing that God is able to do exceedingly more than all we ask or imagine, I am introducing "PROJECT HOME: because every child needs one." Can we (the Body of Christ) come together and provide the physical place needed for Kim and Ben to continue their amazing ministry to these awesome children? I think we can!

Read more about Kim and Ben and donate TODAY HERE for HIS glory!

My "baby" turned 10!

August 23, I became the proud parent of a 10 year old! How did this happen? It certainly seems as if it could not have POSSIBLY been 10 years since I brought our first precious gift from God home from the hospital! Oh, how fast the years have flown by. . .

Some of my random thoughts about having "my baby" turn 10:

1. "10" sounds so old - we are officially in the "double-digits" now and, most likely, Mr. Z is probably more than half-way done living with us. This makes me both happy and sad. I am overjoyed to see him growing into a godly young man and I am excited to see what plans the Lord has for him in the future but I am sad that my little boy is growing up and that those days will never return. This makes me remember not to take any of my time that God has given me with my children for granted; to seize every moment and make the most of every opportunity with each one of the precious gifts God has given us!

2. Every time Mr. Z comes and sits on my lap or cuddles up for a hug or wants to crawl in bed with us in the morning, I find myself thinking, "what if this is the last time he wants me to hold him?" I know each time I have one more chance to hug, rock, kiss his head, or cuddle up is a priceless treasure and I take full advantage of it!

3. I didn't know how much I would miss the high pitched little voice calling Mommy, mommy, mommy! LOL! Grown-up kids say "Mom" - you know. . . I love it every time my "big boy" forgets that my name is now "Mom" and slips back into calling me "Mommy."

4. While I am definitely grieving the loss of some of the sweetness of the younger years, I am sort of (secretly) happy to be moving on past "9." If you've had a 9 year old boy, maybe you can relate. No one ever warned me, but apparently "9" is tough on a boy. There is so much going on! Hormones are changing, their brains are shifting from concrete to more abstract thought, EVERYTHING must be fair and justice is huge but, of course, only the 9 year old boy actually KNOWS what is right! LOL! Emotions are high, tempers flare, and they aren't quite sure if they'd rather be a child or an adult depending on the day or the situation. Things are very unsettled, shifting, and it's just plain hard! Last year during one of our harder days Mr. Z remarked (through tears but half-laughing), "I don't know what's wrong! I hate hormones! I'm mad and sad and . . . I just don't know!" Ahh. . . goodbye "9" - we are welcoming the content and fun-loving Mr. Z back into the world (only now he's just a little more "grown up!").

Picture and post all about Mr. Z will follow later this week hopefully!

Scared of homeschooling? Questions?

Get some of those questions and fears answered HERE by the wonderful and very experienced Elizabeth Foss as she responds to the questions posted at another blog I love to read: Conversion Diary.

Maybe someday I will post my own responses and thoughts to these questions but. . .

Right now I am trying to get ready for 6 new children to join our family AND it is harvest season so. . .

I'm just a little bit busy! LOL!

Our girls are gone for now

Sad. We had an amazing 11 days with them. It was incredible. It is as if they have always been ours.

Now they are gone (for now) and we must simply wait. and trust. and pray.

please pray with us.

Not for morning people

If you are a morning person. . . I will try not to hate you.

After many years and many attempts at MAKING myself a morning person, I have finally come to the conclusion that I will probably NEVER jump out of bed in the morning with joy in my heart and a smile on my face.

BUT - I would like to greet my husband and children each morning with joy in my heart and a smile on my face and so. . . I simply must discipline myself to get up earlier in the morning, drink my coffee, take a shower, and prepare my heart so that I can help my family begin THEIR day with joy in their heart and smiles on their faces.

The question is: HOW? I am convinced of the necessity and of the benefits, but still - the actuality of doing it eludes me. I did come across this little article suggesting that I

1. Figure out MY time that I need to get up.

O.K. I think this would be around 7. I know that sounds really late to you early birds, but for me it would be an improvement!

2. Consider that a little bit late.

So, I'll set the alarm for 6:45.

3. Take a shower first thing and get dressed and ready for the day.

This actually sounds great. I would LOVE to be totally ready for the day before our morning routine and breakfast begin!

4. Go to bed earlier.

OUCH! This is the part I hate! I love staying up a little late (or a lot late!). I like having some time w/ my husband after the kids are in bed and then I love having some time just to think, read, or blog after he is asleep too. I have LOTS of energy late at night: I have even been known to clean the bathrooms or tackle some organizing project at 10 p.m. LOL! Let's see. . . right now it is after midnight. Hmmm. . .

I guess I'll start tomorrow.

Still going great!

We are on day 9 of "the girls" being here with us for a visit. I'm thankful and thrilled to report that things are still going very well. Today we spent the day at a family reunion picnic at a local park and the kids all had a blast. It has been great to watch all 7 children begin to watch out for each other and look to each other as siblings. We are in awe of how quickly this is happening!

It's not that the girls haven't tested or acted out at all, but overall, they have been very responsive to correction and teaching. More than anything, all of us (husband, myself, our children, and the girls) just know that this is the Lord's plan for our family! It is hard to describe or explain how instantaneously everyone has just sort of taken to each other. Definitely NOT the way it was when we adopted the first time. LOL!

The sad part is that we will be needing to bring the girls back to their current foster family in just a few days. It is going to be VERY hard to let them go (even though it is a great family!). . . we are ready for them to be with us forever!

Please pray for us and them in the next few weeks. There will be a lot happening and many emotions as well as decisions that need to be made. Pray for protection for all of us from spiritual attacks as well. Thanks so much!

The King of Glory

Did I ever mention that my husband is a really great artist? He painted this on a large canvas to hang in our church. It always makes me think of the Starfield song, "Hosanna" which you can listen to on my playlist (scroll to the bottom of the page).

Amazing!

That is what these first 5 days with "the girls" has been - amazing! I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but I couldn't have imagined it would have been this seamless of a transition for ALL of us. Not that it has all been peachy and wonderful (well, mostly it has been great), but it has been incredibly obvious to all of us that God is at work in knitting our families together as one.

Incredible husband preached on Sunday (if you know where we live and go to church, you can hear his message online through our church's website or email me for the link) and he talked about "Faith." One of the many encouraging/challenging things he reminded us of was that so often we want to share in God's glory but don't want to share in the suffering. BUT, that when we say "NO" to sharing in Christ's suffering, we are often saying "NO" to sharing in His glory by getting to be a part of the incredible things he is doing. WOW! What a good reminder. I don't think there is anywhere this is more true than in adoptions! So often there really are HARD things and suffering surrounding adoption, but when we are open to saying "yes" EVEN THOUGH it might be hard, we gain the blessing of being able to be involved in God's amazing redemptive work in our children's lives!

Does anyone else understand what I'm saying here? The reality of this just brings me to tears even thinking about it. I mean, if Jeff and I had said "NO, Lord, adopting 3 older children from Liberia is just too crazy, we don't have the money, and we don't want to hurt our bio. son," then we would have MISSED out on Big Jo, Speedy Mo, and Little Missy!!! I can't IMAGINE life without them! And, here's the funny thing. . .

I can't imagine life without Miss C, Miss D, and Miss A (and it has only been 5 days!).

"Yes, Lord!" May we all say "Yes, Lord!" with full abandon that we might get to share in His Grace and His Glory and to see the amazing things he has planned!

Things about today I don't want to forget

1. Having a totally great morning with our kiddos: happy dispositions, honoring speech, loving actions, a trip into the bagel shop, content children who didn't whine and DID share, a nice talk w/ my husband on our trip (I don't want to forget how incredibly different this experience is from where we were a couple of years ago when our adopted children were still exhibiting so many RAD symptoms - it would have been a TOTALLY different experience!) My kiddos are amazing. They really LOVED today. They had a fun day too - so thankful - I want them to understand how much they are a part of God's plan in all of this!

2. "Miss A" got out of the social workers van to greet us and threw up! What a way to meet up, huh?! Poor girl, she was really nervous and a little car sick! She quickly recovered and made fast friends with "Little Missy." She also found out from Jeff that at our house, "whining gets you nothing." Seems like she's a quick learner. (grin)

3. "Miss C" stuck close to me all day. walked by me in the stores we went in, made sure to be right by me anytime we weren't in the car. She opened up about some things I didn't think I'd have any chance of hearing about. and I found out she'd really like a silky purple bedspread. Awesome - I was praying for a quick connection with her!

3. After telling us all day how they don't like vegetables, all 3 girls ate SALAD at dinner - WHAT? - then they were all 7 laughing (like I said before, they laughed ALL day!) because they said that the reason "Miss D" ate her veggies was because she really liked our house and family and wants to stay. She smiled shyly, but it was obviously the truth. Break my heart. . . I hope we can help her know she is loved and accepted even if she doesn't eat salad (but we're glad she apparently doesn't HATE it as much as she thought! LOL!). Pretty telling. . .

4. Funny moment of the day -

During our reading the Bible story (The Road to Emmaus), I asked everyone who they thought the "stranger" was.

"Jesus," "Jesus," "Jesus," (x7)

then in a joking way, Daddy says "yeah, the answer is always 'Jesus,' when you're reading the Bible, right?"

and then, as serious as can be, "Miss D" says:

"Yeah. . . OR 'Moses.'

Oh my! Life just got a little more hilarious at my house!

We made it (all 10 of us!)

So, we picked up "the girls" today and everything is going really well so far. We met up with them and the social worker at an In'N'Out Burger and had lunch. After the initial shy phase for all of the kids (the 3 girls and our 4 children), they started talking and laughing, and playing and laughing. . . did I say laughing? Well, apparently adding 3 children multiplies the laughter factor exponentially because Jeff and I had one of the most laughter filled 4 hour car rides of our lives (and this is saying a LOT because Jeff used to be a youth pastor!). This pretty much continued ALL night, through dinner and bedtime until we had to just finally bring the night to an end with some cookies, a Bible story, and some bedtime prayers! I guess all of the children like each other . This is VERY good and THANKS for praying.

Obviously we know that there are "issues" but hopefully for these 11 days we can keep it really positive and just LOVE on these girls and let them know that they are totally worth it - they are valuable and loved not because of what they do but because of WHOSE they are (God's!) Jeff and I both noticed that they are quite in awe that a family could actually ENJOY being around each other and not need to fight, manipulate, and argue all the time (this is their default, of course, but they are trying not to and we put the k'bosh on it right away. LOL!).

It is definitely and interesting and strange kind of visit. On one hand, the girls KNOW that we are possibly adopting them but on the other hand this visit is (officially) "just" a respite visit. Makes for awkward conversations. . . I'm pretty much thinking that I'm just going to be fairly open and honest with the older girls and hope they will feel safe enough to do the same. They've experienced a lot in their short lives and they aren't letting anything escape their notice.

While I know that a normal emotion at the end of today should be something like "oh my, what are we doing here?" I actually found myself thinking "why wouldn't we love these girls and give them a family? Why wouldn't anyone? How can we (as Christians) think that just because they have had a hard start in life that they are beyond redemption? Why would we EVER choose to not love your children because it might be hard on or "mess up" our current children? Oh, Lord, help them to KNOW you and your love for them!" I am mostly writing all of this so I will REMEMBER this when it gets really hard - because it will. . . and I will need to remember!

Love this guy!

I don't write much about my wonderful husband on this blog, but he is seriously the most awesome husband ever (I know. . . I'm slightly biased, but I really do think so!). Someday I'll share our story: it has been an incredible, interesting, never boring journey and I have a feeling we're just getting started. I can't imagine sharing this life with anyone else!

We love this "crazy daddy."

Camping on the Coast

We had such an awesome time on our camping trip to the Oregon coast! The kids look forward to this trip every year (well for some kids this was only their 2nd year but for them, that is a tradition!). We went with some other families who have children about the same age. One family has 4 kids and the other 5 so that made 13 children in 3 adjacent campsites (plus another 2 teenagers who joined us later in the week for a total of 15). They had LOADS of fun riding bikes around the campground and hanging out in "kid's kingdom" which was located somewhere back in all of the bushes where adults are "not allowed." LOL!

Here they are on the beach having a great time burying themselves in the sand and enjoying some driftwood houses to get them out of the wind for a few moments.

And, you can tell we go to the freezing cold river all of the time because here they are playing in the Pacific Ocean when it is only about 65 degrees outside! They were actually down rolling around in the waves!

I love these kiddos!

Freddy, these are for you!

What happens when you let your 7 year old, who is an insanely gifted athlete, build a skateboard ramp and then watch the X games?

This is the boy we affectionately call "Speedy Mo!"

I must be the mother of many boys: this wasn't worrying me a bit! In fact I was telling him to go faster to get more air. LOL!

Oh, do you see our pop up tent trailer back there? I'll have to post about our trip to the Oregon coast! It was awesome!

Frances, incase you were wondering, he was consistently landing these jumps AND then started trying to kick-flip the board while in the air! Crazy!

Frances, this is for you

So, this is what happens when your 9 year old (oops, sorry Mr. Z - I mean your "almost 10 year old") goes to youth camp for a few days.

Plus 3

We're picking up "the girls" tomorrow for an 11 day visit. For those of you who don't know, you can find out more about this HERE.

There are 3 girls in the sibling group of 6. They have the boys and girls split up into 2 separate foster homes and we all felt like it would be better for the boys not to come up for an 11 day visit at this point. Mostly, this is because the two youngest boys are only 2 and 3 and are very secure where they are right now.

My momma heart is ready for all 6 to just come and be here permanently NOW! I'm trying to be patient and wait on the Lord and at the same time balance that with the urgency we feel to give the buraucracy a swift kick in the pants. LOL!

Pray for us and the girls. Pray that the Lord would give us clear direction and wisdom. Pray that we would be a blessing to the girls as we LOVE on them and enjoy them. Pray that they would feel the love of Christ through us. Pray for our kiddos that they would be able to show love and to also continue to feel secure in their place in our family. We're not sure what to expect. . .

I'm guessing it'll be an adventure. . .

it always is!

Just in case you were wondering

If my last post left you thinking we were some "crazy homeschooling family," I thought I'd just post these pictures to totally confirm your suspicions. LOL!

I guess Mr. Z and daddy were having a bit of fun with the laptop's built in camera!

I wonder where he gets this from?

Thinking about Homeschooling?

I have talked with many friends over this past month who are thinking about homeschooling this year. Inevitably, the conversation usually comes to a point where they want to homeschool, but are fearful of the unknown, of being able to teach their children, of not having "properly socialized" children, or some other related fear.

The year before my oldest was to begin "Kindergarten," we were seriously praying about homeschooling and I remember worrying about the fact that Mr. Z would never have the experience of carrying a lunchbox to school or sitting at a desk with his age-mates. . . and (gasp), "what about prom?"

I would like to report that Mr. Z has suffered no lasting effects from having spent the greater part of his first 5 "school" years running through the backyard, reading good books, baking cookies, and eating last night's leftovers for lunch (with his mom and siblings). He hasn't suffered from his lack of carrying a lunchbox or sitting at a desk filling in worksheets designed to make sure he can pass the STAR test at the end of the year in order to get more money for his school. In fact, both he and his brothers and sister are thriving, happy, loving children who have a zest for life and a love of learning. They have little care for the petty antics of most of their public schooled age-mates (of which I am thankful) and can all carry on a lovely conversation with anyone willing to engage (so much for the socialization argument - LOL!).

But I digress. . .

Now for the real reason for this post - to those of you thinking about homeschooling. . . especially if you are considering pulling your child out of public school : If you think there are things that worry you about homeschooling, PLEASE take the time to read this article and CONSIDER all of the very real things you should be worried about if you are sending your child off to public school.

Whatever choice you make, the reality is that WE (the parents) are responsible for the raising of our children and WE will stand before the Lord one day to give an account. I, for one, do not want to look back on this precious time the Lord has given me with my children and say, "but Lord. . . I just thought it would be o.k. . . . I didn't know how bad it was. . . I just didn't know. . ." Ignorance is NOT bliss when it comes to our children's education. We simply must be aware of what is going on. And so, I post this possibly controversial link, because I think it is important enough that others must hear.

By the way, my kids probably won't be going to prom (and it doesn't worry me one bit!).