Please help now!!!!!!

URGENT NEED:

Please read the statement put out by the Joint Council on Internation Children's Services. Then follow the link below to PLEASE sign the petition. Millions of children need YOUR voice. (Included in the millions is one precious little girl who we don't know yet, but already has our prayers and love.)

Thank you friends.

(Again, this is a secure and reputable sight. Please have no concerns of spam or anything - just sign. They are legit!)

 

JCICS Call to Action

 

March 8, 2011

Joint Council: Emergency Campaign for Ethiopian Children

What You Can Do:

1) Sign the petition to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi – and pass it on!

2) Have you adopted from Ethiopia? Please send us up to 3 photos and 50 words or less with what you would like the Ministry to know about your child – we’ll compile the information and send a book to the Ministry of Woman’s Affairs. Send your photos and stories to advocate@jointcouncil.org by Sunday, March 12, 2011 to be included. Please note that sending photos and stories gives Joint Council unrestricted right to use the information you provide.

3) Share…Please send this Call to Action to family members, other adoptive parents, and everyone you know! Post, forward and share your adoption stories via Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. Make sure you include us in your posts so we can all hear your stories! Here’s links to our pages: Facebook, Twitter and our our blog.

4) Stay informed: Get up-to-date information regarding the situation in Ethiopia by signing up to receive information from us: click here to do so, make sure you choose “country and issues specific information” and “Ethiopia.” And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and our our blog.

5) Help ensure our advocacy can continue: Joint Council is a non-profit and receives no government funding. Please join us in ensuring more children live in safe, permanent and loving families. Donate today!

Public Speaking

I've been asked to speak tomorrow morning in front of 200 women. I sort of can't stand public speaking. I know this surprises most people, given how much I enjoy talking. But put a mic in my hind and my stomach does flips and I my brain tries to run away. (Well that actually always happens.) Believe it or not, this includes speaking and singing. I just turn into a ball of nerves. Singing has gotten a little bit better the more I've done it - but speaking? Excuse me, I have to go throw up.

Anyway. I almost said no to this. I feel really inadequate. I was also uncertain about the "audience" I would be speaking to. See, I was asked to speak about one of my favorite topics - adoption! It's really, truly nothing huge. They just want me to share my story. I was hesitant to accept, because I was afraid people wouldn't listen as soon as they found out I was talking about adoption. Unless you want to adopt, you don't usually listen to someone talking about it. But caring for the Orphans has turned into something so much greater for me than adoption. It's that story I want people to hear. It's the story of God's redeeming work in the lives of these children that He loves. I want people to hear the story of His faithfulness not only to them, but to me. His faithfulness to me to be able to live out what He has asked of me. That's where most of us get hung up, if we are honest... trusting God to provide for us when He's called us to do something. I want the women tomorrow to hear just how big of a God we serve. So after much thought, actually, it didn't take much at all - as I quickly heard the Lord reminding me that this story is His, not mine. I don't get to decide who hears it and who doesn't. And I most certainly don't get to decide what is done with my story after I've shared it. That's up to Him and His Spirit. So I got over myself and said yes.

And now I'm scared out of my mind everytime I think about throwing up in front of 200 people.

So if you think about it before tomorrow morning, could you say a prayer for me? Pray that the story of God's faithfulness to the Orphan, both spiritual and earthly orphan, is heard and received. Pray that it spurs even one woman on to be a part of God's work in this area.

Dandelion Dust Thoughts

Aaron and I watched the movie, Dandelion Dust, the other night. "Intense" is perhaps the only word I can use to describe it. Several times throughout the movie, Aaron asked if we could turn it off. It was that difficult to watch at times. I had read a review stating that it was a great movie, and would make you question what you believe to be right and wrong when it comes to adoption. It seemed right up our alley. And yes, I do know that it was first a book. But that would have involved reading. Not my specialty.

Anyway, I don't have much to say about the movie because I don't want to spoil it. I do actually recommend the movie. Aaron maybe wouldn't ?? But that's normal around here. There was one line that brought me to tears though as I contemplated our adoption(s). I often think of Malachi's birth mom, and fully expect to have similar thoughts toward our next child's birth mother. Whatever the reason my adopted children needed to be adopted, they had a mother before me who loved them fiercely. I know this to be true due to the fact that they now live with me. Here was the quote:

"One Mom loved you so much that she couldn't let you go. Another Mom loved you so much that she had to."

I would do ANYTHING for Malachi, for any of my children. I have a child waiting out there who will also one day hold such a place in my heart. I pray today for the Mom(s) who loved so much that her love required  her to let go.

Have you seen the movie? Read the book? What do you think?

You can help an Orphan right now...Make that 45 Orphans right now!

A lot of people ask what they can do to help serve the orphans if they do not feel called to adopt. Well here's a chance....

The Ethiopian Courts have made a decision to go from hearing 50 adoption cases a day, to hearing 5 a day. Yes, five. I'm not good at math, but I know that is a lot less everyday. I also know that what this means is increased waiting times for children who have a family waiting to actually make it to that family. It increases it by a lot. This ruling certainly does not seem to be in favor of the children, yet it is what has been decided. After reading some about it, I do understand that there has been a lot of "baby buying" in Ethiopia. I do not desire that at all, and have always been in favor of the rulings that the Ethiopian Government has made to ensure this is not happening. In my opinion though, this is not one of those times. It isn't uncommon in Ethiopia for rules to be made, then changed. We are praying this is one of those times. But what I do know is that an opportunity to stand up for those with no voice has risen. And it's an opportunity that anyone and everyone can grab hold of.

Will you please pray with us, as well as every other family adopting from Ethiopia right now, for the Ethiopian Government, the Courts, MOWA (Ministry of Women & Children's Affairs), and anyone else who has the power to make a difference to grasp just how bad of a decision this is for the children. Please stop right now and pray with us. We believe God wants these kids in a home. And we also believe there is someone who doesn't.

Last year there were 2500 Ethiopian Children who found a family in the US. If this ruling sticks, there will only be 500 this year. Stand with us for the 45 children whose cases will not be heard starting next week.

And the winner is.....

Fellow adoptive mom, and sweet friend, Amber W. (It helped her to have her name in the drawing about 18 times.... no, of course, that was impossible.) Congratulations Amber! You get to choose between the sweatshirt and the necklace!

For those of you who missed this giveaway, don't worry too much, you'll have another chance after 100 more posts. :)

Sorry I didn't do the fun video thing while drawing the name. My cute children are already in bed, and I'm in my jammies in an ugly hotel room...no one wants to see that. (Our house is having some work done, and we didn't want to live through the dust. This is why we are at a hotel.) So, you'll have to trust me. I do promise that I didn't rig the drawing, and I really did take the first name I drew. Just for the fun of it, I kept drawing to see what other names I would draw, but Amber got the next 5, too. Again, not serious.

Anyway. Thanks for playing along. More than that, thanks for your sweet encouraging comments. Thanks for being on this journey with us!

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Faithful ! {100th entry Giveaway!!!!}

This is a special blog post for me....one I've been contemplating for 2 months now. I've gone back and forth about what I wanted this post to be about. See, this is my 100th post here on the adoption blog. Over at my other blog, 100 posts came and went a long time ago ... and I never even noticed. But here, there's something special to me about 100 posts written out of a desire to give a voice to those with no voice. I am so humbled to be a part of God's work in the lives of Orphans .... if only a few of them. It's a calling I don't take lightly. It's scary, it's uncertain, it's risky, it's not often welcomed, but it's worth it all.

God has us on this journey of adoption once again. In it He's proven himself more faithful to me than I ever could have imagined. He's given me an assurance of the future, and a peace for the present. I not only believe His faithfulness to place the lonely in a family, but He's also daily reminding me of His faithfulness to never leave ME in the midst of this battle. In all my fears, in all my worries about being convinced that God has the wrong mom for this job - He's asked me to get out of His way and watch Him work. Promise after promise, faithfulness after faithfulness, God is reminding me daily that He loves the fatherless, and He has a plan to redeem and rescue them. And what's exciting about this to me, is that He is allowing me to be a part of this plan.

I can't wait to continue to share more of our hearts and our journey - of God's heart, really. But for today, I end my 100th post with a song and a give-a-way!

This song is my prayer, my song, during this adoption. I find myself clinging to one or two songs as I go through different things in life. As soon as I heard, "Faithful" by Chris Tomlin, I knew this was the song for this adoption. The resounding truth of God's faithfulness is in front of me, behind me, and on every side of me as I walk this road. I hope you enjoy it, too!

As for the giveaway .... this is just fun! I've never done a giveaway before. But y'all deserve a reward for sticking with me for 100 posts!!!! Certainly you have something better to do with your time .... but just the same, thanks for riding along with me one post at a time.

Here's the deal:

What you could win:
An incredibly fitting sweatshirt (no pun intended!) that I found over at AdoptionBug.com. As soon as I saw it, I was so excited to give it away! It reminded me exactly of this theme of God's faithfulness. John 14:18 says "I will not leave you as Orphans; I will come to you." Only this shirt prints this verse in 22 different languages. So great! (An added bonus .... proceeds of the sale go to help a family who is adopting!)

So maybe a sweatshirt isn't your thing??? Well guess what? If you win, you can choose option #2 instead. A friend introduced me to this spectacular organization where I saw this necklace. Not only is it cool, but it has an extra special meaning to me. The purchase of this necklace supports the women who created it. Women living with HIV. 

You win?? You pick!!

How you win:
1) Leave a comment here = 1 entry
2) Leave a Facebook post (or Tweet) directing people here = 2 entries
3) Write your own blog inviting people to this blog = 3 entries
4) Donate $1000 to our adoption = you just win. (Okay, I'm completely kidding!!)

(Just be sure to include in your comment here on my blog what you are doing so I know how many times to enter your name.)

I will draw the winner one week from today on Wednesday March 2nd.

So this whole giveaway thing is funny to me. It makes it sound like I'm begging for attention or readers or some other narcissistic motive. But the truth is, I have a voice. I have a voice that I believe is to be used for those without one. By spreading the word of one mom's blog about caring for the Orphan, you too can be a voice! If we all yell loud enough, 147 million orphans will benefit!

^{Psalm 68: 5 & 6}

⁵ A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
   is God in his holy dwelling.
⁶ God sets the lonely in families

To answer your question....

Why are we adopting again? I know that many are asking that question because many have actually asked us .... WHICH I LOVE! I love having the chance to tell about God's heart and his story of redemption! Don't stop asking!

However, for the sake of time, I thought I would finally address the question here on the blog. And the reason I chose today, is because today is "Sanctity of Human Life Sunday". John Piper said something at one point about this issue that really resonated with my heart. I can't quote him exactly, because I can't find the quote. But the idea was this: To be pro-life is to be pro-adoption. Basically, supporting adoption is supporting life. For some reason, an orphan is an orphan because their mom or dad couldn't keep them, didn't want to keep them, or passed away. Whatever the reason they are an orphan, their mom chose life....and now she needs help honoring that choice. Sadly, the life an orphan lives isn't really much of a life. And for anyone who cares anything about social justice issues .... I read a marvelous quote today: "The right to life is the most basic of social justice issues."

So no, I'm not here to talk about abortion. I'm not here to talk about social justice issues. That one little paragraph was sufficient for that. I'm here to talk about why Aaron and I are heading down the path of adoption once again.

Well of course, the answer is because having four kids has grown boring. We need something to do with our time! Um. No. I must admit, I'm way more fearful this time than I was the first time we adopted. Five kids sounds insane to me. It sounds really, really hard. Every now and then I cry out to God telling him that he's got the wrong mom. I'm selfish. I'm tired. I'm not very nice, or patient, or loving, or fun, or any of those other things that moms are supposed to be. Yet He tells me I'm wrong because of who he is. He tells me that HE is enough for me. HE will equip me to be a mom of ... yes .... FIVE!

So long story long. Every agency has what's called a "Waiting Child List". Basically, it's a photo listing of children they have in their care who are waiting to be adopted, and not high on people's list for adopting. See, a lot of people adopt healthy infants. There's nothing wrong with this. We did this. (Okay, so, maybe minus the healthy part... but comparatively, even Malachi was healthy when looking at some of these waiting kids.) I would look at these lists, and shed a tear every now and then, or imagine if that child were mine ... but mostly I would say a prayer for the sweet little face that I was looking into. Until I saw two boys.

The agency we adopted Malachi from had up a picture of 2 brothers. Both had serious medical needs, and they were older children. (4 & 6 yrs old) Now, when I see children on these waiting child lists, I don't feel the need to adopt them. These two boys, however, did something vert different in my heart. The first time I laid eyes on them, I sent an email to Aaron with their picture attached. The subject line said, "PLEASE???". That's all I wrote. He never responded. Every few weeks, I would pull up that same list, and see those same eyes of those brothers staring at me through the screen. After several months of this, it got to the point where I was pulling up the list almost daily just longing to see their file categorized as "file under review". It never was. It still said "available". For almost a week, I cried and prayed over these boys daily. I couldn't help but wonder if God was leading us to adopt these boys. Surely he wasn't, but then .... maybe he was. So one day, I asked Aaron. I told him what I was feeling, and just asked him to pray about it. That began a process of us talking with friends who we trusted enough to be real with us about if we could handle this, talking with our social worker about if she would even approve us, and serious prayer. In the end, for many, many reasons - we did not have a peace about pursuing adopting these two boys. That said, we were lead to a peace about something else .... starting the adoption process again period.

Wait. What? See, those were actually Aaron's words. After praying about these boys, he felt like it was time to start the adoption process again. My response was not to be expected. "No!", was my response. I didn't want to "just adopt again". I wanted those boys. I thought we were being lead to those boys. Now that we knew that wasn't the case - adopting again just wasn't on the radar right now. God didn't let that sit well with me. After about a week, I finally understood that if I was willing to pursue adopting those two boys right now, why would I not be willing to pursue any child in need of a home....right now? So about a week later, we dove into selecting an agency. And here we are. Half way through the process. Un.Real.



Moving on.

We hit the ground running with this adoption. We've done this before, and knew what was expected of us, so we felt an urgency to do all we could do, knowing there was plenty of time to sit around doing nothing as we wait on governments. We have no question that God values adoption. We believe that He is for this, so nothing can stand against us. We believe that God is not going to leave us out on a limb when pursuing something so dear to his heart .... and that doesn't just mean bringing the child home - that means the ability to parent 5 children .... well. Parenting "well" is something Aaron takes very seriously. He values fatherhood more than any man I know. It's because of the fact that Aaron is my husband, the father of my children, that I can clearly see that God is providing. He provided Aaron as my children's earthly dad.  There's little else I need to be able to do this.

Anyway .... that's about it in a nutshell. Okay, maybe not a nutshell...

We are honored that God has guided us to this once again. We do not do this in our own strength, because we have little. We've seen the miracle of adoption before, and cannot believe that we get to see it again. Adoption, biological, whatever it may be .... God has chosen us to be a mom and a dad to some pretty amazing kids.

God chose life. I, as a woman, choose life. I value life. I value the life of my children, and the ones whose lives don't mean anything to anyone. I value it because God values it. God chose me, he values me .... so much that He chose to adopt me! To Him be the glory!