Crisis in Ethiopia

How many times as a mom (or parent)have you felt your insides screaming when your child approaches your plate with hungry grunts and whines. You look at them and say, "this is MY food. No...you have already had your piece. This is mommy's!" Then after you indulge in another bite or two, you relinquish your selfishness and turn over the last few bites of your favorite pancakes, or your best chicken casserole or your buttered roll to the requesting child. Or you find just enough slices of bread to make sandwiches for your offspring for lunch. There is none left for you, so you turn and make some creative (sometimes barely tolerable)conconction for yourself out of frig leftovers and say to yourself,'atleast they got to eat something!'
It is our nature to care for our little ones, even to the point of sacrificing our own needs to meet theirs.
In todays news, Ethiopia is currently suffering from a major drought and elevated food costs. The news captures photos of families standing in lines to receive food rations of mixed cereals. However, due to costs all over the world, the rations have been minimized and fewer aid is coming into the country. As a result, millions are suffering. My heart sank when I read in an article:
"There is no widespread famine. There is localised, critical child malnutrition,"
"Already for some kids... it's too late, but it's not too late for many, many other children who need assistance until the next harvest comes in," said Sonali Wickrema, who designs programmes in Ethiopia for the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP).
"We want rapid assistance now in order to prevent large-scale and long-term damage," she said.
The Ethiopian government says 75,000 children are suffering from the most severe form of malnutrition because of food and water shortages caused by drought. "

At this time, right now, I have no idea where our precious daughter is in Ethiopia or what family she is coming from. I do not know her mother or other family members. She may not even be conceived yet. ..but there is trauma over there. There are blessed little children who are going to bed hungry, some have lost their lives to hunger and disease. Her family could be suffering right now. My heart aches to bring her home. ..to hold her and love on her. To give her my last piece of pancake...to bless her with the rest of my sandwich or let her drink the rest of my (favorite) sweet tea. My prayers are so layered sometimes I cant keep them straight but I hang on to the hope that Christ has given me. I hang on to the beautiful vision He has placed in my mind of her. My heart is torn for her mom and family. I am only humbled..only thankful that we have been chosen to bless her with a new home. I can't wait...just can't wait.
And my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory...

Adoption update=>delays and new sw

We got a letter in the mail the other day from our local agency. I actually handed it to Chris not wanting to read it. He said, "What do you think it will say?" I responded, "probably that we have a new social worker!" That is EXACTLY what it was. To our dismay, they had given us another sw because our 2nd one was an intern and her time at the agency had come to an end. If you can remember, our first one tragically died during childbirth earlier this year.
Needless to say, this was not welcoming news. Due to the 4th of July holidays, we couldnt call the offices until yesterday. In a tear filled phonecall, I explained with the best of selfcontrol that I could muster, why I felt our family had not only been tossed around like a hot potato, but in light of the numerous mishaps, misinformation, and delays, we felt like our case was not being taken seriously. I did my best to convey how this is a life-changing event for our family not simply a decision to buy new windows for our house (I didnt use those words but I think she got the picture through my crying..) In the end, the agency's main sw whom I was talking to, decided to take on our case herself. THANK YOU!
I feel like we are getting back on track again..however, I will feel better when our dossier is actually in ET.
In addition to the letter from the agency, we got a letter from immigration services stating that our homestudy did not have the right wording to state that our home was safe for a child. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!! This goes back to our first and second social workers. UGH.. Anyway..that is being fixed and an addendum is being sent in the mail 'right away'.
So...how do we stay encouraged? How do we not lose hope? I remind myself that I have only just begun the process. There are many families (including some friends) out there who have been waiting for years for their precious babe from China. There are some families whose countries have just been shut down. Some families whose agencies were false and their monies stolen. My momentary troubles do not compare to these stories and I am humbled. I am reminded that God is in control. I pick myself up off my knees and wipe the tears from my eyes and trudge forward again and I thank God for my agency and for these people who have acted on my behalf and I pray that they are blessed for their work and faithfulness...and then I get back to my day.

Jesus in our Family Picture

This is a picture we had taken of our family at Easter in the Childrens church room after church that day. It was probably a few months after that we really saw the irony of the photo. In the middle of the picture you can clearly see the picture of Jesus on the backdrop appearing to stand behind me and Chris and be included in the family picture. His hands actually look like they embrace us. We couldnt have picked a more appropriate place for him in our family. Although it was a sheer accident (on our part) that we stood where we did, it was by far no accident on God's part to place himself exactly right where He belongs...right smack dab in the middle of our family, our marriage, our lives. I love looking at the picture. I look right past our smiles, the imperfections in my hair, wardrobe, etc...and I laugh..out loud, no doubt..at the beauty and humor of the Lord. It's a perfect picture!

Eye of God

This is an image taken by NASA in 2003 by the Hubble Space Telescope. It is referred to as "The Eye of God". This image has been featured in many space articles and magazines. It is actually described by astonomers as "a trillion-mile-long tunnel of glowing gases." I thought I would share this beautiful picture. It's likeness to an amazingly gorgeous eye is undeniable. Isn't it awesome just to dream for a moment that perhaps the Lord looks upon us with such hugeness and such glory? Just recently a fellow blogger offered words of comfort as she discussed this space image and challenged the thought that if our Lord's eye is this large, imagine His hands and how so very much they encompass us and lift us up. It is quite comforting to think of it that way!

Garden Glory

We are trying to get serious with gardening...I mean I am. I will explain Chris' involvement in a minute. For several years, I have created larger and larger areas to garden and expanding the library of produce that I plant. This year, I am excited to add corn to the backyard garden (check out photo)! I planted the seeds not more than a week ago and they are sprouting up quicker than I can say 'hopscotch jolly.' (Does that sound country enough?!) We live on 6 acres of beautiful land. Three acres are wooded and the other 3 are pasture. Our house sits right on the border of both. It is a perfect place to raise kids, do some gardening, watch the dog run and hopefully add a few farm animals. I am trying to convince Chris into letting us get a donkey from our neighbor who is giving hers away. (We'll see!!)
In the meantime, I am trying to nurture my little garden and hopefully be able to enjoy the fruit of my labor. I hope to see some corn, zucchini, red onions, 3 different types of tomatoes, green peppers,squash, green beans, and a variety of herbs.
Now..let me describe Chris' role in the gardening. He is an avid supporter. He will water it faithfully, create and maintain any composting, even purchase a few plants to add, and he definitely enjoys harvesting any ready fruits or veggies. As far as his involvement a couple of years ago, it can be summed up in 4 words: He mowed it down. We can laugh now about it, but 2 years ago, not so much. I was 8 months pregnant with our 3rd child and I had been nurturing my beautiful garden since the spring..and it was not funny. I had even started seeds indoors 6 weeks before planting during the winter months trying to get a head start. Here is where the crazy idea came from. During a car ride back from town one day, we noticed a man had mowed down his garden. It sparked a conversation going somewhat like this, 'Why would you mow down a garden? I wonder if he had already harvested all the veggies. I wonder if that helps it grow better next season. I bet he is going to plant new stuff now." That is how it went. A few days later, I look out of our kitchen window and discover that my husband has JUST FINISHED MOWING DOWN MY GARDEN! Let me say that we had just begun harvesting the veggies. It still had many more weeks of growth and plenty more veggies to harvest. You can imagine my response....and let me remind you that I was 8 months pregnant. This condition already creates an increased level of emotion. Needless to say, Chris will not ever mow down a garden again....and anyway the 4 foot high fencing that we installed prevents any temptation! His explanation?!1 Well..it was something like this: Didnt you say that you wanted me to?!! ha..ha...ha..ha... He was very serious and to this day, it has been chalked up to miscommunication. Ummm...hmmmmmm. Yep...miscommunication. See...these are the things that make a marriage stronger. and you just thought I was talking about gardening!

Le Dossier

We are excited now to have gotten our second installment of dossier instructions and list of items to gather and notarize. We thought we would have been WAY into the waiting time by now, but as we realize and rest at ease knowing that God is in complete control and He is watching over every bit of our process, I choose not to be discouraged that we are not on the timeline we had set for ourselves. Thank goodness, things dont happen because I choose for them to happen. There is no telling what kind of situation I would be in! Time to hop into the paper chase!

Homestudy is off to CIS

I have avoided writing lately as we hit another bump in the road. It has been discouraging to be blogging only mishaps and bumps...and since I had little to rejoice over as far as our adoption process, I couldnt write. Briefly, I will say that the reason we have been delayed again is because we received misinformation regarding our education credits...again from our SW who just recently passed away. We were told that we could gain 10 hrs credit each from multiple sources including books, seminars, conferences, meetings, online meetings, etc. We were encouraged to do the Hague accredited 'With Eyes Wide Open' (voluntarily) after we were in the official waiting for a referral stage. We had been steadily reaching that goal as our homestudy was being reviewed and found out that this was not good enough. As a matter of fact, all the credits we have so far gained are basically not applicable. While our SW was aware that this 'With Eyes Wide Open' was apparently mandatory, we did not. She thought we would be grandfathered in, even though our paperwork had not yet been submitted. It is CRAZY!! Anyway, Chris and I have been in seclusion filling our precious nighttime moments at the computer trying to complete this online course which takes approx 10-12 hours to complete. We are done! We completed the course, and YESTERDAY...yes YESTERDAY...one day after our 14th wedding anniversary, our completed Homestudy was sent to CIS. WOOOOO HOOOOOO! Happy dance!