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A sad note on a normally happy day

So, this post has nothing to do with our adoption, but the thought came to me this morning during church that I really wanted to write this. It's a very sad post on a happy day for me. Mother's Day...I am so blessed to have my sweet girls and to have a loving and caring mother myself.

As I listen to Big Sis play Super Mario Brothers and Little Sis wondering out loud when lunch will be, my thoughts are with a young family that just lost their mother 2 days ago from cancer, cancer that they just found she had 2 weeks ago. This mom leaves behind and husband and two young daughters, both under 3.

My heart breaks for them. And my heart breaks for their small church.

You see, I didn't know this family, but they attend our old church in WA. And this small church has endured it's share of sorrow over the past couple of years.............

A dad was killed in action in Iraq, he left behind a sweet family, a wife, and 2 girls, the same age as mine...........

The pastor's wife had a long battle with cancer until God healed her perfectly in glory. She left behind a husband and 2 girls, both about a year older than my girls. Their mother was a delight for me to know and a huge encouragement to me that last year we lived in WA.

My heart breaks that we live in such a broken world with sin, that war and disease would take away life of such sweet souls.

My heart breaks that on Mother's Day, these wonderful people that we called our church family are hurting today and burying another mother. I pray that they can have comfort in this song that we sang today in church. I can't wait for the days of no weeping, no hurt or pain.......

*You need to turn off my music at the bottom of this page first :) *

Completely in Awe of God

First, a quick update on adoption news. We have been assigned our Family Coordinator yesterday and she sent us our first email. She was so sweet on the phone and told me not to be overwhelmed by all the attachments and she suggested that we print them out to read and then sign and return the required papers to her. :) Ha! I thought I wouldn't be shocked, I've heard about the paper chase....well, folks, she sent SEVENTEEN attachments! And to top that, one of the attachments we had to print and read before signing another paper and returning.......it was 28 pages! Well, I don't quite feel overwhelmed, but I was a little shocked at the shear number of attachments.

This week, we are also starting on our Hague training and our reading, plus Kelly is starting nights Sunday, so that will take some getting used to. We haven't had to deal with night shift in almost 3 years.

Now, for some serious praising God!

I am just so excited that I have to share what God has done for us! It is amazing and exciting. A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post here that was a gut wrenching truth that I shared about tithing.

Malachi 3:10 says

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it".

OH YES! God was so faithful to us! Let me just tell you first off that the same week that we wrote our first full tithe check, we got an unexpected deposit in the bank. Weird, we said...that was great, look what God did, maybe the IRS forgot to give us some of our taxes. So, we sawGod was blessing us....we just had no idea how much. Not till a month later, after we had continued to be faithful in our tithing did we see this deposit again, but a slightly different amount. So, we started wondering, "where is this money coming from?"

After a couple internet searches, we found out that it is Kelly's VA benefits. But here is the kicker.....first, we were not expecting these checks to start for a couple of years. Second, (and this is so BIG!)........ the amount of his VA benefits is $3 more than our tithe for the month!!!!!!!

WHAT?!

God said, "you bet, you are going to test me, you are going to be faithful, you are going to step out and tithe when there really isn't that much left after bills, but instead you are going to step out in faith and tithe first....I am going to bless you...I am going to replace that money, plus $3!"

God is good!

But, guess what? It doesn't stop there.......

"and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it"

God is so faithful! As he was teaching me a lesson during our big yard sale, He was working behind the scenes to bless us beyond our imagination. See, a month or so ago, Kelly applied to a job....we didn't think anything of it, if it's better, if it pans out, we would consider thinking about it.

Then, last week, they called him and told him they wanted to hire him, they would be sending him an offer. They verbally told him a rough estimate of the raise (it would be good). So we waited and wondered what to do about this. You see, it's not just about a pay raise, the job is only for 18 months. So, Kelly would be looking for employment after the 18 months....to consider that, it would have to be really good.

So, we waited for the official offer and what do you know? It was better than what the guy had verbally told Kelly. What to do now? Do we really take a temporary job for more money? Kelly decided to take the offer to his current employer and see if they would offer him a raise to stay. (I had complete faith that they would want to keep him, he is a hard worker and valued employee!) So, he put it on the table and they countered. It was a good raise but not the same amount as the new company...but enough to stay in a permanent job.

What to do now, neither of us were clear....

I prayed hard, prayed for wisdom, prayed for clarity, and finally told God He was going to have to be direct, for Him to please make the decision so clear.

A dear friend that is very close with God was praying for me and called to tell me she heard from God "I supplied this job (money for the adoption), why wouldn't I supply a job afterwards?"

So, my sweet husband said the raise was enough to make him stay with his current company, but he would give the new company a chance to raise the offer. Little did I know that during the afternoon when I felt a strong urge to pray (guys, this never happens to me...or maybe I just don't listen) was the exact same time Kelly was talking to the new company. BTW, I did go and pray, hard for my dear husband. :)

What do you know, he countered and the new company, who had already given us a good offer, above what we had accepted, raised their offer!! And it's a GOOD offer!!

God has blessed us so abundantly, so unexpectedly, so completely. God has promised to take care of us and we want to shout it from the roof tops!

This job will allow us some of the adoption money, money that I just had no idea where it was going to come from. We still have a ways to go, and I regularly remind myself to just look at the next thing that will be due, not the whole picture. The total sum of this adoption is too much for me to grasp. Too much for me to see where it will all come from. That's why this is God's department, He is supplying the funds, I am just His instrument.

Lastly, from now on, I want to ponder about and write to my sweet boy a little with each post. My sweet Caleb, I wonder if he has been born, or if his precious birth mother is still pregnant with him? I hope and pray that God sends people to snuggle and kiss him until I can. I hope that he knows what it is to be loved, to be rocked. I pray that whoever cares for him has enough to feed him and I pray God puts a wall of protection around him. I wonder what he will look like when we see his sweet face for the first time on the computer. I don't remember the same thing with my girls when I was pregnant...wondering, maybe it's been too long. I know the first time I saw them, their faces were bruised with smooched noses or pointed heads. LOL! Sweet little newborns, not quite what a fist time mom expects, but she loves them all the same. I can't wait to see his face, until then, I will pray for a faceless dark, soft skinned little boy with dark eyes that I am sure will be my weakness.

Blog Raffle

So, I have been trying to think of ways to generate some more readers and to also raise funds at the same time. After thinking about what I already have and asking for ideas from some fellow bloggers, I came up with this!

I am going to be raffling off your choice of an Usborne activity book for children called "Chocolates and candies to make" or a Usborne library bound book called "The Big Bug Search".

Chocolates and candies to make

The activity book is full of really easy and totally delicious things to make which you can enjoy eating or give as presents. There are some gift-wrapping ideas too. Just follow the simple, step-by-step picture instructions and have fun.

The Big Bug Search

From huge hairy spiders to spindly stick insects, there are around 100 bugs just waiting to be found on every double page. Full of fascinating facts, each beautifully illustrated picture puzzle shows a different part of the world, packed with the tiny creatures that live there. Answers are in the back.

There are several ways that you can enter that I am going to list below, but make sure you read the required parts first!

So, how do you get an entry into my raffle?

1. You must have a blog to participate.

2. You must be a follower of this blog.

3. You must buy at a "raffle ticket" with any donation on our chipin button to the right. No donation is too small (even $1 is appreciated!).

4. You must live in the US. Sorry, no shipping overseas :(

Here are how you can get extra entries:

1. You can Twitter or Facebook about my blog with a link to http://our-journey-to-africa.blogspot.com/

2. You can grab my button to the right and place it on your blog. (2 entries)

3. You can write a blog about my adoption with a link to this post. (2 entries)

*Make sure you comment below letting me know what all you have done for entries, ( I will see donations, you don't have to mention those, just the extra entry stuff!).

This raffle will go until June 6th and then on the 7th, I will randomly choose a winner.

Buy Coffee to Bring Home Caleb!

Yes, you all may have noticed our link on the side bar, but I wanted to bring your attention to is again because Linny is having a Crazy Love #3 that you can read all about here!

Also, you may have noticed for the first time some new info.......

anyone notice?

Yep, our sweet little boy's name will be Caleb! This has always been our "boy" name and had sweet little sis not been a cute blond little girl, well, her name would have been Caleb. We are not sure about his middle name, because we may keep one of his Ethiopian names as his middle name...not sure yet!

So, if you buy some of this yummy coffee, we will get a portion towards our adoption AND it's a fair wage coffee so the famers are making money to take care of their families. Just click the link about and see what they have to offer. Thanks for supporting our adoption!

The "church lady"

So off the bat, my intent with this post is to not to offend, but to get your mind rolling and possibly convict you. ;)

Today we decided to pull all the yard sale stuff out to organize it (seeing as how it was thrown together in the rain last week), throw out any moldy/ruined stuff, and simply air it all out since we had so much rain during our sale last week.

Since we were going to pull it all out anyway, we might as well put up a couple signs and see if we could sell anything at the same time. Last night I went ahead and made up some brownies so the girls could participate too. (They really feel like they are helping raise money for the adoption this way)

First let me just say that people simply don't pay attention to details around them (the huge adoption fundraiser/yard sale sign that almost everyone parked right in front of!) I'm talking a 3x5 HUGE sign, professionally made and loaned to us from friends at church. So up comes a nice looking lady, in what could be her Sunday clothes, after she parks right in front of the sign. She wonders around making small talk, asks if we are moving....uh, no, if you had read the sign you would know this is a fund raiser. I actually said...nicely..."we are raising money for our adoption of a little boy in Africa." She says, as she stands over the box of shoes, "oh...my church is taking shoes to South Africa..."

Um, WHAT?! Does she want to me to offer her the shoes to her?

I tell her that's nice and ask what church she goes to (since my church is also going to South Africa) Then, almost with her nose in the air, she walks off toward her car and just mentions she saw our sign after her "church" meeting and tells me to have a good day. She didn't buy a thing, (which is fine) and she didn't buy a brownie from my DD (which is also fine, she said she had just had breakfast); but I had the strangest feeling of being snubbed.

Now, mind you, I am comparing this lady to my mail lady who, when asked by little sis if she would like to buy a brownie for 50 cents, she said she would actually like to buy a brownie for $5.00 (hmmm, I think she read the sign.)

I am not trying to bad mouth church lady (can we just call her that for the sake of my point?), maybe she didn't need anything or like anything she saw at my little yard sale, maybe she doesn't like brownies. Maybe she gives tons of time and energy to her church mission trip to South Africa. But, for me, she represents so many of us (Christians) that are just simply lukewarm.

*This idea of lukewarm Christians is not new to me, but since a sermon in March at out church that you can watch here, it has stuck with me and followed me around a bit. (I read a blog just the other day that reminded me of it again!)*

I am by no means a perfect Christian, I have hot and cold days....just ask the lady I was not very nice to on the phone the other day :/ . But one of my new goals is to never catch myself being a "lukewarm Christian". I have bad days and stick my foot in my mouth, I sin like everyone else and need to ask for forgiveness.

What I want for myself, is to be passionate about Christ and how Christ called me to live the rest of the time. I don't want to be the church lady who is checking off the boxes in my Christian to do list and lose sight of things or people that God places in my path to either help or encourage.

I say this only because I HAVE BEEN THAT church lady. Oh yes, I am not proud of it, but now that I see it in others, it makes me sad. It makes me wonder, how many American Christians will be in the lukewarm category when Jesus returns?

What about you? Do you help when God places someone in your path, do you give an encouraging word? (Maybe I should have given that lady all the shoes for South Africa.) Are you passionate about Christ, and passionate about being a Christian, or are you worried people think you are "overboard" about Christ? Are you passionate about serving Him with your money?

Like I said, no intent to offend, the lady just rubbed me the wrong way and got my mind rolling.

Now, I want you to think.....

How can we not be lukewarm Christians?

The sun shine mocks me

I am still praising God, but a little disheartened all the same. The sun shine yesterday and today mocks me. It hadn't rained for weeks before our sale and there is none in the immediate forecast. God has a plan for good and not to harm me. I am trusting that and trying to climb out of the Monday funk ;)

The next two days four months we will be busy filling out papers. We have a couple papers that need to be signed and returned to AWAA with our first program fee, plus we have to send off our application to the homestudy agency.

All this and the final crunch for co-op (paper mache penguin, someone just shoot me now!), regular school and we need to reclaim the house after it was neglected in the yard sale prep time. I'd be lying if I didn't tell you I'm tempted to let the girls continue playing mommy and baby dolls and get lost in my book......no, no, can't do that.....listen for the whining as I go tell the girls "break" is over. :(