A Great Couple of Days!

No time for real blogging, but the last three days have been great ones!

Sunday, my oldest sweet girl was baptized!  Both girls told me several months ago that they had asked Jesus into their hearts, what a blessed momma I am.  Big Sis has been talking about being baptized and this Sunday we finally went with it.  She is the one I struggle with the most, I can't wait to watch God work amazing things in her life.  Her heart is as big as they come.

Monday, in my hands, fresh from the mail....THE FINISHED HOMESTUDY!!!!!!
I went into overdrive adoption paperwork mode last night, so much I can now finish up with this wonderful piece of the puzzle finished!  Little boy, your momma wishes you were here NOW, but I'm comin' as fast as I can.

Today, Tuesday Sept. 27th, my sweet niece was born.  Just three hours ago.  We have prayed for this little life for years and then for very different reasons we have prayed for her over the past months and weeks.  She comes into this very broken world, with her life, very different than it should be.  But, today and in a week (physically), I will be praying over her for God to do a miracle in her mother's life and then in her life.  In Jesus's name I claim this sweet girl for His Kingdom.  What God has planned, the enemy is trying to snatch away and turn into evil.  I will not stand by and idly watch, no I will not.  I am an aunt for the first time for real!  Not that I don't have a special place for all my by-law nieces and nephews, I do love them.  But, it's so exciting that my baby brother is a daddy, I pray he does it well.

6 Months and Adoption Day

When Baby Sis was born, you can bet a few short days later, I looked at a calendar to see what our "adoption day" would be, you know, the magic age when our agency would let us come back.  It felt odd that it was 9-11, but somehow fitting.  That was the day our country will always remember those lost, but now it was a day of hope and a life added to our family.

Now we are so excited, that we did NOT have to wait the whole six months to get back in the saddle with our adoption, but I still sort of think as today as adoption day :-)

What's happening with the adoption you say?  Well, we are finished with the homestudy!!! Again ;-) We should have a hard copy that we can send off to get our fingerprints appointment this week!!!



So, happy six month birthday to my sweet baby girl, wow, where is the time going?!

And happy adoption day to my sweet boy.  Has he been born, is his birth mother still pregnant, or is he only a sweet child in the Father's hands still being formed by his Creator?  Whichever it is, I am thinking of him today.

What were you doing?

Ten years ago, I was strolling along with my hubby downtown in Chania, Greece.  I was pregnant with our first child, we had a special night ahead with a sunset cruise (that was canceled because of high winds) and dinner for two.  We stopped in some shops and then sat down at a cafe for a milkshake.  That was when we noticed the TV, the sound was off and the subtitles were in Greek, but we could see the pictures and the headlines....

and we knew....

something was wrong back home.

We went on with our evening and when we got home I turned on the TV....and I was glued to it for the next week.

Our lives along with our country were changed forever.

We will never forget.

No more pearls before swine

I'm having a hard time lately dealing with people. Specifically, people who are not like minded when it comes to what I think is close to God's heart. I'm having a hard time feeling 'proud' to be an American. Because more and more, I am finding that the two problems above are intertwined. I'm starting to think that the American way, is not thinking about God's heart.

Since I was young, I had heard the stories about foreigners not liking Americans. I never understood why...until recently. I have encountered some people that are what I am starting think of as American Snobs since we started our adoption of a little boy in Africa. These are the ones that even after a little thought want to know why Africa, and if they are really bold, why NOT the US. I'm not Talking about simple curiosity, I'm talking about offended that we would go all the way over there to get a child when there are plenty of them here....according to them.

Really? Where are all of these starving children in the US? Where are all these children dying of preventable diseases? I'll tell you...they aren't here. They don't exist. There are orphans here. And I am not negating the fact that some of them have a very bad situation. I'm not denying that they would love to be adopted, to have a forever family, a mom and a dad. (Heck, we will probably also adopt from the US one day!)

What I am saying is that these children do not have a death sentence if someone doesn't act. I'm saying that our gov't system is so screwed up in certain states that it's darn near impossible to adopt a foster child.

I'm saying that in a country in Africa the size of Texas, over 25,000 children have died...

in just 3 months.


And when I say something about that on Facebook, I'm blasted because I don't know how many will die today in the US.

I'll tell you how many....

5 children will die today in the US from abuse or neglect.

These children will die because a parent or the adult in charge of them will beat them or not care for them properly.

Pure evil.


 Not because there is no food in the 4 grocery stores within 10 miles of our homes, I was just at two of them....there is still plenty of food.

300 children will die today in the Horn of Africa, because their parent or adult in charge of them can't feed them. How does that invoke a reaction of "well, we need to take care of our own country first"? How does that not bring out compassion? How does that not break your heart?  They are saying that 800,000 children will die before ethos is over....how can we go on without action?

Um, and quite frankly, it's not the point, is it?

The point is, that this child is dying right now.

And we are not doing anything.  We are not even talking about it in the news!

My thoughts, I once heard that compassion was like a muscle, it needs to be exercised. I think that we are not using this muscle.  We rarely exercise compassion, for our own people and very rarely for other nations.

I'm starting to not even want to share this broken heart of God's with others....seems like so many people just don't care.

I'm starting to understand when it says in the Bible to not throw your pearls to the swine...seems like so many people just. don't. care.

So, if the picture makes you uncomfortable, go ahead and close the blog, but if in you, you can hear your heart echoing God's heart, if you can feel it start to break, go here and do something, anything....

It's finally top news

Africa is finally making the top news. It doesn't make me happy though, it means it's bad, very bad. Wishing I could head over and scoop up and handful of children tonight and save them from a certain death...of starvation.

Happy National Breastfeeding Month!

From Baby Sis!

Child Abducted from Home: Ransom Required

The police are reporting that the other night a child was abducted from their home.  The parents have been contacted and the ransom is set.

Have you seen this quirky girl?

No one is even questioning that the parents will do all that they can to find their child.  The child that God had intended for them to raise.

Has anyone seen this spunky child?

No one is disputing that they should beg or borrow the money to ransom their sweet baby.

Have you seen this child?

No one says, "Well, if God had planned for your family to go though this, He would provide a way to pay for it and it wouldn't include going into debt."


Now, I may ruffle some feathers with this post, but here are my thoughts, take them or leave them.  I have come across more than one post over the past weeks on debt and adoption.  The general feeling seems to be that Christians (if they are following the Bible) should not be going into debt to adopt.

Now, I know all about Dave Ramsey and I completely agree with him that we should not tie ourselves down to debt.  This country (including me) have such a terrible case of the "I want it now" syndrome that it's going to oh sorry, it already has kill our economy.  

What I have a beef with is people pretty much condemning families who choose or must use debt to adopt.


Why?


If only 7% of Christians would adopt, there would be NO MORE ORPHANS.

Why would you discourage the 1% who are actually willing to go?

                                                     

Not all of us are finically supported by friends and family through fundraisers.

Not all of us have lived in the same town all of our lives and are connected and networked enough to raise $30,000.

Not all of us have an income to support an adopton up front.


                                                     

I can tell you this much....

If my daughter was kidnapped today and a ransom was offered up for her release.  You can bet that I would spend the rest of my life paying back any amount the bank would be willing to loan me so that I could ransom her.

Do I hope that we can raise enough money for our son?  Yes

Do I want to borrow money? No




Will I do whatever it takes to ransom him?  Yes


***Just to let you know, no children in this post were abducted ;) they are safe and sound tucked in their beds.