Sweet Alli

My dear firstborn,

   This has been burning in my heart for some time, but finding the emotional fortitude to compose all these thoughts has escaped me until today.  I can't believe that we only have a few short days left until we take you down to Biola and then drive away to come home...without you!  If I wanted to, I could sit here and think of all the wonderful memories we have and cry myself into a puddle right here on the couch, but I want to find the joy in your amazing new adventure, so instead we will recap your amazing life...so far!

I remember well the day that we found out we were expecting you.  I wasn't sure what to think at first since we were so surprised!  But God wasn't surprised, and I am so thankful that He chose to give us you so early in our marriage.  I was so thrilled when you were born with all that amazing hair and tiny little features.  We had a rough start in the nursing department at first, but thankfully we both figured out what we were doing!  

As you grew, it became apparent that you loved people and socializing!  You talked before you walked!  You loved music and would dance and twirl whenever you heard any tune.

I remember how much fun I had going around town with my little sidekick!  You were our "only" for nearly 4 years, so we did everything together.  You loved going to women's Bible study with me and hanging with your peeps in the nursery.  While you were super fussy and colicky your first few months, you quickly grew out of that and were always easy to leave with a sitter or nursery worker.  I look back now and see that God instilled in your very being a sense of security and a lack of fear when encountering new situations.  We could even see that when you slept---arms spread out and your body sprawled out on the bed.  You didn't sleep all curled up in a ball like some do.

You developed many great friendships in your early years down in El Cajon.  Even though we moved to Oregon when you were just barely 5 years old, it was very hard for you to leave your friends!  Josiah, Luke, Lara, Bethany...you missed them so much!

You loved to play dress up, and we still joke about the pathetic outfits you wore since we didn't own any "real" costumes!  hahaha!

You were so happy when friends flew up to visit you in our new home in Oregon.

Watching my super social girl have to move far away from her friends was so hard for me.  We still had almost 6 months to wait for Kindergarten to start after moving here.  But God had a plan!  I am so thankful that we found CCS right across the parking lot from Dad's new job!  Central Christian School became our school--your school--and it was filled with friends for you!  The day that you graduated from Kindergarten was such a great day because we could see the joy on your face!

As the years began to fly by, I distinctly remember thinking that I wanted to stop time for awhile and just sit in the moment a bit longer.  Sadly, I wish I could go back and really take more time to enjoy life's experiences even more with you.  I think what probably many mothers think---I would spend less time worrying about stupid things like a clean house and would focus more on building memories with my children.  I am sorry that you had to be the "guinea pig" kid, because I am sure that you got to experience the vast majority of my freaky psycho ways!  Hopefully I am learning to lighten up a bit (maybe??), and won't mess up as much with the others!

I am so thankful for a God who covers over mistakes and has developed you into a beautiful woman after His heart. I love that He is helping you and your sisters find your common interests and build a bond that is unbreakable.  Your sisters adore you and admire you so much!

What a gift it is to have sisters!!

So, as you embark on this new chapter of your life, I want to tell you a few more things.  First off, I am SO proud of you and who you are.  You are filled with so many gifts--more than your share!

  

However, those many gifts do not define you or contribute in any way to your worth or value.

  My perfectionistic personality took a LONG time to learn this myself.  Your value is based solely on the fact that you were created in the image of God and when you trusted in Him for your salvation you put on His righteousness and traded in your fleshly sin nature made of filthy rags.   So when God looks at you, He sees the righteousness of His Son and has removed your sin as far as the east is from the west!  Sounds like an awesome deal to me! As a woman, you will be continuously bombarded with society's message that you must look a certain way or act a certain way in order to be considered "worthy" or "beautiful", but I pray that you will have the grace and faith to reject that lie from the enemy! 

 I want you to KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt "who you are and Whose you are"   

(remember these words from Grandpa?? ;-)!

I read this in Jesus Calling this week:

"Wear my robe of righteousness with ease.  I custom-made it for you, to cover you from head to toe.  The price I paid for this covering was astronomical--My own blood.  You could never purchase such a royal garment, no matter how hard you worked.  Sometimes you forget that My righteousness is a gift, and you feel ill at ease in your royal robe.  I weep when I see you squirming under the velvety fabric, as if it were made of scratchy sackcloth.

I want you to trust me enough to realize your privileged position in My kingdom.  Relax in the luxuriant folds of your magnificent robe.  Keep your eyes on Me, as you practice walking in this garment of righteousness.  When your behavior is unfitting for one in My kingdom, do not try to throw off your royal robe.  Instead, throw off the unrighteous behavior.  Then you will be able to feel at ease in this glorious garment, enjoying the gift I fashioned for you before the foundation of the world."

My dear daughter, this is what I pray for you!  Know who you are!  Know that you are royalty in His kingdom!  And when you mess up--as we all do--confess and move forward into the calling He has for you!!  He has a huge plan for you that is only beginning.  I pray that you will heed His voice, even when it is quiet and hard to hear.  Wait on Him for clear direction when you need to make a decision.  I heard some great advice once about listening for His voice.  It was from Beth Moore, and she said that when she asks the Lord for an answer about a decision she has to make, she waits and doesn't choose until she hears clearly from Him.  If she waits and hears nothing?  She assumes His answer is "no".  I think that is great advice!  

Finally, just because you are moving out and into a dorm where you get to practice being a full-on adult, don't forget that Dad and I are still here for you.  We will always answer your calls and help you through this next phase of life.  We will still probably mess up, and I will still nag you to study (just to help ease your homesickness!), but we will always be your number one cheerleaders and fans!  

You are precious, gifted, beautiful, and LOVED hugely!

~Mom

And here are a few more pics for your enjoyment~

Roommates at Biola and best friends since 1st grade!

Alli and Quinn

Aren't you glad you'll be living so close to your first boyfriend, Mickey Mouse?

Rocking bunny in your 100 year old rocking chair~ so serious!

These crazy sisters are one of God's best gifts to you!

The mom and dad who love you tons!

It's "Puzzling"

Well folks, I told you I am not great at this "post-frequently-so-people-will-keep-reading" thing!  I so want to be better at it, but I confess that I am just not!  Also, when I don't have great news, it's hard to type more of the same thing...

Anyway, some of you faithful friends and family have been asking me where we are with our adoption and where we are with fundraising.  I'll tackle the fundraising question first because, surprisingly, that is the easier question to address!  The PUZZLE fundraiser that we are doing has stalled for awhile (my fault for not keeping up on posting), but we did make it to 304 pieces sponsored at $10/piece!  That is fantastic, and we are so very thankful for that.  The $10,000 we hope to raise from our one thousand piece puzzle along with another $14,000 we have saved will be used for our "referral" fund.  We need to be ready to pay half of Haiti's fees when referred/matched with our children and the other half is paid when we travel to Haiti to file some paperwork before picking them up to come HOME!  This total of $24,000 covers fees for two children--if we are matched with 3, we will be doing some frantic fund raising and even more praying!

As said in some previous posts, these are strictly Haitian fees, not our agency fees (which are already paid in full!).  We will also need several thousand to cover travel and some document fees, but we are trusting the Lord to work all that out.  So, we have 696 pieces left in our puzzle ready to be sponsored....

This is a picture of what our puzzle looks like.  A beautiful compilation of the Haitian map, flag, and a sweet boy.  We love it and can't wait to frame it on our wall!

Now, the difficult topic to address is the one about what is happening in our adoption.  We knew going into this that there would be delays and disappointments as well as a load of unpredictability.  Sadly, many of the documents in our file (which has been sitting on the stateside desk of our orphanage for months!) are beginning to expire and we are having to re-do things now.  I can't tell you how incredibly frustrating this is when every document needs a notary, a certification from the Sec. of State and then a authentication from the Haitian consulate.  It takes so much time and hoopla just to get each one done correctly.  In the meantime, Haiti has recently decided to become a Hague country, so they are in the process of figuring out what that will mean for the families that are currently in the system (us).  Essentially, we are being told that this is a GOOD thing for Haiti and it's children, but we should expect more delays and must purpose to hang in there while we wait.

When we asked about when we would possibly be matched with children (which we thought was going to happen between March and June), we were told to not expect anything before the fall.  So, we wait.  We trust that God knows best and only has our best interests in mind, but I would be lying if I said that it wasn't hard to continue down a road of uncertainty.  Our hearts and minds are invested in Haiti, and we know that God has called us to this country, so switching to a more stable country is just not an option for us (as some have asked).  We wait and trust that His plan is best and that He has just the right children for us.  For some reason the timing is very different than we originally planned and hoped, but 
regardless of our feelings, we trust.

I feel a bit like a broken record with no real "new news" to share, but I am so thankful that Mark and I have the Lord to carry us through the uncertainty and to uphold us with His righteous right hand~ We thank you for your continued prayers and support through this time of waiting on His will.

~Holly

Brief update~

So sorry to keep many of you waiting to hear how things are going with our fundraising efforts!  We are moving forward and are SO THANKFUL for the many gifts we have received so far!  We have 179 pieces sponsored so far, and we are GRATEFUL!!  Only 821 to go! 

We also received a very large donation from a family member on Thursday. We will combine that with our current puzzle piece money enabling us to send the (approximate) $12,500 fee down to Haiti that is needed in order for us to be matched!!  This is so exciting to us!  After we are matched (don't know for sure how long that will take), we will need to send the other half of the Haiti fees.  The way that our orphanage matches families is by prayerfully considering each adoptive family and each child available for adoption.  We don't look at photo listings and "choose" our children.  The director chooses who she feels God is leading her to choose and matches families with children.  Some of you saw on FB  that I mentioned a sibling group of babies (3 months and 24 months) who were just admitted to GLA this week.  While I could mention to her that we saw the post about them and would love to parent them, we will wait for God's leading.  We know and trust that He already has the children picked just for us.  We don't want to get in the way of His leading--even if the babies are SO CUTE!  We will keep you all updated on our match FOR SURE!

In other adoption news, if you are my FB friend, you know that we received our USCIS approval this week!  That was a major milestone in this journey.  One that took a lot more time than we anticipated!  It turned out that since our oldest bio child, Alli, turned 18 this month, we had to do all the same background checking, FBI clearances, and biometric fingerprinting on her that we did on us!  That was a bummer of a delay, but all the needed documents and appointments turned out to take less time to process than ours did, so we praise the Lord for that. 

I know this isn't long, and I am so lame at posting pics, but I will give a better update later when we know more.  And I will post puzzle pictures then too!

Thanks for your continued prayers and supportive gifts and comments!  We are so thankful for the community of friends and family we have to walk this pathway with us!

Does the teacher listen to the Teacher?

I have been mulling over and re-writing this post in my head for the past few days and pray that the Lord enables me to speak with His words what is on my heart regarding our adoption.  

First off, let me address our oft-asked questions: "Why in the world is this taking SO LONG??" and "Where are things in your adoption process?"  There are many reasons that it has taken us longer.  I have mentioned some of the reasons in previous posts---long ago.  :-)  One main reason was that it was a very difficult process finding the right agency who works with the orphanage that we wanted to work with.  Also, adoptions were technically closed until April of 2011, so we really were limited in what we could do anyway.  But mostly, the Lord has allowed things to take longer than we thought because He is accomplishing His will through the wait.  I will admit, however, that waiting for all of this to be completed is not easy.  Those of you that know us well can probably imagine how Mark and I handle the waiting--he is calm, cool, collected and just ready to do the next thing.  I, on the other hand, am so tired of having this "mountain" of things to do hovering over us.  My type A personality just wants to 'git er done' and get our kids!!  This is where the Lord is teaching me, and I am SLOWLY learning.

Right now we are up against a financial wall.  Haiti sets the fees for their courts to process adoptions, and the 2011 fee is $12,500 per child.  In order to even send our dossier into the country to be matched with children, we need to send half of the fee along with it.  Now, I am not sure what they will expect since we are adopting siblings, and we don't know how many that will be.  We are thinking that we probably need to send enough for 2 and be ready to send another $6250 if we are matched with a group of 3.  Our homestudy case worker has approved us for up to 3 kids ages 0-9. 

We have already spent several thousand on homestudy fees, agency fees, FBI clearances, fingerprinting, etc... and we are realizing that it is time to ask for partnership from our friends and family.  This is where the Lord is teaching me through my precious first grade class.  If you are my facebook friend, then you have likely already read the sweet things that happened in class just this week.  Teaching in a Christian school is such a blessing for many reasons, but one in particular is that we have a class prayer time every day.  We lift up the burdens they are carrying (like the cat's hurt eye, the scratch on their finger, and many other 'interesting' concerns!), we pray for a new school building, we pray for our business partners, and occasionally I will share something to pray about.  Several weeks ago when I realized that the financial component of our adoption was rapidly approaching, I asked the children to pray that God would provide the funds for us to complete our adoption. I think I mentioned it in prayer time twice over the last 3 months.  Well, 2 of my students have written me the sweetest notes and enclosed their hard earned money to contribute to our fund!  I was BLOWN away!  I went in to the school office to tell our sweet secretary about it (she is also the leader of a Bible study that I have attended and a spiritual 'mama').

As I stood there with tears in my eyes feeling guilty that my students had done this, she began to share with me,

"LET THEM GIVE TO YOU!"  

"LET THEM BE A PART OF THIS!"

"THIS IS SEED MONEY!"

 "THEY ARE BEING BLESSED AS THEY GIVE TO YOU!"

  

(and the one that REALLY got me)

"WHEN THEY GET TO FINALLY SEE AND MEET YOUR CHILDREN, THEY WILL  KNOW THAT GOD USED THEM TO HELP BRING THEM HOME!"

I knew that God was trying to get my self-reliant self to see the bigger picture. This is not just about us and our family!  All of His followers are called to help the orphan, but obviously not all of us are called or able to adopt.  My students were JOYFULLY giving from their limited means, and God was blessing it! 

Now comes the part of this post that I don't want to write, but know that I must.  I have been in somewhat of a "faithless funk" for the past few months.  I know that my God is able to do ANYTHING and I believe that He will provide for His children, but I didn't want it to be this hard.  I selfishly wanted the money for this adoption to just fall into our laps.  I justified my thinking with all kinds of rationale--"We both have  demanding full-time jobs!  We don't have time to focus on fund-raising or applying for grants that we likely won't qualify for anyway." Or, "Alli graduates this year!  We must go to every function of hers before she leaves us!"  Or, "Man!  Senior year is expensive!  Senior pictures, announcements, yearbook stuff, and all her concurrent (college) credit fees!"  On and on and on went my list of excuses.  Mainly, I wanted God to just show up in a big way and do it quickly!  I didn't really care if that was His way or not....

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."  Is. 55:9

I BEGAN TO REALIZE THAT HE WANTED TO GIVE OTHERS THE OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE IN A STORY OF REDEMPTION.

I don't want our adopted children to feel "rescued" or "saved" by us. And I certainly don't want them to feel obligated in any way to us for "saving" them--God saves them, just as He saved you and me.  

 "I have made you, and I will carry you; I will sustain you, and I will rescue you."  Is. 46:4

We want to increase our family, and we know that the Lord has directed us to do it in this way.  He is allowing us to enter into a broken situation and be a part of bringing beauty out of the ashes.  He weeps over the orphan and longs to comfort and soothe their tears.

"God sets the lonely in families..."  Ps. 68:6

So as I have contemplated my precious students who have given with their BIG faith to their teacher with her little faith, I realized that I wanted a way to remember FOREVER all those who encourage us with their faith and joy.

I wanted a way to memorialize their sweet names and hearts.  

Here is our plan:  We are ordering a specially made 1000 PIECE PUZZLE with a map of Haiti on it. We are inviting you to be a part of our family's adoption story by first PRAYING about what the Lord might have you do.  If he directs you to participate financially, we will be adding your name to the back of a puzzle piece for every $10.00 increment.

SO EACH $10 OF YOUR GIFT GETS YOUR NAME ON THE BACK OF A PUZZLE PIECE!

After we complete our puzzle, we will have it mounted with glass on both sides so that our family will FOREVER REMEMBER 

the love and kindness shown to us by so many.

I know that there are so many worthy causes, and I certainly don't want anyone to feel obligated at all, but the Lord is reminding me that His ways are not mine!  He moves upon the hearts of man, and I need to get out of the way!

If you do want to give, there are a couple of ways: 

First, there is a Paypal button at the top of my blog.  If you have a Paypal account, you can give directly through that.  If you don't have an account, they are easy to get and very secure.  There are instructions if you click on the "donate" button.

Secondly, you can email me at "teachermahnke dot com" for my address if you want to send something through the mail. 

Thank you for taking the time to read.  Thank you for praying for our family.  I am humbled beyond words that many of you have asked how you can help--prompting this post.  Feel free to link this on your blog or facebook and share with anyone that you think may want to join us in this journey.

"I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants."

Let it be, Lord! 

 

 

Where we are now...

Guess what came in the mail yesterday??  Our totally complete and notarized home study!!  Yay!  In my last post I mentioned that we were at the end of that and were having our in-home visits with our social worker.  Those visits went so well, and now we are DONE with that portion.  We have also completed our Psychological Evaluations and have only a few more forms to complete our dossier that will be translated into French and sent to Haiti.  Just a refresher for those of you who don't know what a dossier is--it is a compilation of MANY documents that show who we are and reveal just about everything about us to a foreign government so that we can be cleared to adopt from that particular country.  Our dossier requirements include things like medical forms/tests; marriage/birth certificates; bank statements; tax forms; fingerprinting; government clearances (federal ones); verification of employment/income; letters that state our motivation to adopt (written by us to the head of the foreign gov't); personal reference letters; etc....  It is daunting, to say the least!  And everything has to be done just right--with the proper notarizations/authentications, or it might have to be done all over again!  Our new agency that we chose, All About Adoptions, Inc., has a dossier specialist on staff, so hopefully everything will get her stamp of approval!

We are growing more and more excited as we get closer to being done with our portion.  Then we just wait on the orphanage (we did go with GLA --see previous post) to refer us to the child/ren that they have for us, and we wait for our documents to make it through the Haitian courts.  People ask me often about how long this will take.  I wish I knew for sure!  If we get our documents there in the next month or so, we could have a referral by the end of this year, or early January.  Then, it's up to the courts on how long it all takes to process.  We did just hear a few weeks ago that files are making it through in about 8 months right now--that is WAY faster than before the earthquake!  The Lord knows the timing, and we are trusting that He also knows how we are going to pay for this, because I am still a little in the dark on that one!  We know that this is what He has called us to do, so we will trust that He will provide. 

Along with trying to gather the last documents we need, I am also beginning another school year!  I have 22 first grade students this year, and our first week went swimmingly!  Aside from the heat that makes my room almost unbearable by the last couple of hours, the kids did great.  Each year I find that I have just a few more tricks up my sleeve to get the results I am looking for in performance and behavior.  The keys that work best for me are extreme organization (everything in it's place and no extra clutter), and taking the time to really TEACH and practice all of our routines.  There might not be a whole lot of actual lesson teaching at first, but taking the time to show the class what is expected at school will pay off all year long.  I know that even though I have to watch where I step so that I don't trip over all of the MANY bodies in my little room, we are going to have a great year of learning together.

The first two months of school also bring volleyball season for the 2 big girls!  With Alli being a senior **sniff, sniff!**, we are trying to go to many of her games.  Thankfully, this year Alli and Erica's games aren't always on the same days like last year.  That was crazy!  So, I will be jetting out of school as early as possible to drive LONG distances (seriously--some are 3 hours away!) to watch my kiddos play.  I love it! 

God is doing great things!  Can't wait to share more...

So close!

So we are almost sure about the agency we will use to help us complete our Haitian adoption!  We will know for sure in a few more days, but after talking with them it sounds like just what we are looking for....

Here is a link to the orphanage they work with (and the main reason we are choosing them!)

http://www.glahaiti.org/home

If you go to this site, scroll down on the left-hand side to Blogs and click.

The orphanage director, Dixie, writes the "Life Goes On" blog, which is amazing reading.  We have been reading this blog for over a year, and just really believe that our kids are here!

They were closed to new adoptive families until just this last spring, so now we see one possible reason that the Lord was slowing us down....

Just look at those beautiful faces!  Anyone want to join us on this journey??  It would be amazing to do this alongside dear friends and family....:-)  (seriously!!)

Back on track

So this post might seem strange after my last one, but now here we are.  It is 18 months after we first knew that God was calling us to adopt from Haiti.  We haven't made many steps toward that happening.  After stopping everything while we considered whether God was leading us to adopt the little guy in the previous post, we now have officially started it up again.  We still have unknowns with his situation, but at this point, we feel that it is unlikely to lead to us getting to adopt him.  We will still continue our weekends with him, and we will trust God with the rest.

Anyone familiar with adoption knows that one of the first things that needs to happen is that there must be a Homestudy done by a licensed social worker.  Basically, our whole lives get investigated to make sure that we aren't crazy people that want to adopt kids.  We write entire histories of our lives that include what our families were like growing up (grandparent relationships, parental relationships, sibling relationships...) and what our own family is like now.  We have to have fingerprinting done, medical tests done, references written, tons of forms filled out, taxes copied, financial questions answered, guardianship chosen for our kids, and the lists go on....

Anyway....we have done all of that!  And now our assigned case worker is visiting us to document that what we wrote is true, and to walk us through the first approval process towards adopting internationally.  I am thrilled to say that we have an awesome case worker!  She lives in our town, and was a delight to meet.  She has completed our first in-home visit, and we will have our second meeting next week.  After that visit, she will write up our completed homestudy that will be the basis of our adoption approval.  Now our new job will be to finalize exactly what agency we will use to complete our international adoption.  The agency doing our homestudy only does domestic adoptions, but they are licensed to complete Int'l homestudies as well.  Some of you that have read from the time that I started this blog will remember that we did choose an agency a long time ago.  However, they seem to be pretty inactive right now.  Nothing has changed on their website in over a year.  We aren't receiving email updates at all.  Needless to say, this has us worried about continuing with them.  We are actively looking for a new path.  We need to find it soon since the clock is ticking once our homestudy is complete.  We would like to have this plan in place in the next two weeks.  But I am learning that what I think is a good plan may not be what the Lord thinks is a good plan!  We are asking Him to lead us to the path that He has for us to take.  Maybe the original agency?  Maybe a new one?  Maybe a direct adoption through an established orphanage that we know about?  We will keep on following His lead. 

On a side note, while I seem to rarely write here anymore, I do LOVE reading other blogs!  I especially love the ones that post a variety of topics.  So, I may diverge from the topic of adoption and our family occasionally to write about something fairly random.  Like how awesome the fresh raspberries are in my MIL's yard, or how excited I am to be almost finished writing my Unit Guides for my 19 unit math curriculum!  You never know, it could happen....;-)

Sweet Boy

He came into the classroom with huge eyes that looked to be filled with apprehension and possibly even fear. All of this was new to him.  His Kindergarten year had been disrupted by a very scary event that resulted in him now living with Grandpa and Grandma, and this was really his first foray into a real classroom and real learning.  I welcomed him warmly and made sure that he met some of the other boys who would become his best buds for this school year.  He slowly relaxed.  Our first days as a class are always a bit "out of the norm" as I focus strongly on teaching routines, rules and respect, but soon we settled into our normal daily schedule of reading, writing, math, etc...

Fast forward a couple of months....

I look over during our seatwork time as I am running through reading groups, and I see huge, silent tears streaming down his face.  This isn't the first time he has cried, but it is different in that it doesn't seem to be prompted by anything.  No one was mean to him.  Nothing happened that I can see.  I dismiss my reading group and call him over to my desk.  "What's wrong, Honey?"  I ask.  As I reach to hug him (a huge benefit of teaching in a Christian school), he lays his head on my shoulder and says, "I miss my mom.  I WANT a mom!"  I try and pretty much fail at holding it together myself.  This precious boy wants a mommy (and a daddy), and while his grandparents have been amazing in their love and care for him, he is realizing that everyone else in the class has something that he doesn't have.

It is now January, and grandma is calling me frequently to ask questions about school, about his emotional health and about how to minister in the best possible way to her grandson.  In one of our conversations, I offer to have him come stay with us on the weekends to help give them a break--caring for a seven year old boy is busy work!--and to help meet his need for "family".  And so begin our weekends for the next several months.  We are still in this ministry mode.  We typically pick him up on Friday afternoons and keep him until Sunday evening.  To say that he loves coming here, is probably an understatement.  I don't say this to sound like we are some kind of amazing family, I say this because children are wired to need a family.  Grandma and Grandpa are vital and healthy and amazing care givers, but they are supposed to be filling a different role.  They should be doing the spoiling, the sleepovers, the games, the sharing of family history.  Not the discipline, homework, chores, etc...

What does this mean for our adoption pursuits?  Well, this is why there has been a significant delay in our process.  We thought maybe the Lord had led us down the path of adoption so that when this little guy came into our lives, we would be open to adopting him (we are, by the way).  However, there is a mom in this boy's life.  She has rights that she is unwilling to give up.  I don't even know that she should give them up.  We pray constantly about this situation and at this point we feel the Lord saying that we are here to "stand in the gap" while mom is getting her life together.  We pray that she will be fit to care for him once again.

In the meantime, we love, we care, we read bedtime stories, we snuggle, we play, we teach, and we wipe away tears and tell him of God's immense love and plan for him.  We don't know what the future holds, but we trust the One who does.

Next time---Homestudy, Part 1!

We are alive! (I know this is probably a repeat title!)

Yes, folks.  We are still on the face of the earth!  We are still adopting, but nothing about the timeline or process is going quite like we thought or planned.  However, I am finally really okay with that.  I am loving seeing how God is directing things and knowing that He knows how all this will turn out.  I can honestly say that right now...I rest fully in that. 

There are exciting things going on in our home that are really doing a great job of preparing us more for this grand adventure.  I would love to share, but this blog is not private, so I can't give details yet.  We are all working on "not growing weary as we do good".  Our family has been serving in a particular way in the last several weeks, and we are pooped!  However, the One that we serve is faithful to give us what we need just when we need it. 

Since my last post many, many moons ago, we have been enjoying some fun things as a family.  3 of us have had birthday celebrations and the 4th one (Alli) is on Wednesday!  She is going to be 17--which she thinks is kind of a "bummer" birthday sandwiched between 2 milestone birthdays.  I told her it's my year to rest and begin to wrap my brain around the few days that remain before the big 18.  I can't believe it....  McKenna will be our last birthday in our one-birthday-a-month extravaganza that begins in December and goes through April!  My baby will be 10!!

In other news, we are looking into possibly visiting Haiti in the next few months to serve at a mission there.  They also have an orphanage (not the one we are adopting from), so that would be a great way to begin to see what God has in store for us as well.  We don't know details yet, but please pray.  Based on the information that I am seeing about this particular orphanage, it looks like adoptions in Haiti are becoming a much more rapid process!  This is great news for those of us in the middle of it.  There is also a vote happening in March in Haiti that could possibly lighten some of the restrictions on adoptions so that more people will qualify.  Right now the biggest obstacles are that couples have to be married for 10 years, have NO children (but can possibly get a Presidential waiver for bio children), and you must be over 35 years old.  Our agency says that the one about previous children is usually waived, but the others are hard to overcome.

I will try to be better about posting, but no promises!  :-)

Still here!

To my few, but treasured readers!

I am sorry to have been absent for so long.  There is much to say about our life right now, but sadly, not much new on the adoption front.  To be honest, we sort of hit a stall in our process and are just now coming out of that time.  I could give lots of reasons why this happened, but to summarize, I will just say that I have come to accept that the Lord wanted to do some more work in us before we took further steps.  Not really anything disciplinary (I don't think!), but more refining and preparing and fine-tuning our hearts.  We have made some great strides in family and in our marriage, and are excited to see what God is going to do as we follow Him through open doors!

One big thing that you may remember from my Summer Goal list was that we would eliminate broadcast TV viewing from our home until Christmas.  Well, after a brief adjustment period for our children, we have so enjoyed the freedom and quiet that is now in our home.  We still allow occasional videos (more during the summer than now, thanks to TONS of homework!), but that has been all that any of us have watched for several months now.  We are used to it, and may not even go back at Christmas.  We are thankful for the gift of time that this has afforded (though you wouldn't know it since I have been terrible at writing here!!).

On the homefront, we are about to wrap up our volleyball season here.   Erica is 12 and on the JV Jr. High team.  She is in 7th grade and is really getting the basics of the game.  She is a consistent server, an encouraging teammate, and is learning to handle coaching that sometimes hurts a little!  Alli is in 11th grade and is thrilled to be on the Varsity H.S. team!  She had to really fight for her spot, and is doing so great.  Mark and I love going to as many games as we can--even if we have to drive 3 hours away at 6 in the morning on Saturday to watch an all day tournament!  It has really been hitting me lately that I have only one more volleyball season of Alli's to watch! 

I think part of my feet-dragging that has happened in our adoption process is this feeling that I want to be the best mom I can be to the children that live with me now.  I am afraid of putting so much energy into adoption stuff that I have no reserves left for the kids in my house!  Then, on the flip side, I have immense guilt over the children of ours that are living in an orphanage--or on the street-- and I am compelled to work hard and fast to get them here with us.  I can't win, so I have given it to the Lord, knowing that He knows the timing.  I must do what I can, and then let the guilt and fear and everything else fall away.  Those feelings are not from Him!  He has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind.  I am praying to live more fully in that truth.

Since this post is turning out to be a stream of "random" consciousness, I will close with a bit about school this year.  I have a charming and darling class of 17 bright students.  They are amazing, and I can truly say that I enjoy each one.  God saw fit to give me a year that is looking like it will be fairly smooth.  I love getting one of those kinds of classes every now and then!  At this point my biggest challenge is keeping my smarty-pants ones busy, and keeping the talking down!  :-)  Our family has gotten back into the early morning routine, and we are so thankful for our Christian school. 

May your week be blessed, and I will keep everyone posted as things get moving again.  I humbly ask for your continued prayers!

Grandma's Love--Tribute to Meinie

Memories of the times spent with my grandmas are so dear and close to my heart. My mom's mom, who I named "Meinie" when I was old enough to talk, lived close by us all of my growing up years. She was always so happy to have us visit and we visited a lot! My favorite times were the times that I got to spend the night with her and sleep on her hide-a-bed. We would always listen to J. Vernon McGee on the radio and she always followed along in her Bible and took notes. If you haven't heard him before, try to google it and hear him say, "Iss-ry-el". It's classic!

I've been mulling over all my memories with her lately since it appears that her days left on earth are coming to an end. She has remained in good health and has been so mobile and and spry for so long, but she has recently begun to slow way down and then came down with a pretty bad case of shingles. Apparently, it can trigger a multitude of health problems in elderly people--including dementia and sudden problems with different organs and systems. This is what is happening to sweet Meinie. The shingles showed up about 3 weeks ago and she went from walking (slowly, but still walking!) to being stuck in a wheelchair or bed. It's hard to watch--and I am sure it's harder to live through.

****UPDATE****
I stopped writing this post here on March 19, 2010, and am finishing it today, August 5, 2010

Today is the day after losing our beloved Meinie here on earth. While we mourn the loss of her life, we do acknowledge that it is solely our loss, not hers! She is in GLORY with the Lord! She has now seen the splendor of Heaven and knows the fullness of joy. So, if you will allow me a moment to reflect, I am going to use the remainder of this post to remember. To ponder. To reflect and record some of my favorite things about her and some of my most special memories of her.

As mentioned above, I had the joy and privilege of living close by her and her husband Bruce (who was also given such a creative--ha!--name by me: Da). They were both what we would consider involved grandparents. Meinie invited us over often for dinner and let both David and I take turns spending the night. Although he may have a different memory of those times, my turn spending the night always involved the nighttime snack of popcorn, apples and slices of cheese! This was well before the average American household had a VCR, so a movie was never a part of that time. We would talk, laugh, play games, and maybe watch something like Lawrence Welk on TV! When she lived out on Hall Blvd., she would sleep with me out in the living room on her hide-a-bed. After moving to Timberlake Dr., she finally had a guest room, and I would sleep on the hide-a-bed alone. That was okay though, since I was about 8 or so when they moved there. Such fun times we had!

Meinie was also called upon to help out with transportation home from school once my mom went back to teaching. David and I didn't really want to hang out after school till early evening waiting for mom and dad to be ready to go home, so Meinie would come to pick us up and drop us off at our house. We loved the days that she came to get us! Not only did we get to see her and hang out for awhile, but when the car approached the local DQ on the way home, she would almost always stop and let us get a treat! This was AWESOME!

I never remember being bored at her house. She was the kind of grandma who always kept fun things on hand for us to play with. There was the old jewelry box full of costume jewelry that I loved to organize and try on. You had to be careful opening the box so that the latch wouldn't snap your finger! She also had baby dolls and blankets to wrap them in and shoebox beds for them. We loved all the little brain teaser games that were out on the coffee table. There was the crazy magnetic mummy thing--weird! There was the peg game shaped like a red cross with one black peg that you had to try to get into the middle space. There were various dice games and little silver linked shapes that you had to try to get apart. Of course there was a plethora of coloring books and crayons too. When I was about 9 or 10 I went through a stage where I LOVED typing on her OLD typewriter. One time we were visiting, and I decided to type out the whole story of the Poky Little Puppy from a book that she had. I literally copied every word! We must have been visiting for a long time that day, because I remember it taking me FOREVER!

Later in my life, Meinie discovered that I had a passion for reading just like she did. This was a great bond for us. We would talk about books we loved, and she gave me probably about 80% of the books I now own. We both loved historical Christian fiction the best. And she helped me grow to love George MacDonald books that are rich with spiritual truth. My absolute most treasured book from her is the old copy of My Utmost For His Highest that she gave me back in 1989 when I went off to college. Many of you know this book--and if you don't, you should!! Oswald Chambers is the author and his insights into the Word of God are pretty darn close to being inspired. The really precious thing about this copy is that my parents gave it to her in 1968 when Meinie first began her daily walk with the Lord. She underlined sections and wrote notes in the margin. It is sort-of falling apart, but I still read it often and like knowing what parts were speaking to her on those days many years ago.

I think that I derived part of my love for cooking from Meinie too (along with my mom and my Grandma Norrie who also are great cooks!). Meinie's specialty was probably sweet treats (in my opinion!). She became the one who would always make my birthday cake. I was a strange child in that I never liked cake with that yucky, thick buttercream (lard) frosting! I wanted Meinie's German Marble Cake! No frosting, just a delicious vanilla and chocolate marbled pound cake. My poor friends who would come to my birthday parties probably thought that I had bad taste in cake, but she made that cake for me almost every year until she couldn't anymore. (side note--bless you mom and my sweet SIL, Jeweliann, for taking up the cross of making me that difficult cake on my birthday--especially since my birthday falls when everyone is all "baked out" from Christmas!!)

As this post is getting long, I will wrap it up with one more memory. Actually, it isn't really a memory, I guess. When Mark and I went to Vancouver back in April to help pack up her room in her assisted living place, I came across a small journal of hers. I didn't actually take the time to look at it carefully when I found it because we were in "get 'er done" mode, but after we came home from that trip, I took the time to read it through--several times. (I also noticed a small sticker on it that said "for Mary", so I WILL be giving it to you, Mom!) Anyway, she was a mighty prayer warrior! I didn't really know that before. I mean, I knew that she prayed for her family members, but she PRAYED!! If you knew her, your name was probably listed in that book. She began the book in 1989 and wrote off and on in it until 2007. What a treasure it is! She noted all the births of the great grandchildren, she prayed for her pastors, her church, her friends and her family. She shared times of loneliness after Da died. Sadly, I don't think that I ever realized how lonely she was at times. But, she always came around to the blessings that the Lord had given her and she thanked Him profusely.

Here is an excerpt from that journal: Written shortly after Da passed away.

10-27-1994

Today I feel
not wanted
not needed
not loved--
All reminders from the enemy.

I read in the book of Malachi:
"They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts. On the day that I make them my jewels, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him."

I'm taking this promise as my own. I belong to the Lord. He calls me one of His jewels. Thank you, dear Lord. Thank you, Jesus.

I don't know what Heaven will be like, but I do know that Jesus will be there and that's all that really matters.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that we know that You will return to this earth. Show us that we must repent of our sins in order to see You when you come again. Holy Spirit, make us feel disturbed if there is one unconfessed sin left in our life and heart. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that on the cross You bore the sins of the whole world--my sins and the sins of those who are praying now.
Amen

This post has gotten long, and I will be surprised if you have stayed to read this whole thing. But as I close, I am challenged to be the kind of wife, mother, friend, and eventually grandma that leaves this kind of a legacy. I hope that reading some of my memories challenges you to think about how you will be remembered. All that Meinie did and said was wonderful and was a blessing, but the fact that she prayed so faithfully for me and others is the most precious part of who she was. I am so thankful that I come from parents and grandparents who pray for me and my family, but yesterday I lost one of my prayer warriors.

Today I pray, "I thank my God whenever I remember you" Philip. 1:3. Heavenly Father, thank you for blessing me with Meinie! She is Yours and her tender, loving, merciful heart was such a blessing to all who knew her. Heaven gained a treasure yesterday!