We have heat!!!!

After sleeping in a chilly house last night (it was 60 degrees inside when I woke up) it is so nice to sit in a nice warm house tonight.  Our furnace has been replaced and so far all is well.  Our poor house was short changed by the builder who happened to be building it for his own family.  Both the furnace and air conditioning unit were undersized for a house with mostly vaulted ceilings. 

Last night made me really stop and think about the families and the children in orphanages living in places such as China that may not have heat or have very unreliable heat.  I thought is was so silly for the children to be dressed in so many layers but now that I have been in a cooler home I know they are doing the best they can with what they have.  In my own opinion I think many people often do a much better job managing life with what they have than folks like me who have too much and complain when the heat is out for a day or two.  I know I am an over privileged person who has had all of my needs and most of my wants met for as long as I can remember.  I am striving to do with less and manage what I have a lot better.  After all none of it is mine, it is all His.

I am in a purging mood these days.  I have been going through our house to get rid of things that we don't use and could definitely do without.  We are planning a yard sale in May and hope to get rid of a lot of things and to raise adoption funds.  Hopefully, our surplus will not only be moved out to make room for another little one but also help us bring her home.

The wonderful person who fixed our furnace did such a wonderful thing for us and gave us his prices on the equipment.  Praise Jesus for giving him such a generous heart.  While the repairs to the furnance may not be over (the compressor may not be adequate and may need changed out very soon) it sure feels good to trust Him to get us through without the tears and the stress.  Thank you Jesus for your faithfulness.

Thank you for the Crazy Love

Thank you to everyone who has given us your crazy love over the last few days.  I have really needed it and it has made such a difference.  It has been so wonderful to feel the love of family, friends, and bloggy friends I have never met. 

Since blogging is about sharing I will share some of my feelings over the last week.  I have been feeling pretty emotional, I like to think it has to be the paper pregnancy hormones!  It didn't take much last week to bring tears to my eyes, tears of joy or sorrow.  It seems that there have been a few things more than normal coming at us that could have been very defeating.  At times I did want to surrender but then with the loving encouragement of my family I held steady. 

Having people reach out and show us that they care has made all the difference this week.  When my feelings were hurt last week I cried, when the surgery center said they won't make payment arrangements for our portion of E's upcoming surgery I cried seeing our adoption funds disappearing.  Tonight when we came home and our furnance was out for the second time this winter and at the last visit they told us we probable needed a new one, I didn't cry.  I told my husband we probable need to quit fixing it and just get a new one, it would be horrible if it goes out while we are in China.  Afterwards I reflected on the difference of why I would cry about surgery funds and not about the furnance and I know the only answer is that I have been receiving crazy love.

Linny is really on to something.  Seeing all the crazy love posts and feeling the crazy love in the air has really been fantastic.  Thank you to everyone who posted their needs, supported the needs, prayed for the needs and gave crazy love.

Sunday Snapshot

This is my first Sunday Snapshot and today I want to spot light my mom better known as Nani.

When completing our third homestudy I was asked who was the most influential when I was growing up.  I hadn't really thought about until that point but it is without a doubt my mom.

She taught me the most important things in my life; love for Jesus and family, to be generous with my time and possessions, to work hard at all I do and so many other wonderful things.

She traveled with me to China and is excited to join us on our next trip.  She is my biggest supporter and best cheerleader.

Her grandchildren absolutely adore her!

Thank you mom for all you have taught me and all you do for us.  We love you so much!

Crazy Love!

You have got to check out Linny's wonderful post. She is the picture of Jesus' heart. In Linny's words, Yippee Jesus!

It amazes me how the Lord brings things out just when needed. We are currently waiting for approval of our homestudy for our third China adoption, second Waiting Child. For our first two adoptions we did not do any fundraising at all. Although we ran short on funds for the second adoption and had to take out a loan for more than half of it we still did not fundraise and we are still paying on the loans today. For this adoption it is our hope that we raise the funds necessary as we follow the journey He is directing us to. When changes were announced to the China Waiting Child Program and we were not matched I know the enemy was telling me, give up it's gotten too hard it will cost too much. But the more I prayed about it the more I heard from God, it's not your money it's mine and as a good steward this is what you will do.

So we have begun the paperchase and homestudy process to get our paperwork to China. When I was first feeling Him calling us to adopt a third child I also felt him telling us to step outside our comfort zone and fund raise. I started sewing and my husband started working on remodel projects. We also heard about the coffee fund raising through Just Love Coffee and set up a webstore with them. Along this journey we have been doing fundraising that provides a good or service to our friends and family.

My wonderful, sweet, supportive mom shared with her friends and family about our fund raising effort. Unfortunately, she didn't receive supportive feedback from some. As the adoptive mom I have read all about people's negative response to fund raising and maybe that is why I hid from it before. Now I know that God is calling me to show people his love and what he calls us to do, James 1:27 "Religion that the God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this; to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." While we may not all be called to adopt a child, God commands us to do something about the orphan crisis and that could mean supporting a family that is called to adopt.

While my family is not tithing our full tithe we do give as much as we can and we also sponsor a child living in China and support fellow adoptive parents in their fundraising. We also give as much of our time as we can. I am currently working with some wonderful people to start an orphan ministry at the Vineyard Church we attend. In our ministry we hope to be able to connect people within our church that are able to support adoptive families financially, emotionally, physically and also to reach out to orphans around the world.

Thank you Linny for Crazy Love. I love reading your blog every day. If you do not regularly follow Linny at A Place Called Simplicity I highly recommend you add it to your daily reading. She is a very inspiring woman of God. She get's your mind going and your heart open for Jesus.

We would love to hear from you and where your heart is for orphans. Blessings to all of you in the Crazy Love movement!

What is God calling you to do for orphans?

Pause player at bottom of page before playing this post.

John 14:15&18 If you love me, you will obey what I command...I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

Fundraising

This will be our third China adoption in a little less than four years.  Needless to say, our funds are running a little low, however, we know that God has called us to bring another child to our family. As I have blogged about before we are working on some creative fundraising this time around. We have found a wonderful organization Just Love Coffee that assists families fundraising for adoption.

Let us fill your cup by visiting our coffee store at http://www.justlovecoffee.com/ACupQuiteFull.

Are we ever busy, paper chase watch out!

March has been a very busy month.  Adoption, family, church orphan ministry, and much more.

We are now full on into paperchasing for our third child, a sister.  Due to some changes in the China adoption process we need to have a LID in order to submit a Letter of Intent.  We have been looking for the file of a special little girl, we have yet to find it however, in order to submit a request to adopt her we have to have our paperwork in China.  All of the changes took place at the beginning of the month so we have been very busy getting the paperwork rounded up, doing our homestudy, and Hague training.  We are waiting for our birth certificates to arrive and our homestudy to be approved and then we will have completed the paper chase in record time for us.  This will be our third adoption so we should have it down by now.  Please pray for us that our paperwork process will still continue to be quick and uneventful.

We (meaning my husband) have been remodeling my parents bathroom to earn funds for this adoption.  It has turned out very well so far, just a little more to go.  We are very blessed to have family that supports us in building our family.  We love them all so very much and appreciate all of their love and support.  We have asked my mom to accompany us on our next trip to China as we all are going to travel.  I was so blessed to have her when I traveled for E and we are blessed that she will be joining us this trip. 

We lost our dear old (14 1/2 year old) dog Aspen earlier this month.  His health had been declining quickly over the last six months.  It has been very hard for us all, especially for daddy and M.  We have a new addition to the family in the form of an 8 week old little Corgi named Tri.  He is an absolute doll and the kids enjoy him so much. 

We had a wonderful visit from Aunt CC and cousin G this month.  It was so fun to have them here and the kids love them so much.  Aunt CC watched the kids while daddy and I took a trip to the country to pick up Tri.  We didn't let the little ones know what we were doing and they were super surprised when we walked in the door with him.  It was hard to have CC and G go home but we know we will see them again in the fall when we go to watch T play football as a senior.

We have been doing a lot of extra stuff this month.  We took off for Nani and Papa's a couple weeks ago to work on the fence, the kids and daddy also went to work on the bathroom a couple of days.  It was the first time that E and I had been apart.  I woke up during the night thinking I heard him calling out for me.  It was hard but it was great for them to get to spend a little more time in the farm.  E and M love the farm and it is calving season so they were able to see brand new baby calves.  E is also quite a fence fixer.  He was out there pulling staples and hauling wood right next to me.  When I pulled out a staple he told me "Good Job, your my best boy!"  It was so stinkin cute.  He really loves to help.  M is a helper but she gets distracted and just decided things aren't very fun, which she is right most of the time.  E doesn't need fun factor he just loves being with us and doing things.  He has a servants heart for sure.  Today we had a fundraiser at church for our Women and Children in Crisis team, they are heading off to Thailand in a litte over a month.  He was so excited to stay and help serve potatoes.  It was a very blessed day for our team.

We had our Pure and Brightness celebration yesterday with IFCA.  M and E enjoyed the egg hunt and spending some time with their "China Friends" as they say.  We also took a drive up to N & P's mountain condo to deliver furniture, we are working on reorganizing our house to get ready for another child and the condo needed more furniture.  I was having a really hard time parting with the sofa and now if we when we get a larger home it isn't gone forever.  We still have a lot of reorganizing and possession thining to get done.  I see a large fundraising yard sale in our near future as well as many other fundraising things coming up in the future.  Please keep us in your prayers that we will be matched with the perfect little girl for our family and the fundraising will be successful.

One Year, Lunar New Year, Valentines, Oh My!

Late to post but this was composed in February!

This has been a  very busy month.  We celebrated E joining our family one year ago on the 2nd with a dinner of Mexican Food.  Normally, we go out to Chinese Food for our family anniversary however our Lunar New Year celebration was right around the corner so E picked chips and dip (meaning Mexican).  He has grown and changed so much over the last year, the baby is gone and in it's place is a our little man.

The Lunar New Year celebration was so much fun.  The kids woke up on Saturday morning wanting to get dressed for the New Year party.  We managed to keep them distracted minus a nap though throughout the day.  M and I headed out at 3 to get started decorating, I was in charge of the Tiger Mask and Bracelet craft.  The fun began at 4:30 and boy was it fun.  We had a dance/marshal arts group come and do a presentation and they did a dance that had all the kids attention.  We were able to meet teachers from the local Mandarin Immersion school that we are hoping to send our kiddos to.  And to top it all off the kids got to hand out and have a good time with families that are very similar to ours. 

Valentines day was a lot less busy other than we were at Nani and Papa's remodeling their bathroom.  I so wish I would have had my camera ready to get a picture of M taping the walls with her dad.  She loves to work right beside her dad doing all the remodeling projects and building furniture.  I have pictures of her helping install our hardwood floors at a little over a year old.  This would have made a great shot for the collections.

M and E shared Chinese New Year with their classes yesterday.  They had such a good time making more Tiger Masks, reading about Chinese New Year and sharing a snack of fortune cookies.  They both love being Chinese and I hope that we can continue to encourage them to learn more about the culture and to embrace it.

We had a six month follow up with M's hematologist yesterday.  She has been 1 year since her last treatment for ITP and looking good.  Our next follow up will be in a year as long as she doesn't have any bleeding issues between now and then.  It is looking like she has been healed of it, her plateletes are the highest they have been since April 2008 when she was diagnosed, and this time it was without any medications.  Praise God for His wonderful healing.

Bringing Drew Home

Check out Bringing Drew Home.  I absolutely love watching the adoption community and beyond open their arms to a family who is following Gods instructions.  The adoption community is so wonderful at helping each other when the push is on.  Adoption is not cheap but you can not put a price on one of God's Treasures.  May you bless Drew's family Lord as they follow YOUR calling.