Provision

I've been thinking a lot about the word "provision" lately. I think that sometimes I spend so much time praying and asking God to provide for the things I want or need that I forget to actually watch for the ways in which he's already working on it.

For example, I've been praying constantly for God to provide for our ministry both in provision of workers as well as funding and material resources. At every turn it feels like, "HELLO, are you there God? Are you going to provide?" Then something crazy happens and say, our treasurer quits. Meaning we have to find a new one. I'm shaking my head saying, hello? Is this provision??

But wait...

RANDOM phone call from a friend who will be our treasurer, has experience in non-profit record keeping, and will do it for free?

Ah, now that's provision. Not just what we need, but MORE. And not when we wanted it, but that when it happened - He worked it for good.

So then, I'm thinking. This whole adoption business is not happening as I would like it to. I know not all of you are as up to date with Ethiopian adoption processes as I am - but suffice it to say things are moving SLOWLY. There are some current changes happening and right now it feels as if we're at a stand still. This is frustrating.

But wait...

All of a sudden there are workers for ministry, coming out of the wood work! Now I'm thinking, this adoption waiting business is not as I'd like it to be. I'm not even positive that it's "all in God's timing" as a lot of folks would say (although of course it might truly be, as I will not pretend to know the will of God) as I find it hard to believe God desires orphans to wait long periods of time in orphanages when loving families are waiting... but....

I do believe with all my heart that God is using this waiting period to work all things together for good in the life of our family. I believe that as I pray for provision he may not be raining manna from heaven the instant I ask, but as I wait and watch I can see a process of provision unfolding.

Workers for the ministry to allow me to focus more on mothering. (An essential when bringing home an internationally adopted child.)
Funding to allow the ministry to continue, grow and thrive that will eventually mean Abe doesn't have to work two jobs.
Time to put all of it together and be READY when the time comes to travel.

I do think that God is providing these things as we wait. So that's exciting!

I'm trusting that on the other side of things (and the other side of the world), God is providing for our child what they need to be healthy and strong; and for their first mother the things she needs to heal; and for Ethiopia the systems and resources they need to care for their children and families.

God truly is a God of provision. I'm praying for him to provide these things and I'm praying for him to work in a way that allows us to bring a child in need of a family into ours.

But still waiting....

Four months waiting and more....

Alright everyone, we've been waiting 4 months (well, in 4 more days it will be 4 months). In some ways it seems like 4 is a lot. Four is so much better than 1 or 2 or 3. But 4 is not as good as say... 8 or 10 or 12.... Although at this point it seems like it's going to be more than the 14 that was originally the max end of our agencies wait time estimates. Which is ok. I'm telling myself that this is just like all the other things in my life that I've waited on God for that have been an awesome story of His work in the world when all is said and done. I do believe it will be. 

In other news, I've made some progress towards our goals in these last two months since I posted. I really need to make a goal to post more, but this has been a BUSY time for us. Here's a photo explanation of what  we've been up to:

We had an awesome set of food drives for the ministry and are now almost fully stocked!

Z got to make a gingerbread house at a Chick-fil-a craft night. Talk about a frustrating craft for mama's. The thing wouldn't stay together!

We made paper star lanterns for grandma's and Aunt Sarah for Christmas!

And Christmas cookies!

L opening the start of his college preparation stuff. Who doesn't want a laundry basket and dishes for Christmas?!

Z loved his presents and having Grandma Beth and Papa Brian in town!

Made home made flour tortillas as part of my effort to cook at home more. We've only eaten out once a week for two weeks AND I've gone to bed each night with a clean kitchen. It really is a Christmas miracle.

Started the new People of Promise Leadership Initiative for the youth in the ministry. It went awesome! Can't wait til next week!

And finally, Z is turning into a tool man.

Overall, we've had an awesome holiday season and I'm a bit sorry its over. But the good news is we're on the right track! We're enjoying our life as a family and working towards making ministry better and better.

2

So I was totally supposed to post this a week ago, but I just haven't been able to force myself to do it. I keep telling myself I'm going to blog and write more. I used to write all the time, even got a couple of articles published - it was very therapeutic and a great hobby. Seems like I just can't collect my thoughts anymore. I have such heaviness in my mind all the time and I just can't seem to collect it all into any sort of form that anyone but me would understand. 

We're now 2 months DTE. I could write a lot about what it feels like to be at this point finally, but I can't get past the disappointment that I feel that it took us this long to get to this point. We're just at the beginning of our wait and I feel like if we had not been so stubborn we'd be a lot further in the process by now. Of course, I have no idea what God intended or did not intend or if we were in or out of his will. I only know where we are now, and of course where I'd like to be.

I continue to drive myself insane thinking about how we might be able to do two concurrent adoptions, one with a shorter wait while we wait for our Ethiopian sweetheart. We can't necessarily afford two private adoptions at the same time, but oh how I long to get a move on towards growing our family. I keep thinking about getting older, how I don't want to be too old before we get to the number of kids we would love to have. I am slightly obsessed with this and it's really not healthy. 

But hey, good news is: God knows me. He knows the desires of my heart. He knows that I love being a mother. And he is typically faithful to bless me with the desires of my heart. So even if it isn't as fast as I'd like it to be - I am believing that He will bless me with the family I desire. I'm believing that he's going to give me the children he wants me to have, however they may come to me. I'm also believing that he'll guide those children, all of them, to become what ever it is He wants them to be. 

I would write to you about the progress we've made towards our "Waiting Goals" but truth is, I don't know how much progress we've really made towards those specific goals. We've been working HARD towards expanding and growing the ministry in order to better help our community and we hope that this will lead in the right direction for our family life as well. We've been working towards getting college visits together for L and just always trying to spend time with and teach Z all the things a 2 year old should know (although I often think he knows much more!). 

Hopefully I'll write more, I just haven't been able to find many words through the heaviness of my heart longing for a child I don't yet have and between the business of ministry and family. It's a lot. But I'm here, still waiting.

One

Well, it's been one month waiting for our referral. One down, 7-13+ to go! I've been living in a constant state of what if. 

What if it's more like 18 months?

What if something goes wrong in our personal life and messes everything up?

What if I'm not cut out to wait this long?

And it's only been ONE month!

Well, I said at the beginning that I had goals to accomplish while waiting. So here's where we are on the goals:

1. Be Healthier!

Gotta say, this could have gone better. I've been going to Weight Watchers meetings since mid-summer and have only lost 5 pounds. I have only lost about a half a pound in this month waiting. I definitely am going to have to step it up and get healthier. I need to have more energy!

2. Be more organized!

This is going well! This month I rearranged the living room to put Z's toys along the one wall and not in the middle of the floor. This has giving us a lot more room to play and work and not feel so cramped. I also cleaned the desk and organized the paperwork! 

In addition to working on the living room I also worked on the kitchen and set up some new shelving that cleaned off the counters and left me with much more usable counter space!

The next project is to clear out the upstairs storage room and move my crafting stuff in there to create a true 4th bedroom upstairs. This will definitely be documented with pictures as it will be quite the transformation!

3. Get a better budget!

Still need to work on this. Made some good strides, but still am not where I'd like to be. We did pay off one student loan this month that we've been working on 6 years now!! But we also still ate out much more than we should have and spent too much on food. This is so linked to my problems with getting healthy! New habits coming soon!

We also had to make some repairs on the house again. Ah, the joys of a 100 year old home! At least the gutter won't be leaking all winter!

4. Making more time for family!

This one is going pretty well! We've got a lot of great ideas for moving the ministry forward and had some great talks with the director of Shepherd Community Center in Indy a few weeks ago that have given us a renewed vision for what we need to do to make this ministry sustainable. Sustainable ministry = more family time! So we're excited about that. Here's some pics for you to enjoy of our family time today at the Lebanon Rail Road!

Just getting going on the train!

Z looking out the window. He loves trains!

Mama, me and Z. T wouldn't come out until Abe coerced him too. He said trains are dangerous to walk on!

On the pumpkin farm!

Z the pumpkin face!

T the pumpkin face!

Sleeping boys!

Overall, I think I've made ok progress for the first month waiting. More progress to come. More time to pass. More waiting to do. Closer and closer to Ethiopia we creep. :-)

Abe turns 30!

Today is a special day! Today, my wonderful husband turns 30!

It was almost 10 years ago that we met and became practically instant best friends. He of course liked me more initially than I liked him, but I also wasn't in the most mature part of my life then. I can't begin to thank God enough for Abe and for the life we have together and the amazing son we have. There are days when its difficult to be both husband and wife and co-workers - but the majority of time I look around at my life and I can't even imagine it being better. 

I've been watching some of the footage/media about the Occupy Wall Street protests and I have to say, I just don't get it. I'm a more liberal Christian than most people realize, but I still don't get it. On their website there is a link to a site called "We are the 99%". The website shows people holding up hand written signs declaring why they are part of the 99% of the world's poorest people. I have to tell you, this website makes me so angry. 

One of the people complains, 

"Also, after over 5 years in the workforce, not counting my retail years as a teenager, I have yet to hold one full-time job, or earn more than $22k/year."

Another, 

"I dropped out of medical school 2 years ago because I decided to be a midwife, and you can be anything you want, right?  Now, I don’t think I can afford to get another master’s degree - I’ll be lucky to get my BSN.  I can’t move in with my parents because I’m afraid of my large, homophobic (and also unemployed) brother, so I’m not sure what I’ll do when I wear out my welcome at friends’ houses."

Another,

"We live within our means, we own our cars, yet cannot accumulate much savings.  We live responsibly, and consider ourselves “citizens” and not “consumers.”  We find it troubling that living simply can still accrue so much debt."

Another,

"This was supposed to be the “American dream”.  Turns out graduating with all A’s from an Ivy League university has earned me: $15,000 in student loan debt, of which I’ve managed to pay off $5,000, unemployment and underemployment, the basic medicare offered by my state (and I’m fortunate to even have that), stress, and depression.  And I’m one of the lucky ones who’s not on the verge of hunger or homelessness—as long as my family members or I don’t get seriously sick."

This is just a sample. There are folks on there that I genuinely have compassion for. A lot of people struggling with illness that can't afford medical care - I have a deep sense of compassion for that. However, I find that my situation in life is much the same as many of these people saying they are the "99%".  If I were to write something for this webpage it would look something like this:

Husband (30) and I (28) graduated college with $92K in combined student loans. After graduation my husband had a series of three different, yet equally horrible jobs in the span of a year never finding one that paid well but didn't require awful physical labor. Finally landed a good job. My husband is a pastor, so this means he's now working two jobs for a combined 70-80 hour work week. I work from home part time for $100 a week. We live in a horrible school district and are dreading the sacrifices we will make to afford a quality education for our son. 2/3rds of our income is dependent on the generosity of others. If people stop giving to charitable organizations, we will be forced put our son in expensive day care so I can get a full time job which may or may not actually cover the costs of day care. After student loan payments and every day expenses we are unable to save any significant amount of money. 

But here's the deal. Even after debt and living pay check to pay check and worrying about fundraising in this economy and what to do about education, health care, getting ahead, not falling behind - the deal is:

I am not the 99%. I live in a world where I have luxury at my fingertips. I think a lot of these people are forgetting that our struggles are struggles we have because we want too much. We struggle and fight to get more and more stuff and in the process we worry about what we look like compared to the millionaires and corporations in this country. But the deal is, we are comparing ourselves in the wrong direction. Instead of looking up the corporate ladder and saying, "These people are the problem! Why don't I have as much as them!" We ought to be realizing that we shouldn't be fighting for ourselves. If you want to look up at those with wealth we must first look in the mirror! We are not the 99%.

(By the way, I'm not sure they can win their battle without really harming the rest of the "war")

We have to stop judging by an American standard. You may be the 99% here. But that's a skewed vision! In American we need to quit just caring only about ourselves, on every level of income. We need to realize that the world is hurting much worse than we are and begin to be thankful for what we have, use it in a way that really matters, and quit being lazy consumers just want, want, wanting more. 

I am sure by now you're asking what this has to do with Abe turning 30! Thinking about how great my life is, how awesome my husband is and how blessed I am that he was born - made me think how grateful I am that we were not born in a place with high infant mortality, with an AIDS pandemic, with destitute poverty, with the chance that we could share this amazing life together. But I also know, the people in those places are worth just as much as we are. God loves them just as much. He doesn't want them to suffer, and he doesn't want us to forget about them because we are in pursuit of some long, lost "American dream".

How I love Fall.

I love fall.

During the summer things are a bit chaotic and there is no real schedule and things just don't flow as well. We seem to be in a constant state of motion as we plan and lead mission groups all summer long. I love having the groups come and participate in our mission and it's an amazing experience to partner with people from all over the country in ministry here, but by the end of summer - I'm ready for fall!

I love when the weather cools and the neighbors get nicer and the trees turn gorgeous colors. My house is no longer a stifling 90 degrees. It's awesome!

But fall is also a reminder that things are coming to a close. Our garden is starting to really fade and we've brought in most of the plants we hope to have bear out the winter indoors. Z's birthday has come and gone and now he's this busy busy two year old with a temper and a definitely mind of his own! No more baby, pure toddler loveliness now! I am ready for a new beginning in many areas of my life and I hope that the coming year will bring that.

I am excited to see what God has in store for our family and I'm hoping beyond hoping that a miracle will happen and by this time next year we will at least have a referral of our next beautiful baby (or toddler!). I'm super excited about what God is doing in our ministry. I know I often sound a bit burnt out and tired (which is often true) but God's hand is at work in our ministry and in our community and he is using us and the people around us to truly make an impact on our little part of the world. I can't wait to see where it all goes next!

Almost awesome.

This weekend is the Street Painting festival in a nearby neighborhood. We're super excited because our '71 VW Bus was chosen for the ArtCars portion of the festival! Here's the beginning of the transformation. It should be completely finished tomorrow so I'll post an update then, but I was excited to show the progress!