While I'm Waiting...

Rejoice!

2011-02-03T15:37:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update until I can come back later to post more details..... Consider this the greatest of all Thankful Thursday posts!

Bugabo will soon have FRESH CLEAN water!!! That's right! One beautiful person (who shall remain nameless....I wish I even knew who it was, just to say thank you!), has stepped forward, stepped out with faith and paid the balance in full for Bugabo to receive their borehole!!!! Praise God!

You can read updates and details on Christie's blog HERE and I'll be sharing more soon. One person emptied their savings account and paid for the remainder of the funding for a borehole for the people of Bugabo.

Be.

Still.

My.

HEART. ♥

I don't know who you are but I know that God knows and you have made HIM smile. Along with a whole slew of other people and I thank you. Thank you for giving our Samuel the opportunity for fresh clean water. Thank you for giving so soooo many children and families the opportunity for fresh clean water.

An opportunity that will help them lead healthier more productive lives, and live them to the fullest.

I pray that you know Jesus as your Savior. Cuz if you do.....I WILL meet you someday. :) And if you don't, well my dear friend you just made the first step in doing His will and leading a life that is pleasing to Him. May He richly bless you as you have blessed others.

Thirsty?

2011-01-24T10:53:00.000-08:00

So tell me, what's your passion? What are you hopelessly addicted to that you drink day after day after day. My vice.....the good Dr. Yes, Dr. Pepper is my nasty addiction. Like smoking (except I kicked that habit YEARS ago thank goodness), I have to (or at least think I have to) have it everyday.

Yes, yes, I know it's pathetic. My drug of choice is a sweet syrupy cola in a plastic bottle. I prefer the mini bottles because they don't go flat as quickly. And when I get busy or I'm working away at my desk it's not like I'm taking it through an IV so I don't want it to get hot and flat. Hence, the smaller bottles stay cold because quite frankly they don't last very long. But every time I try to drink a 20 oz it takes me all day.

Because it's so darn sweet I actually grow tired of it after some time (which can be months, but still it happens). When this state of taste bud denial happens I reach for a Pepsi.

Some people are coke junkies. And I'm not talking cocaine. Strictly coca-cola. And think of the many many uses we've been taught this little number can do!

Everything from meat marinades to cleaning battery acid from your car battery. Works like a dream! lol But my all time favorite use that I've seen shared for Coke:

Got The Trots?? Keran from New Zealand wanted to share this Coke tip with us; "While living in Papua New Guinea as a child, my father and I got a bad case of the trots. (As you often do in 3rd world countries). We went to the Doctor, and he told us the most effective treatment would be to get a 2ltr bottle of coke, take the top off and let it go flat, and up to room temperature, then drink 1 glass every couple of hours. BINGO... all fixed up inside!" Thanks Keran... I won't be going out of the country with out a supply of Coca Cola!!

It's a new generation these days though. Kids now drink Gatorade and Powerade which is really just hyped up sugar water if you ask me. Yes, I know all the benefits of drinking and refueling your electrolytes. We even use them once in a blue moon if someone in our house gets the flu. It's easier to get a kid to drink blue powerade than it is to drink pedialyte.

And as a parent you find out these awesome POWER drinks will have you driving straight to the dentist. Yes, the dentist. These sugary drinks are the WORST things you can let your child drink as the sugar deposits that stick to their teeth will likely have you spending more in dental bills than the average person.

So, what should we do? As a health conscious generation we have discovered bottled water! Aaaaahhhh..... pure, crystal clear, cold, fresh, non-chlorinated WATER! The best thing to quench your thirst. And the best thing for your body. Right? We're told that we should drink a minimum of 8 glasses a day. Which I'm guessing is equivalent to about 4-5 20 ounce bottles per day. And I know some folks who actually get that much water a day. When my kids are playing sports, I buy them bottled water rather than powerade's. They may drink twice as much to keep hydrated but I'm okay with that (no sugar remember?!)

And with sooooo many options for bottled water, well it's pretty convenient to pick one up anywhere. Gas station, vending machines, grocery stores, Wal-Mart (that's redneck for Macy's--couldn't resist, lol). The possibilities are endless, the supply is NEVERENDING! Have you ever seen a store that was out of bottled water? You can even take those big jugs in now and fill them at your local grocer so you aren't drinking tap water. Because face it folks, some people are bottle snobs. Yes, I said it. They refuse to drink from the tap. Trust me. My son has a friend that has never, NEVER, drank water from a tap. The boy is 15 years old and thinks it's terrible that my son drinks tap water and claims the chlorine and other crap that's in it will decrease his health over time. Seriously. Scarey.

Yes, he thinks THIS is going to cause my son harm. You wanna know what I'd like to share with this family? Just how idiotic this truly is. You wanna know what I'd like to see this family do? Drink this:

Think I'm being a bit sarcastic? A bit dramatic? Well, think again. Because a great multitude of the world's population do just that. This is the only source they have for water. Life sustaining fluids.

And don't think for a second that I 'googled' this image. Yep, I googled the pop, the powerades and the bottled water. But this, this is a picture my friend Christie shared with us last week. She is living in Uganda, trying desperately to show them the love of Christ. The love that other Christians are to poor out on the least of these. This, dear readers, is where Christie and the people of the village of Bugabo get their drinking water. Not from a tap, not with chlorine added to take away the parasites and make it crystal clear. That's a luxury folks. They have to go and fetch water and carry it.

This sweet little guy is only four years old. What do you have your 4-yr-old doing today? I bet they're aren't packing water. Preschool maybe? But that's another post, and a soapbox of another kind.

You see, people really do have to drink water like this. Everyday. Because we know that we must have water to survive. It sustains us. So, you drink what's available. But, as my son's classmate likes to point out how all the 'preservatives' in tap water are bad for his health, people fail to realize just what BAD water can do for you.

It doesn't make you chubby and healthy. Remember looks can be deceiving. It makes you bloated and wormy. Yes, wormy. Just like we treat our pets for worms to keep them healthy. When we go to these measures to care for the health of a pet yet pay no attention to God's people hurting around the world. Needing simply fresh clean water. What have we become?

You know, years ago (decades even) we could claim ignorance. We didn't have things like internet, wi-fi, heck even television! So we knew very little of how people in other places lived. In other states, much less on the other side of the world.

What is our excuse now?

That it IS the other side of the world and why should we care? It's not our problem. Out of sight, out of mind. These people choose to live this way. If they wanted something better or different they would do something about it.

Really?

REALLY?

Reeeaaaallllyyyyy?

As Christians we are called to care for the least of these. Jesus tells us of this repeatedly. REPEATEDLY folks. It's not a 'duty'. It's a command. And there are several ways we can be the hands and feet of Jesus. Some like Christie (love ya girlfriend!) make the BIG sacrifices and give up their life of 'normal'. Their urban lifestyles tossed aside to live a life of serving as a missionary. Some pray. Others give. What I'm asking of you is to consider giving. Giving to their fund to build a borehole. A simple well for their friends and family to obtain fresh water.

We all know that beneath the earth's surface is water. God has given us everything we need to sustain life on this earth. The book of Genesis tells us all about it. But when some of God's people struggle to obtain what they need to live a healthy life, it's up to more of God's people (that's us!) to help provide it.

How can you look into these beautiful faces and not be stirred to help? Not want to provide basic needs for them to grow and thrive.

♥ This is Cate, Resty & Henry ♥

♥ Mastulah & Ali ♥

This woman couldn't........

We ♥ you 'Chuwidgety'! (Christie)

And certainly I couldn't. We (between my husband, my daughter and my sister) are currently sponsoring 5 children from this village. Five beautiful gifts from God. (Cuz we all know God doesn't make mistakes and he certainly don't make no junk! :) right?!) But we're doing more than that. We're helping by contributing to the fund to raise money to get that borehole. To be able to provide fresh clean water to the faces we have grown to love and care about. These people have become a part of our family.

Can you go back to your desk, your work, your Dr. Pepper without thinking about someone else needing fresh water? To help with the borehole simply click THIS LINK and you will be taken to Christie's blog. You can read more and see videos of the village and daily life she is living in Bugabo. More importantly....is that little DONATE button on the sidebar! Specify in your paypal donation what you want the funds to be used for. (i.e. borehole, sponsorship) Yes, I included sponsorship there.... go ahead, really step out of your comfort zone why don't you? Sponsor a child AND give them clean water! (*Update* You can donate through L.O.T. --least of these-- blog directly HERE)

2 Corinthians 9:7

Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

If I had enough money, I'd pay for that borehole myself. But it's going to take more than me. It's going to take the body of Christ (all of us Christians!). Unless of course Donald Trump is reading this post, and then Mr. Trump, feel free to paypal compassinmyheart@yahoo.com approximately $10K and we'll scratch this off the 'Faith List'. ;) I'll personally send you a thank you card!

Thankful

2011-01-12T19:01:00.000-08:00

You know, when I got up this morning I instantly thought of what the day meant. January 12th. One year ago I had to watch from a distance as Haiti experienced devastation beyond anything I could imagine. I remember how sad and sickened I felt as I watched CNN updates telling how many had died, how many were trapped. Seeing live footage of people being dug out of the rubble, bloodied faces, lifeless bodies piling up on the sides of the streets.

I also remember that I never once ask 'why?' God's plans are bigger and better than anything I can comprehend, and although I may not understand it always I never once asked WHY. Why Haiti? Why those children? Why those families? Why that country? I believe God was there, I believe God IS there. I met Him there several times. And as I remember my friends and family in Haiti today I remember to be thankful.

As the youth leader for the Jr. High kids at our church I thought, what better way to share what I was feeling today than with an activity for the kids. We played a game that you had to say, "I am thankful for...." and whatever you said the next person had to have a word that started with the last letter of the word you said. (totally confused?) For example, if you said "I am thankful for school" then the next person would have to come up with something that started with the letter L because school ends with L.

I shared scripture with the kids about being Thankful to God. In all times, for all things. Everything comes from God and everything works for the good for those who believe! (one of my favorite verses) As I tried to point out to them how some people in the world live on less than $1.00 a day and don't have luxuries that we take for granted I just didn't think they were ever going to get it.

As I pointed out how God's people in some countries don't have a closet full of designer clothes, shoes for their feet, running water to shower with, a bathroom with a toilet that flushes.... I was met with eeews and that's gross! ;) So we started playing our little game. Trying to drive my point home.

I almost felt like nothing I had said made sense. As they randomly gave their words.... "skateboards, snow, skittles, dogs, lipgloss, Razr phones" I got a few choice words I was looking for, like "electricity, mom, shampoo". So, all was not lost.

Youth has been rough for me lately. Working with kids that have no clue why they are at church (it's an escape from their homelife that is less than ideal). Days I feel like I'm running interference at a juvenile detention center, fist fights and all. So tonight was actually something I looked forward to as I had a small class (due to the weather and snow days!). Five of the 'good' kids. But after listening to their answers I still felt like I was getting no where, even with the 'good ones'.

Then I came home, to read updates and see what's going on in the world of my bloggy/facebook friends all around the world. (literally..... TN, love my southern girls! ;) Haiti, Uganda, Florida, TX) I saw updates from Rachel that reminded me all of the kids' answers were perfect!!! You see, Rachel and her husband recently returned from Africa with their new daughter, and while looking at some of her photo updates of her little girl's FIRSTS it hit me. I needed to remember my own words to the kids. Be thankful for EVERYTHING, for all things come from God. Seeing little A's first trip to the ocean, her first bite of an oreo cookie, the look on her face as her sister's explained peanut butter and waffles. Be still my heart. We can be thankful for skittles, and lipgloss, snow and skateboards. Do you remember the first time you tasted a skittle? Can you recall the first chance you had to play in the snow? Oh the wonder! We truly do need to remember:

“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.

~Matthew 11:25~

And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

~Matthew 18:3~

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

~Matthew 19:14~

Always be thankful for the many blessings we experience. No matter how great or small. Always remember that others may not be as blessed to have the same things. Pray for them. Pray for God's peace, His healing hand, His comfort for them. I remember my friends in Haiti today, as I know they are thankful. Thankful to have survived. To have moved on. Thankful to be alive and they are praising God all the while. Wanting nothing more than to serve others and love them, because HE first loved us. Oh how shameful for me not to be thankful for the kids' answers. Praising God and giving Him thanks for my group of kids. ALL of them. ♥ The good, the bad and the forgotten.

If you're interested, this was my post a year ago....
http://whileimwaitingonhim.blogspot.com/2010/01/pray-for-our-haiti.html

Could you be David's family?

2011-01-11T13:34:00.000-08:00

Sharing from another blogger friend....please, please take time to read and share on your blogs or facebook! Pray for David's family to come forward and find him SOON! ♥

Davids' Story: URGENT NEED!!!

Earlier today I posted "a plea for a boy in Latvia," and later received more information about his story. It is heartbreaking, and he is URGENT need of prayer and adoption!! Please read his story, and PRAY! Below is the message I received:

"Dear Friends and Prayer Warriors:
I have prayed over the last few days about how to share this story, and I have no words to adequately express it. However, it has to be shared and I will do my best. Many who have heard it are so sick over it, our hearts just ache. We know God has a plan; is it you?

In January, 2010, I met an awesome child/young man at an orphanage in Riga , Latvia . His name is Davids. He was one of a few children we were introduced to that day for consideration in our Summer 2010 orphan hosting program. He was really sharp and smart, had a great sense of humor and looked you in the eye when he tried to speak the good amount of English he had already learned. I remember asking his favorite things to do and he didn’t hesitate to explain he loved kite flying in the sky and dreamed to be a pilot some day! He also enjoys soccer, basketball, swimming and all sports. But, the thing that surprised us most was his age! He was already 15 and effectively the size of a 9 or 10 year old child. We asked the orphanage director more about him later, and were told Davids is healthy, just small and has the kindest, gentlest heart. He generally plays with the younger group of kids because the older ones make fun of him and claim to be “too cool” to hang out with a guy his size. As for history, he has been in 4-5 different orphanages, but has managed to keep hope for a brighter future. He is a sincere and especially child towards younger children. Lego building is one of his hobbies! I remember, he made a joke when I asked him if he liked dogs and cats…a traditional question we ask… He said, “of course! But, I am no cannibal.” And gave us the biggest smile of all! Later, when he was among the group and doing art projects, he drew a picture of a jet airplane landing under a sky that resembled the American flag. When I asked him to explain it, he told me, “My dream to fly airplane and live in family in America !” From that point, he had us at “hello” and we were committed to helping him fulfill his dream.

For the summer program, Davids was hosted by a multi-cultural, multi-racial family and he did awesome! He was kind to his younger host brothers and sister and enjoyed just about everything they did. He especially liked to build and make things and play sports outside, with swimming being one of his favorites! He learned a lot more English and wasn’t shy to use it either. While his host family was not his forever family, our team and staff was so thankful when we received a call from a couple who wanted to go and visit with him before his return to Latvia . We knew time was short, and we encouraged anyone who might be interested, to meet him asap. After one meeting, the family who went, let me know they would be adopting him and how encouraged and inspired they were by Davids. After many discussions, we realized that he needed to know the plan, as his birthday was coming up…his 16th birthday, which means several things to an orphan. First, it means they are about to age out and can’t be considered for adoption. Second, it means that they are on their path of graduating the orphanage and will soon be on their own. Third, it means life as they know it now: food, shelter, protection and security is about over. In the first year after a child leaves the orphanage, generally 15% commit suicide. So, it was decided for me to talk to Davids when our interview returned to Latvia this past August and see how he felt regarding this adoption.

When I sat down with him, I had a translator with me, but he didn’t need her. We sat on a sofa in the social worker’s office and I asked him how he liked America and what he thought? He explained he loved it, and it was more than he ever imagined! I asked him if he remembered this particular man who came to meet him and spent time with him the week before he returned to Latvia , and he said “Oh Yes and we had fun!” I went on and said, “Well, this man told his wife about you and they want me to tell you they are so happy, and they want to adopt you.” Davids’ look was utter shock! He said, “Who, me?” and I confirmed it was indeed him. He said, “Oh yes! VERY VERY much YES! And, they want ME?” He was just the most excited kid I think I ever had the pleasure to tell about an adoption. Most kids are shocked, but usually have to think about it and have several questions to ask before they really accept it and consider it as real. Davids’, on the other hand, was just the happiest kid on the planet that day; his dream was coming true.

Last week, I got an email from his adoptive family… now just 10 days before his 16th birthday,it basically said they felt that they would adopt a girl they met (which was planned all along), but they no longer wanted to adopt Davids’. They had changed their mind. The next day, I got an unsolicited email from Davids’ social worker in Latvia . This is what she wrote:

"Hello Le Ann,
I wish to ask you about one of our boys, his name is Davids T. He was hosted Summer 2010 at a host family in IL. Since he was close to 16, we got information and you shared with him that there is family who will adopt him. It was not the family who hosted him, but another one.
Till this day we never received more information about the adopting family, and we confirmed that the Ministry also has no information yet. I must share, we are all worried and concerned. Davids became so nervous in this last month, his attention to everything is gone. Yesterday he was moved to hospital, because of problems with his stomach relating to the stress of not knowing. We know this all is because he is so close to his 16th birthday; it's on 23 January this year.
We don’t know what to say and can't say anything to Davids because we don't know. It will be a shock for him if it's not true, he has so long lived with this thoughts focused on this adoption and a family in America .
We wish to know the truth to share so he can know and be happy again.”
We have tried to contact his family and explain, show them, what their decision has done to this child. So far, there is no response, but more importantly, there is no time with only a few days that remain for someone to file the I800 with USCIS to adopt Davids’. I have explained to his social worker what the full situation is, and as a strong Christian, she has agreed to pray earnestly with us for a new family to come forward for this child! The adoption agency who was working on this case has agreed to do everything they can to expedite the adoption and assist where possible to get them through the system.
If you or someone you know is interested in moving NOW to adopt Davids’, this is what needs to happen:
1)You must already have an approved home study issued by a Hague Accredited adoption agency in the USA . It must be able to be amended to show you are approved for at least one child, a boy, who is age 16 or under.
2)You must be willing to file with the USCIS the form I800, which will specify Davids’ as the child you intend to adopt, and it must be received prior to January 23, 2011. If done, this gives the adopting family 180 more days to complete the adoption.

Here are a few photos of Davids’: (the one on bottom is me telling him he was being adopted).

Please join us in immediate prayer and action to locate and identify Davids’ Forever Family!!! You are out there somewhere and God knows exactly who you are and He doesn’t make mistakes. We just need to get the word to you about him."
Le Ann Dakake, Director of Hosting Programs, New Horizons for Children 678-313-8321 cell
Or
Cathy Sawyer, An Open Door Adoption: 404-667-0694

Live Dangerously

2011-01-10T08:13:00.000-08:00

DANGEROUS WOMEN

May we be dangerous women.
May we be women who acknowledge our power to change, and grow, and be radically alive in God.
May we be healers of wounds and righters of wrongs.
May we weep with those who weep and speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.
May we cherish children, embrace the elderly, and empower the poor.
May we pray deeply and teach wisely.
May we be strong and gentle leaders.
May we sing songs of joy and talk down fear.
May we never hesitate to let passion push us , conviction propel us, and righteous anger energize us.
May we strike fear into all that is unjust and evil in the world.
May we dismantle abusive systems and silence lies with truth.
May we shine like stars in a darkened generation.
May we overflow with goodness in the name of God and by the power of Jesus.
And in that name, and by that power, may we change the world.
~ Lynne Hybels ~ Nice Girls Don't Change the World
So, I want to live dangerously. I want to change the world. But how can that even be possible? We've all heard the story of the starfish. That it's impossible to change the world for everyone, but for one you can change the world. So I'm going out on a limb.....I want to change the world for as many people as I can. More than one. By whatever means necessary.
I can sponsor children, I can adopt (which is another long post in itself since I'm still living with that reluctant husband), I can pray, I can give, I can go. I pray for missionaries already in the field sharing the gospel and being the hands and feet of Jesus. I can give to their 'cause'. Yes, there are a million and one ways to give to different charities. No one is asking you to support them all. Find a cause that is close to your heart. Find a cause that you see the gospel being put to work. Where it's coming alive! And support it! Whether it's $1.00 or $100.00 (or add a few more zeros if you're able!). I'm sure we can all add a few more to the $1.00.... seriously. Look within your heart and see what God is asking you to do. What is your part?

2 Corinthians 9:7

Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
I can go.... I can go to another country to adopt (oh wouldn't that be a dream come true), or go down the street to the local agency and become a foster parent and adopt domestically. Looking at all those beautiful faces and reading their profiles. They just want someone to love them. To show them they are worthy. Aren't we all looking for just that? They need someone to show them that not only are they special to an earthly parent, they are worthy and loved by their heavenly Father.
I can go on a mission trip. You know, when asked (and sometimes just telling it like it is) those that have been helped will share with you that it wasn't what you gave them to improve their lives that made a difference. The material aspect isn't what sticks in their minds and hearts forever. It's that someone chose to show them love with their actions. Just to show up. To walk with them, to hold their hand.

Numbers 11:17
I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone.
I want to be dangerous. I want to do it all. Some days I feel broken because I'm not doing enough. Today seems to be one of those days. So, today I will pray. I will look to the One who gives me strength. Who blesses me beyond measure. I will take comfort in knowing that even though I fail to do everything I can, He remembers me and knows my heart breaks for what breaks His. I pray that He shows me how to live dangerously. I pray He shows you the same. ♥

Chicken Fajitas

2011-01-09T12:19:00.000-08:00

So SERIOUSLY how I love my chicken! lol Yep, I said it. I'm addicted to that white meat. Grilled, fried, roasted, baked. But the best way ever, EVER, to eat chicken is grilled with onions and peppers and made into fajitas!

There are lots of places that sell such. Like Chilli's, Applebee's, some of our local restaurants. Everytime I go in these places I order the exact same thing from the menu. Because I can. Because I LIKE IT! :)

While I was surfing yesterday looking for a sewing pattern (yep, not even headed in the direction of chicken) I found THIS recipe. Staring at me like a golden compass drawing me in. I was craving those juicy grilled veggies and flavor of a fajita. So, I made a grocery list and sent my hubby to the store for the goodies and look what we had for lunch today:

And yep, I like to take pictures of my food cuz I'm a dork like that! :) So, check out Dana's recipe and see what you think! The best part is that you can make these 'homemade' and they are incredible! NO fajita seasoning packets, just fresh ingredients and a few 'spices' will make you fall in love with making fajitas at home. I can tell I'm going to be eating IN a lot more in the future!

Just had to share that today. It's been a great Sunday! Church, homemade fajitas, and now I think I need to lay down on the couch with my blankie and reflect on it all. Let's hope I don't fall asleep! ;) Yeah right!

We are Family

2011-01-07T18:09:00.000-08:00

So, 'meeting' this new facebook friend has allowed me to expand my world so to speak just a bit farther. To be honest I'm not exactly sure how I found Christie, but God knows. God led her to Bugabo village in Uganda, and God led me to her. And I'm ever so glad He did!!!

Of course we all know in this world of social media and being able to communicate so easily that we are able to establish relationships all around the world. And isn't if funny how you can go months, years, maybe even your lifetime and never meet them, but feel as if you've know them your whole life? When our hearts and minds are focused on the same thing it's like having family. Which, in fact, we are. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. And I gotta tell ya, my 'new sister' Christie is someone I can't imagine not having in my life now. Yep, she's that special.

I loved reading how her heart was changed, how in just one short year of becoming a born again believer she has changed her life RADICALLY for Christ. She's walking the walk, not just talking the talk. ♥

Through her we were able to sponsor Samuel (remember my Christmas present?). We have also been able to help others in the village she resides in with the purchase of shoes, and school desks. It's incredible to see just how far an American dollar can go in a third world country. The awesome part is, by eliminating the 'middle man' she's putting our donations to work immediately! She's taking ACTION!

Just had this on my heart today and wanted to share with everyone. So, if you have time, and are into surfing blogs (which I know you are!) check out Compass In My Heart. And, check out our Samuel! He went and got himself a haircut! ;) But isn't he still just the most handsome boy ever?! (well, okay, one of 4) lol My own boys are pretty handsome devils too. ♥

How cool that we can see updates of what Christie is doing everyday (friend her on facebook if you'd like!), and being able to see the kids is such a blessing. Our daughter sponsored two children, my sister has sponsored two, and I have friends that are donating to help with the school. It's like having another part of our family on the other side of the world.

Some day...... my feet will step on African soil. And I hope to squeeze and kiss on those big chubby brown cheeks! =)

12 Days & Counting

2010-12-28T20:29:00.000-08:00

This post was taken from a blog friend and you never know who might see this through another friend of a friend. Please pass it along, share it with everyone you know. You can tell from the date that it was posted....this sweet boy has 12 days and counting now. Time is running out, but nothing is impossible with God!

December 20, 2010

time is running out...please help!

Twenty days is all this handsome young man has left to find his forever family.

Just. Twenty. Days.

And then--he will never have the opportunity to be adopted again.

Oh my heart. I cannot stand the thought.

Look how sweet he is....

I cannot even imagine being in his situation. Seeing countless "little kids" leave the orphanage with their mom and dad and wondering, wondering, wondering, if his turn will ever come.

Sadly for this young man, time is about to run out. He has waited for such a long time on waiting child lists--but no one has ever said "Yes" to him. Can you imagine being passed over so many times?

Absolutely heartbreaking for any young person.

According to the agency that has his file, apart from a history of Hep B (just like our girls--very easy special need) he is healthy, smart, and a great thirteen year old kid.

Goodness, I just know that his family is out there somewhere. I know someone will go. Why? Because I believe with all my heart that there is a family for every child who waits. They just have not found him yet.

Unfortunately, there's a catch...

He absolutely must be adopted before his fourteenth birthday in February. That means that his family MUST already have a dossier in Ch*na. They must be in the process of adopting another child from this country and are willing to add this boy to their adoption. Or, their dossier is in country and they are waiting on a referral.

One of my favorite lines from the movie, "Faith Like Potatoes" is when Angus Buchan says, "The condition for a miracle is difficulty, however the condition for a great miracle is not difficulty, but impossibility."

God loves to show His glory through seemingly impossible situations.

It's time to stand a trust the Father for a GREAT MIRACLE for this sweet guy. As time ticks by and things become more and more impossible, I ask myself again, "Is anything impossible for the Lord God Almighty?"

I know the answer all too well. So do many of you.

Nothing is impossible! Nothing at all. Not even this.

Please, friends, can you help us to spread the word about this young man? Post him everywhere you possibly can in the hope that his mom and dad will find him soon--before it is too late. Once he turns fourteen he will be considered unavailable for adoption. He will never know what it feels like to be loved and treasured by parents. He will remain in the orphanage until he is sixteen...and then...well, who knows? It is the sad reality of any orphan who ages out of the system. Hopelessness.

Twenty days...that's all we have to get the word out there on the internet. Will you please help? Will you pray with us for the GREAT MIRACLE that he so desperately needs this Christmas? Will you help to spread the word wherever you can?

I so appreciate your help. You guys totally rock.

Let's give him the best Christmas present ever...a family!

If anyone wants more details, reply or leave a comment to this post, or e-mail me at renealynch at yahoo.com and i can put you in touch with the ones you need to talk to regarding this sweet boy!

Merry CHRISTmas!

2010-12-26T21:16:00.000-08:00

So..... I kinda missed the month of December! Where did it go?! Did anyone ever mention that the last two months of the year are quite simply THE busiest time of the year for photographers? They should be enjoyed and leave you feeling blessed. They leave me exhausted and quite frankly sometimes just disappointed in folks. (Hey, we're being honest right?!) I didn't say all folks, just some, sometimes. For the most part December was a terrific month for me! For us. We are blessed beyond measure and spending time with family the last few days have reminded us of that fact.

I had a long post I was going to write about Black Friday last month, but everytime I started it.....well, it was always so negative I couldn't click publish. It was such an awful experience. Simply put, I was reminded why I do my shopping online! I almost sat down in the middle of the WalMart on black friday and cried. Yep. That bad. I hadn't been in over ten years. So my first 're-encounter' was more than I could handle. They now have security and police in the stores to keep people from stealing and fighting. Which doesn't always happen, preventing it I mean. There were actually grown women fighting over bed sheets. Yep..... I almost cried. So I'll spare you the gory details of that trip.

I discovered yet another new online friend, Christie Cotney and learned all about her return to Uganda, Africa to serve the people of Bugaboo Village. The even better part... learning that it only cost $100 to sponsor a child for AN ENTIRE YEAR! We now have a new boy to add to our 'family'. =) Meet Samuel...

He is 5 years old and lives with his grandmother. He wants to be a pilot when he grows up. His favorite color is red. He loves to eat rice & meat, and his favorite animal is a cow. And now, Samuel is a part of our family. ♥

The really awesome part about Christie's ministry and sponsoring these kids is that your donation covers the children for the ENTIRE YEAR! Samuel will now get to go to school, have a meal provided to him everyday, and have dental and medical check ups on a regular basis. You can read more about Christie's mission on her blog and she updates with photos regularly!!! We may even get to Skype Samuel someday. We sent him a letter for Christmas. One of the men that is helping Christie was reading her newsfeed on facebook and actually ask if 'Santa' was real or just a game? Can you imagine living in a country where Christmas is celebrated ONLY as Christ's birth and nothing else added to the mix?! What a testimony.

I also spent a week or two in December following Kristi & Kelly's trip back to Ethiopia! I found these girls online over a year ago and love seeing what their families are up to and what Kelly is doing with Ordinary Hero. They traveled back to ET to meet Kristi's daughter's birth mom. WOW. What an adventure in pictures and words. My heart was overwhelmed with emotion just from a far. I can only imagine the girls' excitement and love of the people there. What a blessing to be able to share their trip through their blogs and facebook! You must go read! Especially if you are considering adoption! Kelly has some new photos of waiting children on the Ordinary Hero site that are waiting for a new mommy & daddy! Be still my heart! ♥

I'm a room mom and got to help plan the Christmas party for Tanner's first/second grade class at school. I'm the cool game mom! ;) lol We had a blast! So glad I get to be a part of his life (all my kids' lives!) like that. Time goes by too fast not to take time to enjoy the little things!

And of course school Christmas programs were too cute! The North Pole Goes Rock-n-Roll! I made my little man an elf costume. I turned this:

into this: (not too shabby if I do say so myself!)

Santa visits the school every year after the program so the kids can tell him what they want for Christmas.

Then we had the Christmas program at church that Joy and I were in charge of with our youth group kids. And I must say they did an AWESOME job!!! We were so proud of them all! And I was rather fond of one of the little wise men. ;)

Note to self.... next year teach dad how to shoot around the people in front of you. ;)

And, well, then Christmas hit! We spent Christmas eve with family at my Granny's. Tanner hauled in on the golf gear. Not sure where that came from but he was tickled to death!!! =)

Sugar high! LOL ;)

Then we had Christmas at home with just us and the kids. Aaahhhhh...... didn't have to go anywhere, drive anywhere....just enjoyed our kids and each other on Christmas day. My parents came over, had lunch and gave the kids their presents and then it was just us again.

Did I mention Samuel!?! ;) That was my Christmas present from my hubby. His sponsorship and the most amazing letter from my man. He's so wonderful. I couldn't ask for more. I am blessed.

Taylor made homemade 'Elf Cupcakes' from a recipe book she got for Christmas! They were adorable! Even if it did take her two days to make them! LOL Poor girl doesn't like cooking, and this little project reinforced her dislike for the kitchen.

The boy got us up at 5:30 a.m.! Seriously! Ugh...... ;)

Even Gus got a stocking with beggin' strips in it.

I was hoping Tyler would get a haircut as my Christmas gift. ;) Didn't happen! lol I still love him and his fuzzy locks!

Then today we went to my aunt and uncle's house for another Christmas dinner after church. Lots of good food, more family and fun! We went sledding just like when the big kids were little kids. =) Makes you wonder why you don't do these things more often. ♥ We are blessed!

Hope you all had a very merry Christmas and look forward to a bright new year!

Give Thanks

2010-11-27T11:09:00.000-08:00

Give Thanks to the Lord for He is good, His love endures forever!

~1 Chronicles 16:34~

Our family gathered for Thanksgiving on Thursday. Our little family of five and my husband's brother and his family of 6, along with my father-in-law. Three teen/adult kids ages 15-21, and four wee ones from 3-10. Yep, we scattered them in all ages, lol, but it makes for tons of fun! The older kids played board games all day in the game room and watched videos, while the littler ones played with toys, played tag outside and entertained themselves. And us grown ups.... well, we played cards after my sis-in-law and I cleaned the kitchen and the guys got in their game time and power naps. ;)

Us 'big kids' playing cards.

The attitudes playing board games. ;) lol

Gotcha sis! My daughter always turns away when I'm taking pictures... she didn't know I was 'packin' when I walked into the game room. GOTCHA! =) Only picture of my daughter from the whole day. Oh well. ♥

Our 'twins'. These two are cousins and just a few shorts months apart in age. They are in the same grade in school and both were named after their grandmother....

My Tanner Lee, and bro-in-law's Chandler Lee.

And no, in case you're wondering....we didn't plan ANY of it! lol They get along famously!

Even 'cousin' Macie came for Thanksgiving. And Gus was beyond thrilled to have a playmate for the day. Just like the kids. They wrestled, explored the great outdoors and took long, lazy naps all day. (And thankfully....there will be no puppies in our future.) lol

Now... here's a cute little piece of useless information for you: My husband's side of the family must have some super powered genes because all of our kids tend to look EXACTLY like their fathers. So much so, that the cousins even tend to look like brother and sister.

Check out my Tanner:

And my niece Kenzie:

Downright scarey freaky huh?! :) But definitely adorable!

I can't believe we didn't take some pictures of the food and my HUGE new table that my hubby finished for me. He bought an antique table at a benefit auction the church had, brought home a BEAUTIFUL surprise for me of a dining room table that is nearly 100 years old (I know this, because I know the family that donated it!), and I could comfortably seat all 11 of us for dinner. Yep.... ALL of us, and I LOVED IT!

I know someday I'm going to have to have another 'kid' table when we start adding grandbabies, but for now, we can all sit together, share together, help one another, and love eating as a BIG family together. ♥ It was my favorite part of the day.

After dinner (and before games and cards) I took family pictures for my bro-in-law's family. (you can bet it was all his wife's idea! lol and we tortured him as long as we possibly could). Family pics and a new Christmas card were made and I can't wait to surprise them with some extra goodies come Christmas time! ;) I can safely share this tidbit because I know Michelle doesn't read my blog. lol

My Bro-in-law Howie & awesome sis-in-law Michelle (who makes the most incredible chocolate pie ever!)

My oldest niece (and I claim her as my first child...long story) Brittany & Macie

New Christmas card with my favorite cuties! Sidney, Chandler & Kenzie (aren't they just adorable?!)

♥ Family Christmas Card ♥
I just wish I had one for my OWN family! lol

I hope you all had a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving with your families. Stay tuned to hear how it took a turn for the worse on Black Friday! (just kidding.....but it wasn't pretty)

SERIOUS giveaway!

2010-11-26T21:29:00.000-08:00

So, while surfing my many MANY blogs I love looking for inspiration for a few projects, I stumble upon a FANTASTIC giveaway for a new SILHOUETTE machine! WOWZERS!

What is a Silhouette machine you ask?

Well, surely some of you know what a Cricut machine is? Right? That fancy cutting machine that we all drooled over in the infomercials when we couldn't sleep at 2 a.m. Yes, that one!

*BOO*HISS*

That nasty machine that you apparently had to buy new cartridges to use with it because the ones that were supplied with the machine, well....simply stunk! Not a lot there. And when you discovered that cartridges were anywhere from $25-$75 EACH! It just plain stinks! Gives highway robbery new meaning.

WELL....... this new Silhouette Machine I'm hearing about is the same......only WAY better! ♥

It cuts and does all the fun sewing, craft and scrapbook projects you thought you were going to love about your new Cricut machine,

only it doesn't cost you an arm and a leg in the process! You see, it hooks right up to your computer and you can download just the designs you want for as little as $0.15 each (yep, they're on sale right now...) or you can use the same fonts and images you already have installed in your computer!

YEAH, you read that right..... the fonts you ALREADY HAVE can be cut with this beautiful little machine.

Now, how do I know all of this you ask.....when I don't have one of my own?

Well, that leads me back to my blog addiction, I mean inspiration.

The makers of the Silhouette have lost their minds!

They are giving some of these away!

And on Monday, they are having an insane sale if you don't win one! CRAZY! I can't wait to win one! (hey, dream big right?!)

But if I'm not a lucky winner, you can bet I'll probably be adding to the budget this month, a new must-have necessity for our home. Yes, I call it a necessity to justify splurging on myself from time to time. I imagine all the cool things I can do as gifts and special surprises for others. So, it's a service item. It allows me to serve others more cost effectively. yeah, that sounds great! ;) lol

Okay, so enough chatter..... check out this list of ladies who are hosting these giveaways:

1. HowDoesShe

2. Make It and Love It

3. Homemade by Jill

4. Infarrantly Creative

5. We Are That Family

6. Grosgrain Fabulous

7. Thrifty Decor Chick

8. The Idea Room

9. NoBiggie

10. Shanty2Chic

11. The Idea Room

12. Moms Review 4 You

13. Love Stitched
14. Decor Chick

15. Tater Tots -n- Jello

And when you're done surfing all those sites and getting your entries in, check out THIS LINK for the actual Silhouette site to take advantage of their incredible sale going on Monday and all week for Black Friday deals. ♥

Hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving holiday with the family. I'll let you in on our festivities tomorrow. But now....... back to contest entries! I'm not finished! LOL =)

P.S. Who wants to buy a slightly used, in excellent condition Cricut machine?

tHiNgS

2010-11-22T09:47:00.000-08:00

So, my bloggy friend Kim made a post about Oprah's recent show on 'favorite things'. She said it so well, so rather than throw a bunch of mixed words in and get my mind to racing all over again, she's given permission to copy her post and share it.

Did you see what Oprah gave away this year in her annual "Favorite Things" show?

Me neither.

I'm sure it had something to do with chocolate, some kind of kitchen ware, wonderful bath salts and a scented candle. Maybe even all of those each month for a year. Or seven.

Who knows.

And honestly....who cares?

The TV was on for the first few minutes of the show...just long enough for my high school son watch a crowd of grown women scream and cry and have heart palipations because they are taking home some loot.

A lot of it.

While I don't have strong opinions of Oprah one way or the other, and I'm 110% sure she is not one of my readers, I don't blame her for the out of control reactions of the crowd. I blame "us".

My son commented, "Mom...wouldn't you be going crazy if you were given all that stuff?"

While I like a good bath salt as much as any other tired mom, I can honestly say I felt a bit sickened by the whole thing.

Enough to turn it off, actually.

It's just not my thing....and I pray will never be among my "favorite things."

Consider the Orphan. No, not Oprah...the Orphan.

What would rank as their top favorite things?

A Family.

Security.

Love.

Encouragment through life.

Food.

Safety.

A place of belonging.
Knowing their Mom and Dad love them.

Knowing their God loves them more.

HOPE.

That, my friends, would cause THIS grown woman to scream, cry, and have heart palipations.

And I would do it in front of millions of viewers.

So, while you're thinking of your favorite things, or what you will shop for over the next few weeks consider this: what if you shopped while meeting a need? While giving to a good cause. There are tons of ways you can give someone a gift, still pamper yourself in the process too and help someone else at the same time. Over the next few weeks I want to share some ways to do just that.

For Today..........

And right now they are buy one get one FREE!!!!!!! Click HERE to check them out! I think I may need a few! ;) You can also go to www.livefashionable.com to learn about this project and the story behind the cause.

15 Already?

2010-11-17T21:31:00.000-08:00

I can't believe my son is already 15! Each year they grow past the 'teen' marker is another year you have to watch them become an adult and slowly, ever so slowly, learn to let go. Which is totally bittersweet. It's awesome to watch them venture into new things, stand up for themselves, be a friend/helper to others as they mature and seeing their faith grow stronger and stronger.

But at the same time....well, I want to hear him say, "I love you bigger mommy!"

Or watch him sneak out of his bed early in the morning to sit in the floor while watching Rugrats (yeah, that should date this old mom....), wearing his Blue's Clue's jammies, his red cowboy hat and eating powdered sugar donuts. :)

I want to hear the squeal one more time of his little voice when he got his first pet, a guinea pig at the ripe old age of 5. (what was I thinking?! lol Oh yeah, he just wanted it!) But now his voice is changing. He's becoming a young man. The occasional 'squeal' is still there, but it's much more unintentional now. ;)

How he used to lock me out of the car in the morning so he could stay home with mommy has turned into taking a test to get his driver's permit. Oiy.

Teaching the daughter how to drive = trying, difficult at times, but never scarey.

Teaching the son how to drive = for some reason has me frightened, nervous, anxious and well, just all around hoping to avoid the inevitable. Which shouldn't be my first thoughts, but it is.

For the longest time, he was the baby. There is an 8 year gap between our last two children (which I would gladly fill with more babies when the good Lord sees fit to enlighten my hubby on what an awesome dad he would be to a few more [adopted] children). So, I don't want to let him grow up so soon. I sometimes don't give him enough credit for the accomplishments and abilities he has.

He reminded me today that Saturday is the barnwarming dance at school. So, not only do I have a driver's test to deal with tomorrow, I have his first school dance to boot! Can't he just go with his mother to the dance?

Can't he just let me drive him around a few more years? Can't he just stay little forever?! For some reason I want to rationalize that it's harder for mom's to see their little boys grow up and dad's have problems with their little girls.

I really STRONGLY dislike this picture of me, but isn't my son handsome?! ;)

This son I was blessed with 15 years ago today is:

Brave.

Bold.

Funny.

Loving.

Honest.

Loyal.

An incredible BIG/little brother.

An amazing son.

A heritage from the Lord.

Children are a heritage from the LORD ~Psalm 127:3~

He makes me:

Proud.

Happy.

Smile.

Laugh.

Melt.

Happy Birthday baby boy! ♥ Don't ever change who you are, for God has a plan for your life and I'm just happy and privileged to be a part of it. Follow Him, remain faithful and He will reward you. I love you!

Drawn From Water

2010-11-14T17:40:00.000-08:00

Are you drawn from water? If you are, feel free to shout it out!!! :)

Today was my 'anniversary' •November 14, 1999• was the day I was 'drawn from water'. Did I celebrate today? No, not really. But I remembered. I got up and went to church with my family, looked around me and realized just how far I have come with my life over the last 12 years. Understanding the transition from a baby Christian to a grown up. And yet, I'm still growing. Everyday.

Going from the baby who starts a new life with my Savior, yet still fails miserably to do His will. Recognizing my shortcomings and learning to grow from them....

Maturing into a grown up who wants to walk in His light daily, living for my Savior and choosing to walk away from sin at all costs. I didn't say I was sinless, but we learn that as we grow as Christians we turn from sin and recognize it much easier. We despise it and it saddens us. Yes, saddens.

I want others to feel the joy and have the hope that I have by living with my Savior. By making him #1 in my life He cares for me, provides for me, loves me and blesses me beyond measure. As our Sunday school lesson taught us this morning that we find hope and rejoice even in the bad times. Even when things can seem to be at their worst, we still worship a living God who never will foresake us. It's wonderful. It's awe-inspiring, it's magical...... some days it's just indescribable!

So, today.... I celebrate my anniversary of being drawn from water. 12 years ago, on a warm and sunny November afternoon we left directly after church and went to the lake down the road. Richard Key dunked me in the lake, washed away my sins, and started my life anew. While family and friends looked on. It was a beautiful day. I loved every second of it.

And something I want to share with you all is "DRAWN FROM WATER".... literally. An organization working in Africa that started all from one child being drawn from water. But not in the sense I've been talking about. Not in a raising up, washing sins away, beginning a new life type of way. But in another life-saving way.

DRAWN FROM WATER began when one little girl was pulled from a river to save her life. Her tribal custom deemed her 'evil'.....'unworthy'...... mingi.

"It Began with Bale" from Drawn From Water on Vimeo.

Mingi is a term defined as the state of being impure or "ritually polluted" in certain African tribes. In some tribes, a person, often a child, who is considered mingi is killed by forced permanent separation from the tribe by being left alone in the jungle or by drowning in the river. Reasons for being declared impure include birth out of wedlock, the birth of twins, the eruption of teeth in the upper jaw before the lower jaw, and chipping a tooth in childhood. Those who are separated often shadow the tribe, but they eventually succumb to hunger or predators.

A little girl was pulled from the river to save her life as she was sent out to be drowned. All because her top teeth came in before her bottom teeth. Wow.... I can't even begin to remember, without pulling out the baby book, how my children's teeth came in. We just marvel at how cute they are or grumble over the sleepless, drool-filled nights while they are teething. We never give a second thought to how our children's teeth come in. After all, they're baby teeth. Eventually they will be lost, we'll tell our kids about a tooth fairy and slip quarters under their pillow at night as a reward for being so brave when that tooth fell (or got pulled) out. :)

We can't begin to grab hold of the ideas and rituals of a tribe that will drowned a child, literally kill them, because of such a thing. One of God's precious children. A child of promise, of possibility.....oh the possibilities held within the mind of a child who is nurtured and loved.

This organization, DRAWN FROM WATER, that began with saving the life of one child has now grown into a thriving orphanage that houses, feeds and educates the children in their area. Please, check out their website. You can even sponsor children now to help. You can look through their photos, their ages, their names, and discover when or why they were brought to the orphanage for care. Just yesterday I saw another small baby whose parents, yes--a mother and father--brought their son to the orphanage because they did not want to see him put to death. For the very same reason. His top teeth emerged before his bottom teeth. Imagine the joy of being a parent, showering a child with love, making them laugh and giggle and drool while playing or tickling........ only to be heartbroken and have to give him away to save his very life. Wow..... just please check them out.

If nothing else.....PRAY for these children. Pray for this tribe to see the light. Pray for missionaries to be able to share the love of Jesus with them. To show them that they are children of God, they are perfect. They can have hope. With Jesus. Mingi is not in my vocabulary.

So glad to be drawn from water today. ♥ Praising my Savior.

Clean Freak...

2010-11-13T16:41:00.000-08:00

NOT! That's right, a clean freak I am not! But I love being frugal! My friend Carla shared a link with me to make homemade laundry soap! That's right! LAUNDRY detergent! It's quick, it's easy and OH SO AFFORDABLE! That's the best part of all.

Considering we pay anywhere from $10-$15 per jug of Tide, it was a welcomed task of making 10 gallons of soap for the mere cost of less than $2.00! Yep, you read that right.... and I don't know about you, but 10 gallons of laundry soap will last me quite some time.

What you'll need:

1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 Cup - Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda*
½ Cup Borax

Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with 4 cups warm water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.

Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.

We had lots of help in the kitchen. And of course Gus always wants to be right in the middle of everything. :)

My hubby with his Vanna White hands showing our finished product. lol

And who in the world has anything big enough to cover a 5 gallon bucket?! We just happened to have this bucket from watering the horses. It's now a soap making bucket!

Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel) This is how you end up with 10 gallons because you are watering it down yet again.

Our finished product the next morning.

It's a good thing I tend to be a hoarder (and the kids never clean up the laundry room after themselves), because we had enough empty laundry soap jugs to fill (15 total!) to store all 10 gallons. :) We used a few fabric softener jugs but rinsed everything out before filling with the new soap. Don't forget to shake it before each use!!!

Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.
Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.
Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)
Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)

My husband actually likes to help do things like this so he was the stirrer while I poured ingredients and 'supervised'. ;) lol Move over Bill Nye the Science Guy!

This would be a great project to do with the kids for a homeschool activity or 4H demonstration, etc. VERY easy, but make sure you supervise. You're still dealing with cleaning agents and don't want the kiddos to get anything in their eyes or ingest anything. Because they might end up looking like my kid.....

Okay, well, maybe it wasn't ingesting anything abnormal. He's just a goofball! :) Time to put away the halloween costumes. lol

Lots of fun and creative ideas coming in the next few days/weeks. We're going to have lots of gift giving ideas and links to share. I'm shopping with a cause and want to share fundraiser links, plus we're making homemade gifts. Today we made bath salts! Mmmmmm..... Can't wait to share those! Hope you all had a terrific weekend.

WIN A FREE MISSION TRIP!

2010-11-08T10:48:00.000-08:00

WOW!!! Yep, you read that right! You can win a FREE mission trip to a country of your choice! Visiting Orphans is giving away a free trip to one lucky winner, and it could be you! I have to throw in..... I hope it's me! But hey, anyone that can receive an opportunity to practice "Pure Religion" (James 1:27) would be incredible and we live for nothing more than to serve our Lord.

We've had the chance to serve in missions work in Haiti in 2009 and oh what a blessing it was. Just when you think you are going to help and serve someone else (which you DO!!) the Lord surprises you and blesses you beyond measure. Some of you have read my posts before on our trip and you can certainly look through the archives and read them. But what I can tell you is this: "Once our eyes have been opened, we can't pretend not to know...." (Proverbs 24:12) Your life will be forever changed and your heart for the orphan will burst with a desire to better serve our Lord. You will learn exactly what it means by feeling able to “deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." (Mark 8:34)

Please visit their site and enter to receive a chance to win. Click HERE to find out how. You can also check out MY CRAZY ADOPTION and enter the giveaway that's going on there to receive more chances to win! Good luck!!! I'm anxious to see who will be serving with visiting Orphans in 2011!!!

So....where will you decide to go? El Salvador, Costa Rica, Haiti, Ecuador, Honduras, China, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, India, Ukraine

See what Amanda (the girl in charge at VO!) has to say about WHY they are giving away this trip!

Visiting Orphans Heart from Amanda Lawrence on Vimeo.

Orphan Sunday!

2010-11-07T20:30:00.000-08:00

Our church began Revival today....on Orphan Sunday! :) We were blessed with a message from Bro Daron about "Serving"! How ironic! Ron let us share a brief message at the end of the service to (hopefully) inspire everyone to continue to recognize that November is National Adoption Month.

Bro. Daron - We're looking forward to a return visit and even more excited to be able to visit their church soon!

Joy and I were blessed to share and present a message during Children's Moments this morning. So, that is what I want to share with you today. Surely, if our children can wrap their minds around what we shared it will sink in with some adults. ;) I know it did with several of the adults in our congregation.

We know that God made His world perfect. He designed it to be just what He wanted, and just what we needed. Because we know God doesn't make mistakes, right?! There are enough basic resources such as food and water in our world to feed the entire population of the world. God has children all over the world and we know He loves us all just the same. But for some reason all those resources aren't being shared with everyone in the world. We know we should share, our parents teach us about sharing.

We talked about how much money a BILLION dollars is. And of course the kids said, "that's a LOT OF MONEY!" We explained that it would take 13 billion dollars a year to provide basic nutrition to all the starving people in the world today. That seems like a lot doesn't it?

But do you know what Amercian Christians spend just on bottled water each year?

3 BILLION dollars.

American Christians spend 4 BILLION dollars a year on Makeup! (ugh....we all do it ladies! Fess up.)

We spend 7 billion on sporting events.

We spend 11 billion on coffee.

13 billion on our pets.

20 billion on soft drinks.

21 billion on cable TV.

Each time for each statistic we counted out play money for the children (1 dollar was 1 billion) and provided them with an object to represent each thing. (a bottle of water, a bag of makeup, football, movies for the cable tv, a dog food bag from our puppy at home).

We spend EVEN MORE than all that money put together on eating out each year.....105 BILLION. (a pizza box and a happy meal container worked wonders).

How much did we need to provide food to the starving people of the world?? ONLY 13 billion.

If we have so much, why do we give so little? If we're spending 8 times as much money on just eating out as it would take to feed everyone in the world what is wrong??

The bible tells us in James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world." We need to learn to look after others and serve the Lord, by serving His people. ALL of his people, all over the world. The things that we have that we don't necessarily need represent the world to the children.

Then we prayed that God would help us to find ways to shine His light in the world by serving others. By looking after orphans and widows by giving up something that we don't always need and using that money for others.

Joy and I, Orphan Sunday 2010

I know I enjoyed sharing the message with the children and I know Joy loved our time too. She made an AWESOME new video that we shared with the congregation at the end of the service and we shared a little bit about JHAM (Joint Heirs Adoption Ministry). Our orphan advocacy ministry that we began over a year ago is still going strong. We will continue to advocate for the orphan. We pray that you will find ways to do the same and serve others for Christ.

Our biggest cheerleader! Jia!

I'll share Joy's video with you very soon! We will be speaking out (more than normal! lol) the rest of the month to recognize National Adoption Month!

What Will You Do?

2010-11-05T08:36:00.000-07:00

November is National Adoption Month. Not many know that. I didn't know that until a year and a half ago. I wanted to learn about all the things I could do and the ways I could advocate for the orphan. Not because it was a new found hobby or because I had considered adoption (because at that point I hadn't). But because I met some people. Some little people......and God stirred my heart.

To look into little round faces with big brown eyes and discover I knew nothing about what it was like to be hungry when I complain "I'm starving! Let's eat!". I discovered I knew nothing about not having a place to come home to, because my home has always been there. I discovered a lot of things about myself that I realized looking back on, I didn't like very much.

I was a spoiled American with a roof over my head, a soft warm bed to sleep in EVERY night, I had a refrigerator always loaded with food. Even food I didn't like and would probably throw away when it spoiled. I had more clothes than I knew what to do with (still do.....), I had a HOT shower and a toilet with running water. But most of all, I was surrounded by people who love me. Who have loved me from the start. I have never known what it felt like to be alone, to fend for myself, to wonder what it was like to have people care for me when I'm sick or hurting. I was allowed to be a child. To run freely in my backyard playing with pets, toys, whatever I'd been given as birthday gifts. I was given an education (even if I didn't want it, lol) and told I could become anything I wanted if I worked hard and set my mind to it. I was privileged. And I use that term loosely. You see, we weren't rich financially but we were very blessed and I never knew just how much.

So you see, I learned what God was talking about when He said:

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

~ Matthew 25:40 ~

And what He meant when He said:

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

~ John 14:18 ~

I learned what this thing 'adoption' is really all about:

he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—

~ Ephesians 1:5 ~

And the importance of 'adoption' on so many levels. I'd read the words in my bible many times. But never really looked at the true meaning of adoption.

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies

~ Romans 8:23 ~

Realizing now, why my own adoption through Christ is so important, how could I have been so nonchalant about earthly adoption? About being a true example of what Christ did for us, by having an opportunity to be that same example to a child, an orphan, on His earth. HIS children. About giving everything I have to help even just one.

He gave His all..... His everything...... HIS SON. If only to save just one soul. My soul. Yet it was for many.

I want to celebrate, advocate, I want to give my all to 'defend the cause of the fatherless'. Because those same children I want to help, are some of the same children who have shown me just how much you can have, when you have nothing at all. If I have Christ, that is enough.

With 147 MILLION orphans in the world, what are you waiting for? What will YOU do? Will you [pray]? Will you [give]? Will you [go]? I designed these shirts for Orphan Sunday and they are available for sale through our adoption advocacy organization, Joint Heirs Adoption Ministry. All proceeds from the sale of these shirts will go toward an orphan ministry. (I'll update you more on that surprise later!) My family will all be sporting our shirts to church this Sunday, Orphan Sunday, November 7th.

Will you Pray??

That is certainly doable.

When you lay your head down on your comfy pillow,

snuggle in your nice soft bed under those plush warm blankets...

after reading your children a bed time story

and lovingly tucking them in at night...

Will you pray??

For those that have spent the day the exact same way they've spent every day before.

For those that have barely enough to eat and go to bed hungry.

For those that lay on the dirt under the bed of their parents because that's the safest place to be?

For those laying on a piece of plywood because that's easiest to clean?

For the ones who have cried or rocked themselves to sleep on their knees?

Can you give? Can you take some of the money you spend at Starbucks...or McDonalds?

Can you give up buying that new pair of designer jeans?

Do we really need a minimum of 12 pairs of shoes?

Not sure where to give? Contact me.

There are tons of ways to support orphans. I can give you a dozen charities to give to...

that work in any country you want to support.

OR WILL YOU BE ONE TO GO?????

Who! Hoo!

Will you say YES??!!

Will you choose to follow God's example and adopt a child of your own?

Will you choose changing the life of a child over...

a bigger house? that new car?? your dream vacation???

Will you chose radical over the American Dream?

I can assure you, you won't ever be sorry!

PURCHASE YOUR SHIRT BY USING THE BUY BUTTON BELOW:

Where Do I Fit In?

2010-11-02T21:09:00.000-07:00

Do you ever have days that you wonder just where it is you fit in? Where you can feel accepted for who you are and what you believe and why you do the things you do? I thought all that stuff would pass when I hit adulthood. After all, there's no more high school drama, there's no more mean kid making fun of you..... or is there?

Some people never find the wisdom to grow into caring and compassionate adults. Heck, some people never find compassion period. But you would think that a mature adult could accept others for who they are. After all, isn't that what we teach our children? Or hope to teach them? That God loves us all, just as we are. We all have faults, we all have special gifts. Each one unique and made just the way God intended.

But, there comes a time in our lives (hopefully) when we change. And I'm not talking about maturity or anything like that. I'm talking about becoming that 'new creation'. When old things have passed away and new things have come. We become a Christian, we choose to follow Christ. We become sold out to Him and want to give our all simply to serve Him.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

~ 2 Corinthians 5:17 ~

The Bible tells us that this is when our lives become the most difficult. That others will reject us, that they will find us foolish.

The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

~ 1 Corinthians 2:14 ~

But some days you never expect it to hit you the way it does.... right between the eyes, and right at your heart.

When your own family looks twice at you and wonders what has happened. "That's not who you are". Well, I beg to differ with you. This is who I have become. Because I have Him within my heart. Yes, I choose to care about all people. Not just the ones who are nice to me or who seem to fit into the mold of who others deem acceptable.

I choose not to cuss or drink, or make lude gestures or party like it's 1999. Because I have other things to focus my time and attention on. Serving HIM! Serving Him in any way that I can. Whether that is advocating for orphans and widows in my spare time or making a special gift for a friend in need, just because.

When you are surrounded by young people who ask "will you be offended if I tell a 'black' joke?" Ummm.... yes. If you have to ask if I might be offended, chances are you shouldn't share it with anyone, period. Do I feel uncomfortable by their jokes and conversations about 'Jews' and other religions?

The answer, quite frankly..... "No". I do not feel uncomfortable. I'm saddened. My heart breaks that just because I live in a rural area that people are still raising their children to be blind and ignorant to the rest of the world. To the needs of others. When I dream of adopting from Africa and then wonder if I brought a child home of another color how they would be treated by peers and their parents. Just because of the color of their skin.

Heck, just because I choose to adopt (which I'm still working on the hubby for.....) that makes me "different" and somehow 'weird' in others eyes.

When you invite someone to a Thanksgiving meal and they are happy to be spending the holiday with you, that's great. When they find out that your church is providing the meal and we can eat there and then play games at home together and spend family time together, it suddenly becomes a 'no thank you'. Because of your church. Because the Bible is taught at our church we are somehow labeled as 'different' or 'weird' or 'those people'. Because it's not all about what God can do for you, but what you should be doing for God. Serving Him, giving our all to Him. Loving the unloveable, caring for the least of these. Because we aren't learning about how God is going to bless us with a new car or home because He loves us so.

You can tell I'm on a rant, and I apologize for that. I try to be positive 99.9% of the time. ;) And I seem to be all over the place....I'm just at a loss as to when I lost touch with 'reality' (as others see it). I came home and of course shared with my husband. Who offered up one of his amazing hugs, stroked my hair and reminded me that to others "we are foolish".

I just wish for one brief moment in time I could be surrounded by like-minded neighbors and friends. Or live in a community of sold out believers that I could have fellowship with families that are full of children of all colors and nationalities and it would be the 'norm'.

So if you happen to be fortunate enough to live in the 'Emerald City', tell Toto hello and tell your neighbors just how much they mean to you. Please. For me. Cuz for today..... I've had all the prejudice, ignorance, and finger pointing I can stand.

I continue to pray for those around me, as I pray for understanding and wisdom to be a better example than I have been.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

~ Matthew 5:43-45 ~

And I'm still praying for that reluctant husband, to say yes. ;) ♥

National Adoption Month

2010-11-01T08:01:00.000-07:00

November is National Adoption Month and while it's nice to recognize an entire month to advocate and make a difference, I find it hard not to try to do something all year round. At times I feel very inadequate and like I could never do enough to help all of God's children. Yet I know it's impossible for me to help them all, so I choose to do what I can by sponsorships, pledges to projects like Mocha Club and 5 for 50, and praying earnestly for an adoption of our own.

How can we not do something? I designed our own Orphan Sunday shirts this year and if anyone wants one, they are welcome to purchase one. I mostly designed them with us in mind to wear and promote adoption. My girlfriend and I will be sporting ours next Sunday and decided if anyone chose to purchase one, we will give the profits to missions and orphan advocacy.

We can give through sponsorships or pledges to organizations that can assist others.

Will you go.... on missions or go to pick up your own child to give them a forever family.

The very least we can do is pray, everyday. For God's children to be comforted, fed, loved and to find a forever family to call their own.

I made Joy a special shirt with China on it, a little heart showing right where she will go (again hopefully!) to bring a daughter home. This is where Jia came from in China and Joy hopes to give her a little sister someday soon.

So, you see, there is plenty we can do for orphans around the globe. Everyday. Even if you don't feel called to adopt, you can pray and give to children that desperately need someone to step up and be the hands and feet of Jesus. I challenge you to pray everyday this month. I challenge you to give to an organization....even if it's just a one time donation. I challenge you to consider adoption. Do you have enough love in your heart, enough room in your home? I have no doubt that you do. What are you willing to sacrifice for the sake of one of His children?

I will pray.

I will give.

I am praying for my husband to say "Let's GO!"

Where We've Been....

2010-10-31T21:05:00.000-07:00

I never thought I'd get through the month of May! And then it passed and June came flying in and now I'm wondering where it's gone! We've been going going going like crazy!!! After prom, came graduations....

Tyler's 8th grade class had their graduation ceremony and the kids couldn't resist doing one last goofy picture together. Yes, that's right.... those 7 kids made up the entire class. Aaaahhhhh..... one of my favorite things about living in rural America. :) My son is the goofball in the center. A face only a mother could love. ;) We were very proud, he played Amazing Grace on his guitar during the ceremony.

Then came Taylor's graduation. I was okay with 8th grade. I knew Tyler would have four years left, new exciting things to plan and attend. But Taylor.... graduating high school. Well, that was just almost more than this momma could handle. I kept myself busy to keep my mind off of what I was about to face (i.e. her adulthood!), by making all the things for her reception. Being a photographer, I had done her senior portraits, so of course we made special photo announcements.....

The last day of school brought fun and games. Yep, the kids had a mud slide! :) my son, the ladie's man. lol

After graduations came summer leagues. Ball season was busy with games and cheering, and taking LOTS of pictures! :)

Ball season came and went, and our van finally bit the dust. So we had to bite the bullet and get a different vehicle. Notice I said different....we never go new. Thank goodness for Craig's list! ;) Got a Yukon. Family wagon of the decade! It's awesome and we love it. We love even more that we got it for $3k LESS than trade in value! After much prayer and searching, God led us to a couple that had to let their vehicle go as the wife had hip surgery and was unable to get into it any longer. Their loss was definitely our gain. I don't think the thing had seen a dirt road until we brought it home. Nice to have a dependable vehicle after being stranded last winter in a ditch, with no heat and three kids. Ugh.

We ventured off on our 2nd annual family vacation. What a blessing. We'd been paying for it and saving up the last year and a half so it wasn't a huge hit to the budget. Colorado became our new favorite place to be!!! We'll definitely be going back to the Rockies! The kids loved it so much they even ask if we could move there! That's huge for a teenage boy about to start high school.

My big kids were both baptized this summer on June 13th. What a glorious day for a mom and dad. Nothing greater could we accomplish in this life than leading our children to the Lord and their salvation through Jesus Christ.

Our daughter officially became an adult in August and we celebrated her 18th birthday..... by telling her how very much we loved her!!! lol We've kept asking over and over what she'd like but she always said nothing. So what do you give the teenager who has everything she needs, and wants nothing..... gas cards. :)

Total fun with a bonfire in the timber with her friends.... and mom pulled a scary prank. Yes, it was funny but so not received well. By anyone.... I screamed and hid. When she couldn't find me, she ran all the way back to the house, me hollering and trying to catch her in her panicked state.... which I couldn't. And then she upset the little one in the house, which upset dad. Which put me on the doo doo list. ;) No more pranks from mom. lol

School started back up and away they went.... Taylor to college (local college so she gets to live at home), Tyler started high school (heaven help us all!), and Tanner.....started first grade! I'd say I need to adopt a few kiddos to fill that gap wouldn't you?! ;)

Still praying and letting the Lord work on my husband for that one.

First Day of School 2010

We started sewing (a bit late at that) to fill a craft booth for a local festival. Joy and I are doing fundraising with our little craft. She has been praying and saving for home study number 2!! I think Jia may have a little sister in her future! And I'm saving for missions trips and a 'hopeful' adoption someday soon.

I'm still 'building' the website, but you can check it out at www.rockinragz.com

Our mission team will be heading back to Haiti in February 2011 and I'd like to be going with them. I'd also like to make it to Africa sometime soon!!!!! We recently got to say good-bye to my daughter's old youth leader who traveled to Africa to live for six months on missions. So excited for him and loving his updates he's been able to provide through facebook.

Tanner took swimming lessons this summer and FINALLY learned how to swim!!! We were so happy. Zach did an AWESOME job with our kiddo and became Tanner's newest hero. We're okay with that. He taught him something that is a life saver and took a HUGE weight off our shoulders.

Tanner started flag football this fall. His first year and he LOVED it! I don't know who loved it more though.... him or dad. ;) He did such a great job. There's definitely a lot of football in our future.

He got to be the quarterback too and can throw a ball like nobody's business for a 7 yr old! lol :)

He had his 7th birthday. It seems like we just brought him home from the hospital a week ago.... what happened?

And he got to be photographer for a day while mom was working.... we played after a session I had, and I let him control the remote. Hilarious is all I can say.

Well, I've tried to catch you up on everything we've been doing over the last few months. If you made it this far, God bless you! And I hope you keep coming back for more, because I'm making a return to blogger land and hope to have some company along the way! Lots to come! I have posts waiting for Halloween and Orphan Sunday! Woo hoo!!!

Much love everyone......

Mission NOT Impossible & Prom

2010-05-04T18:02:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how incredibly busy this time of year has become for us. I never would have dreamed that just because we have graduates that we would be this nuts!!!

This past week we've been preparing for graduation and Prom. My daughter's Senior Prom was Saturday night and she asked her date to take her! He goes to school in another town, but they met as area officers for FFA (Future Farmer's of America). They see one another for area meetings, contests, conventions, camps, etc. They get along fabulously! And let me tell you, he was definitely a gentleman and we welcome Cole back ANYtime!

It was bittersweet to see my baby girl heading off to her last prom. She's become such a beautiful young woman! And what a heart she has. Not one of those drama queens, but a real down to earth kinda' girl who knows what's important in life and she's keepin' it real!

As I said, Cole was quite the gentleman and even had her home early (their choice, not ours!). She was in before 11:30 as he had a 45 minute drive back home and had to get up early because he was singing a solo at church the next morning. (Did I mention I like this kid!?!) ;)

And at church the next day, my daughter went forward and made her profession of faith and will be baptized in the next week or two! You'll definitely be seeing pictures of that! She accepted Christ into her life as a young girl and has been living a life that follows her Lord. She had just never been baptized and was waiting for the right moment. With our extensive history of pastor's coming and going with previous churches and the search for a church where our family felt at home she just didn't feel comfortable yet to have some of these men baptize her.

What an incredible feeling for a mother to have to have Brother Ron tell us she had spoke to him about baptizing her. She was trying to keep it a secret and was going to surprise us! ♥ Much to her surprise, when she shared her good news with her 14 year old brother..... he told her the same thing! "Well, that's just not fair! That's what I was going to do!" What a joyous blessing that both of our older children will soon be baptized.

The even greater part, is watching their lives unfold and seeing how they choose to serve the Lord.

And, one last goodie to share! My Mission 'NOT' Impossible...... I've already blogged in the past about how we'll be returning to Haiti this summer. We hope to travel in late August and I knew that one way or another the Lord would get us there. If it was His will.... the way would present itself.

I decided to start making and selling items as a fundraiser for my trip. I need approximately $1000 to go on this mission trip. This would cover airlines, travel expenses and lodging/meals for 7-10 days. Doable? Definitely doable with God. I decided to call my 'shop' Pish Posh Tots. Here's the incredible part.... within two weeks, receiving orders, fulfilling them and ones left to finish...... I will have raised almost $700!!!!!! How incredible is that?! God is good! ALL the time!!!!!! I decided this year Haiti.... next year, who knows!?! Africa has been on my mind for quite some time! I think I need to take a trip with my bloggy friend Andrea and serve the people with the WIPHAN ministry!

So if you want to check it out, or share it with your friends, I've still got a ways to go for my trip and then we are starting to raise funds for my daughter's share of the trip. Who knows, maybe we can raise enough to take the whole family on this mission trip. I wonder what great things the Lynch's could accomplish!?! Excited to see where the Lord leads us.

You can check out some of the fun stuff I've been making and selling on the site HERE. Lots of new things to come too so keep checking back! God has once again blessed me with being able to do something that I love to serve His purpose. Thanks for helping me accomplish my goals (and His plan!).

There's lots more photos in the galleries. Enjoy!

OOOOPPPSSSS........

2010-04-26T08:09:00.000-07:00

Can I just say ooops..... sorry I've been MIA lately! Sometimes life just takes control and we get caught up in a whirlwind. Stop the merry-go-round I want to get off for a while!!

Between owning a business and tax time coming and going (that's my biggest headache, because anyone that knows me knows I'm the world's worst bookkeeper!), then Easter came and went, we had two separate revivals we were involved with (one of which was our home church and I was busy like a beaver!), track season hit at school and I'm in charge of getting the concession stand ready at all the home track meets (which I had 4 in less than a week!), a daughter who is a senior that decided at the last minute maybe she'd go to prom after all, so we spent three days dress shopping (when I say shopping it's not a hop in the car drive a few miles to the mall type of thing..... we live 2 hours from any major stores in any direction..... it's a day long event, most of which is spent driving), two graduations to plan and announcements to finish and mail, and oh yeah..... we just hosted a Soles 4 Souls Shoe Drive!!!!!!

I've been a tad bit busy! ;) (I think we can all agree that's an understatement.)

So, I'll share prom pictures and graduation as they come. I already shared pics of my church (that should cover Easter). I'm not a fan of track (just volunteer my time for the kiddos) so there's no pics of runners.

Best thing I can do, is show you just how much stinkin' fun we had at our Shoe Drive this weekend! My girlfriends that co-founded Joint Heirs Adoption Ministry (JHAM) and I sat at our local shoe store on the main street in our little podunk town this weekend (in the pouring rain!) and collected over 650 pairs of shoes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AWESOME is the only word I can think of to describe our day.

We partnered with Soles4Souls who provided collection boxes and flyers to distribute for our 'cause'. They are awesome to work with! The Girl Scouts in your community can become involved to earn merit badges. (we only had one girl scout show up but it was encouraging and fun to remind her she will be the ONLY girl scout in our area with one of the S4S's badges! :) The local shoe store, Brown's Shoe Fit, is a participating business with S4S, and gave each person that donated shoes on Saturday a coupon for $20 off a new pair of shoes! Pretty awesome!

We got our schools involved and the kids at my son's school started collected two weeks prior to the drive. They donated two full boxes of shoes!

Then we also had the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) collect shoes at the middle school and high school in our local town (my kids go to a country school so the pics you see above is the entire 8th grade class my son is in! lol)

It was so much fun to work with the girls all day and we banded shoes together from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. Yes, every single pair of those 650+ shoes had to be rubber banded together. But it was interesting to see just what kind of shoes we got!

Yes, shoes of all kinds!!! These had never been worn!!!! (I'm thinkin' that's a good thing!) lol We figured they might have been bowling shoes. It was hard to think of how many hundreds of dollars people spend on shoes...... that they never wear. We had so many people bring shoes that still had tags on them, new soles or were still in boxes. We as American's are so very spoiled (some are blessed....that's a better word huh?) and don't even know it. As we banded all those shoes together we thought of where they might end up. China, Africa, Haiti, Chile, even our own inner city hospitals in Kansas City. I wonder where they will walk next. Knowing my shoes have seen the sandy beaches of Hawaii and now they may walk on the rocky ground of Haiti. One day seeing the sun and having fun, the next day comforting and protecting the feet of a mother who walks miles to bring her child fresh water.

Now that's humbling.

Joy and some of the shoes that people had in boxes. yep, some people actually save the boxes their shoes come in! lol (not me)

Now THOSE are some LOUD shoes! ;)

So.... we made a decision yesterday. We are responsible for shipping ALL those shoes to a S4S's warehouse where they will be distributed. Can you imagine the shipping cost of over 650 pairs of shoes?! Staggering! We are going on a road trip! The girls and I decided we are driving the shoes to the main warehouse in Tennessee! Now, that's going to make for some awesome bloggin' and pictures! Stay tuned, in the next couple of weeks we're heading out with all those shoes! Who knows.... we may stop in to say hi to some of you bloggy friends!

That's little Miss Jia (Joy's daughter from China that she brought home forever last summer), the kids were all a big help actually and it was fun to have them around to 'encourage people to stop and share their shoes with us!

Two of Melinda's cuties! Acel & Meah. Meah came home forever from China last year too! I can't tell you how great it feels to work with these girls and do what we do. Advocating for the orphan and the least of these. And seeing our kids get involved with us is even more of a blessing!

Me, Melinda & Joy

Joy's mom is always our little angel in disguise too and she was kind enough to buy us all lunch. Pizza in the trailer (you didn't expect us to sit in the rain all day did you? ;) Joy's hubby has a racing trailer that we were able to conduct our shoe drive out of.... nice and dry). Thanks for the Pizza Mellanie! But thanks even more for the shoes! :)

Hopefully, we have prevented a lot less of this...

and a lot more of this....

Maybe someday the girls and I can go on one of their distribution trips ourselves and help put all those new shoes on people's feet....

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.”

Hebrews 10:24

AND........... the one BIG surprise that I was so anxious to share! Yes, here it comes..... a new little boy in our house. (I only wish he was human! lol) ;) But GUS has become a very big part of our family and he's worse than all of my kids put together. A friend couldn't keep him any longer and just gave him to us. Along with his bed, toys and food.

Now, at first I'm thinking this was a SWEET deal! A registered mini dachshund, just like we've been looking for FOR MONTHS! How awesome that one just is given to us!?!

Then we discovered just how SPOILED ROTTEN he is.....

Yes, completely and totally ROTTEN I tell ya! When he wouldn't eat after two days I called my friend and ask what his 'routine' was so he would eat. "Ummm.... I forgot to tell you.... I sit in the floor and feed him twice a day....." Silence on my end of the phone... HELLO?! Excuse me?! You hand fed the dog?!

Needless to say, we nipped that in the bud VERY quickly! When he got hungry, he ate. But of course he didn't want us to see that he was capable of doing it on his own so he would grab a bite and hide in the other room to eat it. Ho hovering over the dog dish to feed himself.

She also put gravy or drippings on his food. Did I mention I had to buy a special 'no slip with the rubber grip' food bowl for him because it just upset him when his bowl slid across the floor while he was trying to eat.

Are you getting the idea here? The dog is ROTTEN! And thinks he rules the house. My husband always had dachshunds growing up as his mother loved them so he has a HUGE soft spot for these dogs. Gus is our third ever dachshund now. I don't know if I could handle another one if we ever lose him. Because my husband has never talked baby talk more in the last 26 years than he has in the last few weeks since Gus came to live with us. I'm hoping they both outgrow the 'baby stage' very soon.

Gus believes his place to sleep is in the recliner with my husband or in our bed. Both of which he struggles to jump into at times. But Eric is always more than willing to help him out. Heaven forbid he 'strain' his ugly ears trying to get into the bed.....

Yes, I think he's part rabbit. He looks like the flying nun if any of you are old enough to remember Sally Fields as a teenager. ;o)

Don't get me wrong.... I do love him. But I'm not about to let on like I do! ;o) He's been attached to my hip ever since he came home. If you don't pay close enough attention to him, he'll root his way INTO your lap, no matter what you may be doing, just to get the attention he feels he deserves.

I'm just hoping I can convince him he needs to stay at home when I take that road trip to TN with the girls to deliver shoes! (He's not stayed home alone except while we're gone to church....)

He Has Risen!

2010-04-05T15:14:00.000-07:00

Just as He promised! The last week has been a busy and AWEsome week. We've had so many opportunities to worship Him and reflect on just what he has done for us. What a glorious gift and sacrifice that was given for little 'ole me, and you. Someone so unworthy of such a gift, yet it is given so freely and selflessly.

We missed Wednesday evening services, but made it to Good Friday services and received communion. On our way to church I thought of my online friends. Some of you I've e-mailed and chit chatted with and some seem surprised and even doubting of the place we call home. How RURAL we really live. So I thought what better way to show you and share than letting you know where we go to church. it takes us about 10-15 minutes to get there from our house, and our church isn't in town. Nope, we live in the country and we worship in the country. ;o) Our church is so far back in the middle of nowhere I teased my mother the first time she visited by telling her 'they don't make you handle the snakes on your first visit'. LOL :) Surprisingly....she took me seriously! lol (somewhat) I've actually had people share with me that the 'original' church was a log cabin in the woods. And then they built this:

And yes, it's still in the woods. We have to turn on 4 different gravel roads to get there. It's a beautiful place in the country that is filled with beautiful, loving people we have come to know as our church family. Every Sunday we gather in the original church for greetings, a quick hymn and then we're off to Sunday school. In the original church there are about 20 pews. Yes, 20. My family of 5 fills one pew. There's room for a small piano in the front of the church, a pulpit that you can actually reach out and touch from the front pew and this beautiful cross hangs on the stone chimney at the front of the room. Sanctuary seems like such a grand a LARGE word. This is a small room. Our family room in my house is larger.

The original hymnals are used every Sunday morning. They are so old it's like books in an antique store. The pages are yellowed and the covers on the books are showing the threads that make up the binding and covers.

And as wonderful of an atmosphere as this presents..... I'm sure thankful we worship in this building:

Where there's plenty of elbow room and bathrooms with stalls and pews big enough to seat all my family in one row with friends and relatives to sit with us when they visit. :) But, notice the background? Yep....middle of nowhere. Our little country church in the woods, with our gravel parking lot and play yard on the hill.

Good Friday services had me thinking about the bread and the wine. In more ways than one. So it gave me an idea.

I made these little cards and spent all day Saturday making homemade loaves of mini bread to give as gifts for Easter Sunday. I love making homemade bread and I made so much Saturday that I went through almost 15 to 20 pounds of flour! Yep, you read that right! Good thing I buy in bulk! lol :)

I bought gallon size plastic bags with twist ties to put them in, .99 at Wal Mart, bought a roll of ribbon (hind sight I should have gotten purple, but I doubt anyone really noticed), and used my scrapbook supplies and my printer to make little cards like the image above (I made in photoshop) to attach to the loaves.

We shared the bread with our pastor and his wife, associate pastor's family, Sunday school teachers, a few special friends and family that we shared Easter dinner with. :) My husband was thrilled that I saved a few loaves for us. I usually make homemade bread so he's used to it, but the thought of giving it all away and having to smell it ALL day long was killing him! LOL

Wanna know something else that's kinda cool? I made that big huge wicker basket too (a few years ago), and I can say with all certainty and honesty, I WILL NEVER MAKE ANOTHER ONE. Basket weaving is not my craft of choice. It's the size of a laundry basket and I think the blisters lasted six months from making it. ;) If you're going to weave....start SMALL! lol During my bread making day, I also made my skirt for Easter sunday, a new purse and gave both my boys those haircuts they should have had a week ago. I was feeling a bit domestic! Then Sunday afternoon we spent at my grandma's house having Easter dinner with our extended family and the kids had an Easter Egg Hunt.

When we arrived home Dad decided to take his Sunday afternoon nap and I snuck off to get a surprise! Oh.... wait till you see what it was! You'll have to check back tomorrow for that BIG surprise! You're gonna love it!

I hope you all had a very blessed Easter weekend and maybe things can get back to a regular routine this week. Whatever regular means....

Blacktops & Flipflops

2010-03-31T15:57:00.000-07:00

Aaaaahhhhh.... Old Man Winter has croaked! LOL 78 Degrees today! Yeah baby! Are you ready for this? Wanna see how I spent my afternoon, OUTSIDE! My hubby was home today and helped me work in the backyard with the 'girls'. They needed some sunshine and dirt to dig in.

Some of the girls are getting pretty BIG!

So we made a new chicken run. We liked to never got them all in there. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to corral them all back to the coop tonight. And right now, not really too worried about it! :) The sun is shining and the world is turning, I reckon I might as well grin. (Old girl scout songs stuck in my head.)

You know the "Chicken Whisperer" learned his techniques from his father, right?

Our favorite cat enjoyed being his lazy self today. Chickens don't phase him a bit. He totally lost interest long ago when they became bigger than he is and had to defend his food dish one night to a mob of curious hens. Does the term 'henpecked' ring any bells? So he was content just to rub and get under foot while we were trying to work today.

Ahhhh.... do you see that? FLIPFLOPS! Today was the first day I dug the trusty flipflops from the closet in the mud room. Between trying to cat slap my lens cap and getting a good massage Louie was content just to lounge around in the shade. Yes, I said shade. It actually got rather warm today if you were doing anything outside. (Please excuse the pasty white feet. I don't think my skin has seen daylight in six months!) lol :)

Then, just when we were trying to find an excuse to stay outside after our work was done..... we decided to go for a long ride on the 4-wheeler. The kids were still not home from school and people weren't off work yet so there couldn't be too much traffic. TRAFFIC! LOL Now, that's a funny word (at least where I live).

So, we headed down the road from our house...

I bet you wish this was in your backyard. ;)

And we just kept going..... We passed the neighbor's house.

(which by the way, I have THE best neighbors ever!)

And then we decided we hadn't been gone long enough, so we decided to turn around and go the opposite direction from our house..... we passed our backyard again. And just kept going....

Yep, that's home. But why would I want to stop riding when the sun is shining so beautifully and the weather is OH SO PERFECT?!

And we just kept going..... And I thought it would be cool to take our picture together while we were riding. Yeah, not so great. It's hard when your hubby is driving and not paying attention because he's gawking every which direction and sometimes you just have to hang on and lean with the curves. Yes, I know that's what you do on motorcycles, but it works great for 4-wheelers too. ;o)

We decided we better head home again. The kids would be back from school soon.

And then dad would have to take them for rides if we were caught! Oops.... ;o)

(and yeah.... the boys are getting haircuts tonight)

Surprisingly enough, little britches was stuck inside. It was his first opportunity in a long time to have first dibs at the play station while his brother was out goofing and his sister wasn't there to torment him.

My favorite photo from the day:

If you're a country girl you've heard this song before! And yes, this is actually where the blacktop ends.

So, that's how I spent my afternoon. What do you do to enjoy this fine day?! I think the only thing that could have made it any better was having the kids home with us to play outside. (And a few more kids at that....*hint*HINT* If my hubby would ever read my blog. The adoption application is still sitting on your desk just waiting for your signature. *wink*)

Hoping you all had a happy hump day!

Have you lost your Marbles?

2010-03-31T10:33:00.000-07:00

Well, the good news is: here's a chance to get them back! LOL This is an awesome little reward system if you have toddlers or young children. And you can get them for FREE by entering the giveaway on Jody's blog by clicking HERE. You'll also want to bookmark her site and keep visiting and checking back because she is the giveaway Queen! Something new all the time!

Don't ask me how I stumbled upon her blog. It's the Adult ADD in me that just keeps clicking and clicking and clicking.... ;o) I'm sure some of you can understand.

Please remember you must click through and go to Jody's Blogsite to enter and win! I'd love your comments but they aren't going to work for you here! Hop on over to Jody's BLOG to enter! Good luck! Details below were taken from Jody's blog. Thanks for the chance to win this awesome Giveaway Jody!!!

Parents with children who have ADHD and also parents with autistic children say they respond very well to the marbles in the jar reward system. - Use your Marbles

If you would like to WIN Use Your Marbles here is what you have to do...

FIRST: Go to Jody's BLOG! Then follow the instructions as posted below.

Visit Use your Marbles! Tell me what *color* (please do not just put "red" but use the name that they call red) you would choose if you won!

Make sure you leave your e-mail in the post!

Yup, that's it! We are called Mommy Moment for a reason! We know you only have a moment to enter giveaways...not all day!

Of course you are still welcome to follow us, Fan us, Vote for us on Top Mommy Blogs by clicking HERE, tweet this, grab our button etc... but we want our giveaways to be easy and quick to enter and fair to everyone! These other things are just a bonus for us and let us know that you appreciate us!

This giveaway is open to US residents ! You have until April 5, 2010 to enter the giveaway. Winner will be chosen byrandom.org The winner will then have 48 hours to claim their giveaway item by e-mailing mommymomentblog@gmail.com. If the winner does not claim their prize within their 48 hour period, a new winner will be chosen. *All entries received after the cutoff time will be deleted prior to choosing a winner. Disclosure: Mommy Moment was provided with the use your marble kit at no cost in order to test the products’ abilities and give our own personal opinions on it. The opinions we have given are our own and may differ from others but were not influenced by the company or the free product provided..

FREE Coffee!

2010-03-30T08:25:00.000-07:00

Yumminess! Who doesn't love coffee? And who doesn't love FREE stuff?!!! That's just crazy! Combine the two and what'dya got?! AMY's giveaway! My bloggy friend Amy at Filled With Praise is giving away all this:

And all you have to do is click on over to her BLOG to see how you can win! No strings attached, just FREE stuff!!! I love when my bloggy friends do this! :) While you're at her blog, roam around and check out the adventure of her family's adoption journey! She's still in the waiting game but would love to have your support and prayers!!! I can't wait to see the Gotcha Video when she travels to pick up her precious baby from Ethiopia!!!

Sending you much ♥ Amy! Thanks for the opportunity to get some freebies!

Amish Grace

2010-03-29T08:03:00.000-07:00

Amish Grace....it may be all the buzz around the water coolers today (for women that is). Except I don't have a water cooler to mingle around and visit with my girls! Most of you live in my computer, in other parts of the country and world! So, we're gonna talk Amish Grace on the blogs today!

Joy and I have a little blog called Our Journey to the Well and it came as a big surprise to us when the folks at Lifetime Movie Network contacted Joy through an e-mail about promoting this movie on our blog. Pretty exciting for us country girls from nowhere. We talked about it with one another for days! That there must be a big message there that God wants us to hear, as well as many others. After watching the movie last night..... well, WOW. MANY lessons there. What an incredible story that came from such a tragedy.

Without trying to give too much away (for those who haven't gotten to see it yet!) I was amazed at the lessons that kept coming at me. Not just the overall point of forgiveness. I saw many things in this movie.

You see, my husband and I talk about Amish life sometimes. How wonderful it must be to have things so simple. We live 10 minutes from one of the biggest Amish communities in our state. Amish culture is something you are witness to on a daily basis. It's always a blessing to do my shopping when I go to the bulk store to get flour and such. Or taking my son to the cheese factory on field trips and days that we want to get out, just because. Him getting to meet the other children, getting to see the lifestyle makes our kids stop and think a bit about our lives.

The things that stand out in my mind about the movie, I'm sure were different for everyone. Examining the life of the shooter's family, you could tell he was withdrawn because of his grief but you never once saw him angry or abusive with his family. His wife attended Bible study regularly and when the Amish elders came to visit her as they mentioned how and why they must forgive she cited the scripture reference to them.

This was a family that became as broken as the Amish families that lost their loved ones. Is it more/less/same shock from a family experiencing a tragic event and losing their child/ren than a woman who not only lost her husband but had to deal with the grief and guilt of not really knowing who/what he was in the long run? The Amish perspective made you think about her grief as well. Not to just be angry with someone for the violent act they commit but to feel the pain and suffering that must be inside their heart to have brought them to such a dark place.

The strength of the Amish community and people to stop and pray--there's a lesson we can all learn. Sure, we tell people we are praying for them, or we need to pray for this or I'll put you on the prayer list. But when someone asks you to pray for them, how often do you REALLY stop what you are doing to pray? This is something I have been pushing myself to do in the last few months. Our prayers are heard by God if we are His children. Why would I not want to talk to Him?

If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."
--Matthew 21:22

When the elders went to the widow's house you expected what they were going to say. After all, it's what the movie was about. Forgiveness. You expected them to say they forgive the shooter. (It was a preview after all.) What you didn't expect was them telling the widow that if there was anything they could do for her or her family to please tell them. They wanted to help her in any way they could. Wow.... going beyond forgiveness. The second greatest command....

The entire law is summed up in a single command:

"Love your neighbor as yourself."

--Galatians 5:14

How do you tell someone who is the wife of the person that just murdered your daughter you would do whatever you could to serve them? ONLY with God....and I believe I would struggle. Terribly.

Another part of the movie that took me a while to grasp was the shunning. Ida's sister had been shunned yet she missed her so. Kept contact through her letters and photos she sent, which was wrong. I ask my husband how they could shun someone if they have such a strong faith and such a willingness to serve and love everyone? Then it dawned on me....

We've been discussing the same thing (basically) in Sunday school. Church discipline. You don't discipline (or shun) someone without doing it in love. It is done in hopes that it will turn the persons heart to come back to what is right. To what God wants for them. To not live as a worldly person, but as a Godly person. (which might I point out we all fail at most days... some days miserably!). Shunning is no different in this sense. Lessons to learn and study on.

I think I would have reacted in much the same way Ida did. Wanting to run from a people who didn't seem to understand my grief. Wanting to harbor hate and pain for the person who shattered my world. And then the bombshell.... her daughter lived with her heart in line with just what they had taught her. There's one I won't spoil for you. You'll have to watch the movie. Her words so profound that it's like grabbing her mother and shaking her silly. Back to what she knows to be true. Forgiveness.

One woman's words to the grief counselor was how she starts everyday in sorrow and anger and has to offer it up to God to get it out of her heart so it doesn't consume her. And continues to do so.... sometimes every few minutes, every hour. Showing us it's definitely NOT the easy way. But it is THE way.

Forgiveness.

When the widow is broken and standing at the grave of her husband... The man she knew to be so good. A good husband, a good provider, a good father. ...she stands alone with few friends and family to rally around her. To comfort her. A woman from a big church, full of 'Christians'. A group of Christians that could learn a lesson from the Amish community who came to her side at the burial of her husband. Wow..... it just kept getting better.

First forgiveness.

Then support and offering help to the widow.

Then surrounding her with love at the funeral of her husband.

How amazing. I would like to think I could do the same in such a situation. To forgive someone who could do me such harm and wrong. Yet, I remind myself there are people who have hurt me much less, in much more insignificant ways and I've struggled with how to forgive them. Boy oh boy I have a lot to work on.

It becomes much easier when your walk with God becomes stronger. When you learn to put God above ALL else in your life. He shows you how to live, you strive to live in a way that pleases him. But we also fall very short of what he expects most days. I'm sure there was much more to the actual events than could be portrayed in the movie. Besides the graphic nature of the whole incident, the anger and bitterness that had to be present even among other members of the community these people lived in. I imagine this was a very controversial issue for this town for quite some time.

We could all learn a few lessons from Amish Grace. I hope if you missed it last night that you can find a chance to watch it again. For those that missed the "Amish Grace" premiere, here are the dates/times for re-play.

Thursday, April 1, 8 pm/et

Friday, April 2, 12 am/et

Check with your cable provider for the correct channel and times for your area. Please note this is on Lifetime Movie Network and NOT Lifetime channel!

Also, for you book lovers (who doesn't love a good book?!), the books are always better than movies! You can read an excerpt from Amish Grace by clicking HERE

You can find the book here on Amazon. There's also another book about this tragedy from Rebecca Sue's perspective (one of the children at the school). It's called The Happening - Nickel Mines School Tragedy and can be purchased HERE.

I purchased this one at the book store in our Amish community and have yet to read it. I just knew the events and the story and thought it would be an interesting read. Definitely, now I have to dive into it!

Also, if you are wanting more information on the movie event, photos, casting, even real photos from the community in Nickel Mines you can check out the Lifetime Movie Network site for all the details and even a discussion forum for those who have watched the movie. Great stuff Lifetime! As always.

Dressed for HOPE

2010-03-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

I LOVE wearing adoption shirts. Anything to advocate for the orphan! We're getting ready to make some new ones ourselves, but you MUST check out Kim's new fundraiser for their adoption! You seriously cannot pass this one up! Check out her blog HERE and I'd like to tell you not to enter so I can win, but hey..... it's for the greatest cause I can think of! Creating bigger families through adoption! Bringing orphans home to forever families! So buy as many entries as you can afford!

If you win, you get ALL of this!

AND THIS!!!!

Incredible!!! Even if I don't win this sweet giveaway I can't wait to see who does! Congratulations Kim on the coolest fundraiser I've seen to date! You rock girlfriend!

Growing & Graduating

2010-03-25T07:53:00.000-07:00

How did it happen? That my babies are growing up? My little girl will graduate this year from high school and parents can purchase a tribute in the yearbook for their child. Of course, being the photographer's kid I couldn't just send snapshots.... I had to design one myself. My little chubby, 9 lb baby has grown into a beautiful young woman whom I am so VERY proud of.

I don't know how all these years flew by in the blink of an eye.

Watching her learn to use her spoon. She was always the MESSIEST child. :)

Watching her learn to read, now that was amazing. She wasn't even 4.

Seeing her daddy teaching her to ride her first 'big girl' bike.

Feeling my heart sink deep into the pit of my stomach the first time she was thrown from her horse.... and bounced off the ground face first.

Praying as I taught her how to drive.

Looking into her eyes the first time she rode an airplane and her nerves settled.

Marveling at her amazing spirit and heart when she learned what loving like Christ is all about.... in Haiti.

And now.... now I'm expected to let go of her. Watch her become the woman we have raised her to be. The hardest and most rewarding part of all.

Bittersweet.

I'm so thankful that God allowed me to raise his precious girl. Because after all, she doesn't belong to me, I was just blessed to be her mother.

JHAM & My Little Preacher Man

2010-03-24T20:25:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a long and crazy week already! Busy, busy everywhere we turn! Had to share the funnies my little Tanner man has come up with this past week. I've decided he's going to be my little preacher man. Daddy got some tracts in the mail that he ordered that caught Tanner's attention.

Of course it caught his attention! He's six and it's a big red stop sign! :) When he saw them sitting on the table he ask me what they were. The following conversation ensued...

Tanner: Mom, what's this?

Me: They're little books about Jesus.

Tanner: Can I have one?

Me: Sure, dad won't care if you have one.

Tanner: Hmmm..... (silence for a moment)
Can I have 14 of them?

Me: I don't think you need to have that many do you? (thinking they're going to end up in the toy box) Why don't you ask dad when he gets home. Why do you need 14?

Tanner: Well, I wanna take it to school but the teacher says we can't bring anything unless we bring enough to share and I need to have one for everybody in my class. And I think Mrs. S needs one too.

Well, you know this momma is not about to tell her little man that he can't take a book to school to tell his friends about Jesus. But in the back of my mind of course I'm thinking he may end up in trouble. Separation of church and state right? Don't want to 'offend' anyone! Heaven forbid. (get off the soapbox and finish the story Renea.....)

So I called Mrs. S and explained what my Tanner wanted to do. I told her I didn't want other parents or children complaining but I wasn't about to tell him he couldn't bring them to share so I was leaving it up to her as to how she handled it.

Well, let me tell you....my boy came home from school and I ask how his day was. Fine. Always his usual one-word answers to everything. So did you pass out your books? Yes.

Ugh... one-word answers. Did you share them with everyone? Yep, I gave one to everyone in class and gave one to Mrs. S too cuz I thought she'd like to know about Jesus too.

Oh my sweet sweet boy. ♥

And I've share his funny words before. This week we've been attending the local revival so our nights have been as busy as our days. But when he came home tonight and ask where 'rebible' was he caught me off guard. "I think you left your bible in the car." "No, mom. reBIBLE. Are we going to reBIBLE tonight?" Said with his most disgusted tone that I couldn't understand him to begin with. "No, Tanner reVIVal is over." "Well darn." And away he went to play.

Oh my sweet sweet boy. ♥

So, onto JHAM. Some of you may have visited our blog on JHAM (Joint Heirs Adoption Ministry). It explains who we are and what we're all about. Long story short....advocating for the orphan and the 'least of these'. Encouraging and educating others on adoption as well as orphan care and sponsorships, etc. (excuse the crazy way the blog looks.... I'm having design issues! If someone is fluent in html I'm open to suggestions and help! I can't figure out what went wrong with it! It's awful!)

Melinda has had a few setbacks and we've been 'on hold' (for lack of a better term) for a few months, but we're back in full swing! The girls and I got together today to plan our latest event! We're going to be sponsoring a shoe drive in conjunction with Soles 4 Souls and shipping the shoes to a distribution center through their organization. Hoping we can help those in Haiti or an area in Africa. We're so excited to get details ironed out and working together again today felt so good.

Melinda & Joy (my girls ♥)

These two girls make my heart happy. And the work we do together, well, quite frankly is amazing! We decided long ago our start was fully orchestrated by God alone because we blend so well and our ideas bounce from one mind to the next and each thought is complimented by another. Alone we struggle. Together we are unstoppable! It's awesome to watch it all unfold so simply when we are together.

Me & Melinda burnin' up the phone lines!

Since we are working through Soles 4 Soles they already have some major nationwide benefits. We are involving the Girl Scout Clubs in our area as they can earn merit badges by helping us with this project! (awesomeness), and much to our surprise the local shoe store was already a participating location/store for S4S's and when folks drop off their shoes and make their contribution they will receive a coupon good for $20 off a pair of new shoes! Holy Wow! (more awesomeness) ;o) We're giving presentations in our local schools for the students to understand about abject poverty and the need for other children/adults to have shoes and putting a drop box in their schools for donations for one week.

All this shoe goodness will lead into our next big event which will be a 5K walk/run! Use those new shoes you just saved $20 on to walk for water! We'll be raising funds for Clean Water for Haiti which is the organization our missionary friends Leslie & Chris run in country. They are still providing water filters for residents of Port au Prince and other areas around Haiti which is an even greater need after the disaster than before. Lots of work to do and we want to support them any way we can! (you may want to read their blog as they just received word today that IBESR finally signed off on their adoption and O is going to officially be their little girl!!! Merci Jezi!)

Needless to say we are really excited about getting this big ball rolling and I'll keep you posted on how everything went. I encourage you to check out the S4S's website and consider doing a shoe drive in your community.

And the big bonus to us getting together (besides our advocacy and doing God's work of course...) coffee and CHOCOLATE!!! Joy hosted us today and treated us to her brownie/chocolate pudding/whipped cream ooey gooey goodness! (see that big bowl in the background of their picture!? I wasn't really taking a picture of them, I just didn't want it to be so obvious that I was snapping a pic of the chocolate to save for later! LOL) Happy Wednesday y'all!

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Ecclesiastes 4:12

He's ALIVE!

2010-03-23T11:56:00.000-07:00

I'll never grow tired of hearing this song. It always makes me cry. But in a good way! It's a beautiful gospel song... so even if you don't like country music and aren't a fan of Dolly's you can listen anyway. I know you'll be blessed!!!!

World Water Day

2010-03-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

Today is World Water Day! March 22, 2010. You can 'celebrate' with me and get one of these:

When you buy a water bottle, 15 Africans get clean water. That means fewer women in Africa will have to walk six kilometers to collect water. And because of this, they won’t be carrying the 44 pounds of water that they normally carry on their heads that whole way. Think of what they could do with all the time and energy saved.

That’s not the bottle’s whole impact, though. Now, you can use your “Ripple Effect” water bottle instead of having to buy bottled water. You save money, and fewer plastic bottles end up in landfills, where they can take 1000 years to decompose. By refilling your water bottle from the tap, you save the energy and resources that otherwise would have been used to manufacture, ship, and dispose of plastic water bottles. With over 50 billion bottles of water being consumed yearly, that’s a lot of energy!

Now consider this: the amount of water used in one flush of a toilet is the same amount as an average person in Africa uses all day for washing, cleaning, cooking, and drinking.

In fact, 311 million Africans lack access to clean drinking water. That’s roughly 45% of the population.Some of you might be thinking this is because there is no water in Africa, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Only 4% of the total renewable water available in Africa is used yearly due to a lack of wells, pumps, reservoirs, and other irrigation systems. Shocking statistic, isn’t it?

We started a group with the Mocha Club just a few short days ago supporting orphans and widows in Africa. You can join Mocha Club today, for World Water Day, and support a cause providing water to families in Africa. You get the water bottle for free if you join Mocha Club! I received my free t-shirt in the mail today for the support of our group we started last week. It's awesome! Can't wait to wear it tonight to revival! :) And I think maybe this spring/summer when we do our walk for water I'll be sporting my new shirt and carrying my new water bottle!

I can't exactly explain why or how God has placed Africa on my heart. But it's incredible and I go through everyday wondering what I can do to help my brother's and sister's in Christ in that beautiful country. One day I will meet some of them. One day soon I hope. :) Now... head on over to Mocha Club to find out more about their awesome organization and what you can do to help! Happy Monday friends!

The information and statistics above regarding World Water Day were taken from the Mocha Club website. Please visit www.mochaclub.org to start your own organization, join as an individual or make a one-time contribution to a cause of your choice! Thank you for checking out Mocha Club!

Breathtaking...

2010-03-19T14:50:00.000-07:00

Being the local photographer sometimes the kids ask for help with school projects. Levi Silkwood took this AMAZING photo for a class at the high school and he wanted some help and instruction with some photoshop techniques. We did very little to this photo but I just had to share it with everyone because I think it's one of the most beautiful photos I've seen in a long time.

He made the crown of thorns and waited for the sun to set. This huge cross sits just outside of town on the edge of the highway. It's about three stories tall and everyone knows where it is. I've used it for family portraits for my clients several times. I just think Levi has an eye for art and a heart for the Lord and I couldn't keep this to myself!!! Enjoy! Happy Friday to everyone!

Everyone Needs an ALICE!

2010-03-18T14:38:00.000-07:00

Seriously! Everyone needs Alice! Remember (okay some of you may not remember but work with me here), remember watching the Brady Bunch on tv? Alice was the maid. The glue that held them together. She did everything. Ran to the butcher (like she didn't have ulterior motives there! ;) SAM!), she did the grocery shopping, the laundry, the cooking, the tutoring of the kids with their homework probably. How easy life was with Alice.

Well, after some surfing I found Alice! And let me tell you, she is amazing! This is my big secret I was anxious to share with you all! Alice is the latest and greatest thing for moms and their shopping! You pick out anything and everything you need, fill your cart (lots of items have coupons available even!), and check out. There is NO SHIPPING charges with Alice. Everything ships for FREE! There are household items for every room of the house. As long as it's a non-perishable, it's available! At a lot less than shopping cost! And did I mention it ships for FREE!!!!

On Sunday evening I decided to give Alice a try. I didn't want to go overboard not knowing what to expect so I just ordered seven items we needed. Sunday evening! My order shipped Monday morning via UPS and by Wednesday afternoon this is what I had on my patio

I wanted to check out every aspect of Alice before sharing her and let you see all the details of this experience (plus, it's just fun to take pictures!) lol. So, 5 stars for attractive packaging.

I opened my box to find that it was packed with some awesome bubble wrap to keep my items from shifting, busting, etc.

My son always thinks every package that comes should be something for him and of course had to stick his nose (and Doritoes face) in my photos

All of my liquid items were sealed with tape across the tops so they wouldn't pop open and leak, plus they were inside a ziploc bag in case they did (can you say recycle! I love ziploc bags).

(please excuse the mess on my dining room table. I'm sure mine is not the only one that becomes a catch-all at the end of the day).

Now.... Alice is looking pretty good. Great packaging, name brand items (which was my daughter's first concern since part of it was hair products for her), and did I mention FREE shipping?! Plus, three of my items had coupons available so my coupon savings was $1.60. Not too shabby. Sometimes I buy items just because I have a coupon or they are on sale. Hence the Dial soap. Cuz I'm not a Dial fan, but it was on sale.

So, then I decided that if I'm really going to make sure Alice gets the credit she deserves I needed to do some comparison shopping. I went to three stores in my town. Hy-Vee, Pamida, and Dollar General. I can hear some of you now saying, why not Wal Mart? Hello! I would LOVE to have a Wal Mart where we live, but unfortunately it's a one hour round trip to get to the nearest Wal Mart. Another reason Alice gets my vote. I'm saving time, gas and extra money I would spend impulse shopping for things I DO NOT NEED when I step into the ~~$100 store~~ Wal Mart. We call it the $100 store because you can't go in and come back out without spending at least $100 everytime. I do not need that!

I know the store clerks thought I was nuts so I made up a little fib that I was working on a project and had to do some comparison shopping, could I pick up seven items, have them ring them up and provide me with a receipt. "What class is this for?" Ummm.... an economics class! Yeah, that's it! HOME economics! LOL

I wanted you all to know for sure that I got exactly the same items, so I took more pictures! Yes, I'm the nut you saw in the store taking pictures in the deodorant aisle! :)

So, here's my breakdown:

ALICE:
Dial Round the Clock Gold (3 bars) ~~$2.12~~ $0.35 off = $1.77
Dawn Dish Liquid (10 oz) ~~$1.49~~  $0.25 off = $1.24
Degree Summer Rain Deodorant $2.96
Head & Shoulders Dry Scalp ~~$4.93~~  $1.00 off = $3.93
Herbal Essence Smoothing Cream $3.69
Herbal Essence Shampoo $3.45
Reach Toothbrush $0.90
   TAX $1.40
Making my grand TOTAL (w/FREE SHIPPING!) $19.34

Less than $20 bucks folks! I was a bit impressed. Then I went shopping.... and was thoroughly blown away!

PAMIDA (Our version of Wal Mart in our podunk town)
Dial Gold (3 bars) $3.49
Dawn Dish soap (they didn't have same size so I got $3.49
the cheapest available Dawn)
Degree $3.49
Head & Shoulders Dry Scalp $6.49
Herbal Essence Cream (NOT AVAILABLE!) OUCH
Herbal Essence Shampoo $4.29
Reach toothbrush $3.29
   TAX $1.90
Making my grand TOTAL (MISSING ONE ITEM) $26.44
   That's $7.10 MORE than Alice!

HY-VEE was next (I don't usually shop for these things at the grocery store but hey...)
Dial Gold (3 bars) ~~$2.19~~ $0.20 off = $1.99
Dawn $1.97
Degree (didn't have the 'scent' we use) $3.12
Head & Shoulders $5.78
Herbal Essence cream (NOT AVAILABLE) OUCH
Herbal Essence Shampoo (different kind) $3.83
reach toothbrush (didn't have, got cheapest brand) $1.88
TAX (we figured approximate due to voided receipt) $1.43
Making my grand TOTAL (MISSING ONE ITEM) $20.00
That's only $0.66 more than Alice but we didn't get what we wanted and items we use weren't even available!

Now, Dollar General was my last shot. I've shopped there. I knew there might be skeptics that would say, well you need a dollar store! NOT! Most of those stores charge you more because they sell in dollar increments and people don't even realize they are spending more. But, I knew it was worth the look see!

DOLLAR GENERAL
Dial Soap (3 bars - wrong scent) $2.10
Dawn dish soap $1.45
Degree (wrong scent again-hey teenagers are picky!) $2.50
Head & Shoulders $5.00
Herbal Essence Cream (NOT AVAILABLE....AGAIN)
Herbal Essence Shampoo $3.25
Toothbrush (different brand - cheapest kind) $1.75

All the other hair cream frizz static products were averaging $3.00
TAX $1.47
Making the grand TOTAL $20.52
That's $0.18 more than Alice. Not bad.

Now, the only downfall I can see to Alice is if you're an instant gratification kind of person. Waiting that two days to do your shopping could put some people in a bit of a predicament if you are out of toilet paper or something! lol :)

So, I'm going to become a 'planner' and do my shopping with Alice. Not only does she save me money (heck the trip to Wal Mart would have cost me $10 in gas alone!)...

I can shop while the kids are in bed asleep.

I don't have to get out and drive through this

Yeah, I know... looks real busy huh?! I live in the middle of nowhere people!

and this....(the road to the middle of nowhere from my house)

or pay for this....

and I can enjoy a whole lot more of this...

(that's sunshine folks!!! It's been rare in these parts!)

and a whole lot more of THIS....

So check it out!!!

You'll be glad you did!

Warm Blankets

2010-03-17T06:37:00.000-07:00

Warm blankets? With spring coming?! I can hear it now.... I'm ready to put away my blankets and sweaters! But as much as you needed them, think of others that need them now even more. Please read on! My friend Andrea shared a story of three boys that are now involved with the WIPHAN ministry. I'm sure she won't mind that I copied and pasted the information about their story here. Since we are now sponsoring Robby who is helped through WIPHAN this ministry is becoming very near and dear to my heart.

Warm Up Wiphan Launch

We are launching our Warm Up Wiphan drive!! We need everyone’s participation and help for us to accomplish a big task in a short amount of time!! We are trying to purchase 450 blankets and 450 sweaters for our student by May 15th!!

About 3 weeks ago we received the following email from our social worker about three of our students living by themselves, struggling to keep warm at night. Our summer months are winter months in Zambia and temperatures can get in the 40’s at night. After receiving this email, we as the Wiphan Board knew we had to do something as soon as possible to help our students stay warm. Please read the email below and join us as we endeavor to keep our kids warm this season:
Davison Njovu (15), Mambo Phiri (11) and Gibson Kumwenda (13) are all related. They are double orphans who come to Wiphan’s Sinia Center in grades 6, 4 and 6 respectively.

Just yesterday Davison who is the oldest of them all came to school to report that he was quitting.
This is their story.
Davison, Mambo and Gibson are cousins who found themselves under the care of their grandmother after each one of their parents died. Their grandmother is old but has a small farm 3 hours walk from sinia where she said she would go. She has since been gone since October and left the kids to fend for themselves. The kids know where the farm is but have never found her there. A few times they have gone, desperately looking for something to eat. They do have one meal when they come to school but that’s as far as it goes. After school, they go home and sleep to get ready for school the next day. They sleep in a tiny mud house which has holes in the roof and since its been raining pretty hard lately, they just sit in a corner and hug each other for warmth because also, they don’t have a bed or mat to sleep on. After living this way Davison has totally given up and so a few days ago he came to report that he was quitting school so that he could go to Lusaka (4 hour car ride) where he hopes he could find some relatives that can take care of him and his cousins. We were overwhelmed and encouraged the boy not to leave. Wiphan has since put them under the care of a Wiphan lady (who is a neighbor to these boys and has been helpful with giving them meals). Wiphan has also given a bag of mealie-meal , beans and cooking oil to the same Wiphan lady to make sure they eat something other than the meal they have at school. Wiphan also bought blankets for the kids which were presented to them by the Administrator (as shown in the pictures). For now, they will have more than one meal and they will be able to keep warm at night. Update: The children continue to be monitored and cared for by their new care-taker and the Wiphan administration.

Wouldn’t it be great if all of the Wiphan children had blankets and sweaters this year?

You can purchase a blanket or a sweater for just $20 by going here…(also—we have BUTTONS now…would you consider putting one on your BLOG or WEBSITE? Go to www.wiphan.org and click on banners under Media)

Two Shall Become One

2010-03-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

Tuesdays is a time to get honest about our marriages. It's a time to reflect on becoming that Proverbs woman I think we could all strive for. The hard part is sticking to it. Yes, I'm great out of the gate as they say but stamina has not always been a strong point for me.

Striving to be that Proverbs woman involves being the wife your husband needs and deserves (or at least let's hope he deserves you! Or claims that he could never do enough to deserve you!). That's the part that will make being the Proverbs wife a much easier accomplishment.

You see, when our marriage was falling apart it was my husband who began praying for us, for me. But I had other plans. I had given up. I had turned my focus to myself, and my children and the things I thought I needed to do. The things I needed to work at to move forward. Looking back on how it fell apart I'm amazed at the power and love in my husband that willed him to still focus on us, and on loving me. I know that could only come from one thing. One person. One place. Our Father in Heaven.

Yes, go ahead, say it's sappy. Say I sugar coat things. But having a Godly husband is like that. If you've seen the movie Fireproof my husband was acting that out. Loving me weather I loved him back or not. Praying for me, for us, when I had given up. Oh those must have been some mighty strong prayers! ♥ And yes, we lived the movie to the fullest. Hating one another, wanting to walk away and fighting like cats and dogs. But the Lord told Him to love me. To love me like HE loves me. Despite all my faults. To love me unconditionally. And I'm so glad that my husband listened to what the Lord had to say. ;o)

I remind myself of those days frequently.

I remind myself of those days when I get discouraged. When the meal I fix for dinner may not be what he expected or wanted and it's a disappointment (he may not say it, but when the plate isn't clean after a man has worked all day you know it wasn't great), and I'm stuck cleaning up the dirty dishes. Because every Friday is date night and he takes me out to eat so I don't have to cook and we can spend quiet time together.

I remind myself of those days when he comes home from work so tired and worn out that all he manages to do is sit in his chair and fall asleep before dinner is even ready! Because the night before he stayed up with me until 1 a.m. because I couldn't sleep and kept me company.

I remind myself of those days when I ask him to run an errand or go to the store to pick up something I need and he says "No thanks, I don't need to go." (in his joking manner). Because the night before he surprised me by bringing home a case of my favorite tea that he had to stop at three stores on his way home to find (which is an hour one-way commuting).

I remind myself of those days when he watches NASCAR and the History channel till I'm bored to tears practically and couldn't get his attention if the house was on fire. Because the night before he sat on the couch with me and watched yet another one of my silly sitcoms or a Lifetime movie while rubbing my feet till HE fell asleep. ;o)

The power of prayer is a wonderous thing. If we align our lives with God and give Him the control of everything we do he will give you the desires of your heart. Now, I'm one of the first to tell you that he'll give you the desires of your heart if they are HIS will. But let me say that when you focus on Him, put Him first in your life, meditate on His word and study how it ~~can~~ does apply to your life everyday..... well, the desires of your heart will become what He wills. I fully believe that with all my heart.

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

--Psalm 37:4

It's a beautiful thing. It's a special gift He gives. Pray for your spouse today. Whether you are praying for them to have a successful, peaceful day at work. Or maybe they need you to pray for their heart to be healed, a sickness to be healed, for peace between even the two of you. Even if your spouse is not responsive to you, to your love, they will never be so 'far away' that God can't reach them.

Love them.

Love your spouse unconditionally today.

Give selflessly.

Honor them.

Even when it's hard. They may not notice it, but God does.

Yes, my husband was my first steady boyfriend in high school. My first date. My first car date. My first everything. We've spent more of our lives together than we have apart. I met him when I was 15. We've come a long way baby.

Daylight Savings or Jet Lag? Plus some free stuff!

2010-03-15T09:44:00.000-07:00

Which do you suppose is worse? I've experienced both, and today.... daylight savings gets my vote! I don't mind the time change in the fall, but this springing forward business is for the birds! lol I miss that extra hour of sleep. Or, it could be that I'm tired because I spent two hours roller skating again yesterday! Yeah, that might be a factor. After church the new skating rink has family day on Sunday afternoons. Your family can skate for half price. Which is awesome, but I'm anxious for the 'new' to wear off so it won't be so crowded! My Tanner is just learning to skate, stopping is a whole 'nother ball game. If someone stops or slows down in front of him he hasn't exactly learned how to turn/swerve/stop yet so he just plows into them. Hockey? Roller Derby ring any bells? It was actually quite funny watching everyone wobbling and falling yesterday. Our little town lost their skating rink over 20 years ago so everyone is excited to have a new family activity in town. EVERYONE. Did I mention it was crowded? ;o)

So, nothing much to report today because we're getting new internet service put in and the guys will be here shortly to install the new panel. Keeping it short and sweet today. Thought I'd share some freebies I found yesterday. OOOhhh... and there's something fun and exciting coming very soon! Like in a couple of days! I found a new 'shopping' experience and when I get my products I'll share all the details! Want to get the full experience before I recommend something. But it looks like it's going to be incredible!!!!

FREE toothpaste HERE

FREE spring cleaning kit HERE Goes to the first 10,000 people to complete the online form (which is basic stuff like your address) gets 'em! What better way to stock up on supplies than by getting them for free! :)

Hope you have a terrific week! More sponsor opportunities coming soon too! (My favorite!)

Pizza & Roller Skates

2010-03-13T15:00:00.000-08:00

Wow, what a weekend already! Last night Tyler decided to have a movie party with his friends from school. They got out early yesterday too so we made a run to the movie store and after I finished work I made a mad dash to the store to get fixin's for homemade pizza. (Half the fun of a pizza party right?) We even make our crust homemade. It's totally yummy!!! Anyone thinking it's a pain think again. It's no harder than using store mix and adding water.

Homemade Pizza Crust:
2-3 cups flour (play around.... you'll know if it's too dry or too sticky)
1 cup warm water
1 Tbsp yeast
2 Tbsp oil (we use olive oil)

Throw it in the kitchenaid to mix with the dough hook while you're chopping veggies and cooking meat and it's ready in no time.

Let me tell you, I made more pizza last night than I ever have at one time. Eight teenagers in the house cleaned me out of almost three cases of pop and five extra large homemade pizzas. Oiy! Of course the pizza was gone before I could take pictures. As soon as those boogers hit the table from the oven, they were gone and I had an empty pan to fill again. lol (I only have 3 good pizza pans) We had three cheese pizzas (easy on mom!), pepperoni lovers and a supreme. And only two slices left over....

After watching one movie they decided to play man hunt. Which is basically a red-neck country kids way of saying hide and seek. We just play it in the dark. Yes..... DARK. The moon wasn't even out last night either which makes it even more fun! The porch to the house is base because that's the only thing you can see!

And did I mention that we just had warm enough weather to melt 12 inches of snow. Our yard, gravel driveway and pasture is a total mud pit. It's like walking on a big giant sponge. And yes, the girls ruined their shoes cuz the boys grabbed all the mud boots in our house before the girls had a chance to pick a pair.

They hung out on the sidewalk most of the time and 'guarded' base. ;o) Nothing was getting past them! Hannah told one of the boys not a chance and just stuck her hands out to push him back and knocked him across the sidewalk and sent him rolling in the mud! I laughed till I almost wet myself! It was hilarious!

Did I mention it was DARK!?! lol And when you live in the middle of nowhere the coyotes howl and things make noise and go bump in the night! (The kids just finished watching a scarey movie to boot! LOL)

Then this morning I took Tanner to learn to roller skate! Our little bitty community got a new roller rink and everyone is so excited and happy to see an activity for our kids in our little town! Every Saturday morning during the month of March they have Tiny Tots. Kids from 2-6 years can learn to skate without big kids whizzing by or a crowded rink. It was awesome!

Not many moms put on skates to skate with their kids. But being the cool mom that I am (Big HA!) I laced up and rolled with the punches. ;o) Knock on wood I didn't fall once! No matter what anyone says, it's not like riding a bike. You do forget and I'd rather try to balance a bike again than balance my big butt on skates. But it all worked out great. Tanner did AWESOME and I think roller skating will become a regular family activity for us!

Man, I forgot how much I enjoyed roller skates! I think I need to invest in a new pair, complete with big blue fluffy pom poms on the toes! Aaaaahhhhh......

Roller Derby from Renea Lynch on Vimeo.

Blue Jays & Mocha

2010-03-12T07:05:00.000-08:00

Remember yesterday I shared with you what my son's school was doing? Miss Murphy said the kids really enjoyed their little project and she took pics of the kids working to share with Smeralda too.

Can you imagine living in Haiti and receiving a package that includes pictures and drawings from American kids your age? Seeing the inside of their classroom and how things are so different? I hope she enjoys them. I know I enjoyed watching the kids get so excited about what we were doing. I can't wait to see Smeralda again!

I wanted to say THANK YOU also to those who have e-mailed me about becoming sponsors for kids! I think it's awesome that others are stepping out in faith to help these children. And if you want a really good read and some eye candy of AMAZING photos you should read THIS BLOG someone referred me to this week. It has links for others in his group that traveled to Africa this past week. INCREDIBLE! (I'm a blog junkie, so.... must share my addiction.)

One more quickie before I have to head out to take Easter pictures today.... if some of you are still doubting whether or not you can make a monthly commitment to sponsor a child there are even more ways to help that are less expensive on the wallet. If you don't feel you can afford $35, or $25...... how about $7?

Yes, SEVEN dollars......

$7.00......

Just $7 little dollars a month can do SO much.

Check out the MOCHA CLUB If you are interested in helping through this organization you can join our team with Joint Heirs Adoption Ministry and your $7 donation combined with ours increases it's value to be used for others! :) When you click on the Mocha Club link you can search to join a group and Joint Heirs Adoption Ministry is listed! :) Or simply click the Join Now button and it will take you to our team page! (Plus you get a free t-shirt when you join!)

And the next time you drink a latte think of how you can be helping! Oh how I wish we had a Starbucks! ;o) Someone who lives close to one..... go drink a mocha latte for me!! xoxo

Little Art

2010-03-11T05:01:00.001-08:00

My kids go to a very VERY small rural school where we live. So small that they don't even do individual grades in their own classrooms. They combine grades in one room. Yes, they still teach separate grade levels, but the kids are with one teacher. For example, 1st & 2nd grade share a room, 3rd & 4th, 5th & 6th and then 7th and 8th are made to go from room to room for their classes to prepare them for high school.

The kids grow up with a closer bond with the kids their age and end up more like brothers and sisters than just classmates. Plus.... it's fun for us parents who can visit the school anytime we want with any goal in mind (within reason.... geez).

I had an idea in mind as I spoke to an online friend who will be returning to Haiti in April. I am sending a care package and letter to my sponsored child and her family. Then I thought..... wouldn't it be cool for Smeralda to know kids her own age and what they do in America?!

So, I went to school and ask Ms. Murphy, the 1st and 2nd grade teacher, if she would like a project for her kids. I explained about Smeralda and thought the kids would like to draw her pictures to send in my package. Of course Smeralda can't read or really speak English well yet. But don't you think the universal language of sunshine, stick people and pretty flowers is pretty easy to understand?

I showed the class pictures from our trip to Haiti that included Smeralda's house, her school and some of her family, as well as the pictures where we got to meet her for the first time and give her a gift of a simple backpack with supplies. I showed them her most recent photo to me:

They bombarded me with questions! It was so much fun to see them eager to learn about a little girl they had never met.

Does she speak English?

Did you bring her to America with you?

Did she survive the earthquake?

Was she safe from the earthquake?

Can she visit you?

Even more interesting were their general observations and statements from the photos.

She lives in 'that'!?! That looks like a shed that's broken.

That's where she goes to school?!

They like to go to school?

She doesn't ride a bicycle?

But the best part was how excited they became at the thought of sending something to her. Drawing their own artwork and conveying their feelings for her on paper. This is what they gave me:

BIG SMILES

Brown stick people. :) My favorite

Every picture conveyed a new friendship.

New friends that Smeralda has in America.

Today is Thankful Thursday, and I'm thankful that we live in a modern world where little kids can see and experience little people in other countries through sponsorships, internet and smart boards.

Twenty Five Dollars

2010-03-10T09:13:00.000-08:00

What does it buy? If you had $25 in your pocket today what would you do with it?

Spend it on gas?

Take a friend to lunch?

Go to the movie with your spouse/significant other?

Buy a new DVD or favorite music CD?

Maybe even a new blouse or skirt? (hey, I shop at Wally World so this is within reason)

OR...

WOULD YOU....

Be happy to feed a child?

FOR A MONTH

And send them to school.

And pay for their school uniforms and supplies.

Yes, $25.00 does all that.

FOR A MONTH!

For a child like Smeralda...

Or a child like Michael...

Or like Alexandra...

Or like Claudia...

A chance for them to go to school here.

Looks rough around the edges yes, but this is what it looked like last summer when we were there during construction stages and helping to paint and repair desks and such. It's a beautiful new school now, where the kids can receive an education, have nutritional meals provided to them everyday and they are able to get uniforms and new shoes and school supplies.

What an opportunity for a child. $25 a month can provide so much that we take for granted.

Getting to meet your sponsored child..... now that's priceless. ♥

To find out more about sponsoring a child through Life Connection Mission in Haiti, check out their website HERE. If you have questions, please don't hesitate to ask. This mission is very near and dear to my heart and I would love nothing more than to see all of the children in Montrious, Haiti sponsored. Let go of your wealth!

You can also visit their facebook page HERE and see what's going on with the mission and hear from people who are there or have recently been there working and providing relief to the people in Haiti.

Let Go of Your Wealth!

2010-03-09T06:25:00.000-08:00

I saw a quote yesterday from another blog that read:

“Compassion International is trying to help release the poor from poverty, but it’s also helping to release us from our wealth.”

There could be no greater truth. And it's not just Compassion International. It's any form of sponsorship. Once you allow yourself to let go of your wealth and care for these children like God would want us to, it is such a blessing for our lives. Yes, notice I said OUR lives. That's not why we do it of course, but for as much as it is a gift to the children and their families that you sponsor, it becomes an even greater gift and blessing to us. I never realized just how much releasing our wealth could do for us. :)

I shared with you about WIPHAN yesterday. After sharing on my blog and re-reading some of the information on the WIPHAN site, I was drawn to a face. A beautiful little face of a boy. I kept telling myself that we already sponsor one child. Smeralda is our 7 year old girl from Haiti. Was I just wanting to sponsor another one just because? Just because it was a friend's ministry? Just because....

I thought about our finances and how some days we struggle to pay bills and other days we have an abundance to share. Could I afford another 'monthly payment'? So I went to bed to 'think it over' and talk to God about it. I prayed about it, and guess what? The first thing I did this morning when I got up was look at that little boy's face and clicked on SPONSOR.

How could I seriously not?

What am I really giving up?

Another movie night?

Unlimited texting?

For a chance for Robby to go to school and have meals provided to him.

A chance for Robby to be educated.

A chance for Robby to become a male nurse.

Robby Zulu is now a part of our family. Robby is 9 and lives in Zambia, Africa with his parents. Both parents. How fortunate. Adoption is something that weighs heavily on my heart. But the Bible commands us to care for the least of these. Not just the orphans. What better way to support a family than by keeping them together and helping provide them with a better tomorrow. A chance to keep their son and see him grow into a bright young man. Just like I desire for my boys.

What an honor to get to be a part of that. What an honor to be involved with and supporting the WIPHAN ministry.

Tomorrow you will meet our Smeralda again. :) Our beautiful, sweet Smeralda in Haiti. ♥

Dough-mestic

2010-03-08T19:11:00.000-08:00

Found an awesome new giveaway! And for a KITCHEN AID MIXER! Holy wow! I have one in my house and it's the most awesome gift my husband ever gave me. Yes, I'm a dork like that. Above any piece of jewelry (other than my wedding ring of course), it's what I wanted, coveted for some time. I got it over a year ago for Christmas. So, I'm thinking it needs a friend. Or a backup! lol Heck, if I could win a turquoise one, I'd donate my white one to a worthy cause!

Check out the giveaway HERE, and if you enter to win in her comments section, be sure and tell her I sent ya! Because I get another entry that way!!! YES, do it. Because it's the right thing to do. Don't try to limit my entries. lol ;) I gave my referral credit so she got another entry.

Widows & Orphans - WIPHAN

2010-03-08T07:30:00.000-08:00

One of my bloggy friends, Andrea, is wanting to spread the word about their organization called WIPHAN. They are in need of sponsorships and we want to share with everyone we know (or that reads about us!) what you can do to help!

I know first hand what sponsorship can do for a child. We love our sponsored child in Haiti and it's such a blessing to see her and know what we are doing to help change her life and her family's life. But even greater is the blessing she is for our family. We have changed hearts and changed lives because of Smerelda and children like her. We needed Smerelda as much as she needed us. This week I'm going to be sharing nothing but sponsorship blogs and posts! So fasten your seatbelts! It's going to be a bumpy ride! But one you'll enjoy I'm sure!

From Andrea's blog:

Wiphan was started just 3 years ago…and we’ve just had our 501 non-profit status for TWO years. It went from one friend of ours—to our family—to 3 more families…and we had a board! For awhile—it was just us + 450 orphans + 150 widows. We trusted the Lord to provide the thousands of dollars of month we would need to run–and He has always provided. Last year we started our sponsorship program to invite OTHER FAMILIES to join us! I would LOVE to see all TWENTY of our children who still don’t have sponsors sponsored by Friday!

OK—so how can you help?! We need voices! We need others who have hearts for orphans to speak with us! And if you have a blog—well, you have a voice and you probably have lots of readers!!! The MORE people we refer to the Wiphan site…the MORE people will find out about Wiphan and our sponsorship program!

Zambia isn’t really open to adoptions…so for these kids–the only hope is for them to be cared for in country. We have TWO schools and 450 kids—with MANY MORE who would LOVE to be in our program. BUT before we can grow–we need to find sponsors for the children on our list. Many of our children waiting for sponsors are “older children”. Maybe you don’t qualify for adopting an older child–but you could sponsor one!Maybe your budget really is too tight–but you could blog about them and be their voice!