FLoating away

SOrry folks, we are actually fine.  We live at the top of a huge hill which is bad for hail, wind, and lightening but we stayed safe from the torrential rain that poured around us.

We were in Denver in the midst of the worst on the first day.  WHen the standing water is higher than the bumpers on the city buses you get scared.  Luckily, my sweet hubby was with me in the car.

THere are many hurting people and as the waters recede we are once again faced with hurting communities - those who need items, who need prayers, and our time.  We are currently figuring out that portion.

We are floating away in other ways though LOL!

When people say high school is busy - IT IS BUSY!

Our oldest is only a freshman but really hit the ground running with football practice everyday, games, FCA (along with leadership), working doing landscaping and all I can say is HE SO NEEDS his license.

Nevermind the other kids and all their activities!!

It's funny, although I joke about homeschooling, we really thought about it for a bit.  I mean between the paperwork, the lunches, the constant issues at school - there are parts that it jsut would be easier.

BUT . . . we also feel very strongly that part of our mission is to be front and center in our community.  Tao (our little fisher of men) makes adoption seem not so scary, I feel like we are leaving bread crumbs as we go, ok I pray they are pebbles and they survive but still.

THis is a decision that affects our entire family.  Our big kids get comments, and they are slowly learning to answer in godly ways that not only glorify Him but also plant those seeds.  We may never know the people we touch.

However a school who when the current principle walked into and asked who poured bleach into our almost exclusively white school, had to hire an ESL teacher this year.  I cheer when I see children of many colors AND more importantly differently abled.  CHildren who also come from larger families who understand the plight of the orphans as well as our calling to care for them.

THis decision and events surrounding it, makes us feel like we are on a raging river, not sure of where we are going but being pulled along by the currents.  We are solidly feeling like our life raft - the Bible - is keeping us a float.  Please would you keep us in your prayers for a bit as we navigate our way.

Yes

So many people ask

"How do you know this is your child"

this time around I asked "How do I know that it is God who wants us to bring home this baby."

I mean really, at the time we had jsut brough Cav and FeiFei home.  To say it bluntly, Cav was plain old hard.  He was terrified of everything at this time, beating constantly on Brahm, still portraying autistic type behaviors and we had no idea medically what our future would look like with him.

But the signs started coming, and once I took the first step to see if reusing our dossier was even a possibility I learned we would have a June deadline to be DTC.

Still, I fought God.  I made every single excuse why this was NOT something we needed to do.  However, we desperately wanted to die to self and follow Him.  Finally, with the tock clicking and frankly after making myself crazy with doubt - this incident occured.

Let me preface this with the fact that everytime I asked for a sign that reusing our dossier was the direction He wanted for us - He gave me a sign, but sometimes I was to blind to see them.

Finally, I prayed for a simple YES!  "God please jsut give me a YES if this is what you want us to do!"

Later that day I was driving in the car with Brahm and I asked him to please pray for direction if we were supposed to adopt the baby.

He bowed his little head and folded his little hands.

In the rearview mirror I got the mommy love feeling seeing my angel pray for his momma.

THen he looked up and simply said "YES!"

What do you mean Yes?  (did I mention I was dense LOL!)

"I don't know mom just Yes."  Ok little man

THis decision to double the number of children in our home, especially in less than a year, has not been the easiest.  But I finally understand what dieing to self really means.  I no longer have time to get my nails done, my hair is a mess, laundry is a disaster and we have never been happier.