The Beginning

Home Study begins August 4!
In the meantime we have 82 pages of paperwork to complete!

WHAT?!?!?!

Kenyan Stories

This is my sister-in-law, April. I love her.

She just returned from Kenya.

She went with the organization: 410bridge

She LOVED it!

Here are few things she had to say about it (for a full note you may visit her on facebook):

It is only day 2 of being in Kenya and day 4 of the trip and so far I have already:

-experienced the joy of travelling for 40 hours

-seen a fight in an african airport (SCARY)

-seen Air Force One land in Ghana

-run over a thief in the streets of Nairobi

-met children that have more joy and love than I have ever experienced

-gotten real hugs and tangibly felt love through the hand hold of an orphan name Unice

-experienced Heaven in an unlikely place

-eaten a rib from an unknown animal

-seen God praised in a new way

-had my hair braided by Kenyan children - twice

-seen a chicken offering auctioned off in a church

-walked the 3 km journey to a 100 foot rock ravine where they sent their children to get water

-prayed with a family who just lost their son, which turned into a huge celebration

-seen giraffes on the side of the road......and it's only day two.

This place has captured my heart.

Day 3:

-danced into the community by a group of Kenyan women,

-helped dig a base for the water project
-got my arms and face painted at the worksite

-stood in the rain and prayed

-drank coffee in the home of one of the community members and learned about Kenyan "relationships"

-had a very extensive conversation about my accent

Things just keep getting better.

Day 4:
-taught children the story of Noah's ark and did a craft

-worked in the project for awhile, then sat with the women

-played banya with the women and jumped rope with them

-bought a machette

-had a Kenyan tell us one of our men was strong like chuck norris

How can this get any better?

During the last few days:

-went to a Kenyan funeral

-went a real safari - twice

-got kissed by a grosssss giraffe!

-had my first market experience and almost had a nervous break down if it weren't for the help of james

-experienced the terror of Nairobi after dark

-ate 5 pieces of the best pizza i've ever had....in a kenyan gas station?

Headed home, sad sad day.

The children climbed up and down this

with 7 gallon jugs of water on their backs,

4 times a day......barefoot.

This means "small and beautiful".

It could be important later. :)

Welcome Charleigh!

Charleigh Reese Colee was born today, July 16. She weighed 7.5lbs.

She was taken to NICU for about 4 hours with a little bit of fluid around her lungs, but she is doing great now. Brittany is also doing fabulous!

Charleigh is so sweet to hold. But I'm sure she will be a little fighter, esp. with her two older brothers who love to wrestle!

Ryder - above - he is really unsure about the new baby.

Gray - below - decided to hold her.

Wedding # 12

Brent performed wedding number 12 on Saturday. Ben and Ashley. It was a great wedding ceremony. The reception was also very nice. Afterward the newlyweds, the wedding party, parents, and a few other family and friends went to the bride's parent's house and enjoyed a luau, complete with a wiffle ball game! Thanks for letting us be apart of your day, Ben and Ashely!

The not-so-glamourous life of us, so far

So far this summer, our life has been less than glamourous. I will spare you the gory details, but for the past month and a half - actually I can tell the you exact date it started - May 30 - our life has been one thing after another. Really, I'm not kidding, you would laugh if I told you everything. At least once or twice each week something different has gone wrong. I know things go "wrong" in life, but now it's to the point where each week we wonder what will happen next! Nothing is a surprise anymore! HAHA!!

So this week, it was a biggie, Brent's car blew up. Yep. We bought it last fall and thought it would at least last for about 2 years. It was running hot and we kept putting water in it. Greg looked at it and then a week later, Brent is driving and the car quits accelerating and then the entire car locks up and Brent cannot turn the steering wheel. So he manages to manually turn the car into ....dum, dum, dummmmm....a funeral home parking lot, where it promptly died. HA! Appropriate, don't you think? We found out there was water leek that was sending water directly into the engine, so the engine cracked, some belt was completely worn out, and I think something else was wrong. So maybe the mechanic will give us a few hundred for it to use for parts. MAYBE.

On the flip side, youth camp was so great. We took 7 kids. 6 girls and 1 guy. We did camp with two other churches at Shocco Springs. It was great! The kids that went with us to camp are fabulous! We had such a great time getting to know them better. 4 are going into 9th grade and 3 are going into 8th grade. I will post some pics later on.

Also, on Tuesday we have a meeting with Renee at Lifeline. We have changed somethings about the adoption. So more to come on that.

Well I just wanted to give you the update our not-so-glamourous life, so far. Perhaps, August will bring better tidings.
Later.

3 Summer Weddings

A few recent pics of Destin. I love this kid!

Here are a few snapshots from the weddings this summer and there will be one wedding coming up this weekend.

Kami and Brett

Rachel and Thomas

Above is Steffi - she worked with me and Rachel for a few months in Texas

before heading back home to Germany. Steffi flew in to surprise everyone!

Above is CharmingCharlie - a fabulous store in South Lake!

http://www.charmingcharlie.com/

The storms have been pretty violent this year. This is the beautiful oak tree that once stood in my mammow's yard. Now it's a bunch a sawdust and there is a HUGE vacant spot in the yard.

You may be wondering, what are Brent and Marianne doing?

Here is our summer:

VBS was last week
Wedding last Saturday
We go to Texas for a short 2 1/2 days for a wedding this weekend
Church picnic Sunday
Leave for youth camp Monday
Mission week the first week of July
Baby Charleigh Reese Colee will be born - this is Britt and Drew's baby girl.
Then MAYBE, MAYBE, MAYBE we will be able to start our home study!!! :)
We go to World Changers in July as well!
And Chris and Christy are coming 4 days after we return!!!! I am totally stoked about this!

So in short, I will see you in August! haha! Just kidding. I will try to blog a bit here and there.
Enjoy the summertime!

A Friend

My friend, Erika and her children came for a visit this weekend. We haven 't seen Jay and Erika in about a year! It was so great to see her and catch up. We met her and her husband in seminary. When we first met they were a "single" couple - no children, but now they have 2! She was up visiting family for a graduation, so she stopped to spend a few days with us! We were sad that Jay was unable to make this visit, but perhaps he will be able to come next time! Erika and I worked together for a bit, so that is how we met. Then me, Brent, Jay and Erika began attending a class Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University, where we met some other dear friends, Danna and Aaron. Another semester we began meeting once a week on Wednesdays for dinner and usually a rousing game of Carcassonne! Occasionally, we would watch a movie. If you have never played Carcassonne, you are missing out. It's a game of strategy and risks. Invented in Germany. It's great and we have spread the fun to our friends, Rachel and Thomas.
Below: here we are just beginning to play!


Thanks for coming Erika! Love ya'll!

Fund-Raising

Last week, I told you it would take 5 business days before the social worker from the adoption agency would contact us. Well I was wrong. She called the next day! :)
She said we looked great on paper and to come up with an action-plan for our fund-raising. She still has to talk with the international director at the agency before we are offically approved or rejected (we don't have much savings and this is not a good thing considering the cost - even all couples have to raise and/or save funds for adoption, it's good if you have a little bit at the beginnging and we don't!) So we took the weekend and came up with a plan that we think is great.
It's amazing the number of people we know who have adopted or are adopting! We truly believe that the Lord really wants us to adopt, so I believe it will happen - even if this agency tells us to call back when we have more money in savings. But we really like this agency, so we hope to be approved. I called her Monday to tell her our plan and she said it sounded great and she still needed to talk with the director and that she would call me back.

The agency we have applied to is Lifeline Children's Services - they are a Christian-based agency.
Our country of choice: Peru
Our gender of choice: girl, but a boy will be just as sweet, in case we cannot adopt a girl! :)

So Brent and I will begin the lovely task of fund-raising, but I don't really see it as fund-raising.
There are many people who have impacted our life before marriage and after marriage and we hope that they will be apart of this time in our lives. We want to share it with them. We've been praying already for God to provide the funds - I know He will, He always does, and has done so many times in my life before, but His timing could be different than mine! I would have had all the funds last week, or I'd even settle for enough to pay what we need to, to begin and end the homestudy! But I will be happy and content in this time of praying and waiting. I love this song: click here or scroll to end of the blogsite to watch it.

Thanks for reading!

WE DID IT!!

We actually sent in our adoption application today!!! We are supposed to hear from the agency with in 5 business days after they receive our packet.

We have a few other friends who have adopted or are in the process of adoption. You can check out their blogs:
Kristin and Gregory
Tanya and Jay
These blogs are also under our friends list.
Tanya and Jay's blog is called "A Chair to Spare".