I'm still here. We were gone for a few days. We head to SC to see some friends and then GA to a marriage conference - which was phenomenal! Then we went to MS to visit some more friends. It was a very nice vacation. I still have a few days off so that is terrific!
The marriage conference was put on by FamilyLife.
There were about 500 something people, so it was nice to be in a smaller conference. The longest married couple there had been married for 46 years and there was a couple there who were only married a month ago! I love where Brent and I are in our marriage. I would not want to go back to being a newly married couple, but I can't wait to be married for 46 years!
I may blog more about the topics at the conference a bit later.
There has been a little movement in the adoption area! YES!! We got our approvals from Immigration in the mail today! We got these back so fast! Amazing! Our agency said Peru will approve those approvals and then on to the next step!
Well I'm tired from travelling. Just wanted to check in!
Lilypie Waiting to Adopt tickers
3.28.2011
3.22.2011
April Showers....
Well it's close enough to April anyway. We have 3 adoption showers to celebrate! Our family did one for us this past Sunday and we have 2 more in April to look forward too!
It's so exciting to see everyone come together and give towards the lives of these kids! One of my favorite surprizes was gift in the mail from Angela! A box from Amazon full of Max Lucado children's books! I love these books and I can't wait to read them to the kids! My mom and I also went to consignment sales this weekend. Confession: it was bit overwhelming. I wasn't completely sure what to get, but picked up a 2 games, a puzzle, some legos, and some more books! Brent and I are going to a marriage retreat soon and we will get to go to IKEA! Maybe we will find some goodies for their rooms!
We have a lot go get ready around the house so we have got to get moving!
We are still waiting to hear back from Immigration. They said it could take up to 5 weeks. I think this starts week 2 of waiting. So we are okay.
Here are the only pictures from the shower. I wanted to take more, but with all the people to see and talk to, I forgot.
It's so exciting to see everyone come together and give towards the lives of these kids! One of my favorite surprizes was gift in the mail from Angela! A box from Amazon full of Max Lucado children's books! I love these books and I can't wait to read them to the kids! My mom and I also went to consignment sales this weekend. Confession: it was bit overwhelming. I wasn't completely sure what to get, but picked up a 2 games, a puzzle, some legos, and some more books! Brent and I are going to a marriage retreat soon and we will get to go to IKEA! Maybe we will find some goodies for their rooms!
We have a lot go get ready around the house so we have got to get moving!
We are still waiting to hear back from Immigration. They said it could take up to 5 weeks. I think this starts week 2 of waiting. So we are okay.
Here are the only pictures from the shower. I wanted to take more, but with all the people to see and talk to, I forgot.
Ethiopia
Well I got a text message today from Sharon! Ethiopia has everything in order - at least getting everything in order in the area of their adoptions. It looks like Sharon and Tim will be able to proceed as normal!! Thank you for your prayers!
3.18.2011
Pray for our friends
Our friends are adopting from Ethiopia. They need your prayers right now. Ethiopia needs your prayer. Tim explains their situation well on his blog. Please pray for them, so their dreams can come true too! Thanks!
3.16.2011
3.06.2011
Sitting still is not an option.
It's 10:30 at night and I can't sit still. I haven't been able to sit still for 2 days now. Friday night there was a women's conference at church and I finally had to leave for a second and ask God to help me calm down enough to listen. On Saturday, work was good, but the 4 hours lasted forever. Then I locked my keys in my car! ha! So I just paced around in front of the bookstore waiting for the locksmith. My mom and I went to Huntsville and then her car started smoking! Not a good car day! It also rained all day, but I love the rain. So I didn't mind at all.
But I can't seem to stay in one location very long. I gotta keep moving.
Why? Because we have the MOST BEAUTIFUL pictures!! They keep coming! I wish you could see them! Big brown eyes, adorable smiles from all three kids! Every picture is filled with laughter and smiles!
WE CANNOT WAIT TO MEET THEM! We wish we could have left yesterday!
Brent and I went through our pictures on our facebook last night trying to look at them through the eyes of people who haven't ever met us, WOW! The picture of us HILARIOUS! We laughed till water was pouring out of our eyes!
Brent is always making a funny face or being silly. I love him. :)
I feel like I have been attached at the hip to the computer looking at pictures over and over, waiting to see if there are new ones. I guess I think if I look at the pictures enough, we will magically be beamed over to Peru! haha!!
Sitting still will not be an option for awhile. Ecclesiastes 3 says "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens." Well this is definitely a time to LAUGH and a time to DANCE!!
"Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”
Psalm 126:2
"He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy." Job 8:21
"Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness" Psalm 115:1
"..so that people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the LORD has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it." Isaiah 41:20
Thank you for rejoicing with us! Keep dancing!
But I can't seem to stay in one location very long. I gotta keep moving.
Why? Because we have the MOST BEAUTIFUL pictures!! They keep coming! I wish you could see them! Big brown eyes, adorable smiles from all three kids! Every picture is filled with laughter and smiles!
WE CANNOT WAIT TO MEET THEM! We wish we could have left yesterday!
Brent and I went through our pictures on our facebook last night trying to look at them through the eyes of people who haven't ever met us, WOW! The picture of us HILARIOUS! We laughed till water was pouring out of our eyes!
Brent is always making a funny face or being silly. I love him. :)
I feel like I have been attached at the hip to the computer looking at pictures over and over, waiting to see if there are new ones. I guess I think if I look at the pictures enough, we will magically be beamed over to Peru! haha!!
Sitting still will not be an option for awhile. Ecclesiastes 3 says "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens." Well this is definitely a time to LAUGH and a time to DANCE!!
"Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”
Psalm 126:2
"He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy." Job 8:21
"Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness" Psalm 115:1
"..so that people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the LORD has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it." Isaiah 41:20
Thank you for rejoicing with us! Keep dancing!
Happy Birthday
Michael, my brother, and I celebrated our birthday's in February! I know these pictures are a bit late, but better late than never I guess!
Michael's birthday is one day and mine is the next day. I love sharing birthdays with him.
Happy Birthday to us!
Michael's birthday is one day and mine is the next day. I love sharing birthdays with him.
Happy Birthday to us!
Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire
As you know I was reading the book, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by Jim Cymbala. I finished it a week or so ago. Brent has it now.
We have also enjoyed reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan and Radical by David Platt. Both of these books have the same message. But what I noticed about Jim Cymbala and his wife is that they have been living out what Francis Chan and David Platt talk about in their books for years and years! They have a firey love for Christ and follows Jesus' teachings in the Bible, not a five step program. They also has a sincere love for people to be changed by Jesus. Jim Cymbala is a humble man. This shows even through his writing. He is a man of prayer. When he prays, he obeys. He doesn't come up with 1000 excuses not to do what God asked of him, he just does it and trusts God through it all.
I also love that in this book he talks about the struggles and doubts along the way that he and his wife have faced. They are not super Christians, they have fears and sins like the rest of us, but they pray and obey and let God use their weaknesses and their love to display His glory.
We had a women's conference the church this weekend. Our speaker gave a definition of the word glory. She said glory means the exact or correct estimation of who God is. How am I showing God's glory each day in my life? How are you?
I encourage you to read the books above. But mostly model your life after Jesus. He is who the world needs anyway, not another program.
We have also enjoyed reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan and Radical by David Platt. Both of these books have the same message. But what I noticed about Jim Cymbala and his wife is that they have been living out what Francis Chan and David Platt talk about in their books for years and years! They have a firey love for Christ and follows Jesus' teachings in the Bible, not a five step program. They also has a sincere love for people to be changed by Jesus. Jim Cymbala is a humble man. This shows even through his writing. He is a man of prayer. When he prays, he obeys. He doesn't come up with 1000 excuses not to do what God asked of him, he just does it and trusts God through it all.
I also love that in this book he talks about the struggles and doubts along the way that he and his wife have faced. They are not super Christians, they have fears and sins like the rest of us, but they pray and obey and let God use their weaknesses and their love to display His glory.
We had a women's conference the church this weekend. Our speaker gave a definition of the word glory. She said glory means the exact or correct estimation of who God is. How am I showing God's glory each day in my life? How are you?
I encourage you to read the books above. But mostly model your life after Jesus. He is who the world needs anyway, not another program.
2.24.2011
A story while you wait part 2
So we drove home December 15 feeling pretty low. What happened? Did we hear wrong? What was going on? There was not a booming voice from heaven with an explaination. So we just waited. We didn't really do anything with the adoption for the next few weeks. Christmas and New Years kept us busy!
Then one day, we got an email from our agency. It contained a list of children waiting for a home. There was very little information. Just names, ages, and a sentence or two about the child/group. One group of 3 caught our eye. Honestly, it was because of their ages. So we decided to inquire about them. About a week later, we got a bit more information. A reference card if you will. Containing basic, non-detailed information about each child.....and a picture. Whoa. Cuteness was everywhere! We thought for a while and decided to tell our parents that we were considering these kids. By now it was the middle of January. The snow came and went and Brent's hand had been bothering him greatly for a few weeks.
We decided to send a letter of intent. Our updated dossier was translated and re-submitted. This took about a week. The consejo for January was the last weekend. We were told that our dossier was held up and did not make it to that consejo. We were pretty thankful for that. The doctor scheduled Brent's surgery for the middle of February and recovery was either going to take 1 month or 3 months depending on what he found during the surgery. According to the MRI and the doctor, Brent had DESTROYED all the cartilige in his wrist. He could not even pick up a bottle of water and was in EXTREME pain and had not slept through the night since before Christmas. He usually only got about 2 hours of sleep a night. We were both having a very hard time spiritually and emotionally, Brent physically, we were struggling really bad. In fact, moving to Antartica was very appealing! So if we had been assigned the kids in January, there may not have been enough time for Brent's recovery nor our spiritual/emotional recovery.
So we were ready set for the February consejo. :) We decided not to mention to anyone except our immediate family that we inquired about the 3 siblings. Just wanted to keep it on the down low since the last time it didn't go so well. It was hard when everyone would say, "well how are things going with the adoption?" My usual response was that we were just waiting. Which was true, we just didn't specify that we were waiting on a certain 3 kids.
My birthday came - I am now 30! Wierd! Brent's surgery was the next day after my birthday. That was the best day. Ever. He was instantly out of pain (except for normal surgery soreness) and he has slept through the night since the 2nd night! PRAISE THE LORD!! Also the Sunday before our pastor preached on Psalm 55. It was great. In the Psalm, David says he wants to have wings like a dove so he can fly away. Funny - so did we! Then at the end David still places his trust in the Lord, even though his own son is trying to kill him. God used that in our lives. Hope was reborn!
This brings us to present day! Sunday came and we told our Sunday school class - hey we might get kids Wednesday. So we had a few more prayer warriors with us. Then Wednesday came, the day of the consejo. I was off from work and headed to the doctor. Wow. I didn't even know what to pray. The only thing that kept coming to mind was "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." There were 2 other families in our agency who had requested children and Peru does not like to show favortism by giving children to more than one family in the same agency. So we knew there was a possibilty that we would not get placed with the children this time around. Then Brent got an email around noon saying it was very possible that we were getting them. Then at 4:55, I got a phone call. It was not my area code, so I debated on whether or not to answer it - could have been a wrong number and I have our agencies in my phone and their name was not popping up - but I answered. It was P from our agency! What?! She had just gotten a call from her daughter! Peru had just posted everything on the site! It was offical! We had the 3 kids. They never post anything early - it's usually the next day. P said she and her daughter usually have a race to see who can check the site first the day after the consejo. Wow! Amazing! I called Brent.
We had to print off our acceptance letter. So we also printed the picture we had a few times and after church headed off to our parents to show them the picture of their new grandchildren!
I emailed P today, just to make sure it was till official and that they had not changed their minds. It's official! We got the docutments today.
We are so excited. We don't have a clue what to do next. The next few months are going to be a whirlwind I think. Thank You Lord!
"Tonight’s the night......Two worlds collide in a beautiful display
It’s all up tonight
When we step across the line.......We can sail across the sea"
Then one day, we got an email from our agency. It contained a list of children waiting for a home. There was very little information. Just names, ages, and a sentence or two about the child/group. One group of 3 caught our eye. Honestly, it was because of their ages. So we decided to inquire about them. About a week later, we got a bit more information. A reference card if you will. Containing basic, non-detailed information about each child.....and a picture. Whoa. Cuteness was everywhere! We thought for a while and decided to tell our parents that we were considering these kids. By now it was the middle of January. The snow came and went and Brent's hand had been bothering him greatly for a few weeks.
We decided to send a letter of intent. Our updated dossier was translated and re-submitted. This took about a week. The consejo for January was the last weekend. We were told that our dossier was held up and did not make it to that consejo. We were pretty thankful for that. The doctor scheduled Brent's surgery for the middle of February and recovery was either going to take 1 month or 3 months depending on what he found during the surgery. According to the MRI and the doctor, Brent had DESTROYED all the cartilige in his wrist. He could not even pick up a bottle of water and was in EXTREME pain and had not slept through the night since before Christmas. He usually only got about 2 hours of sleep a night. We were both having a very hard time spiritually and emotionally, Brent physically, we were struggling really bad. In fact, moving to Antartica was very appealing! So if we had been assigned the kids in January, there may not have been enough time for Brent's recovery nor our spiritual/emotional recovery.
So we were ready set for the February consejo. :) We decided not to mention to anyone except our immediate family that we inquired about the 3 siblings. Just wanted to keep it on the down low since the last time it didn't go so well. It was hard when everyone would say, "well how are things going with the adoption?" My usual response was that we were just waiting. Which was true, we just didn't specify that we were waiting on a certain 3 kids.
My birthday came - I am now 30! Wierd! Brent's surgery was the next day after my birthday. That was the best day. Ever. He was instantly out of pain (except for normal surgery soreness) and he has slept through the night since the 2nd night! PRAISE THE LORD!! Also the Sunday before our pastor preached on Psalm 55. It was great. In the Psalm, David says he wants to have wings like a dove so he can fly away. Funny - so did we! Then at the end David still places his trust in the Lord, even though his own son is trying to kill him. God used that in our lives. Hope was reborn!
This brings us to present day! Sunday came and we told our Sunday school class - hey we might get kids Wednesday. So we had a few more prayer warriors with us. Then Wednesday came, the day of the consejo. I was off from work and headed to the doctor. Wow. I didn't even know what to pray. The only thing that kept coming to mind was "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." There were 2 other families in our agency who had requested children and Peru does not like to show favortism by giving children to more than one family in the same agency. So we knew there was a possibilty that we would not get placed with the children this time around. Then Brent got an email around noon saying it was very possible that we were getting them. Then at 4:55, I got a phone call. It was not my area code, so I debated on whether or not to answer it - could have been a wrong number and I have our agencies in my phone and their name was not popping up - but I answered. It was P from our agency! What?! She had just gotten a call from her daughter! Peru had just posted everything on the site! It was offical! We had the 3 kids. They never post anything early - it's usually the next day. P said she and her daughter usually have a race to see who can check the site first the day after the consejo. Wow! Amazing! I called Brent.
We had to print off our acceptance letter. So we also printed the picture we had a few times and after church headed off to our parents to show them the picture of their new grandchildren!
I emailed P today, just to make sure it was till official and that they had not changed their minds. It's official! We got the docutments today.
We are so excited. We don't have a clue what to do next. The next few months are going to be a whirlwind I think. Thank You Lord!
"Tonight’s the night......Two worlds collide in a beautiful display
It’s all up tonight
When we step across the line.......We can sail across the sea"
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