Compassion

Emily:


We have a friend. His name is Miguel, he's about to turn 12 in July, and he lives in El Salvador. His picture is on our fridge. We write him letters because we love him, and he writes us back, drawings and all. We love him though we've never met him face to face. He's our Compassion kid.

Compassion International is a sweet organization that matches sponsors from privileged countries, such as ours, to children in impoverished countries who need their help. For just $38 a month, a child is provided with food, health screening and basic vaccinations, an education, and the Gospel. And the great part is, these children can continue to live with their families, who otherwise wouldn't be able to support them. I guess in theory, if there were enough folks out there who were willing to sponsor a kid, there would be just as many fewer families forced to relinquish their precious babes. Do me a favor, and take a sec to check out the three links below.

1) Here's a video of a man who grew up in Kenya. He used to be a Compassion kid, and this is the story of how the letters from his sponsor changed his life (watch the whole thing, there's a sweet surprise at the end)(watch it even and especially if you're already a sponsor). You'll bawl your eyes out, I promise.

2) Here's one of my favorite songs in the world, written by our friend Lee Younger. I suggest you listen to it while doing number three.

3) Please, visit this website, check out those sweet faces, click on their names and learn their stories. And then, if God's putting it on your heart, sponsor one of those babies, they need your help to just make it through life.

Coffee and creativity!

We were at our friendly local Harris Teeter, which has a Starbucks inside it, and this coffee caught my eye. It's from Ethiopia!!! I was like "Babe, this coffee ACTUALLY came from Ethiopia! And now it's in my hands, can you BELIEVE it?!?!" Sometimes I get a little overwhelmed with emotion over stuff like this. I obviously begged him to let me buy it, he obviously denied seeing as we don't even have a coffee maker :) But as we were walking out I asked him (very dramatically) if he ever felt like he just HAD to have everything we see that's from Ethiopia, and he very sweetly replied "Nope, I just need one thing from Ethiopia." "Or two," I said. "Or two," he replied. "Or three," I whispered. :)

Below is my photographic documentation of the evolution of my crib skirt!!! I just couldn't find a single bedding set that I liked, and seeing as I have all the time in the WORLD, here it is:

The above picture has the most accurate depiction of the fabric colors.

The final product on our new dresser, since no crib yet :)

Bumper Stickers

I have to put this out there for those of you who don't know: (Warning - I am a jerk) I hate most bumper stickers. Sometimes I want to put them on the back of my car, but I never really get the guts to. Why? Well, first it's a big commitment, kind of like a tattoo...most of them lack creativity...even the ones that people like enough to buy seem to trap them in being limited in definition by what's on the back of their car. I feel they really force people to judge you right off the bat. "A democrat would cut me off!" "This guy with the Jesus fish on the back of his car parked in a handicap spot!?" All of a sudden I have judged democrats and Christians because of these bumper stickers, and next time I see someone with one of those bumper stickers I just might go ahead and expect them to be awful people because I have been trained like Pavlov's dogs not to trust them...but I'm getting off point.

There is really just one bumper sticker that gets under my skin more than all the rest: it's that blue one with the yellow lettering; a big letter K with the phrase "I have a terrific kid." Barf. Look, I appreciate that the parent is proud of their kid. I don't even doubt that their kid is terrific. What gets under my skin is that the bumper sticker is implying that the Kiwanis Club(which is what the K stands for) is what makes their kid terrific. The Kiwanis Club is a worldwide group that helps people through educating and service projects. Potentially great program right? I was never in the Kiwanis club but it sounds kind of like the Boy Scouts, which brings me to my point: the Kiwanis club, the Boy Scouts, Private School, Public School, Home School, Little League Soccer - None of them can make a kid terrific; they are all neutral. They all have great advantages in gaining worldly wisdom, learning how to look good on the outside. They might lead you to pats on the back, college scholarships down the road, or maybe even a job you want at some point...but they will never change your insides.

Even if we wrote the golden rule "Love others better than yourself" above our doors and gave it a good luck tap as we entered the world every day, like the Fighting Irish about to play a game in the crisp fall air, would it work? The answer is undeniably NO. We sign our kids up for programs that will make them "terrific", even after we have all learned that being a boy scout does not change you into a good person. Some of the most underhanded people I have ever known were boy scouts, me and a couple of my closest friends being in that group. I think the apostle Paul put it best when he wrote a letter to people in Rome: "So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

Ah, that is our hope! I will not sign my kids up for growing programs and service projects in hopes that they will be transformed into someone who always remember the golden rule. But I do look forward to the hope that one day they will see their wretched Sin, when they will cry out to Jesus who wants all men to be saved, and when they start to love back the One who has been loving terrifically all the while. They can be boy scouts, soccer players, do-gooders. My bumper sticker would say "I have a terrific kid because they are being changed from the inside out." And then I would cut somebody off and that person would never trust people who's kids are being changed from the inside out ever again.

"No post on Sundays"

Just like Vernon Dursley, I love Sundays, because on Sundays, nobody delivers anything, which means that there's no chance of getting any important documents in the mail. Sundays are a break my brain needs. I also love Saturdays, because Saturdays have yard sales!!!
Yesterday I went yard sale-ing with a friend, and got a bunch of great stuff, including this dresser that I got for $10 for our nursery, and which I have great plans for re-finishing, and this fabulous African blanket (which I think is actually from Kenya). yay!


Also fun, last Friday night the Young Life committee ladies hosted a spa night for our girl leaders, and it was SO much fun!!! Everyone was pampered, many a-mustache was waxed off (including mine, haven't you noticed?) and after it was all over we had the most fun just sitting around and talking! Courtney and I decided it was just like a sleep over, but minus the sleeping, which lets be honest is the worst part anyways :) Here are some pics from that night:

Mood lighting...

Action shot!

the eyebrow station!!

Me with my sweet friend

Other than that not much is new here. We're still waiting on some paperwork to come to us so we can officially go on the wait list. Doing a lot of thinking and praying and learning about waiting. Any strategies from the paperchase alumni out there?

Boy or girl????

So, I made a tally last night off of the unofficial list, and found that for families in the last two years that requested "either gender", there was about a 4:1 boy:girl referral ratio. There's clearly a high possibility we'll be bringing home a boy (our little Habibi!!), but the girls are still holding strong there at 1/5 (oh, my sweet Habibti!!). It's funny cause if I were pregnant, I think I'd definitely want to know the baby's gender, I've never been much good at waiting on surprises if there's the option not to. But adoption has it's own set of rules, and we'll have to wait till almost the very end to know. It's all gravy though, cause honestly I just happen to like gender neutral colors (green and aqua and orange and yellow) better than your traditional blue and pink (though I do like a good peach), and more importantly, we feel really confident that we'll be equally as excited about either gender. I've even realized that (at least this time) if we'd requested one or the other it might have driven me crazy, I'd have been doubting the choice the whole time. This way it's not up to me, which is better (for me) :) But... I still can't wait to know who you are, my sweet!!!

Sweet baby dreams

A couple of weeks ago my fried had a dream that she went to Ethiopia with us and my Dad to pick up our babies. That's right, two, a set of twins. a boy and girl!! How funny is that?!? If you think I didn't melt inside for a moment and wish we were getting twins, think again :)

I had a dream too just the other night. It was about meeting our baby. He was a boy, and he was tiny, and I can remember feeling so much love for him, and my husband was so in love with him... it was sooo sweet. Only, then, as i held him I started to realize that he wasn't Ethiopian at all, he was just as vanilla as me. It caught me totally off guard, I was like "what the heck?!?" But I'm pretty sure I decided to love him anyways :) Dreams are the weirdest!! I think it must've been some sort of repressed fear I have of getting a referral for a child that's different from what we're expecting. There's a fair amount of letting go of expectations in adoption. Just about every piece of paperwork we sign has some sort of disclaimer on it, stating that things may not go as planned. It's really sweet, cause part of me (the part that knows that God's in control) doesn't think this is any big deal, cause I realize that I've never had an ounce of control anyways, nor do I want it. The other part of me (that does want to hold on to my life with an iron fist and freak out when something slips) just needs to jump on the bandwagon and take a ride on the wild side! :) Nothing's unexpected to my Lord, he knows exactly what I need, and exactly what's gonna happen in our life. So far, he's given me the sweetest boy in the world for a husband, some days I stop and realize how special he is and I just can't believe he's mine!!! We're closing in on our third anniversary :)

Unexpected updates!!!

Fabric for the crib bedding :)

It's Wednesday, our official do nothing day. I slept in till 10:30, we've watched LOST and 1.5 movies so far. We were planning to beach it, but we were to lazy to go. The last thing I think about on Wednesdays is getting anything done. But, praise the Lord, He doesn't stop blessing us even if it is Wednesday!!! In between movie 1 and 2 I checked my e-mail and found a letter from our agency. So I opened it without looking at the subject line, cause I assumed it was some update on adoption policy, or some newsletter, I don't know, I wasn't expecting anything pertaining to our adoption for weeks. But lo and behold, she was writing to tell me our home study's been processed, and she's sent it to CIS! A process that's supposed to take 3 week took 6 days!!! Including last weekend!
As soon as I'd read that I had another e-mail, this one saying that we are APPROVED!!! Basically, that means that our agency, after reviewing all of our paperwork, agrees to work with us! Yaaaaayyyy!! So exciting, I so didn't expect this today! We're one big step closer to our baby!!!

So, all we have left is:
*Waiting on my FBI fingerprints
*Waiting on my birth certificate
*Waiting on CIS approval
*Send all the above to be authenticated with the rest of the dossier, then...
*Send it all to Ethiopia and start the wait!!!!

In other fun adoption news, earlier this week I was on the unofficial wait list I talked about last week, and noticed that some of the families were waiting on children under the age of 6 months. I hadn't known this was an option, and so asked my program assistant about it. Age preference in an application for adoption is a very personal decision to make, as is the decision about whether or not one is able and willing to care for a child with health problems. It is a decision that requires a lot of thought and prayer, and one each family must make after careful consideration of their desires and capabilities. I know for me the thing was that I kept secretly and almost unconsciously wishing for an infant under 6 months, and feeling guilty for wishing it. But no more guilt, that's for the birds, I have no time for it. As my friend Shelley says, there is nothing wrong with wanting to meet your baby as early as possible in his or her life. So i heard back from Susanne that we can request any age range we wish, and it's not too late for us to make a change, so we decided that this time, for our first baby, we want to go ahead and narrow our request down to an infant either gender 0-6 months at time of referral! Yay!
Thank you guys for caring, and for loving us. Thanks to all our sweet friends and family who continue to be so encouraging to us! We're pumped to be moving forward! Love you guys!

PS: check out this sweet JUNKPOSSE necklace giveaway here:
http://bottomlysandethiopia.blogspot.com April 7, 2010

A great week

Happy Easter everybody! It's been a great week! We have gotten to spend some time at the beach already this week, which I've gotta say, I do LOVE. I don't know if it was SAD (seasonal affective disorder), PMS or just plain sinful worry I was struggling with last week, but this week's been easy: full of sweetness and sunshine. I started a new workout routine, which I love, we got rid of our old apartment (PRAISE THE LORD!!!!), our new apartment continues to be a source of peace and thanksgiving, and I've discovered some new favorite things!!

1) I found the unofficial list! It's a list of the parents adopting from our agency and from Ethiopia, in order of where they stand in line for referrals. It's totally unofficial and fallible, BUT it's really fun just the same to watch people move up the list, and look at their blogs as they get referrals. One day...!

2) I rediscovered the glorious FedEx tracking system, and am now checking it obsessively to see if my FBI clearance has been shipped :)

3) I've gotten the chance to enjoy several de-stressing afternoons in our hammock on our patio, and that is definitely one of my new favorites!!! Thanks Kate, for the hammock!

and 4) This sweet new T-shirt that my sweet friend gave me:

is definitely my new favorite! Seriously, like I had to take it out of the washing machine for this picture, cause I'd worn it like 5 days in a row. I had had this attitude of "oh, I don't need to spend money on that kind of stuff," but when I got it in the mail, I'm pretty sure my heart grew two sizes. This is my maternity shirt :) My favorite part is the tiny Ethiopian flag, I'm wearing that bad boy with pride!!! Somehow, it's sweet to wear on your shirt what's already in your heart. It feels like I'm carrying my baby around with me a little bit. Plus, it's SUPER soft. You can find it and other T-shirts at adoptionbug.com or at t-shirts.cafepress.co.uk/international or on etsy, or at a bunch of different sites.

In adoption news, we got some more details this week about the two trips that are now required by Ethiopia for prospective adoptive parents (or PAPs, if you're cool like that). It seems like the first trip is gonna be 4-7 days long, and primarily for two purposes: 1) to appear in court 2) to be a tourist. Visits with our babe will be limited and scheduled, since officially he/she will not be ours yet. They want to make sure that parents see the sites, and really experience Ethiopian culture on this trip, because on the second trip, which will be a week long and will be scheduled 3-6weeks after court approval, the main focus is bonding with the child, which will mostly limit us to our hotel rooms. Once again, we'll get there when we get there, I suppose :)

And lastly, I noticed this last week and thought it was pretty funny. Here is what my planner looked like in January, before the paper chase:

And here is what it looked like in March, in the full swing of adoption: Hillarious, right? It's been busy, but God brought us through it, and I think the busy part is almost over. I think we're about to start the long wait, which I'm sure will bring challenges and sweetness of it's own.

At the Park

(Weeping cherry tree... I waunt that!)

We've found this really great park. It's just beautiful!! Moss-draped pine trees stand like pillars all over the park, and at their feet is a carpet of lush green meadow. I kid you not. But that's not all! There are picnic patios, two different playgrounds, a walking trail, and a beautiful garden complete with pond, fountain, geese, turtles, gazebo, and beautiful landscaping! I love this place! Here's some fun pictures from our picnic yesterday:

(Dogwoods make me think of home :))