Last weekend we went to the most special concert of the century!!! Our very favorite christian musician, Andrew Peterson, and his friend, the amazing Ben Shive, played at our home church!!! What?!?! That's right! It was a complete dream come true! Plus, they played some stuff from his new CD, and it was AMAZING!!! Seriously, go buy it, you won't regret it.
Andrew Peterson
Ben Shive, playing the 4th of July!!!
Thank you Andrew and Ben. Thanks soo, much!!! You've impacted our lives, our marriage, and our family. You've encouraged us in hard times, given us words to praise and rejoice and fall in love, and you've helped us to see beauty and meaning in what might otherwise just seem like regular old life. Thank you for your songs, thank you for this concert, thank you for staying the course.
My sweet fam amidst the crowd
Thank you also to everyone who worked so hard and served so lovingly to make this concert happen. It encouraged the crud out of us!!! And, just thanks for lovin' on us, guys. It was a sweetness fest to be with you guys again, and I know it was just a taste of what heaven's gonna be like!!!
I feel passionately that orphans, whatever their nationality, need loving families. As a family we feel called to adopt a child from Ethiopia. There are roughly 5 million orphaned children who need a family in Ethiopia. But there are also 800 thousand children in America that pass through the foster care system each year, and they too need a family. In fact, there are 143-147 million (depending on who you ask) children, orphans, who need a family in the world.
That being said, some of the reasons we really do feel called to Ethiopia are that AIDS, famine, and poverty are reeking havoc on that nation's families. One in 7.7 children die before their first birthday, over 50% of children under 5 are stunted by malnutrition, and most are at great risk for being mutilated, raped, abducted, forced into marriage at a young age, or even being trafficked in the black market for body parts. Millions of parents cannot feed their children. Poverty, sin, and perversion have no mercy on these little guys. Children who have no parents, who live on the street, are lost, you can see it in their eyes. That's true in Ethiopia, America, India, China, Haiti, Russia, and the world round. We're doing what we feel called to do to help, to love, to find our children, to be parents for the parentless.
We've been on the wait list for our baby for a whole month today!!! YAAAYYY!!! Can you believe it?!? That means we probably only have like 6.5-9months to go until a referral :) WHAT?!?! That's crazy soon, right? right?
Plus, we found out this week that by the time we need to travel next year, we'll probably have built up enough sky-miles to award us 1 free round-trip ticket to Ethiopia!!! Can I get a "Whoop, whoop!" That's 1 down, 3.5 to go, folks :) Obviously, morale's pretty high around here!!
It's funny, since coming back from Haiti, I feel like I have a whole new perspective on life.
1) For starters, I have way less anxiety about adoption stuff and life in general. I think for the first time in my life I'm really learning what it means that I don't have to fret, worry, or be afraid of anything, because my Lord, my eternal Dad, is in charge of this whole sha-bang. How freeing is that?! He has all the money in the world, he cares about people and hurts over injustice way more than I do, He's never taken off guard by a need that anyone has, never scrambling to make things work out, He knows the end of the story, He's got this under control. All I have to do is just follow Him, and He'll take care of the rest. Yay!
2) Then I pair that with my new-found knowledge of the condition of the world; that America is just part of a much larger, painful picture, that all people are equally important to God and also equally broken, and that there's SUCH a need for help; for people who have (the Gospel and material resources) to help the rest of the world that is FULL of those who don't. There are so many children... too many children living in garbage dumps.
3) ...Andwhat I get is a FIRE growing in my bones, as Sara Groves would say, to get out there and do something with the life He's given me!!!! I'm so excited to have a sense of purpose, to know how I want to serve the Lord, have found something I can't wait to pour my energy into!!! Don't know what it's gonna look like yet, but I'm excited!!!
But in the meanwhile, as we wait expectantly for our next big adventure, our sweeeeet baby, I compiled lists of Amharic names, from what I could find on the internet. The links below will open into a Google Doc and you should be able to edit them in case you know a name that's not on there, or maybe something's not quite right, cause I totally don't have any illusions that they're completely accurate. There are some really beautiful names like Salayish-"before I saw you", and some super sad names, like Masresha-"the one who helped us to forget". Hope you find them helpful, and enjoy reading them as much as I do!!! Oh, and I also found this other website with a pretty extensive list PLUS some pronunciations, sweet!
Happy Sunday!!! Just a few fun things to share today:
1. This website's got me wanting a girl real bad today, it's got all sorts of braiding styles and hair-conditioning tips I can't WAIT to try :) (PS-there are a hundred things that make me want a boy too, so I don't feel bad sharing one in one direction)
2. I got my birthday present from my sisters last week. It made me cry like a crazy person right in front of our apartment mail room :) It's a banner that keeps track of the months we'll spend waiting for our baby. My sisters are going to send me one month's worth of flags in the mail every month until we get our baby home. Isn't that the sweetest thing you've ever even conceived of in your mind?!?! I think it's perfect!! I'm so thankful...
3. I've been working on a little baby blanket for like 2.5 months, and it's finally finished!!! Yaaayyy!!! It's like 3ft by 3ft, just the right size for wrapping up and cuddlin' if you ask me :)
4. I've been looking on the blogs of people who have been going to meet their children recently, following the two-visit schedule, and it seems like they've been getting 3 one-hour visits with their children during the first week, not counting seeing them across the room in court, which may or may not be the last sighting of the trip. Blech. I'm starting to understand how difficult this process is going to be at the end, and it hurts my heart. I AM stoked about traveling twice to Ethiopia though. This week I bought a book to help me learn Amharic, which I do intend to do a good bit of, and we looked at a book that had some must-see spots in Ethiopia and we're now even more pumped if that's possible!!!
Furniture- While he was in New York a couple of weeks ago, I refinished the dresser that's gonna go in our nursery, which I got a while ago at a garage sale for 10 bucks!!! I'm super pumped about how it turned out :)
Before:
After: Friends- I had the pleasure of helping to coordinate one of my friends' wedding last weekend, and I have to say, it was so much fun. I didn't feel stressed at all. It was beautiful, quirky, personal, and just a total blast, not to mention that our sweet friends are MARRIED now!!! Yaaay!!!
The View
The beautiful Bride
Me and my best friend forever :)
Fun- You got any good/fun/creative ideas for how to celebrate/mark the time we spend in waiting for our babe??!!
Also, this rad painting I got in Haiti that I need to make a frame for!!!
