a fresh start

i am ready for the new year.

a fresh start, changes.

increased family size, additional children to love, hope for the hopeless.

not only do i want change in our family, i want change in me. i want an eternal perspective. to fly close to the flame. to be renewed. revived. real.


i want...

to live each day as my last

to love deeply, to hold loosely

to set apart time each day for God

to get off the couch and onto the treadmill

to find new ways to help the orphan

to be intentional in ministry

to carve out time each day for music

to be a better wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend

to become a beacon of light to the lost and desperate

to travel to peru and meet my daughter(s)

to follow through on my dreams

to concentrate on the big things and let the little things go


i say "i want", but looking more closely at my list, these are things "i need".

so to 2010, i say welcome! come in and make yourself comfortable, but not too comfortable....we've got some work to do!

blessed beyond measure

i know a little gal, she's my sister's youngest. she has a heart that is enormous. at least 10 times the size of her body!

you see she decided to give us bunches and bunches of the toys she has outgrown. i know that she could have had a garage sale and made a pretty big chunk of change. but....she has a vision. she's excited about her new cousin. another playmate for the holidays. she is well-loved, secure, the baby, so adoption makes perfect sense to her. she wants what she knows for someone else.

that makes my heart smile. :)

she gave us the toys on black friday. appropriate somehow, while the majority of americans were spending money like crazy, she was giving her things away. there is something incredibly beautiful about that thought. that's one of the things i really like about kids, and especially this one.....she has a tremendous heart for the needy.

so now for a tour of the bedroom!

a dollhouse, complete with a minivan, vw, stable and tons and tons of furniture. this is not for keeps, just until we outgrow it. then we will cart it back to the big, pink, party house.


the doll and furniture, as well as the clothes and shoes were all also from my niece. mimi buys each of the girls an american girl doll when they turn 7, so this older doll wasn't as important anymore. i'm sure she will work just fine for us!


the toy box was hers too, along with most of the toys in it. it used to reside in the sleeping porch attached to her room, that doubles as a playroom. but, she's growing up and was ready for some bigger girl stuff, like a brand new, special deluxe, handmade kitchen made by papa. the hard part was that the toy box came to us in pieces (since we had to get it into the mini-van) and we had to put it back together again. not so easy, but well worth the effort!

the bed was a collaboration. some of the bedding came from one niece and some from another, as well as the pictures and the rug. i am excited to see her face when she sees her own room. i am sure this is an experience that she has never had.


now, whether she will SLEEP in it or not is an entirely different topic of conversation!

i'm sure that she will have fun playing in the room, or dragging the toys all over the house!

thanks again little sweetie. come and play with your toys soon. they miss you already.

i wonder...

i have spent a lot of time thinking about next christmas. it's not that i'm not excited about this year, but next year really intrigues me.

i wonder.....

about wide eyed excitement. whispered secrets. pictures with santa. poofy red dresses, shiny black shoes.

i am looking forward to the excitement that comes with little children on christmas morning. awe over filled stockings, astonishment over an empty cookie plate and empty milk glass.

baking cookies with big sisters, watching christmas movies with big brothers, anticipating snow and all the fun that comes with it.

i wonder...

how she will like traveling, playing with cousins, meeting new people? will it overwhelm her or will she embrace the craziness?

will she have mastered the english language enough to understand the christmas story, that Christ loved her so much that He was born to die on a cross for her? that is she was the only one, He would still have died, so that she might live. i plan to tell her about advent, that each week has a different meaning: hope, peace, joy and love.

starting a christmas ornament collection, like the big kids have. picking out a stocking to hang by the fireplace. shopping for a gift for one of her siblings, and her daddy. learning how to keep secrets.

i wonder....

what is she doing tonight? will she receive a present this year? will her orphanage tell her about Jesus coming as a baby?

you see, i'm having a difficult time being content, i think about her. i wonder, worry, hope.

i thought that by sending in our dossier to peru, i would have a sense of peace, that i would be content with where we are in the process. the opposite is true. it has only made the wait that much more difficult. partially because there is nothing more to do. we are finished. we are waiting.

i am hopeful that the wait will not be too long, we should have some answers in a couple of months.

but still.

i wonder.....

when?

ok....many of you have asked. so....i'll tell you. we really don't know when we will travel to peru.

but, having said that.....this is what we have been told by our agency.

it takes a couple of weeks to translate the dossier and have it legalized in peru. i have no idea what kind of havoc the holidays will add to getting those things done. either it will speed things up or slow them down or even possibly stop things for a while completely.

then it takes at the very least a month to have it accepted by the secretary of adoption.

i have been reminded that this is peru we are talking about, and things just move more slowly there than in the good old usa.

a best case scenario could put us at the end of january or the very beginning of february for having our dossier accepted. my guess is that it will be sometime in march. i have been told not to get my hopes up that it will happen in quickly. oops, too late!

once the dossier is approved in peru, referrals tend to happen fairly quickly. as does travel after the referral has been accepted. so could we travel before the end of the school year? yes. could it actually happen sometime this summer? yes. how about next fall? yes.

some people travel right away. sometimes it takes a little longer. we could travel as quickly as 2 weeks after our referral is accepted.

don't you just love the great unknown?

it's in peru

that's right folks. the dossier is in marisa's hands. time for a little translation!

YIPPEE!

just had to share :)

flip side

i have been thinking a lot about the flip side. you know, the other side to adoption. i talk a lot about the excitement, joy, love, heartache, struggle of adopting. i talk about how i feel during the process. i think about my time frame, the hit to my pocket, the confusion.

but.....how much time do i spend in thinking about the flip side?

surely you know what i mean. the side of the orphan. the events that gave them that title. hurt, pain, suffering, violence, abuse.

i talked to my sweet friend today. she shared the reason that her family is able to adopt their little one. she told me a heart-wrenching story. one that made me cry. you see it involved loss and death and unexplained questions. there is a family in ethiopia grieving, the loss of a mother and now the loss of a baby too.

so while i am rejoicing at incredible news, there is a family crying out in pain.

i'm not saying that we shouldn't rejoice, because we should. i just want to remember the reason we can adopt these little ones. it's because of someone else's pain.

i have started to think a lot about what our little girl is going through right now. my hope is that she is safe, warm, well fed, nurtured, loved. her reality may be very, very different. she may be in danger, cold, hungry, alone, neglected.

my prayer is that no matter what she has been through, no matter what abuse, not matter what neglect, no matter what she has seen or heard or experienced. we are able to point her to Jesus, that His love will heal her. that she will learn to love in response. that faith will grow in her. that she will want to help others. that she will learn to be Jesus to a hurting world.

i like to imagine next Christmas. one where we have another family member, our friends have a toddler and my sister has a baby. you see, this Christmas I can't help but grieve a little about things i can't even explain. like hurting children, unsafe drinking water, disease, grief, orphans. what would it be like to spend Christmas in an orphanage, or alone on the streets eating out of trash cans, or the victim of abuse?

the flip side is not pretty. it hurts.

there is hope.

Isaiah 42:6-7 "I, the LORD have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentile, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness."

joy

there are several reasons for joy tonight.

first...our friends received their referral today. a baby boy from ethiopia. he's only 2 1/2 months old right now. they will most likely travel in march. the wait, i'm sure will be excruciating. i am hoping to see pictures soon. he is beautiful, that's what his new momma says, and i for one believe her. i can hardly wait to meet him. the little fro baby that we have prayed and prayed for.

second...our dossier is officially on the way to peru, as of thursday. the good news is it was apostilled and authenticated without a hitch. YEAH! great news! now onto translation. when i hear more about what exactly the process is in peru, i will let you know. we probably won't hear alot about our dossier for the next 3 months or so. so, the waiting has begun. there is nothing more that i can do.

i've been using my nervous energy to declutter my basement. making it a more livable space. i moved some things around, to make a better sewing, crafting area for myself. when my kids were all little, i spent ALOT of time sewing for them. i am looking forward to sewing for another little one. twirl skirts, cloth dolls, soft blankets, nighties.....

my boys helped me bag/box up stuff for donation last night. we filled the back of the van. what a relief to clean out a very cluttered storage closet. i keep thinking about looking through the attic at what else i can get rid of. dangerous. this always makes my kids worry. i will try not to go crazy with the declutterization.

i believe that i have started to do a little nesting.

the thought makes me happy.

joyful actually!

my crazy life.....

i know, i know, mom, i haven't spent nearly enough time blogging lately. and yes, i do feel the shame of it!

life has been more than a little crazy lately.

this time of the year always seems to feel that way.

the good news is that i am done shopping. mostly. you never are really done....right?

my goal was to be finished early this year. my hope is that i will have time to focus on Jesus and His birth.

i wish the craziness was all about the holiday. but, it's more than that. we have 3 school concerts left to attend. one small group party, one christmas tea, one youth group fundraiser, one youth group girl's party. we have to move our first born back home, transport an upright bass back and forth from school, load and haul firewood. then there is always the wrapping, and baking, and traveling.

all i want is to sit back with a cup of chai and stare at the tree set up in the corner of our family room. i want to turn off all the house lights, put on a worship cd and rest. both my mind and body. to forget about the craziness.

relax.

worship.

remember.

pray.

i need to re-find my center. i think it's going to take some quiet time, alone, to find it again. it's lost. somewhere in the busyness i have misplaced it. to survive the waiting i will need to recover it. quickly!

i talked with a dear friend for a while after church today. she is waiting and has been for almost 7 months. she exudes peace. she may not think so, especially since she has been asking for prayer for peace. from all outward appearances she has this one mastered. but, i know her heart and how desperately she wants her phone to ring. to see a photo. to plan a trip. to buy booties, and diapers, and onesies. to think about a little fro baby being her own sweet child.

so, as i wait i will pray for peace for her. contentment for myself. salvation for a hurting world. healing for an ailing friend. hope for a little girl in peru.