You guys rock!

Wowie! THANK YOU to all of you amazing people who helped us during our t-shirt fundraiser! In case you missed it, we did a 10 day t-shirt sale through Chrome Buffalo and it was a success! We surpassed our fundraising goal and raised $552!! Sorry for all the exclamation points, but it's hard to hold in my enthusiasm about how awesome you all are. I'll try to tone it down...but we were really touched by all the people who bought t-shirts and shared our story with their friends. Others donated separately from the t-shirt sales, and that definitely gives my heart a hug. It is humbling to see the love and kindness of lovely people, some who haven't even met us.

So we are $552 closer to bringing our daughter home (soon!!). And on top of that, we have yet another reason to thank our God, for showing us His provision for us through all of you! Your generosity and support has been such an encouragement to us. Thank you, Thank you!!! (sorry, couldn't help myself with my punctuation there)

T-Shirt Sale!

As you know, we are trying to raise the rest of the funds we need to complete our adoption and bring our little girl home from Ethiopia. We are so excited to partner with the awesome company Chrome Buffalo to be able to sell some sweet t-shirts! This company was started by a couple who adopted from Uganda 8 years ago and learned that raising money for a good cause wasn't easy. So they now offer a platform for others to raise money by selling t-shirts.

Here is how it works. Chrome Buffalo designs and makes stylin' t-shirts that they sell for $22. For every t-shirt sold, we get $11 towards our adoption fund! They come in mens, womens and youth sizes. The shirts are printed on Next Level Apparel products, which is an awesome company that doesn't use sweatshops or child labor, is WRAP certified (Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production), and is committed to ethical practice in their work.  I have some shirts made by this company  and they are seriously my favorite t-shirts (you probably know which ones they are since I wear them way too often), they are super comfortable and soft.

We have 10 days to sell as many shirts as possible. So check out our page HERE and consider buying a shirt to help us get one step closer to bringing our daughter into our family! Thanks guys!

Heart Attack Thoughts

For those of you who haven't heard, my Dad had a heart attack last week. To say that it was a shock to all of us would be an understatement. I'm still trying to process what has happened in these last 7 days, so please excuse the random spillage of my heart here...

Long lost twins?

My Dad is a rock. Similar to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, minus the tattoos (although he does have a gnarly scar on his chest now). Being 55 years young, health problems weren't really on the radar. But besides being super strong, physically fit, and healthy as a horse, he has always been the steady leader of our family. So imagine how shaken I was when I found out that my dad had a minor heart attack on Friday that led to finding out he had some major blockages in his heart requiring open heart surgery on Monday. I was not prepared for this. No, he is too young, too healthy, too important...it's safe to say I was in denial. As my family and I tried to reconcile with all this new scary information, God stepped in to teach me a few things.

Can there be any good out of something as horrible as a heart attack? With God running the show, you better believe it. I know that my Dad probably has a different perspective, since he is the one physically suffering here, and I would love to have him share about that here someday. I am not trying to downplay AT ALL what he has gone through, in fact I can't even imagine that kind of pain. So these are just my personal thoughts.

First of all, I love the little glimpses of God's goodness in the details. For example, when my Dad passed out after his heart attack at the YMCA, he was found by a family friend who called my mom right away (who promptly came and convinced him to go to the hospital when he did not want to go). My parents were also scheduled to spend a week in Costa Rica with my studying-abroad sister this week. Praise the Lord this didn't happen while they were traveling in Central America. Dad also had a "warning" heart attack a few weeks ago where he passed out but never told anyone. This one was his second chance. I have seen family and friends pour out love, support and prayers that bring me to tears.

At our family Thanksgiving celebration this year, my cousin set up a cute little tree with leaves on which you could write what you are thankful for this year. My cousin wrote "modern medicine and skillful surgeons". For some reason this one stuck with me, and my brother even gave it the "best thankful leaf" award at the time. Well, I was never more thankful for that exact thing until I found out the extent of my dad's heart condition and what would be required to fix it. It is truly amazing what God has allowed us to discover in the field of medicine and we are so blessed to have access to such great medical care.

Beyond this, my heart has been pondering life and death. When you are sitting in a waiting room knowing that your Dad's heart is stopped while they perform surgery and a machine is pumping blood through his body, you can't help but grasp the delicate nature of this earthly life. I cannot imagine life without my Dad, and thanks to God's grace and great medical care, I don't have to. But all of our time here is so short in the grand scheme of things. What really matters? And what doesn't? I'm convinced that the quality of life is so much more important than the quantity. Just as I would rather have one perfect piece of dark chocolate than one hundred off-brand M&Ms, I would also rather live a short life full of love, joy and purpose than a long life of selfishness and meaninglessness. And I am so thankful to have found true purpose, in knowing the one, true God.

This experience has made me want to live with no regrets and leave nothing unspoken. (well, nothing good unspoken anyway...I'll still try to hold back my angry rants) There are no guarantees of second chances, although it seems that in His grace, God has given one to Dad at this time. I want to use this one chance I have at life not to live for myself and make this world my home, but to let the Lord use my life however would best honor Him. For us who have eternal hope in Jesus, there is nothing to fear in death, only assurance of a better life forever with him beyond the grave. I long for everyone to know this peace that I have only known in my relationship with Christ.

From Daddy...

...To Grandpa!

So Dad, I sit here tonight so unbelievably thankful that you are also sitting here reading these words. And I want to leave nothing unspoken: I love you more than I can say. You are the absolute best Daddy I could have ever asked for. I have never had to doubt your love, because your hugs and honest words spoke it to me every day. Your generosity amazes me and your passion for things that matter is contagious. You treat everyone with kindness and dignity, regardless of if they deserve it or not (except maybe the refs who makes those ridiculous calls against the Broncos...(-:) Your faith is true, I see Jesus in your daily life and want to follow those steps. You reflect the character of our heavenly Father and have taught me more than you know. All these words cannot express how much you mean to me and how thankful I am for you. Thanks for going through all of this nasty medical stuff so that you can continue to be the rock for our family. And I'm hoping for another epic Jackson Hole ski adventure one of these years...

All thanks and praise to my Jesus, who has blessed me beyond measure.

"And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which you were called in one body; and be thankful." - Colossians 3:15

Monthly Adoption Update

I guess with all the excitement happening recently adoption-wise, I have fallen behind on the monthly updates. But here is where we sit at the moment: we are almost ready to send our dossier paperwork (finally) and then we wait to hear how things are moving along in Ethiopia.

We are trying to use this time to prepare as much as we can for when our daughter joins our family, but I feel like there is no way to fully prepare for all that is ahead. We are reading books, getting advice from others, and praying more than anything.

We changed one of our kitchen clocks to Ethiopian time...and not just to confuse us and make us late. Whenever we look at the clock, we think of what our little girl might be doing at that moment and say a prayer for her. She is always near in our minds and hearts even though she is far on the other side of the world.

Thanks for all your support and encouragement as our journey continues...

15,000 is a big number

15,000 may not seem like a big number to you, but if you are talking about dollar bills, then that seems like a pretty big number to me. $15,000 is the amount that we need to come up with in order to bring our future daughter home in the next 8-9 months or so. Say what?!? We have already paid over $17,600 in adoption fees from the money we have saved and raised so far. So how is there still $15,000 left to pay? A large portion of that is for travel expenses, and other fees required by our agency.

In my little mind, this financial obstacle looks like a Mt. Everest. However, I am aware that God is much bigger than that and He is our Provider. I've never asked Him to provide so much money so quickly. I pray that as we ask in faith, He will step in and show how faithful He is. How will He do that? I have no idea, but I can't wait to find out! I hope that you can be a part of this adventure with us!

This is never a place that I wanted to be, asking for help. Yep, that's the extremely humble person that I am, ahem. (please note the sarcasm) We had actually hoped to have the 2-3 years of waiting for a referral as time we could be saving up our money for these expenses. But with so little time now before we will travel to meet our daughter, we are going to need help.

What have we been doing so far?
Saving our pennies. My wise husband says that our best fundraiser is to save the money we are already earning. So we have been cutting back on the little things and hoping it adds up to big money. This means no smartphones for us right now (our dumb phones will have to do), no big vacations, not eating out too often, etc. Dean has offered to eat only cereal and Ramen noodles in order to cut back on our grocery bill, but I'm hoping we don't have to do that quite yet. (-: He is trying to sell some of his precious music equipment, since it is the only valuable thing we own. Dean is trying to get some overtime at work and my mom has kindly hired me to be her cleaning lady. We've had a few fundraisers that have been really helpful: our thrift sale, bracelet sales, and craft sales at the Ethiopian Cultural Festival. We applied for some grants, but even if we are awarded any grants, it will not be enough.

What are we planning to do next?
This is where we need your help. If you would like to be a part of helping us bring our daughter home, we would be so grateful. We don't want to overwhelm you with fundraiser after fundraiser, so we are trying to condense our efforts. We have set up a site HERE where you can donate online. It is simple and free and uses Paypal. We also have set up an online store with some handmade items made by us or donated by others, with all proceeds from the store going towards our adoption expenses. The store will be open and an ongoing fundraiser during our process. You can check out the store here, or find it under the fundraising tab. We are also excited about a 10 day T-shirt fundraiser drive that we are hoping to launch soon, so be prepared for that. (-:

So $15,000 is a big number, but please pray along with us that God will do a mighty work and show how great He is as He provides for our every need. It is only by His grace and through all of you precious friends and family that we will be able to bring our daughter home! More than anything else, we would love your prayers as our journey continues. xoxo

Our Referral Experience

Oh silly expectations. How they play with my emotions again and again. Having read one too many adoption blogs, I had a certain expectation of how exactly your much-anticipated referral day goes down. According to my scientific research, it should proceed as follows:
1) Get a call from your adoption agency just when you were least expecting it.
2) The rest of the world stops while you and your hubby gather around the phone/computer to hear the information about your future child.
3) Start jumping up and down and hootin' and hollerin' with joy: you're going to be parents!!!

Sounds pretty great to me! Sign me up! Only this is not exactly what my experience was. If you already read this post on how we arrived at our referral point, you will know that it's not a traditional referral situation. So when I got the call from our agency (which I WAS expecting since I contacted them first...already broke procedure #1), Dean wasn't home. And there was no way I was going to be able to wait all day to look at the information with him, so I just dug in all by myself (oops, there goes #2). Then I waited for procedure #3 to commence. But instead, I read every word of the referral and ended in a puddle of tears and a broken heart. Wait a minute! This can't be right! This is not how I'm suppose to feel! Why am I not taking a selfie pic of me looking overjoyed next to my computer screen right now??

I know our situation is different than many, and an older child comes with more of a history than a baby. I just never expected that to shake me and break me like it did. I cried over our daughter's past and her future. I cried over her hurts, because now they are my hurts too. I cried over her birth family, not even able to imagine their pain. I cried over her picture, her perfect little innocent face. I cried over the broken world that we live in. I cried knowing that adoption is born out of loss and seeing it right before my eyes. I cried because I wish she could live in a perfect world where adoption isn't necessary. I cried because I love her already.

And then I fell on my face before my God, crying out to Him. He listened and spoke, giving me peace and joy. What a privilege to be a part of the life of this precious little lady. I am so humbled, so blessed. And also, so excited.

As for Dean, the experience in his own words was "love at first sight". Enough said. (-: 

How we got HERE

Let me set the stage for this story of how we ended up where we are in our adoption journey today. We had made our final decisions regarding the "desired child" portion of our homestudy (1-2 children ages 0-5). I had just gotten to the point where I was perfectly happy waiting for the time being. I was feeling content with my life at the moment and things were quite comfortable. Since I am a big planner/preparer, I thought that a few years of waiting would leave me time to feel nice and ready. But you see, that would leave me trusting more in myself and my planning and knowledge than in my Lord... 

At the beginning of every month, our adoption agency posts a list of "waiting children" who are available and waiting for a family to adopt them.  All that is given on the list is the ages, genders and special needs of the children (if they have any) and if their adoption documents are ready. I have been reading these lists every month and praying for these precious kids. So, on the 1st of October when the "waiting children" list came out, I read through it as usual. But for some reason, I could not get the "7 year old girl" listed out of my head.

So I figured I better pray some more that God would raise up a family to commit to her. Only He didn't let me stop there. He just kept growing this burden for her in my heart until I thought I was going crazy. I finally decided to tell Dean what was going on in my head and heart, because he is very good at getting my crazy plans back to reality (i.e. shooting down my dreams...haha). I was looking forward to his logical opinion, and instead he calmly said, "Well, let's pray about her, if we're the right family for her". What?!? Not what I was wanting to hear...

Meanwhile, God was speaking constantly and consistently. Yes, yes, yes. That was all I could hear from Him. Everywhere I turned in His Word He was telling me to live by faith and trust Him tangibly, not just with my words. We both continued seeking God's will, and He was so kind as to give me so many little "signs" to reassure my fearful heart. Then, in the middle of the month, our adoption agency sent out an updated "waiting children list". First of all, the list is usually only sent out at the beginning of the month from what I've seen, so I was surprised to see it. And then, at the very top of the list this time was the "7 year old girl". I think at this point my heart stopped and my hands were shaking.

When I recovered from my minor heart attack and Dean and I had some more prayer and discussion, we decided to go ahead and request more information about her. This led to our referral experience, which I will share about later. After receiving her information, we had 2 weeks to decide if we wanted to proceed to adopt her. I looked at the scant information we had and wondered how we could possibly make such a big decision with so little information. But Dean reminded me that God knows all the information and we can trust Him to help us decide.

After much more prayer and discussion, we decided to accept the referral for our little girl one week later.  We were so excited, and so thankful! This was all happening much faster than the 2-3 years of waiting that we were expecting.

(Now for a little background: A year and a half ago when we were buying our house, we had saved up for the down payment. When we were working out the financing, we decided to leave $10,000 in our savings account. For no good reason. We thought maybe we would need some new furniture for the house or something. But there it sat, in our account. Then last fall when we started thinking about adoption, Dean said "maybe that $10,000 is for our adoption.")

So last week when we wanted to accept the surprise referral, we had to pay the referral fee, which was $9700. If we wouldn't have had that money left in our savings account, we wouldn't have been able to proceed with the adoption process. God knew what He was doing and had been preparing us (and our finances) for this all along. We have seen little glimpses of His provision every step of the way.

While of course we are overjoyed and excited, we also know this is going to be hard. We have tried to picture all the worst case scenarios, and have come to the conclusion that we can trust our God through every single one. I heard a quote recently: "Prepare for the worst and hope for the best." Being the pessimist that I am, I am good at expecting and preparing for the worst. And having a wonderfully optimistic husband, he is always focused on hoping for the best. But both of us know that no matter what lies ahead, God is good and He will never leave us.

"Though the fig tree does not bud

and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

and no cattle in the stalls,
(even if all normalcy is lost, 
if things seem hopeless, 
if expectations are not met, 
if uncertainty abounds...)

yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength;

he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

he enables me to tread on the heights."

Habakkuk 3:17-19

An Announcement!

Dean and I are so excited to announce that we have accepted a referral! We have been matched with a beautiful 7 year old girl in Ethiopia who we hope to call our daughter very soon. There is still much paperwork and such to be done, and the best estimate we have is that she could be home with us in 8-9 months. We feel so blessed and thankful to our great God!!

This path was not according to our original plan. We were planning to adopt 2 children (turns out it's just 1) between the age range of 0-5 years (umm, nope). But we know that God's plans are much better than ours, so we are going with His.

We never expected things to start happening so fast. But we have clearly heard God calling us in this direction, and we will joyfully follow Him. This step is way outside of our comfort zone, but we are choosing trust over fear. We know that God will provide for us, just as He has every step of the way so far. We just pray that He will be glorified above all! There was much more that lead us to this decision, which I hope to sort out in my brain and write out one of these days. So stay tuned. (-:

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." - Ephesians 3:20-21

It doesn't end at Gotcha Day

What the smoke?!?

*Disclaimer: In this post and all other adoption related posts, please know that I do not claim to be an expert. I am merely expressing my thoughts as I am learning and growing. So be kind to this clueless girl. *

As I have been learning about this crazy adoption process, one term that was new to me was "Gotcha Day". If you are also unfamiliar with this term, my good friend Wikipedia describes it as "a day celebrated by American families of adopted children to recognize the day they received the child." And if you hop on Youtube, you will find plenty of videos commemorating this glorious day, just as you would the birth of a biological child. (warning: if you do view these videos, please do so with Kleenex box in hand.) There is much build up and anticipation leading up to this big day. It's when all of the labor of paperwork, fundraising, traveling, waiting, reading, etc. finally result in the addition of a precious child to your family.

And while this is rightly a day to be celebrated, it is not the pinnacle of the adoption process, it is just the beginning of a new family life! Once the child has joined your family, the journey gets real (or so I hear). The hard/wonderful healing process begins as the family grows together.

Now maybe this is a stretch, but as I was thinking about Gotcha Day, I couldn't help but compare it to the day that God adopted me into His family. Sometimes Christians say things like "Share your testimony". I always thought this meant that you tell about how you came to know God and the moment that you became a Christian, since that is what most people will share when asked this question.

But my testimony is so much more that just my Gotcha Day. It is the journey that God has been leading me on my whole entire life. From the moment that He created me, He has been weaving me into His story and continues to make Himself known to me. The Bible says that even the angels in heaven were rejoicing when it was my Gotcha Day and I joined God's family. But after that great day, it just gets better and better (with plenty of ups and downs of course) as God does the hard/wonderful healing process in my heart.

So I will celebrate Gotcha Days wholeheartedly, both physical and spiritual. Preferably with cake and ice cream and thanksgiving to the God who just keeps loving me.

For His Glory

If you have been in Christian circles for any length of time, you have probably heard that the purpose of our lives is to "glorify God". The Bible dictionary defines this as "the giving of glory to God through acts of praise and obedience. Believers are to glorify God in their lives, as Jesus Christ glorified him in his life." And I agree. Yes. And Amen!

However, this has always been a rather fuzzy concept for me to grasp. How do I do this "glorifying" thing? I'm no seminary trained preacher here, so I'm not going to attempt to explain this, but God has been showing me lately what glorifying Him in my little life is all about.

To bring glory to God, I assumed I should do some great and awesome things with my life. Things that would make a big impact on the world around me. Then God will be pleased and glorified, right? Um, wrong. Once again I need to re-take the class I keep getting an "F" in called "It's Not About Me".

God doesn't need me to DO anything to glorify Himself. He is all perfect, all lovely, all right and true and good. So if He is able to reveal Himself for who is truly is, then those who see Him can't help but praise and glorify Him. This means that my job is to get out of the way and let Him reveal Himself. Meaning I need to quit trying to "do good things" for God, because then the focus is on me and my good things. Instead, I need to step back and look at what He is already doing in my life and praise Him for it!

2 Samuel 7 sums this up just perfectly. King David wants to build a house for God, but God tells David that He will build a house for him instead. Then God reminds him of all the great things He has done for David throughout his life. David is humbled and responds with a whole lot of thanksgiving and glorifying God. 

And if none of that made any sense, here is the bottom line:

God isn't glorified by what we do for Him, but by what He does for us. 

This big old sermon is all to explain the reason for our "For His Glory" page on the blog. We want everyone to see just how amazing our God is, so we will be posting prayer requests and how God answers those requests. We would love to have you pray along with us on this journey! I can't wait to see more and more of Him as He works in our lives!

Thank you Behnkes!

Have you ever felt so humbled and blessed that you just want to cry? I'm talking about a good, happy cry, not the kind of sobbing that come while watching "Titanic" or "Armageddon". (Oh, Leo, you get me every time.) Anyway, thanks to the Behnke family, I felt that way last week. These sweet friends have an amazing story of how God put their family together through adoption. You can check it out on their blog here. Their adoption was finalized this summer, and they had an adoption ceremony/celebration to commemorate that event. Yay! We were so happy to celebrate with them!

Go Team Behnke!

Now here's what brought me to tears. They asked that in lieu of gifts or money for their kids, that friends and family donate instead to our adoption fund, to help bring our child home from Ethiopia. Whoa. Their selflessness and generosity was just overwhelming. I mean, who does that?? (-: We are so blessed to know this awesome family and can't thank them enough for their kindness and for their friends and family who chose to give. God is good.

Every party needs a bouncy house, am I right?

This girl loved every minute of it

So, from the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU, Behnke family of 5! We pray that our great God continues to bless your family as you have blessed ours!

Ethiopian Cultural Festival

On September 29th, the Ethiopian Cultural Festival took place at Pheonix Park in Eau Claire, thanks to Partners for Ethiopia. And it was great on so many levels. Our very kind friend who organized the festival offered us a table to sell some fundraising goods, and we gladly accepted! (side note: Dean whipped up our display stand in less than 30 minutes with some scrap wood in our garage. #proudwife.)

We sold Apparent Project bracelets from Haiti, Africa Christmas ornaments, and some crafty things too. It was an awesome opportunity for some fundraising and we're so thankful for those who stopped by and purchased some things!

What a salesman!

Yummm

Coffee ceremony

It was good for my heart to experience some of the culture of our future child. I have so much to learn and want to embrace every opportunity to do so! There were so many beautiful families that attended and we met others that share our passion for adoption. A community of support, honesty, and encouragement is such a blessing. God has been so good to place us right where He has in life right now.

Thank you so much to the Partners for Ethiopia folks who made this lovely event happen and for allowing us to be involved. Thanks too to my awesome Mom who helped manage our booth. We hope this becomes an annual event!

Monthly Adoption Update

Well folks, not much to update on over here. Everything has sort of been on hold as we wait to get our homestudy so we can start the next batch of paperwork. So I guess there has been lots of patience going on...

I am glad to have some time to learn and attempt to prepare as much as we can for welcoming a child with a difficult past into our lives. I fully understand that reading books and articles and going to conferences could never fully prepare a person for what is ahead. But it's been good to at least be aware of the kinds of issues we might be dealing with in the future with our children.

Here's a few adoption related books I've read recently:

 
Adopted for Life: This was the first book that we read with our small group last year that really got us thinking about this whole adoption thing.


Orphanology: Another good, practical book that I probably need to re-read every once in a while.


Kisses from Katie: Not really adoption centered, but does involve orphans and Africa. And it is the best book I have ever read. Seriously, it is just so beautiful and I would recommend it to every single soul out there. 


The Connected Child: It was probably a little soon to read this one since it is about parenting techniques, but I figure that the more times I can drill it into my head, the more likely I am to remember some of these methods. This is a book that I can see myself needing to reference a lot. So it's going on the Christmas list.


There is No Me Without You: I love love love this book. Dean smashed a spider with my beloved copy of it the other day and I was really sad, because who wants spider guts on one of their favorite books? Anyway, this book is about Ethiopia and the AIDS crisis. I learned a whole bunch.

So there are the highlights of my fave adoption books so far. I didn't mean to turn the monthly update into a book review, but that's what happens when things are slow I guess. If anyone has any must-read book recommendations, send them my way!

Bracelet Fundraiser

 We'd like to tell you about a fun little fundraiser we are doing for the next month or so. Do you like jewelry or know someone who does? (yep, this covers all of you) Do you want to have a hand in caring for orphans? Then read on.

We are partnering with an awesome non-profit organization called The Apparent Project. They strive to address one of the core problems of the orphan crisis in Haiti: extreme poverty, which leads to child relinquishment or abandonment. Most orphans in Haiti are not placed in orphanages because of the death of their parents, but instead are brought there by loving parents who know that an orphanage can feed their child when they can't afford to. The Apparent Project aims to teach new skills to impoverished Haitian parents which enable them to take care of their own children. These artisans use recycled materials to create beautiful jewelry and other goods. They sell their creations to provide for their families, keeping their children from becoming orphaned.

So where do we fit in with this awesome mission? We have a shipment of 150 handmade bracelets made by Haitian parents from The Apparent Project. For each bracelet that we sell, half of the money goes to the Haitian artisan and half goes towards our adoption fund. Win-win!

These bracelets are beautiful, my pictures cannot do them justice. Each one is unique, and comes with a label explaining the story of the parent who crafted the bracelet. They are so cute, I almost want to keep the whole box for myself...Eleanore was also quite taken with them. Check out their website here to see more pictures of the bracelets and learn about the Apparent Project.

Each of these beauties costs $8. We'll be selling them at the Ethiopian Cultural Festival on September 29th from 12-4pm in Pheonix Park. I would also be happy to personally deliver them, or ship them to you for $3. Not only will you be the proud owner of a gorgeous new bracelet (or maybe a gift for your lady friend), but more importantly, you will be helping families in Haiti raise their own children AND helping bring our child home from Ethiopia.

"Oooo" = Eleanore-approved

I love the creativity and generosity of this organization. And their goal comes down to this: "we are doing this all with the hope that the love of God will be made more APPARENT to those we humbly serve and that He will be known as A PARENT to the parentless." If you want to learn more, check out their website and see what God is doing through them!

I don't think hand-modeling is in my future

We only have 4-6 weeks to sell all we can, so tell all your friends and get yourself a bracelet or two! Just leave a comment, or contact me through email (betsyjane804@hotmail.com) or facebook. YOu can use the "Donate" button on the right side of the blog to pay via Paypal. And THANKS!

Labor Day Camping

After wanting to go camping all summer, we finally just nailed down a day and went. Labor Day weekend it was!  It was Eleanore's first camping experience, and she was having so much fun during the day, that she wanted to stay awake during the night too! Yay! But camping never involves that much sleeping anyway, so I guess I can't complain. We had way too much fun.

I told her to smile and this is the face I get

Dean "Fire Master"

We found a campground in the city of our lovely alma mater, Winona. That city has a special place in my heart. Fun fact: our campground was also the place where Dean proposed to me many moons ago. It was a lot less romantic this time around with a wild toddler to distract.  (-:

Gotta love morning camping faces

Grandpa and Grandma Freerks joined us and brought all of the vital camping gear that we didn't think to bring. They were perfect camping partners and I could have sat around the campfire chatting with them all night.

Hiking to the legendary proposal site

There were 3 playgrounds within walking distance of the campsite, so Eleanore was a happy lady

Deer park!

Grapes = deer bait

Gourmet camping: wine and cheese hors d'oeuvres

We had such a good and refreshing time, I vote to instate Labor Day camping as a new family tradition.

Monthly Adoption Update

This month has been more heart-work than paperwork. Paperwork is cake compared to this business. I have gotten to know Jesus a whole lot better this month. I wish I could share all the details, but I filled about half of a journal up this month with said details and I'm guessing you don't want to go there.

So let's sum it up. We had a few final decisions and tasks to finish up for our homestudy this month. God has been so faithful in clearly leading and guiding our every step up to this point in the adoption that I haven't looked back. And then suddenly I doubted. Reality hit. Fear crept in. I wanted to run. I was confused. Peace was no where to be found. Prayers and Scripture searching were priority. The phrase that kept echoing in my head was "in my heart I want to do this, but in my head I can't". Translation: I think I hear God's voice calling us to step out in faith, but the very real circumstances of life seem insurmountable. I've been struggling with worldly wisdom vs. God's wisdom and questioning my motivations. This is starting to sound like crazy rambling (which I did a lot of this month...a big shout out to all who so patiently listened to my rants and thought I may be bipolar).

I started to feel like Peter, when Jesus called him to walk on water. Peter started off great, jumping out of the boat, but then began looking around at the storm and the waves, lost faith and started to sink. That was me, sinking (which looked more like freaking out and flailing around). And just as Jesus "stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him 'O you of little faith, why did you doubt?'" (Matthew 14:31), He caught me.

 When I thought I couldn't handle any more and had analyzed the situation to death, all of a sudden there was peace. The peace that really does "surpass all understanding" (Philippians 4:7), that is only from God. The storm was stilled. The funny thing is that not a single thing about our situation or circumstances had changed, just my heart had changed. Now I know that whatever happens, it is all God's power and not my own, because there is NO WAY I can do this on my own.

The song "Ocean" by Hillsong United has been on repeat this week in my casa. Listen and soak it in. If none of this blabbering made any sense, just know one thing: God is so good and He can be trusted. And that's a wrap.

Raspberry Bay

 Last weekend our family got away to a little slice of heaven in northern Wisconsin called Raspberry Bay. Everyone except my brother Isaac was able to be there (we missed you so much Isaac! Get your booty home one of these days!)

Memories were made, including:

• Epic games of Citadels (nerd city)
• Kayak/canoe adventures that didn't involve any near-drownings this year
• Morning walks in the neighborhood creeping on other cabins
• Trying to keep up with sibling super-runners on a jog
• Delicious meal after meal...after meal
• Heart to hearts in the hot tub with the girls
• Failing to convince Eleanore that Lake Superior will not hurt you
• Getting smoked out at the campfire
• Eleanore getting a whole lotta lovin'

All around, it was a weekend of rest, relaxation, fun and love. Thanks Mom and Dad for making it happen! Next August can't come soon enough. 

Grandpa knows the way to Ella's heart: raspberries

The men "socializing"

All this fun makes for one tired girl