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!