New Years Resolutions

As Todd and I sat together on New Years Day the inevitable conversation came up - "so what is your New Year's Resolution this year?" If you know my husband, you will know that he is not a fan of these conversations. God knew what He was doing when He brought the two of us together - we compliment each other well - we have a lot of similarities in terms of our interests, we think a lot a like, we truly enjoy being together, we are eachothers' best friends, but where he is much more laid back about a lot of things, I am the opposite. So I like my lists, I like my goals all written down, and I like my little check-marks when I have accomplished something. I like my life organized and I like schedules. Yes, my children were Babywise babies, yes I carry around an oldfashioned planner rather than a fancy phone b/c my system might get messed up by a new phone, and yes I have all sorts of excel documents which I'm sure help keep us working towards our goals and create organization in our home (or so I think!). :)

So when I bring up the question, its not a surprise to him. :) We talked about the typical things - our goals to work out more (there was a time in my life when I couldn't imagine a day without running...oh my how life has changed!), try to drink less caffeinated beverages, etc. :) But the biggest New Years Resolution - to make God our ALL, our EVERYTHING, our #1; to have the day start and end with HIM, to really dig into the WORD daily, and spend a significant time in prayer. It is our prayer that we will have such a passionate love for Him and for His Word that nothing else in this world will matter but loving and serving Him, making disciples of all nations, and bringing GLORY to His Name!

With that comes my 2nd resolution, and this is also for our adoption. We've talked about some ways to fundraise - I'll keep you posted on this as we still haven't nailed down how we'd like to do this (if you have any fantastic ideas, let me know!). But the biggest change for us will be our spending. Now at first I didn't consider this a huge issue when thinking of how to save money for the adoption - we don't have any fancy new electronics, our vehicles are mediocre, we don't go on fancy vacations or have nice furniture, and the only toys our kids get are what they receive for birthdays or Christmas, which we try to also keep to a minimum. But ya know what, we have WAY more than most of the world has and I know we have plenty of excess in our house and I am very guilty of buying things that I don't truly, truly need. So I am committed to not buying anything extra for this next year. No new clothes, shoes, kitchen gadgets, decor for the house, stuff for the kids, etc. My closets and drawers are full, I don't need a thing, and I truly want to go an entire year without buying anything for myself or my family that we don't TRULY need. I will honestly say that it will be a challenge - I know it! I am tempted by worldly things, and it amazes me how I can be completely content, and then go to the store and suddenly you are no longer content because of the next best thing you suddenly need. So there you have it - I'm praying for a content heart that is satisfied completely with God and God alone, that all my joy will be found in Him and that nothing else in this world will matter.

Praying that you also will find complete fulfillment, joy and love in the Lord and your relationship with Him. Blessings to you in your new year and what God has planned for you!

Tanya

Part 2 - Questions Answered!

As promised, I wanted to follow-up our first post by answering some questions that have come up as we've shared our news...

1. Why Ethiopia?

That is probably the most popular question we have received, and there is a short and long answer to it. The short answer is - this is the country we felt led to adopt from! :) But there are reasons behind that. I did not know very much about adoption when we started this journey, and so I wanted to do some research on adoption before we started. I've heard some say - adoption is trendy, or even international adoption is becoming trendy, and lots of people seem to adopt from Ethiopia lately. Well, maybe some of these statements have some truth to them, but I would like to believe that the SPIRIT is at work in our nation and in people's hearts, and our eyes are being opened to poverty and the orphan crisis around the world. If that is a trend to get caught up in, then I want a part of it!! :) There are millions or orphans in the world - they all need a home and parents to love and adore them - truly, does it really matter where they are coming from as long as they are finding a home and parents who love them? So really, we knew that no matter where we adopted - internationally or domestic, that God's blessing would be upon it and there would be one less orphan in the world.

So why did we choose Ethiopia - well here are some facts on Ethiopia:

There are 5 MILLION orphans in Ethiopia alone! 1 of 8 children die before the age of 5 years old. Poverty is paramount and widespread...more than a third of Ethiopians live below the poverty line, and almost 25% percent live on less than a dollar a day! I spent a dollar yesterday on a pop while I was at work. The average annual income is $180. What was your annual income this year? How long does it take you and/or your spouse to earn $180? The country ranks in the bottom seven percent globally in annual per capita income. Only 22% of people have access to safe drinking water. Do you have any family members, friends, etc who don't have access to safe drinking water? I can't think of anyone, which either says something about how much we have in our country, or it says something about me and who I have surrounded myself with.

Recently our church received the challenge to replace one meal of the week with rice and beans to spread awareness of poverty around the world. I challenge you to try this for a month. I will be honest - I looked forward to this and I dreaded it all at the same time. Every time we did this, it was a good reminder of world hunger, and yet, I admit, I am not a fan of plain rice and beans. In fact, I couldn't even get the beans down - most of the time I ate the rice and left my beans - that's how spoiled I am. I couldn't even appreciate the food b/c of what my body is used to receiving. And yet for some, this is there only meal every day - and they'd be thrilled to have my leftover beans!! Truly, how much food do we waste every day/week/year? How much food do we throw away out of our fridges because we don't feel like eating leftovers? These are questions Todd and I have been asking ourselves - as we become more aware of global hunger, poverty, the orphan crisis, etc. God continues to make us very aware that we have SOO much and what are we going to do about it? Shall we continue to pretend that we are blind to the situation?

Ok, back to the questions. :)

2. Will we adopt an older or younger child? Just one or more than one? Girl or Boy?

We have applied to adopt one younger child of either gender between 0-24 months. That does not mean we are not open to adopting an older child or more than one child, but that is where we are at right now. If we would feel the Lord calling us to that along this journey, then we would change our preferences. We'll just have to see where the Lord takes this! :)

3. How long will the adoption take?

It is our understanding that this first stage (paperwork, homestudy, and getting our dossier together) will take around 6 months from beginning to end - maybe shorter, maybe longer. Once our dossier is in Ethiopia, our waiting begins. Wait times are estimated right now around 8-14 months until we would receive a referral for a baby. Once we have a referral then we have to wait for a court date and will travel to Ethiopia for that. Adoption from Ethiopia requires 2 trips now, and so we will have to leave our precious little one :( after that first trip, until everything is in place (I'm not sure right now what that all consists of) and get approval to travel again and bring our baby home! So all in all, I'm really estimating 2-2 1/2 years before this child is actually home in our arms, from start to end.



Well that is all I have for now. Both of my kiddos have just woken up from there naps so I'd better tend to them! Blessings!

Tanya

Our BIG News (and why we started a blog!)

I have always loved to read others' blogs - some people have such a wonderful way of phrasing things just the right way and writing something that speaks to my heart. Reading blogs is something I do when I really don't feel like cleaning, cooking, or going to bed at night! I've always envied others' blogs, knowing that if I attempted my own, things probably wouldn't come out the same way I hope that they will or I may have trouble explaining my thoughts as well as others do.

So why start a blog? Well there are several reasons, but the reason that is at the top of the list is that we have big news, and some of you that live farther away may want to follow our journey. So what is our big news???

We are adopting!! Yes, that's right - we have officially started the adoption process with Bethany Christian Services and plan to adopt a baby from Ethiopia. Now, some of you may be thinking...um, don't you have a 2 year old who is really a handful at times and didn't you also give birth just this past summer to another child? Well yes, that is true...our daughter Avery is 2 1/2, and our son Easton is 6 months. So are we crazy?? Maybe. :) Does adoption from Ethiopia take awhile? Yes. Are we trying to live a life that is led by the Spirit? With all our hearts!!

And so here is the story of how our adoption journey started - this will be part 1 - part 2 will be some questions answered that we may receive regarding our adoption.


Part 1 - Our Adoption Story...

Adoption is something that I knew very little about growing up. I did not know hardly any adopted kids, and the ones that I did know were in families who were unable to have any children of their own. It is not something that I even considered as a way to grow my family until the past few years actually. God first put adoption on my heart a very long time ago when Todd and I were dating. We were talking about family sizes, as he wanted a smaller family (coming from a family of 4 kids) and I wanted a larger family (coming from a family of 2 kids). He then made the comment that he still wanted a smaller family, but if he was to even consider a larger family, he didn't want them all to be biological children. I thought that was an odd comment but we didn't pursue it further at the time.

So fast forward to our married life a few years ago...our best friends from highschool tell us that they plan to adopt and they eventually do adopt 2 children from Ethiopia (at the same time!). In my head, I'm thinking, wow, that is really nice for you to do - you know, saving those kids and all, but honestly you have 2 of your own little kids and your adding 2 more little ones? You really must be crazy and well, these friends of ours are pretty laid back people, so I suppose they can handle that, but there is no way that this Type A could EVER do something like that! I would go insane, I'm sure of it, and I'm sure God would never call ME to do something that crazy - b/c I'm sure that God would want my life to be as neat and orderly as possible. I don't really like messes and kids just creat mess and chaos (why did I think I wanted a big family when I was a teenager??) and so a family with nice equal spacing that comes from my own womb would be a much nicer, neater, less chaotic, SAFE way to grow my family (not to mention less expensive - lets be honest, adoption is very expensive and it certainly wasn't fitting into my budget currently - maybe in about 5 years, but not now!)

Next step - we attend a church in town called Living Water Community Church. We LOVE it - never have I felt so at home in a church, never have I been SOO very sad to miss a church service or wanted to go back SO badly! We love the people, the community, the love, the acceptance, the GRACE that is found there. This summer/fall our pastor began preaching a series of sermons about Discipleship and God's Spirit working in us. Well it just so happened that at this same time, God was putting adoption on my heart - so while I was taking care of my 3 month old, I began praying about adopting another child and praying that if God wanted us to do this, that He would give my husband this same idea - that Todd would be all for it and be content with even being done having biological children if it meant continuing to grow our family through adoption. I began praying for Todd's heart and my own as I had many fears, uncertainties, and some barriers that needed to be broken down before I was ready to give my heart over to this.

Well as Todd and I began talking about adoption, He began placing a seed in both of us that just continued to grow and grow. I began reading anything I could on adoption - books, blogs of others who have adopted, international adoption vs. domestic, talking with others who have adopted, etc. It was addicting and just like that, my passion grew like wildfire.

In the process God began breaking my heart for His children and giving me such a passion for orphans around the world. You know how when you are little your parents tell you to eat all of your food b/c there are starving children in Africa? I've tried using this on my 2 1/2 year old; she doesn't get it yet. :) But how many of us "really get it?" We know it to be a true fact - that there are millions around the world, literally starving to death, and there are at least 145 MILLION (conservative estimate) orphans in the world - that is 145 million kids that DON'T have someone to kiss them hundreds of times a day, tuck them in at night, pray with them, LOVE on them constantly like I do with my own kids. And why has this major injustice never just completely broken my heart? I mean, I of course felt really badly about it, and it made me so very thankful for the home/parents/country I was placed in, I would feel compelled to give an offering at church on sunday for a specific need or sponsor a child. But it never made me give up any of my own comfort or TRULY sacrifice for them.

As God put this on our hearts, He made it very clear that Ethiopia was the country we were to adopt from, and not only that, but we were to start the process NOW, not wait until our baby is at least a year old, and not wait until we have all the finances in place for this $30,000-$40,000 adoption, but start it now, and TRUST Him that His plan for us is greater, that His resources are vast, and that this LEAP of FAITH will be a wild ride, but He WILL provide what we need each step of the way.

So...we JUMPED!! And we met with a social worker from Bethany, began filling out paperwork, and have submitted our formal application. Our application has been accepted by the Ethiopia team from Bethany, and we have almost completed our homestudy paperwork and hope to have our first homestudy interview in the next couple weeks.

Needless to say - we are very excited, a little overwhelmed, but very excited!! We invite you to share this journey with us as we follow God's call to adopt a child from Ethiopia!