our adoption paperwork is in the mail

today is the day that we have officially sent off all of our paperwork for our adoption! it means that we are moving one step closer to bringing August home. we can’t tell you how excited we are about this. i finished up this afternoon around 1pm with collecting all of our stuff. I went to Kinkos and made copies, and then proceeded to the Post Office. They should receive the envelope by tomorrow. We still have a couple of more things to do before we are in the waiting process. We have our home visit, psychological testing, and our profile. then we will be put on the list! it seems like we still have alot, but after getting that small book of paperwork finished this stuff looks easy.

thanks again for all of your prayers & support. please continue to pray for us as we have these last steps to complete. pray for everything to work out with Maris’ job so that she can have the time off required to get our counseling done. pray for provision. we are almost half way there with our funds, and we still have a ways to go. i know the money will be there…but i’d be lying to you if said i didn’t worry about it at all. pray for the mother of this child & all of the things she is going through. pray for a safe pregnancy. pray for us as we try to keep focused & moving forward with what we have left to do.

you guys are the best! thanks for being a part of this journey.

Martin Luther King

I just watched the Martin Luther King special from Oprah. I will be honest when I say that I do not know a lot about Martin Luther King. I know we covered him in school but now I wonder how much of his life did we really cover? I went to a mostly white private school and I don’t think they had the desire to really dive into his life or legacy. The older I get the more fascinating this man becomes. I listened to pieces of his speeches during this special and just cried like a baby. This man changed the face of America with the passion inside of his heart. I believe he READ the Bible and he preached equality. This special inspires me to learn more about his message and mission of his life. I will be looking tonight for a book of his life.

We are all the same. White, black, rich, poor we are all created in the image of God and we are equal. We are a fallen humanity who is in need of hope and a savior.

When I dream about my family I realize that I can dream these dreams because this man stood for what he believed in. I long for a family that is transracial. I want as many colors of skin as we can squeeze into our limit of children. I want our family to stand for equality and love. I want to celebrate every culture we have in our family and I want us to love each other the same. Our colors are beautiful.

Sometimes I worry about what people will think of our family especially when we are out in public. After watching this and seeing what people fought through to get here my fears are eased. What if MLK lived his life based on what people would have said about him? What if he had never pushed the envelope and encouraged people to think outside of the box? What if he had never taught people how to love? How would America look today if he had worried and tamed down his message due to stepping on toes?

There is racism that still plagues our country. Do we surround ourselves with other cultures? Do we stay in our safe white community? What are you going to do to change the face of racism? Please take 5 mins to watch this video.

YAYYY FOR SCOTT AND TINA!!!!

My sweet friends Scott and Tina just brought their baby home (to the hotel) from the hospital!! They are in Texas still getting all of the paper work finalized and then they will be coming home soon. I am so excited for them!!

Check out their blog:

http://scottandtina.blogspot.com/

My little August,

My mind is flooded with thoughts of you tonight. I want you in this house with us. I just imagine you crawling around this floor. I want so badly to hold you and kiss all over your sweet face. I am ready to be a mommy (or at least I think I am).
This week I saw your daddy love on a little girl named Isabel in Peru. I can see in his eyes how much he will love you. I know that he will be an amazing dad to you. I can’t wait to see what God does with our family. I can’t wait to see how God blesses us with your brothers and sisters. I can’t wait to see where they will be from. I love you and dream about you all the time.

Yard Sale time!!

—revised—-

Hi friends! We are getting ready for our big yard sale that we are having friday & saturday morning!! the sale will start at 7am and will go until people stop coming by. So many of you have said you have stuff for us and we are so grateful. You all are reminding us daily about what the church is all about. We love you and are so thankful for all of our precious friends that have given us love, encouragement, support and help. Steven will be around tomorrow to gather stuff up and you can always call us and we can come pick stuff up. We love you guys and look forward to see how God will provide.

If you want to come by on Friday and Saturday we will have the baby quilts that Steven’s mom made out to sell. They are BEAUTIFUL!! They will go for $50 a quilt and you will see why if you come by! She did such a great job on them. They are about 3′x4′ in size with all kinds of different fabric.

We would also love for you to come hang out!

Cloth Diapers

Well I have been talking with a girl at work who uses cloth diapers and I will just tell you that I am very very fascinated. She has told me about their daily routine and how much money they save. Of course there is the given about the whole environment thing. You wouldn’t believe how far cloth diapers have come! They have little buttons and snappies and are made to fit. You should check out www.diapersafari.com.
They are so cute and I am really thinking about doing this!!!
I know some people probably don’t think this is very cool but thats ok.

Thinking about August

This morning Steven has gone out of town and I am here at the house thinking about all the paper work that I need to get done for our adoption. We have so many meetings we need to go to and so much to get done. I am overwhelmed.

My heart is heavy and my head is full of thoughts. It feels like we have to climb a mountain to get to August. I am typicly not good at climbing mountains. My track record is pretty full of finding a way out of climbing. It could be that my hiking boots are the wrong size or the weather is not what it needs to be in order to climb at the best of my ability. I guess the two reasons to not climb this mountain would come down to fear and a lack of perseverence.

If I were to be honest I am a little afraid of getting hurt in this process. I am afraid. I honestly can’t put my finger on it but I have this tiny fear down in the pit of my stomach. Am I really ready to be a PARENT? Can we afford a child? What if we are chosen and the birth mom changes her mind? I know that would be the right decision for her and I know that I would be ok in that moment and so supportive of her but what happens when I get home and I am alone?

I am not good with perseverance. Perhaps this is the very reason that I hate running. Running was punishment in basketball. I hate running. I mean what is the point of it? I always find reasons to get out of something. I am a wimp. The more I write in this blog I realize what a screw up I am. How am I supposed to influence a child? I never want August to be a quitter or a wimp!

I realize these 2 things:

1. I have the opportunity to change the very things in my life that plague every decision right now. I don’t have to sit and stare at these things and just assume that I am stuck with them for the rest of my life because that “is how I am.” I can change! I mean “I” can’t do it but there is a greater love in my life that changes these things the closer I get to him. This is when the perseverance kicks in. When I see these things I have to pull away from my old self. I have to determine to change. I have to wake up every morning and decide to love, I decide to not live my life based on fear. I have to decide that even though its hard I have to keep going. The end result is much sweeter
I need to see how much I stink as a person. I do not have it all together even though I LIKE to wear that hat and let everybody think I do. (I know the people that know me really well are laughing to themselves knowing that even though I like wearing that hat they know the real me.)

2. The second thing that I need to keep in mind is that life doesn’t always go the way we planned for it to. The safe and more comfortable way in this situation (I think) is for me to get pregnant. I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has told us to move forward with adoption first instead of getting pregnant. (Steven will be posting more of how we came to this decision under our “Why are we adopting” section soon) Sometimes I get scared. I am finding though that anytime you “move forward” with anything in your life it can be scary. Again, in my head I think it would be easier to get pregnant first. I am finding that A LOT more people lose babies during pregnancy than I thought. A LOT more people struggle with not getting pregnant than what I thought. If you stand back to look at the big picture- there is fear in every situation of life. I mean why get married if I will grow to love that person so much and he gets killed in a car accident? Why get pregnant if I could miscarry? Why start the adoption process and the birth mom changes her mind and I get hurt? I mean why do anything in this life?

But is this enough? Should we always live scared? I start thinking about the potential of big brown eyes and little fingers and toes and I can’t help but start tearing up. I would do anything to hold August. I would climb over any mountain to get to hm. There is a longing for him in the pit of my stomach that I cannot ignore. I long for him everyday. He is always on my mind. All of my fears flee when I think about him. I have no idea what he will look like or where he is or if he is in somebody’s belly at this moment- but I dream all the time. I love him aleady and I could care less about what he looks like. I just want to get to August.

So today I am choosing to not be a wimp. I am choosing to not live my life based on fear. I see the end result and I am looking at August and not the paper work in front of me. Hang with us and we will get there! What about you? What are you afraid of? What do you have a passion for but fear is standing in front of? What will you look back on in your life and regret not doing?

You have a choice