Life is good...

Since I last wrote several things have happened. First off David and I celebrated our 17th Wedding Anniversary, second we all celebrated Lala being with us for 2 years now, and third David and I attended the Buckner International Adoption workshop. Not in that order mind you. We started off last weekend by attending the workshop on Friday from 1-5ish. We were excited to be there and wouldn't have missed it for the world, other's on the other hand weren't as dedicated and the two other couples that had RSVP'd missed...maybe because of the monsoon we had last week. That was great for us though, it turned out to be a one on one with us and we focused mostly on Ethiopia, since that is where we are interested. We met five ladies that were there that day and we loved each one of them. Buckner has been around for so long and has such a great humanitarian aid program and these ladies hearts are wonderful and truly focused on the children and the families that they will be matching together. We are so excited!!!

After the workshop David and I were off to a weekend alone at his parents lake house. What a wonderful blessing it was to be there. We arrived there around 11pm and got settled in, going to bed around 3am. Needless to say it was noon before we got out of bed...I won't tell you why...OK I'll tell you...the clocks were off due to time change! What??? After having a wonderful "big" breakfast we sat talking, reading, relaxing, and praying. Before we knew it we had missed lunch and it was already 4pm. We grilled up some burgers and ate those for an early dinner. What a wonderful day we had with no worries in the world, most of the day we spent on our knees on the floor in prayer for our children and family. It was just perfect. We also started on the inch thick application papers. There is a long road head of us there. We headed out Sunday after another "big" breakfast after lunch. We picked up all four of the kids from my sisters house...she and my parents had taken turns with all seven of the grandkids at their houses and headed back home.

We then celebrated with the kiddos our anniversary and Lala's 2nd year of being with our family. The girls made cupcakes, I made icing and the boys grilled T-bone steaks out on the grill. What a grand celebration it was.

What a blessing to have such a close and loving family. We are so proud of our children and the young adults that the older three are becoming. Such wisdom they have that can only come from God. Praise God for good times...

We're on a roll...

And we're off...we have turned in our pre-application to Buckner and have RSVP'd to attend the International Adoption workshop on March 13...just one day before our 17th anniversary and our 2 year celebration of "gottcha day" for our youngest Lauren. She was our present for our 15th anniversary...and what a great little present she is. After this workshop we will start on our paperwork for the formal application and all the requirements for that. In times like this...where you have to wait...it works out good that time moves so fast. We are so excited!!!

God is making it very apparent that this is the road for us...since choosing to go with Buckner, we have been more excited and ready to run. We are requesting a baby girl and a baby boy that are between 0-9 months old. We are so excited that we have picked out their names already...we will name the girl...Kennedy Erin Jones and the boy...Leland Hudson Jones. That way we will not only have 3 girls and 3 boys, but we will also have 2 j's, 2 k's, and 2 l's. Our oldest is 13 1/2 and she is getting very excited...to the point where she has written poems for the children. Hopefully she will let me post them on here some day, but for now she isn't ready to put her heart on the line with that yet. She says that she is most excited about shopping for the babies...but what teenage girl isn't into shopping. Everytime we go into a store, we look at the baby stuff, but since we don't know for sure yet how big they will be, we can't buy anything. Although, Kait and I did pick up the cutest little "black" baby at Target the other day to take to Kennedy when we go to Ethiopia to bring them home.

We are so close to paying off the Suburban and the small loan that we have on our house. We sold tons of stuff in a garage sale last week and made over $600 there...plus I can now park my suburban in the garage. Getting rid of junk sure has freed us up and we don't even miss it. I have even started to think about cutting hair again from the house to earn some extra money to help out with the cost of adoption. God will provide...just as He has always done!

What is going on here?

Sometimes I just don't understand Him. This is one of those times...I feel so passionately that He has put this burning, exploding love in my heart for the children of Ethiopia...so why doesn't my husband feel the same way? This has been my prayer for the last couple of months as I cry out to my Lord asking "Why?".

David has expressed to me that he does feel that the Lord has asked us to adopt again, but there is a small check list that he feels needs to be done before we start our adventures. Things like paying off our suburban and the small loan on our house, taking the kids to Disney, feeling like he has more quality time with the four children already in our care, you know...things like that. He also is concerned about how the children will feel as they get older knowing that they are different from us because their skin color is different. My answer is always simple and easy for me to believe..."God will help us raise these children to be loving and caring people, secure in who they are in the Lord"...they won't know any different, because they will have grown up in a white family with white friends who love them just the same. Not to say that we won't teach them about their own culture, but that their culture doesn't have to look so different from ours.

Looking back at what God has done in the past, I see glimmers of hope and light. David was the one who first started talking about us adding another child to our family before we welcomed LaLa into our family. And he has been the one that started the spark in my heart with the forwarded email that a friend had sent to him that contained their blog that told of their story of their adoption of two children from Ethiopia. I think that God has a plan in this all...my thoughts are that as a mother, I need to be able to be ready and willing to love, sacrifice, provide, care for, encourage, and support any children that are put in our family. That is what a mother does for her children as she teaches and disciples them. God has put this burning desire in my heart to prepare me to take in more children. I am ready Lord...use me to Your Glory...allow me to step out in faith, without looking back...trusting You and only You to provide for me and my family every step of the way.

Oh...and did I mention that David and I were up till 2:45am Friday night on the Internet studying and reading about the country of Ethiopia and different adoption agencies that work there? We are really leaning towards Buckner that is here in Dallas. In fact we are filling out a pre-application to send in tomorrow. See...God is working here!!!

God's Adventure

I attached a poem to my blog...a poem that describes how I want to live my life. Not a safe life, but a life of adventure and growing towards Christ. God never once promised us safety here on earth, but he did promise that we as believers would be persecuted and mocked because of our beliefs...some of us would even lose our lives for Him. What a wonderful epitaph...to have "died" for the name of our Lord and Savior.

David and I have done a lot of "crazy" things over our almost 17 years of marriage. Most of them our friends and family have stood by watching, some telling us we should quit and then them telling us "I told you so" on the days you are down. I once read a book where the man called these people border bullies...people who know they couldn't do what you're doing, so they encourage you not to try at all, then they are the first ones there to bully you when you are feeling as though you are failing. You know these people by name, just as I do.
Owning our own gaming business is one of our ultimately crazy adventure that we have been on for almost 6 years now. God has taught us so much about how good He is to provide at just the right second and how trusting in Him and Him alone is enough. Over the last few years we have had years when we have gone for 11 or more months without normal pay, only to be provided for by family, friends, perfect strangers from church, and acquaintances.
We have also been on the fostering adventure...taking in an eighteen month old, then later that same year taking in two of her older brothers, bring our ratio to 2 adults to 6 kids....crazy!!! What a tough and challenging year God took us on there. But all the while, through our tears and pain, He changed our hearts and brought us closer to where He wants us to be.
That brings me to our adoption adventure where we rode a very emotional roller coaster for several months...only to be the proud parents of an awesome three year old girl who lights up our world along with our other three children. What a blessing they are!!!
Our latest adventure you ask? Well, He is chasing us again! And He seems to be cornering us in the adoption corner again. Our hearts have grown so much towards taking care of His children...so we are looking into adopting possibly two more...where? You might ask. Who knows? My heart, along with our two boys hearts, is in Ethiopia. I have been reading, watching, and listening to many families that have adopted from there and I feel so drawn to these children. I am praying daily for God's direction on this. I only want to do things that bring me closer to Him and His son Jesus.
I feel that the only truly enjoyable adventures are the one that God Himself ordains. Through obedience to Him only, can we truly find the peace and joy that He speaks of in His word.