I'm back...

As you can tell by the date of my last post...May 21...you can see it has been quite some time since I've posted.

Life has been strange without my momma. My mind rests in knowing that she is with her Lord and Savior, but my heart aches daily. She was a constant support to me and my entire family and we are all saddened by her abrupt exit.

Hopefully I can get back to posting on her more regularly. Since our life has been turned upside down, we had put off the process of adopting from Ethiopia. Recently we have been talking about what we should do and feel like the Lord is leading us to foster to adopt again here in the Ft. Worth area. We are working on getting all of our paper up to date so that we can get back on the list. We have also discovered that our youngest daughter's birth mom is pregnant again and that if she is still using drugs that we may get that baby as well. The world continues to turn and we continue to wait upon the Lord. His timing is perfect!

In Memory of my mother...

On Saturday, April 25, 2009 my dear friend and mother went to be with the Lord. My heart now has a huge empty spot that is now filled with pain. I am confident that she is celebrating in heaven with Christ and her family and friends that went on before her. The Lord has been very generious to me the last few weeks and has blessed me with two different dreams that I would like to share now.

Last Thursday I drempt that I was getting onto a water ride. As I sat down in the boat, I asked the guy who was attending the ride if there was a seat belt for the ride, he replied "no", so I assumed that it would be a gentle ride. As the boat started off up the first steep hill, I heard the boy in front of me scream as he headed down the steep fall. I instantly thought "oh my goodness, I don't have a seat belt", I started to panic, but as I started down the fall, I felt the boat that I was in gently being carried down the steep hill. I immediatly felt peace and noticed that I was not afraid anymore. With each hill and drop, I continued to feel relaxed and peaceful. After I awoke, I realized that the ride I was on was much like the ride of grief that I am on now and that God is carrying me each and everyday as my emotions go up and down. He is my strength and the peace that I feel each day as I carry on with this life.

This past Monday night, I dreamed that me and our four children had the chance to visit with my mom one last time since her dying. My mom looked wonderful...she was much thinner and was very fit and active. When Kait and I saw her, we kept hugging and smelling her. I had so many questions to ask her. First I wanted to know about her hospital visit. I asked her if she knew what was going on, she said "no". Next I asked if she was scared at the hospital and she admitted that she was. I told her that I had been worried about the terrified look that I saw in her eyes. I then asked if she had been in pain that day, and she answered "no". I also asked her about my grandmother, Mawzy. She told me that she looked very cute...I thought that this was odd, because she was 81 when she died. I assumed that she had recieved a new body, just as mom had.

That's My Boy...

The other day while I was cooking dinner, our ten year old boy, Joshua, came out of the bathroom. He came over to me and questioned me about a book my husband and I are reading. The conversation went like this:

Joshua: "Mom, you know that book you and dad are reading that's in the bathroom called Bringing up Boys?"

Me: Yea

Joshua: "You know the one with the boy and the dog on the front?"

Me: Yea

Joshua: "Well...a dog sure would bring me up!"

Bouts of Confusion...

Wow, it's been a while since I last posted a blog and Wow have things been crazy! Last month we visited a new adoption group called Families Like Us. It is mainly a group for families who have adopted black children, but they welcome any adoptive family. A friend of mine from high school and youth group is a member and she had suggested we come and check it out. We loved it! We met some very neat people and also ran into another couple from our old church. We shared our hearts with them and also our vision of adopting from Ethiopia. They were excited for us, but a couple of them asked us why we weren't adopting from here. Not that they thought that it was bad that we were go outside the country, they were just asking. Of course, that got us to thinking again and wondering if the Lord was trying to tell us something. This is the part where the confusion set in. We continue to pray and ask God for direction and we are seeking out different avenues. Buckner is ready for us to start, but the process takes so long, costs so much, and the application alone is over an inch thick, which would take David months to complete. Where on the other hand, we already have everything we need with our current agency, Kornerstone, to get on the list this week and it would only cost us a couple thousand dollars to adopt through CPS. I know, it really sounds like a no brainer when you're reading this, doesn't it? Maybe we do know what it is we are to do. David is hesitant in doing anything right now. He said he feels like God is telling us to adopt again, but he isn't sure that it is to be right now. It is so maddening, but God has done this many times in our marriage, where He gives us a vision, but it doesn't actually happen for three years or so. We are learning to wait upon Him and trust that His timing is perfect. I know with the other things in the past, they have been much greater than we had imagined them being. We will trust again in His timing and in His blessing from our obedience. If you happen to read this, please pray for His direction for us and that we will press in and wait upon the Lord.

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...

Can I just say...

I talked about border bullies in one of my other blogs and I would like to address them again.

These people are well meaning people who ask us questions and then give us advice...mostly non biblical advice and then expect us to go..."you know...you're right...I probably shouldn't follow my heart because I might get hurt along the way". Plus they will be the first ones there in line to kick you when your down. When really these people, deep down, are just scared of something themselves, so they encourage others not to go there. Some are scared about losing their comfort, others are scared that they might get hurt, still others are unequipped, so they go around talking others into not stepping out. Another reason border bullies do there bullying...besides being scared is because it inconveniences them...forces them to do something they wouldn't have had to do otherwise. Sometimes they bully because they may have to live with the choices we make...in other words...the choices and decisions that we have made impacts them as well as ourselves...so they feel victimized. Some don't have that relationship with Christ so they just don't get it. They don't understand that Christ changes our hearts and that He really does converse and speak to us and we feel led by him to do things. It frustrates me, but I really don't expect them to understand...without Christ, you don't understand. And yes, if we stopped to think of all the possible things that can and probably will go wrong...we might just talk ourselves out of the challenge...so we try not to think about all the details, we just trust that He will be with us and provide for us when we get to that stage and we step forward. Some people think we are crazy...some thought Christ was crazy too. He calls us to adventure and steps of faith...not security and comfort...he promised us that life would be challenging and difficult and he calls us to die to ourselves...all those things to me don't mean sitting at home watching TV in the security of our comfortable homes, never getting out to serve...to me that is a wasted life. Our family has been offered the opportunity to serve in Mexico at a boarder town for a few days in April...as some of you know, Mexico is experiencing some security problems due to a drug war that is going on. When we talk with our children about whether we should go or not, our 13 year old responded that if she is going to die, she would "like to do it serving God"! Then our 11 year old chimes in that he would like to go also. These young teens may not get it fully, but they do understand that following Christ is not all fun and games...it's about fleeing from self and serving our Lord, who knows better than everyone how to live an abundant life, because he created it. Our family takes serving Christ seriously...so off we go on our newest step of faith. One giant step at a time!

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!