A Year to be Happy for Jesus' Sake

A beautiful picture of our court house in our little town, standing in front are two of our precious daughters. Tonight I want to ask Jesus what is in His heart as I want to be connected to His vision for my life. It's amazing, one year we gathered as a family, took a few moments of quiet meditation and asked God to speak to us the things on His heart. The children came up with words that reaffirmed each other; it was like we were all hearing the same voice, going the same direction. Some got pictures, some got words -- either way they heard. Why did this amaze me? Oh me, of little faith. I tend to have an unrealistic view that I don't measure up very well and how would a God of the universe want to be spending any time on an imperfect family? It's then I realized it's not about me or my imperfect family -- what I do or not do -- it's all about Love. My heart Loves him and He Loves that. Love takes me to His heart and gives me hope,it makes me Happy. I am frail and needy of Him. I long for Him. My life is fully complete in Him.
"Lord, speak to me and my friends this New Year's Eve. Give us eyes and hearts to see the things that you see and to feel your heart in the midst of it. May we live on earth as it is in heaven. May we realize we are not our own but bought with a price, a debt we can never repay. I lay my life down for you my King, you're my everthing."

His maiden in wait, Cindy

Shopping + Unders = 1 Nose Stud

Today, Jeff and I went shopping for some warm, new clothes for our new little kiddo's. Well, they're not exactly little -- they're about 11-ish, 8-ish, 6-ish, and 4-ish. Today we got their latest measurements -- and something is terribly wrong with this picture. In the last few months, one of their heads shrunk by 2cm while their height grew 7cm. What?! I don't think so! So it goes with Ethiopian adoption and incorrect measurements. I really wouldn't care much either, it's just that when you're on my end of things a correct measurment sure would come in handy. The other illusion of size comes from their expected ages. They aren't the ages they have them posted, at least not in our experience. Because no one seems to know when the child was born, it's a guess, and their guessing is not exactly, how should I say this?? good. So it's all one big guessing game, and it wouldn't be so bad if it was one child I'm guessing for. But I'm guessing for 4, and the worst part is I haven't even started on the underwear. After being in the store for 2 hours trying to imagine what size this child may be that grew 7cm in 2 months I thought at this rate I might should be looking in the teen sizes, even though he's supposedly 3 years old! It gets kinda over whelming, and I try not to let this stuff wear me down, but as I saw the packs of underwear it really began to hit me ... I can't do this!!! I have no idea what size unders they need, and they gotta have unders for heaven's sake! I can't have their unders falling off their butts, because that would make me a really bad mom! It was then I put the pack back on the shelf and said, "Cindy, chill!" -- it's breather time. So I promptly left the store and headed to the nearest piercing store and got myself a beautiful blue nose stud.

No Wedgies Please Cindy

Disclaimer: Please don't think us unthankful. We are thankful for each and every bit of info we get concerning our little kiddos.

Beginnings

Blogging is new to me and I hope to have my family be a part of this blog, as they each have a different perspective than I have, and it's interesting to hear it from their side of things too. I hope that's legal?! There so much to learn:)

I took a mission trip to India in 2006, and it impacted my life towards poverty, hunger, sickness, and children. Yet, in the eyes of the children I saw hope. I realized that the great harvest talked about in the book of Revelation is mostly coming from Africa, India and China. And here I was living in America with the church getting ready for this great harvest, when we along with Canada have less than 5% of the world's population. It began to dawn on me that there's a whole lot of money here for our small harvest, while the larger number is over there with little-to-no money. How odd is that? I also knew that the harvest is God's heart, with children and orphans being a huge part of that. I could see that His love for them is enormous, and that they are like beautiful, precious stones that radiate His face. I wanted to see His face as I look in theirs and behold His glory. This is something I want to be a part of.



I came back home from India, and I was ready to move -- seriously, move. My "beloved" house and my "beloved" antiques seemed like burnt embers, nothing but smoke and mirrors. It lost it's glow, and now I was hungry for something money couldn't buy. It's strange when I write this because it almost sounds like I got "saved". The only problem was my husband wasn't on board to sell everything and move, imagine that? He did look into opportunities of employment in India, but not much happened. Adoption had previously entered my mind, but after this trip it entered my heart.



I should tell you my husband and I met at the big Urbana Missions conference in Illinois that happens every three years. We both were looking at what direction we should go after our senior year of college. We both said, "Wherever you lead, God, we will go", and we ended up meeting each other -- then a year and a half later we married, isn't God too cute?

A wanna be missionary, Cindy

Loux Loss

Derek Loux from the Kansas City IHOP died Wednesday morning in a car accident due to black ice. He was an adoptive father and musician who championed the plight of the fatherless children wherever they are found and whatever they are like. He influenced me as a father through one meeting in Cedar Rapids over a year ago where he talked about and challenged us on God's heart for adopting needy orphans. This stirred my heart to toward adoption after my wife Cindy's following her visit to India a few years ago.
http://louxfamilyblog.com/2009/09/a-great-reminder-of-gods-goodness/ Is a touching story of Derek's heart being transformed by the Father, and it broke my heart when reading it. I felt God all over it and speaking to me with conviction.
Our family is praying for this dear family and asking God to raise up many more fathers and mothers who will speak for the orphan.

by Jeff and Cindy