Lent

So we got this great idea from  Roger (our priest ) for Lent.  He was telling a story about how many years ago he decided to write a note to someone special in his life for each of the 40 days in Lent. I immediately thought that was a great idea, and Jeff almost as immediately rolled his eyes (not at the idea, but at me starting a new "project").  I got the message and decided as much as I admired the idea, that I'm probably setting myself up for failure if I attempt this task.  So, what to do?  Well. . . . what do I have three adorable children for?  Aha- that's it - if everyone writes, then we each have to write 8 letters over the next 40 days and that is a little less intimidating.  After I proposed the idea to the family, everyone was pretty excited about thinking who he/she will get to write to.  Yesterday I spent some time getting together supplies and Maggie was the first one to start our project.  I love her letter, and I love watching her get so excited about sending something to her "granny."  I think she is as pleased with herself as Granny will be with her letter!

Don't Skip This One

Today in Ethiopia there are over 6 million orphans.  Out of all the children who are available for adoption, LESS than 5% will have a family to call their own.  53% of children over the age of 5 in Ethiopia HAVE to work to support their family (statistics taken from Gladney Adoption Agency).  These are children just like yours and mine.  They love sweets, silly games,  get scared when they hear thunder and need to be comforted when they are sick.  There's not one single difference between us except that for whatever reason, they do not have anyone to take care of them.  I just finished reading a book called, There Is No Me Without You.  It's about a local middle class woman in Ethiopia who after suffering several devastating life changes, opens her heart and her home to hundreds(eventually) of locally abandoned children.  It is, by far, one of the most interesting, accessible, heartwarming and emotional books I've read in a long time.  As foreigners ask her if she thinks that her "children" will have a hard time adapting to life in other countries, she responds by saying that children can adapt to anything, except not having parents to love them. Maybe there is a piece of your puzzle missing. Maybe adoption isn't for you.  That's okay.  But you can do something. Honor your blessings in life by investing in your community, help out at a local soup kitchen, become a "Big Brother", sponsor a child in another county, give to an organization that helps to make a difference in the lives of people who are less fortunate than ourselves. The Gates foundation and others are good places to start. Many adoption agencies also run child sponsorship programs. Tom Davis (another favorite author of mine- see his blog) runs Children's HopeChest, many religious groups also have foundations that distribute supplies, funds and volunteers all around the world. For example, The Episcopal Relief and Development, http://www.er-d.org/  and the United Methodist Church, http://www.umc-gbcs.org/ .147 million children around the world will thank you.

Thank You!

Wow, I'm not a good blogger.  I think the idea is, is that if you are going to blog about something it should be done on a regular basis.  So, to make up for lost time, here's the second one of the day.  Thank you to all who have "hired my husband" over the past several months for our adoption fundraiser. We (or really- HE) has earned over 2 thousand of the 7 thousand we are hoping to get to.  That's pretty amazing, esp. considering he hasn't worked every weekend since we announced our project!  The icing on the cake is that he really LOVES doing this type of work and  has met some pretty fantastic people along the way. Anyway, Jeff  has been busy enough that we are going to continue this effort for a little while longer. So, if you have any "handyman" type of projects you need done around your house, contact us!  He usually schedules people in for 4 hour time blocks on the weekend, and if that doesn't turn out to be enough time to get your "honey do" list done, he will re-schedule for the following weekend.  But hurry up, because pretty soon I'm going to stop sharing!  We need to finish off our basement so we can re-claim our office as a bedroom for our baby.

Waiting

Today is a good day to wait.  The sun is out, it's not terribly cold and the daffodils are shooting up through the mud in my front yard.  I'm pretty busy and everyone is healthy so I don't really have a lot of time to mope around and be sad about how long this process is.  Good news first: paperwork is done!!  Bad news: waiting for one document that comes from the state of Ohio and we can't proceed without it.  We've been waiting 9 and 1/2 weeks for this one single sheet of paper.  So we're at a standstill which would be okay if it was for something less important, but is heartbreaking when we just want to move forward so we can get our daughter.  We still have so much more waiting to do- once we get our one important paper from the state, the rest of our documents will be compiled and looked over, corrected, and sent to Washington D.C.  at which point we'll be placed on a waiting list that is currently running about 9 months long. More waiting.  I thought it wouldn't be so hard to wait since we are already blessed with three wonderful children.  I thought that keeping busy with them (and the dog, cat and husband) would be enough to keep my mind off of the wait.  Well, I was wrong.  Yup, I don't admit it too often, but I was wrong.  I can't help thinking about a child, our child, who is waiting for us.  Every time I feed my children, bathe my children, read to my children, listen to my children, play with my children, I think about the 6 million (yes, that is the corrected number since a few posts ago) halfway across the world that are not being fed, bathed, read to, listened to or played with. So, I wait, thinking about how I can help, what I can do for such an overwhelming problem.  And while I wait there is a sadness that gets a little less overwhelming on days like this, when the sun is out, the kids are laughing and I am thankful for all of our blessings.