my friend lisa is the winner!
quite fitting, really!
lisa is my friend that gave us the head's up on that little girl from yangjiang being available for adoption! lisa also has two girls from yangjiang (orphanage where amy and aubrie are from!) and we share a heart for those orphans left behind... especially older ones!
i should seriously brand some of these memes! i guess this is what you get at 5:00 am ;-)
i pulled up the old blog this morning and traveled back in time to february 2007. we were getting ready to celebrate amy's 1st birthday with us (she was about to turn 3). that little peanut was still climbing into the ergo carrier pretty regularly (for safety, security, attachment); sucking on those two middle fingers while she slept...
oh, my goodness! she was so little! and she was still such a baby!
there were days that i wondered if she would ever catch up. she was so far behind developmentally... i was thankful that i had some baby days with her, but she had missed so much and wasn't hitting milestones for several months delayed.
now, five years later, i can see how much progress she has made! we can't completely make up for what she didn't have for her first 25 months, but generally speaking, you would never guess that she adopted as a toddler and not an infant.
and really - who cares?! look at that smile!!! i get to be her mom! she gets to be a mei mei and a jie jie! things like developmental milestones pale in comparision...
amy - you've come a long way, baby!!!
seriously.
i'm thankful for some quiet time this morning. as in: all the kids are at school and i ran a few errands and am now listening to david platt's podcast from sunday.
i'm ready to jump into a very small sewing project.
do you see that?
it says easy...
here's hoping it is!
here's hoping, in fact, that it is sooooo easy that i can make a few skirts.
easy. packable. quick drying.
*smile*
OH! and don't forget about my give-away!!! three days left to enter!
i got this crazy idea on saturday to run to the shoe store in our little (used to be) outlet mall in town. it was kind of a spur of the moment idea. i remembered seeing some shoe's there probably 6 months ago and wondered if they had a similar style. they did not.
i digress...
as i walked into the store, i saw a sweet woman from church. i've actually known her for a really long time - long before she became part of our local faith family. she's the mom of a dear friend of mine (since i was pregnant with austin!). i struck up small talk with her in the middle of the shoe aisle. she asked "now - you have 3 chinese children, right?". somehow lots of people missed that last one we snuck in there ;-) "it's actually 4 now!". and then i added my tag ling "but, we are done!" people always ask*...
we chatted for a good 15 minutes about life and adjustments and joys and challenges. it was good. so good for me to have that time to really testify to the goodness of god in the lives of these children and in our family.
before we parted ways, she leaned in and asked if she could hug me. of COURSE! my heart was so encouraged...
(zao photography)
the night before, i got a facebook message from another friend. she teaches elementary music at my kiddos school and gets to regularly interact with anna and amy. she had a sweet and funny story to share with me about anna. people always have funny stories about anna... that girl! but, she added a little insight about music that day and it just warmed my heart to imagine the interaction... this friend always knows how to encourage me in this journey we are on. her words always come at the perfect time!
and one more...
the night before that, one of the para's at my kid's school came up to me at a school event to talk. she works with aubrie every day and regularly interacts with anna, too. because the kids go to a k-12 school, she also sees my other kids daily. she told me about how well aubrie is doing and how joyful she is. then she started talking about how much she loved all my kids. how expressive and thoughtful they were with others - and with each other. she even told me that she saw austin stop during a passing period when he saw aubrie and hugged her... yeah. that's good to hear!
all that to say: it's good to be encouraged by other believers! it's good to be reminded that people are praying for us. it's also a good reminder to me to do the same for the moms i know. to share sweet stories and offer a hug.
*yes. it's silly to say "no more!". we don't mean it. i mean, we do mean it, but we are always open to jesus' calling and leading. we don't tell him "no". we just truly feel like we are done and that god has given us the freedom to move into a differnt role with chinese orphans...
oops!
sorry that i didn't make this onto my blog last night. we had a fun date night and after we got the kids back home and to bed, i was out... my favorite date nights are the ones when i can drop the kids off somewhere else (last night it was at church with ashleigh's small group - they were raising money for a local group to stop human trafficking!) and then come back home. i love home. we rented a movie and got chinese take out. it was awesome.
anyway - back to the give away!
i ordered several sets of these amazing books to have available at our mission's fest at church last weekend:
and i happen to have an extra set - and i want to share them with one of you!
i first read about the author - ann dunagan - on her website. the more i read about her, the more i thought she sounded a little like me. we ordered the book "the mission minded family" and read through it rather quickly! lots of little things we can do to help our family think missionally - both locally and globally!
you don't have to pack up and move to a third world country to start thinking missionally. small changes in your budget, prayer time and free time move you - and your children - that direction. we are disciples of jesus and we have the power to be world changers. changing the world begins with our children - who go on to affect the next generation for christ!
so...
the give away rules:
- one entry for leaving a comment on this post
- one entry for linking this post on facebook (then let me know by commenting here)
- one entry for linking this post on your blog (also, let me know by commenting here)
ex: hey, tami! would <3 to have these books! i shared the link on fb and on my blog!
= 3 entries!!!
ex: hi. here's my comment.
= 1 entry (please say more than "hi.")
:-)
i will draw a winner a week from today - next saturday morning - the 25th!
*smile*
i still smile almost every time i say it.
"lake iguana."
it's pretty simple, really. this year, we decided to pull back from a lot of extra stuff. one of the things we decided to do was to skip AWANA at our church in favor of focusing on some basic biblical training at home. we found this AWESOME free curriculum that we are using from the church at brook hills and we just love it! it has application for the age spread of all our kids! it just works for us!
anyway...
change is kind of a big deal in our place ;-) when we told the kids that we weren't going to do AWANA this year, we were ready to tell them that we were still doing an AWANA-type thing... and we would call it "(last name) AWANA"!
abe heard "lake iguana".
and that is what we have called our wednesday night family time since then.
*****
i want to start a blog giveaway today!!!
i'll post details for it later today!!!
i am almost constantly reminded how completely crazy my life is.
nearly as often, i am reminded how crazy blessed my life is, too!
i was at therapy for one of my kids yesterday - going thru a really fun intake process - and the therapist was asking questions for a test. "does your child routinely break house rules such as: no running in the house or jumping on the furniture?"
ok...
those aren't house rules for us. (although, i certainly can and do ask them to stop when it gets dangerous! hello?! i am a good mom!)
actually, i can remember when they were. but, something happened sometime over the past 6 years that made me rethink things. rules like "don't run in the house!" lost precedence to rules like "if you feel sad and you don't know why, come ask mommy to hold you and i promise i will stop and scoop you up to snuggle."
i gotta tell ya, i generally feel pretty good about our parenting style. not "i am SO awesome!", but more like "these kids need a style of parenting that looks different than what we did with ash and austin." but, yesterday... i started to doubt again.
am i giving these kids what they need? am i giving them enough structure? am i balancing that with enough freedom to explore and catch up developmentally?
then god - because he is so good and so faithful - reminds me...
yes, it's crazy. but, when he knit these 6 kids together, he was creating them for this family. a family where a game of hide and seek or volleyball with a balloon during lake iguana (i'll share that story later!) or dinner being 15 minutes late because someone needed snuggles is normal.
thank you, jesus, for creating these kids for me. help me learn to always seek you as i parent them, for your glory! help me to rest in your good plan for their lives and for mine...
I heard this a few years ago at Perspectives and it serves as a very vivid word picture in my mind and I wanted to share...
"Thy Brother's Blood Crieth" by Amy Carmichael
The tom-toms thumped straight on all night, and the darkness shuddered round me like a living, feeling thing. I could not go to sleep, so I lay awake and looked; and I saw, as it seemed, this:
That I stood on a grassy patch, and at my feet a ravine broke straight down into infinite space. I looked, but saw no bottom; only cloud shapes, black and furiously coiled, and great shadow-shrouded hollows, and unfathomable depths. Back I drew, dizzy at the depth.
Then I saw forms of people moving toward the edge. There was a woman with a baby in her arms and another little child holding on to her dress. She was on the very edge. She lifted her foot for the next step... Then, to my horror, I saw that she was blind. Before I could say anything she was over, and the children with her. Their cries pierced the air as they fell into the inky blackness of the ravine!
Then I saw more streams of people flowing from all quarters. All were blind, stone blind; all walked straight toward the edge. There were shrieks as they suddenly knew themselves falling, and a tossing up of helpless arms, catching, clutching at empty air. But some went over quietly, and fell without a sound.
Then I wondered, with a wonder that was sheer agony, why no one stopped them at the edge. I could not. I was glued to the ground, and I couldn't even yell; though I strained and tried, only a whisper would come out.
Then I saw that along the edge there were sentries set at intervals.
But the intervals were too large; there were wide, unguarded gaps between. And over these gaps the people fell in their blindness, unwarned; and the green grass seemed blood-red to me, and the ravine yawned like the mouth of hell.
Then I saw, like a little picture of peace, a group of people under some trees with their backs turned towards the ravine. They were making daisy chains. Sometimes when a piercing shriek cut the quiet air and reached them, it disturbed them and they thought it was a rather crude noise. And if one of their group started up and wanted to go and do something to help, then all the others would pull that one down. "Why should you get so excited about it? You must wait for a definite call to go! You haven't finished your daisy chain yet. It would be really selfish," they said, "to leave us to finish the work alone."
There was another group. It was made up of people whose great desire was to get more sentries out; but they found that very few wanted to go, and sometimes there were no sentries for miles and miles along the edge.
Once a girl stood alone in her place, waving the people back; but her mother and other relations called, and reminded her that her furlough was due; she must not break the rules. And being tired and needing a change, she had to go and rest for awhile; but no one was sent to guard her gap, and over and over the people fell, like a waterfall of souls. Once a child grabbed at a tuft of grass that grew at the very edge of the ravine; it clung convulsively, and it called - but nobody seemed to hear. Then the roots of the grass gave way, and with a cry the child went over, its two little hands still holding tight to the torn-off bunch of grass. And the girl who longed to be back in her gap thought she heard the little one cry, and she sprang up and wanted to go; at which her friends reproved her, reminding her that no one is necessary anywhere; "The gap would be well taken care of!", they said. And then they sang a hymn.
Then through the hymn came another sound like the pain of a million broken hearts wrung out in one full drop, one sob. And a horror of great darkness was upon me, for I knew that it was "The Cry of the Blood".
Then a voice thundered. It was the voice of the Lord, and He said, "What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground."
The tom-toms still beat heavily, the darkness still shuddered and shivered about me; I heard the yells of the devil-dancers and weird, wild shrieks of the devil-possessed just outside the gate.
What does it matter, after all? It has gone on for years; it will go on for years. Why make such a fuss about it? God forgive us!
God arouse us! Shame us out of our callousness! Shame us out of our sin!
I am planning a give away starting at the end of this week! Stay tuned...
february 14, 1980.
my mom and day gave me the BEST valentine gift - ever!
four year old girls love babies...
and i got one of my very own!
christopher robert.
i loved being a big sister!
some of my favorite memories when we were little:
- playing in our front yard (at the end of a cul-de-sac) with all the neighbor kids
- reading the funny pages together on sunday afternoons
- getting to be a big helper with little mommy duty
and as we got older:
- weekends together at mom's house; watching tv late at night and him being irritated that i kept falling asleep
- watching him start to love my boyfriend, chris (weird, i know!), like a big brother... and now seeing them as friends
- almost every day after school he would come to our house just to see ashleigh when she was a baby
- when he brought his girlfriend, joy, over to meet us for the first time
- watching him marry that sweet girl...
- getting to be auntie to four amazing little boys that god has blessed him with...
ok.
now that i am crying :-)
i just want to say "happy birthday, little brother!"
i love you.
i am thankful for you.
and i am thankful to get to watch you continue to grow into the image of jesus.
and lead your family and train your boys to love HIM and serve him, too.
wife to Chris, mom to Ashleigh, Austin, Aubrie-Li, Amy-Hui, Anna and Abraham and daughter of the King of kings
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