Julia Maureen Tigist

The Blind Side

This past Friday evening, my dad took me on a date and we saw one of the most incredible movies ever made. I mentioned it in my last post, its the true adoption and football story of Michael Oher called The Blind Side.

It holds very true to the actual story of a high class Christian Memphis family who took in an orphan boy of the street and eventually adopted him.

This movie was BEAUTIFULLY done, incredible music, cinematography, intriguing, fabulous acting, everything. It makes the audience cheer and laugh out loud half of the time and cry the other half. The story is redeeming and uplifting and really, as all adoption stories are, a beautiful picture of the Gospel. The marriage relationship is healthy, the family isn't perfect but they have true love for one another, the story is real, believable, convicting and close to home.

As I said before, adoption advocates--- do not miss the chance to see this AMAZING movie in theatres this week.

And have a blessed Sunday!

Many Updates

First and foremost, I would like to announce that my beautiful brother and sister are officially FOUR YEARS OLD!

Could I possibly love these kids more? I could gush about them all day, and since this is a (late) post celebrating their birthday-- why not?

Michael,

Oh Meza my wonderful brother, when we began the adoption process I was only expecting to get one little brother and I can not tell you the countless hours I spent dreaming of you, imagining what you'd look like, pretending that I was showing you off to all my friends, praying for you future, blessing the the Lord for your life, and waiting, waiting, WAITING for you to come home! You bring me laughter everyday. You are so smart, funny, strong, athletic, an AMAZING dancer, an engineer and such a silly head. I love you brother, and I'm eager to see where the Lord carries you as you continue to embrace life to the fullest. Your sister,

Audrey.

Julia,

TeeGee, my beauty baby girl, could you be any more sweet, hilarious, adorable, loving and joyful? Eyes are the window to the soul, Julie Love, you must have the brightest, most gleaming, hopeful, overflowing spirit in the whole world. Your eyes are so incredibly sparkling and bright. Your loving spirit overflows in your contagious laughter and helpful attitude. You are always making sure that everyone is ok, telling them that you love them, singing praise songs, playing "house guys", asking us to read you stories out of your little Bible, and talking about the babies in "Epiopia" who don't have mommies and daddies. You are so caring and compassionate and I can already see what a wonderful mother and housewife you are going to be. You bring me endless joy and I am cannot express how proud, honored, and overjoyed I am to be your sister. Happy four years baby girl,

Audrey

PS. For those of you who are wondering, Meza is Michael's Ethiopian name that we kept as his middle name. Julia's Ethiopian name/middle name is Tigist, which in Ethiopia people use interchangeably with the nickname for Tigist, TeeGee. In our house, we refer to the twins as Michael, Mez, and Meza, Julia, Tigist, and TeeGee- but Michael and Julia most.

..................... On to other things:

"King Arthur" went WONDERFULLY! I wish I had pictures to post but I don't have any yet, hopefully eventually. It was definitely hectic, but it was really a ton of fun and I learned so so so much about the art of Theatre, and the art of Relationship. God really took this opportunity to teach me what it means to do something for HIS GLORY, I guess because working back stage doesn't get quite the same attention as the actors do but also in many other little details. Preforming on stage enables and calls you to display the glory of the Lord to the audience, working backstage calls you to display this same glory and love to your friends, to the people that might be frustrating you right at that moment, while you are running around crazily, in the midst of tight spaces and complicated and precise work--- not only during the entire show but also ALL OF PRODUCTION WEEK------ every minute of it. You are called to a role of encouragement and management and leadership. Anyway, all that to say, this show really stretched me, but I am so glad I did it and I can't wait to find out what we'll be doing next semester.

Finally, I want to introduce you all to a family that I sort of know but got more connected with through the blog world. Meet the Hollis family who are try to raise all $20,000 to adopt a sweet little girl named Darya before Thanksgiving. Yes, this Thanksgiving. I've have been so inspired and encouraged by hearing their walk of faith and I can't wait to see what God will do through their daughter Lydia as the Lord uses her to and she chases after Him. If any of you are interested in supporting them in this their blog is: the30dayjourneyforhope.blogspot.com. (If you can't get this link to work, just type the address in).

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

PS. The movie THE BLIND SIDE comes out today--- its the true and recent adoption story of Michael Oher, and it looks fabulous. My family is seeing it today and I ABOLUTELY encourage every adoption advocate to bring a big crew to go see this movie to ensure it does well in box office.

~"If you always go where you've always gone,

and you always do what you've always done,

then you'll always be what you've always been."~

some updates and King Arthur

Ok, so I know that I've abandoned my blogging and I won't even try to excuse it.


BUT, I will apologize for the coming abandonment. Since I was in eighth grade and fell in love with the Broadway musical "Wicked", I have absolutely loved theater. I've been a part of my school's drama department since my freshman year and have participated in two plays and two musicals with them. Right now we are working on a production of King Arthur. In the past, I have always performed in the show, but for this one I decided that I wanted to try working back stage since none of the characters really caught my attention anyway. It has been a lot of fun to get this new experience of being Props manager and Stage manager for the show.




All that to say, if any of you have ever participated in any kind of stage performance, you know what a lot of craziness comes with "Production Week". don don donnnnn


:)


Basically from tomorrow until the cast party after the last show on next Friday the 13th it'll be nonstop King Arthur for me and my fellow dramamates. All day except for during school (and we're even getting some time off of school) we'll be a-workin'. Literally, 'til about midnight every night. One of my friends is even living with us this coming week since her family lives to far out to come get her every night that late and its easy for us to just take her to school in the morning.


I am so honored that the Lord has chosen me to help be a part of this beautiful art for His Glory. I am so amazed at the incredible teamwork and relationship building that I see around me and am so blessed by my director and even fellow students continually leading our team to prayer, even in the middle of a rehearsal, if something is going wrong or we really need help with a specific thing, or even if we are just losing our focus for a minute, its drop everything and pray. Even with all the work ahead, I am so excited because God has called us to excellence in everything we do to show forth His Kingdom to a hungry world. And, its fun. :)


On another note, Michael and Julia, my precious brown babies, are turning FOUR on Monday! Wow. They're still my babies. I'll hardly get to spend any time with them on Monday but I'll still try to do a birthday and a blessing post for them after some of the craziness wears off.


Happy Thursday!