Hope for "M"

This is "M"

"M" is nine years old and is a orphan. She is mentally delayed and has Apert Syndrome. In March, "M" is going to turn 10. In March, she will loose all chance of ever having a family and will be placed in an orphanage that is unequipped to care for her.

"M" has just over a month of hope for a forever family.

http://reecesrainbow.com/newsite/angelolderchild.html

If your family or a family that you know is looking to adopt, please consider "M". Our Father says: "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you." John 14:18.

.....Tuesday???

So, I wanted to start doing Mission Photo Monday from
http://iamone143million.blogspot.com/, but its already Tuesday. I missed it. Darn.



Can I get away with doing Mission Photo Tuesday this week , and try for next Monday???

I realized that I haven't really posted much at all about my first mission trip to Africa. When I was 11 years old my mom and I travelled with some people from my church to South Africa and Kenya for two weeks on a mission trip with African Leadership: http://www.africanleadership.org/.

That trip totally changed my world and God used it to inspire my love for orphans as well as the African people.

This is me and my friend Patience who lives in South Africa. She is the same age as me. She is the exact same height as me. She has a family. She is a fabulous artist. She is a Christian. I love her very much. And I have never seen or heard from her again since we spent a few hours together that day.

Patience is the very first person ever who taught me the difference between a project and a relationship. Between a statistic and a person. Between thinking that mission trips are all about me coming in to save the day and me knowing that mission trips often involve me being blessed by the Lord and His people far more than I could ever bless them.

Patience was the first person to teach me that.

I can't wait to see her in heaven.

Prayer

Meet my new favorite 4 year old! (Besides Michael and Julia). I just officially became a prayer warrior through Reece's Rainbow for this sweet little guy. Thank you so much, Anna, for the suggestion!

I'm not enitrely sure if I'm allowed to tell you his name, so here I'm going to call him Prayer. I just recently shared about how the Lord is working in my heart and my community concerning children with special needs. I can't wait to see how God uses Prayer (and prayer) to teach me more about Him. Prayer is HIV positive and he is waiting for a family to bring him home.

I've have been strongly desiring to begin sponsoring a child and I've looked at several different organizations and oppurtunities. However, my parents wisely advised me that I need more financial stability and to already have much of the money saved up before I begin sponsoring.

Then, I heard about the Prayer Warrior project on Reece's Rainbow. It is a HUGE commitment to promise to pray for a child every single day at least until they are adopted, and hopefully after that to. But, financially, it doesn't cost anything. If you are interested in becoming a prayer warrior visit:

http://reecesrainbow.com/newsite/prayerwarriors.html

Please join me in praying for sweet Prayer and the 147 million others.

Perspecitve

Lately, my perspective has changed. A lot of that is due to this amazing family: http://the30dayjourneyforhope.blogspot.com who have two children with down syndrome and one of them is adopted and they are in the process of adopting another child with down syndrome. Also, I have learned a ton from this sweet little guy:



I have loved children and had a passion for orphans for as long as I can remember. However, for my whole life until just a few months ago I had consciously turned my back on the plight of special needs orphans. I didn't want to think that much. I didn't want to feel that pain. I made the excuse that that wasn't my calling--- that wasn't my problem. And there was nothing I could do anyway. I didn't want the work that love takes.


But my merciful Savior has a plan for my life and a plan for my heart. When my love fails, His love is unfailing. He brought the Hollis family to my attention through the blog world and then gave me the opportunity to meet them in person. He brought this precious kid into my church family and caused me to fall in love with him on the day that he was born--- months before I ever met him. My life has been radically changed and blessed. Perfect love casts out fear.


So, my challenge to you would be: if you have, like me, struggled to allow God to bless you through care for special needs orphans (or just special needs people in general), take 3 minutes whether it be at church or school or in your neighborhood to talk to/play with a special needs person in your life that perhaps you have awkwardly avoided before. If you do have a love for special needs orphans, visit http://reecesrainbow.com and donate towards an orphan's adoption fund and pray specifically for the waiting children on that list. Finally, Praise God for His beauty that He gloriously displays in the people that He creates.

I believe I've said it before, but....

... I LOVE


LOVE

LOVE

LOVE BABYSITTING! Seriously, how cute can you get? I am head-over-heals for this sweet kid --- and all of his big brothers and sister! We had so much fun on friday. (Oh, and by the way I didn't have them all by myself, Mom was there too:)

I stole the "lovelovelove" idea from http://ashtonsmeimei.blogspot.com/. Thanks Ashton! :)

TWINS?

I think so.

PRAISING!!!!!!!

I'm am so unbelievably happy for my wonderful friends, the Mihnoviches! They have been faithfully praying for and pursuing four beautiful children, Nate, Mercy, Isaiah, and James from Ethiopia for adoption for a year now and passed court today! Their oldest daughter Elle goes to school with me and went to Ethiopia and Uganda this past summer with me as well. I love them so much and couldn't be happier--- I can't wait to meet the newest members fo their family! For some reason my little link thing won't work, but if you type in http://ourunveiledfaces.blogspot.com it will take you right there! Happy Happy Tuesday!

Imagination is...

...wearing a homemade Lord of the Rings cloak and a scarf in the snow just because you can.

.... being absolutely convinced that Beaver's Dam and Tumnus's cave are just beyond the lampost. ... tucking your bathrobe tassel in your baby sister's pants.....

...because she asked you for a tail

Yup-we're havin' fun down in the snowy south!

Have I ever mentioned....

Have I ever mentioned that I happen to be obsessed with baby names? I'm surprised at myself for not saying something sooner. Really. OBSESSED. I hardly converse on any topic with more delight than names. Few, very very few people will talk with me about it long enough for me to voluntarily change the subject.

Oh, and I don't just love random names floating around--- I like categorizing them and thinking about how they go with other names.

Did someone say names? Funny- I love names! While we're on the subject, d'you want to discuss a few? GREAT!

So, there are those names which I like, but not enough to name my child, there are those names which I think are so much fun but I'm not quite sure my child would still love me if I named them that, and there are those names which I can see myself having a child with that name.

How do you feel about:
Ivy --- been planning on naming my daughter this since I was eight. It means 'ivy' duhhh. But it always makes me think of Life- of things that are green and growing

Bethlehem --- as in "oh little town of"--- its actually a common name in Ethiopia. "But, you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days." ~Micah 5:2~

Joseph ---- its my little brother's name and Joseph father of Jesus is one of my VERY VERY FAVORITE characters in the Bible. It means, 'He shall add" and it is usually taken to mean "God shall add another son". The meaning doesn't really do a ton for me, but I'd name my son after my brother and the biblical hero, not for what it means, on this one.

alright, so those are just a few of my all-time-favorites-I-might -name-my-child-this kind of names.

ALSO:

Sparrow- I'm afraid that I won't have the courage to do this to my own little girl, but if some Mommy out there does, go her!

Please tell me what you think!!! Extensively! :)

I take it back!!!!!

For us, this is one SERIOUS snowday! Whoo Hoo!

Snow Day?

well.... sort of....... at least school is closed!

Beauty

The other day, my mom and my dad made stairs. They lead down to the basement where I live. Since we moved in a couple years ago, it has been a long, steep, absolutely hideous staircase. But when my parents decide that they were going to fix it, just "a little better" wasn't good enough for them. I've been taught that the more beautiful that we can make the most ordinary of things, the more we are showing forth the beauty and the glory of the Lord. My parents believe it. They don't even just believe it, they act on it.


Aren't they pretty? Crafted and designed entirely by hand. This picture doesn't really do it justice. Every time I open the door to go downstairs my heart jumps a little.

In our world of fast, easy, momentary practicality and machines, how often do we stop and praise God for the beauty around us? How often do we praise Him for calling us to be sub-creators?




How often do we acknowledge the overwhelming beauty of what He has made? And praise Him?

Amharic (and Happy New Year!)

Happy 2010, folks! If I were the reporters on T.V. I would say something like: "Well, a lot of people had a really tough 2009, and we are all looking forward to 2010 being a very promising year for the economy" because they say that every year, and it's usually true. But, since I'm not on T.V. I'd rather say something like: "God is faithful last year, and God is faithful this year. Praise Him." Because that is sure to be true.

So, I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but this year (or last year, I guess) I began studying Amharic--- the official language of Ethiopia. I felt very convicted that the Lord was calling me to learn this language, because let me tell you, otherwise I would have quit months ago. I'm still just barely beginning, but it is certainly getting easier now. The biggest problem is that they have a different alphabet, which makes translating take two steps: translating it into English letters and then translating the actual word. Oh, and this isn't just any old different alphabet, no, it has 251 letters. Yeahhhhh. I about cried when I found that out. To give you an idea, here is a picture of the traditional Amharic Fidel (alphabet).

The other thing is, there isn't a very consistent way to translate from Amharic to English, and not many learning tools for it. I'm homeschooling myself in this course, but I'm sure it would be far easier to just live there for a while and pick it up.

Frustrating? YES.

But when I think about this face:

And this one:

And this one:

I know its worth it. :)