What a Week

This has been one crazy week around here. VBS has been awesome- lots of fun and it really is a blessing to be working with such amazing women of God and seeing all our hard work come together and come alive for these kids.

But as it is the last day, I really don't feel bad in saying:

I need a nap.

And a date with my husband. I miss him. Poor guy has barely got to see us this week.

And also chocolate anything would help-

Chocolate candy bar

Chocolate cookies

Chocolate covered Tylenol.

And Charlotte and Caden are both feeling better. This was the worst week to have sick babies but thankfully they are on the mend.

We have decided on August 13th and 14th for our second yard sale. We are in the process of moving everything to my mom's in hopes of a bigger turnout. And since people have asked, yes we will take donations of items if you want to bring anything by, it will be greatly appreciated.

Also I am going to be putting up a little something in the sidebar to keep all those who have been asking apprised on what step we are on in the adoption process and the total amount needed for the step we are on. I have gone over in my head if I should do that or not, because I don't want anyone to feel like we are asking them for help.That is why I haven't put a 'Donate' Button up like alot of adoption blogs. But since it seems to be a general inquiry, I will just put it out there. Plus on the other hand, I want to share with you the awesome ways the Lord is providing for this, and that is one little way of doing that. Since it will pretty much all have to come from Him, He should get all the glory anyway.

What VBS Really Means.....

Valid Biblical Synchronization

Very Busy Schedules

Very Bad Splinters

Vast Boatloads (of) Sugar

Various British Skits

Vital Bathroom Specification

Volunteers Be Spontaneous

Vociferous Boys Surround

Also...

Vacation Brings Sleepiness!

Wordless Wednesday

Our Adoption Shop!

All proceeds will go toward our adoption expenses!!

Shipping: Free if you live close by!

$3.00/1 or $5.00/2 any items if you don't!

**Children's Aprons $5 each**

All fit sizes approx 2T-5T

Here is the available material I have:

Flowers

(This is actually a chocolate color, not black.)

Big Dots

Paisley

Honeycomb

Mosaic

Pinwheels

Motorcycles

Cars

Semper Fi

* * *

Coming Soon:

**Dolls: $10 each**

(copyright info- made from BitofWhimsy Pattern found on Etsy)

Just leave a comment with the # you like and I will send you my paypal address and we can talk shipping.

Thank you!!!

Sorry for all the construction around here. My background got disabled and I'm trying to find a new one I like.

In the meantime, look what Caden learned to do this weekend...

Wordless Wednesday (On time!)

Stuff That Makes Me Mad

I've been going through the house the last couple of days, trying to see what I can find to put in our second yard sale. With all the donations, it has the potential to be bigger than the first, and I really want to, you know, make it all that it can be.

But I'm afraid I'm being taught a lesson in this.

And I really don't like that. It goes against my very nature as a human being.

I don't know about you but I really

really

like my stuff.

My books

My clothes

My DVDs

My trinkets

My cooking things ( and really, who am I kidding?)

My sewing stuff

My decorations

Thats the good and the bad of being an American I suppose.

So.Much.Stuff.

Just last week I was walking through the house and it felt like I could hardly breathe for all the clutter, but when I was ready to find things to get rid of, there wasn't a single thing that came to mind. I wanted it all.

Isn't that sad?

I've been praying about that. You know, trying to work through my attachment issues...and of course, God showed up.

I read this post tonight.

Maybe you don't like links. You won't like this one either. I hated it, because it made me feel like a whiny, petty, spoiled American brat.

Read it.

I dare you.

And then tell me if I'm wrong for thinking that Americans are the most selfish people on the planet.

Because I don't think I am wrong. I am exhibit A on that one.

I get cranky when the air conditioning isn't as cool as I think it should be.

I get a little annoyed when they get my order wrong at the drive-thru.

I don't like generic chocolate.

I mean, really.

I feel sick just writing that little paragraph up there.

And there is no one to blame but myself. I can choose to be different. You can choose to be different. We are a nation blessed by God and yet we pervert those blessings to serve ourselves instead of others. When Jesus said "Love your neighbor as yourself," I doubt he was talking about just the person next door.

And I'm sorry if this is bumming you out. It's a real downer for me too. But someone needs to be talking about it, so why not?

Plus I'm a little mad about it all so I need to vent somehow.

That is one of the great evidences of grace- to allow us to see our hearts for what they really are in comparison to the purity of Christ, to be able to hate the sin that hides in us, and want to be circumcised to the will of God.

If it weren't for grace, we wouldn't know what sin was.

If it weren't for suffering, we wouldn't know how great the Savior is to save from it.

Jesus talked to someone about this once, who (besides being male) was pretty much just like me.

"..What do I still lack?"

Jesus answered,"If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.Then come, follow me. "

When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth."

Matthew 19:20-22

Why was he sad?
Because he liked his stuff.

And by the way, did you know that Americans in whole are wealthier than 75% of the worlds population?

So I think we can all relate.

The Bible makes it clear that as Christians, it is our job to help the poor, the orphan, the widow, the children,the sick, the least of these.

But we turn it into-

"The Bible makes it clear that as Christians, it is our job to help the poor, the orphan, the widow, the children, the sick, the least of these?"

We spend more time complaining about our lack of comfort than looking at actual need right in front of our eyes.

And if you aren't a Christian, well then, I don't know. I guess you don't really have an excuse either. Sorry.

And for the record, if you didn't follow the link up there, these people aren't just here to find things to sell. They do that. But they are here because

They

Live

Here.

They live at the dump. In the dump. It's where the outcasts in Ethiopia live.

The poor, the orphans, the widows, the children, the sick, the least of these.

And if you are wondering what is the point of this post? Am I trying to guilt you into supporting our adoption?

Absolutely not, and I sure hope it doesn't come off like that.

I don't know what the point is really, I just know that I'm tired of pretending this stuff doesn't exist. I'm tired of living the American Dream for the glory of Myself. And if I'm going down, if I'm going to die to the American dream, then for goodness sake I'm going to try to bring someone else down with me.

And I don't even know a good ending for this post...

*Just coming back to add that I just read that 130,000 people live in Korah, which is the name of the dump, which is an actual district in Ethiopia.
Amazing...

Memorial Box Monday- Charlotte's Seizure

What is a Memorial Box?
In the book of Joshua, after the nation of Israel had crossed the Jordan, where God had stopped up the water flowing from upstream so the people and the ark of the covenant could pass on dry ground, God commanded Joshua to choose 12 men and build an altar with stones taken from the Jordan River."So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites , one from each tribe, and said to them, "Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you.In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever....He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God."Joshua 4:4-7, 24
At the time of the crossing, the Jordan was at flood stage. Israel needed to cross to get to Jericho, and as you can read in chapter 5 and 6, God would still be with them working miraculously to bring down the walls of Jericho, and subsequently save the prostitute Rahab, who would later become great-grandmother of King David, and be counted in the geneology of Jesus.
The Lord knew that Israel needed a physical reminder of the miracles He worked for them. All throughout the Old Testament they were told to build these altars and tell the stories over and over and over(and over) so that they, their children, and their children's children would not forget the greatness of God.
The idea for Memorial Box Monday is not mine. I absolutely love this blog, and it's her idea. Go there and check some of her's out too- they are pretty amazing.
On to our first Memorial Box Monday:Charlotte's SeizureA Story of God's Timing
Jeremiah and I had taken the kids to my dad's house for something that night, I think it was a get-together for dinner with my siblings. It had started snowing by the time we moved into the living room to watch tv and talk. Pretty soon the fields were covered and it didn't look like it was going to let up anytime soon. We debated about whether to stay the night there or just go home, and whether to leave sooner before it got worse, or later thinking it would stop snowing.Charlotte(she was 16 months at that time) had become tired, and she hadn't had a nap that day, so she was snuggling with me on the chair. Pretty soon I realized how hot she was. I've never felt a child that hot before. We didn't have a thermometer so I just gave her some tylenol and cold water, but she didn't get any cooler so we decided to call it a night and go home.We drove through the streets and they were totally covered with snow, and it was still snowing. We must have driven about 20 mph all the way. I was tired( I was pregnant with Caden at the time) and I wanted to get Ethan in Charlotte into bed as soon as we got home. I kept looking back to check on Charlotte, and she was still hot and sweaty under her blanket.We must have hit every red light driving through town, and when we finally got to the highway, and were close to being home, I was glad we could maybe go a little faster. But as soon as we got under the overpass I could tell that wouldn't be happening. There were no stoplights but there were no cars either, except the ones that had slid off the road. So there had been no plows, no traffic to clear some of the snow away.We drove on and at about the 6 miles-until-home mark, we spotted a truck that had run off the road onto the opposite side and plowed through a barbed-wire fence. Jeremiah thought he knew the person in the truck, so we found a place to turn around, we parked in someone's driveway, and he walked a couple of hundred feet to get to the truck. It seemed to take about 10 minutes to me, and when he came back he said he didn't know them after all, but it was a woman and she was alone, but she had called her husband to come help her. So we turned around in the person's yard or driveway- it was hard to tell at that point- and had to wait for a line of cars going by. We hadn't seen any others actually driving yet, but here were like 4 in a row. We were waiting our turn when one of the cars got stuck right where they were sitting. They couldn't move and there was a big dump truck or trash truck coming, and these guys were in the middle of the road. So another car stopped and they pushed the car off( literally just slid it) off the road into the embankment just in time.
Finally we could go and drove again, like 20 mph all the way home.When we got there, we carried the kids in and we put Ethan straight to bed because he was asleep anyway. Charlotte was still awake so I gave her some more tylenol and laid her on the couch and started to change her into her jammies. And then it happened.At first I thought she was playing around- just making a silly face like she does. But when she didn't stop it, I knew something was wrong. Her eyes were rolled almost up behind her eyelids and she was still laying on her back but she was kind of hunched over, like she had started to roll into a ball but stopped, so she was just hunched over. I picked her up and Jeremiah was sitting on the other couch and I said, "What's wrong with her?!" I think he knew that she was having a seizure, but I had never seen one before. We laid her on the couch again and She was stiff, just clenched up and her breathing was really like shallow and slow. Her eyes closed and she started spasming, or I guess seizuring, not violently, but just enough you could tell she was moving. We called 911 and the ambulance came a few minutes later and by that time she had come out of it and was looking around but she was kind of in a daze and she cried a little but not much. We got her buckled into her seat and loaded on the gurney and we went to the hospital. She didn't cry the whole rest of the night. We went first to a local hospital, and then to children's mercy since they said they weren't sure she had had a fever, since it was undocumented, and they wanted to monitor her. We were able to go home the next day and she has been fine ever since. They ended up calling it a Febrile Seizure. I have been told since then that it is common in small children with sudden high temperatures.
Even now, writing this, I wonder at all the what ifs? I suppose you could say, well it didn't happen that way so you shouldn't even worry about it, but more than worry, I am amazed at a few things:
If we had been home in the first place, we would have just put her to bed when she started feeling yukky.It took, by my estimation, over an hour to get home that night, a drive that usually takes about 20 minutes, and all the way home I was a little upset the drive was taking so long.If Jeremiah had not thought he knew the driver of the truck we would have kept on going, not stopped for 10 minutes, then be stuck in a line of traffic.I sometimes let the kids sleep in their clothes, but I knew that night, Charlotte would be more comfortable in her pjs, so I wanted to change her before I put her to bed.I could have just put her in bed as soon as we got home, like Ethan. We could have all been sleeping when she had her seizure, and I probably would never have woken up since she didn't really cry.
You could say it was all a coincidence, that everything that kept us from getting home and putting her to bed was just pure happenstance, but I don't believe that for one second.
"He is before all things and in him all things hold together." Col 1:17
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,"declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9*How Great is our God?He sent the snow that night, which caused us to be out late, which allowed us to be with Charlotte while she had her seizure, and which had disappeared by the next morning.
So, once we actually get a Memorial Box, I will put Charlotte's hospital bracelet from that night in it as a reminder that God's ways are higher than our ways.

This week alone, Charlotte has:

Painted her floor with a bottle of lotion. (On the upside, her room now smells like lemons.)

Hid half a (cooked) frozen pizza behind the chair in my room.

Smeared a new bottle of diaper rash cream all over the living room floor, and herself. (Do you know how hard it is to clean that stuff? Its WATER PROOF.)

Spilled 4 glasses of milk.

Changed her clothes an average of 3 outfits a day.( Most of it was necessary)

and

Tore her favorite book apart at every seam.

But it could be worse, right?

Another Wordless Wednesday Thursday

Conversations With Ethan

Me: "So..."

Ethan:"What should we do today?"

Me:" Hey I was just going to say that! Want to go to the library?"

Ethan:"I was just going to say that! We just thought each others thinked!"

Wow.

I am exhausted.

This weekend was amazing- we didn't have a set goal of how much we wanted to raise, and thanks to everyone who donated their carloads of things to us, we were able to add $671 to our Adoption Account! Praise God!

(and thats not even all of it)

I am still in awe at how generous people were. A couple of extra dollars here and there and the stories of adoption they shared really encouraged me. The first person that came on Friday returned with a truckload of "man stuff" for lack of a better term- everything in this picture except for the bow and the camping grill, as well as some other nice things that aren't pictured. And that was after he bought a couple of armloads of stuff.

Then there was a woman this morning who bought two of my zucchini breads just because she wanted to help out and told me about how she had 7 kids and adopted 5 more and she was so nice to share her feelings about that. It was really encouraging.

And later , when I started to feel a little disappointed that not many people were coming, and I was kinda throwing a little pity party in my mind, and I was hot and tired, and I was maybe just a little bit thinking, "Is that all God? Is no one going to come today?" and generally being a selfish little brat deep down inside...

I heard that song on the radio,

"Every time I'm down the Lord lifts me up..."

And so what could I do? I prayed for encouragement and that the Lord would show us that we were on the right track and I thought in my generally selfish mood that, you know, someone would come and either buy alot of stuff, or just give a donation.

I hate to even admit that, but its the truth and I want to be honest because He is so good and aren't His ways mysterious?

And wouldn't you know...

the very next car that stopped was a lady named Monica. She didn't even look at anything. She was in a hurry for something, I could tell.

She said, "I know you are going to think this is crazy, but we just had a yard sale and it started to rain so we just packed everything up and put it in our garage, and something just told me to come here and see if you wanted it all. Its in our garage and you can come get it whenever you want."

And Jeremiah had to talk to her, because at that point I couldn't even say anything because I was trying to look like I wasn't crying behind my sunglasses.

That was it. That was the encouragement I needed at that moment. (And the humility too I guess.)

I thought it would be a couple of boxes at the most.

She left her number and just walked away, and Jeremiah went this afternoon and got a truckload.

A truckload.

And then he had to go back to get the rest of it.

(the first load)

Incredible.

What makes it even more awesome is that last night and this morning my prayer was that God would do something amazing today, that we would be able to see the greatness of Him in even the triviality of a yard sale.

I thought it would be for the benefit of other people. How prideful is that? Sorry to burst your bubble but see- I'm not perfect after all. Just perfectly honest....ha ha ha...

But I'm learning that this is how He works- He shows me myself. And she ain't so pretty sometimes. But through this whole thing I'm learning my own heart and seeing firsthand how He's changing it to be more like His.

So um, back to the original thought track here...

All that stuff is enough for a whole other yard sale. So in a couple of weeks, we will have another one, at my mom's this time.

Thank you to everyone again for helping, contributing, organizing, cleaning,baby-sitting and bringing lunch. We couldn't have done it without you!

To God be the Glory!

***

A couple weeks has now passed and I am linking this post back to Linny's at A Place Called Simplicity for Memorial Box Monday!