Adopting With a Meek And Quiet Spirit

Though we are in the home stretch of the paper chase phase of our adoption process, I am recently encouraged by some unexpected progress.  This sort of progress does not involve checking off documents from our list or growing our Orphund, though we're still working on both.  What I've realized over the last couple of months is that as I look at my children, my view of them is changed, and the way I mother them has changed.  Now, I am not the patient, gentle and quiet mother I wish I were.  I confess that I struggle terribly with this, and the Lord is faithfully healing me of the spiritual flaws at my core, despite my weak flesh. And He is using the pain of losing and gaining children to do it.

As evidence, lately, particularly when my little ones are especially needy and just wanting me to sit and hum their favorite hymn, hold their hand, just be with them (which seems to be so much more lately, or maybe it's just that I'm more aware of it), I'm struck.  In those situations where only Momma will do, my mind goes to those little ones who wait.  To my little waiting ones who have no one, not one person, to block out the world and pour out her heart in patience and time and hugs and love.  They have no one whose heart's perpetual burden is their eternal salvation.  This is what separates the boys in my home from those who wait.  It's the unbreakable bond of a parent who joyfully bears the weight of loving so hard it hurts.

So in that moment when before I might have been frustrated that I have to sit still and just be there for my needy one for the umpteenth time today, I am reminded of the blessing it is to me to be with my children. Children the Lord has allowed me to keep on earth. Children who don't wait and hope for a mother. There is such a very fine line between my little ones and those who have no one.  And though I would like to think that orphans are just better at dealing with being alone, the truth is that in the very same way my little ones do, they too need a Momma to sit quietly and knowingly and reliably and patiently and prayerfully with them.

My boys lately have a habit of calling out to me:  
Boy:  "Momma?"
Me:  "Yes?"
Boy:  "Just making sure you're there."
Me:  "I'm here."

What a heartbreaking thought for me to imagine my little ones sitting without the comfort I know they need and that their Daddy and I are blessed to give.  So because I know they're waiting, and because I know there are so many who wait, I am more patient with the children I've already received, and more impatient to have the ones I can't yet hold.

My children are reaping the benefits of a more patient, quiet, gentle mother, because their siblings wait for theirs. The thought of my child waiting motherless physically hurts me.  Who but a sovereign, powerful, good God could work that kind of suffering out for good?  But we know that for those who love God, all things work together for their good, for those who are called according to His purpose.

This is the beauty of obedience to a patient, quiet, reliable, loving Heavenly Father.  Though He requires it, God does not need me to obey Him, and He does not need me to mother an orphan.  But I need to obey Him, for my own good and to His glory. He has transformed a mother with a mourning, bitter, hurt heart, into a mother who grows daily in patience and joy, because of my loss and because of my future children's loss, and because of His trustworthy promises.

This isn't the only change that has come to our family since we decided to adopt, but it's a precious consequence of God's faithfulness in keeping this promise. If you're a mom struggling with anger and bitterness, and I know it's a dirty little secret for so many Christian moms, then please let me recommend this post by one of my favorite mom bloggers, over at Raising Arrows.

Thanks for coming back!

~Katie

Just Love Coffee

Some people just love coffee.  And some coffee just loves people.  Just Love Coffee is a benevolent organization that helps families raise money for an adoption.  It's one of the very few organizations assisting families raising money before they reach the home study stage as well as throughout the adoption process.  This can be a blessing to so many families.

Here's how it works.  Coffee lovers and lovers of coffee lovers follow a family's Just Love Coffee link and purchase coffee.  Just Love Coffee quickly ships out your fresh, fair trade, and often organic coffee.  This blesses the farmers who raise the coffee with a fair price for their crops.  It also blesses the family whose link through which you purchased the coffee.  For every bag of coffee purchased through our Just Love Coffee link, our family receives $5 toward our adoption.  They also sell other cute merchandise and large cases of coffee.  These cases of 18 mini bags are great for businesses or even CHURCH COFFEE BARS, and each bag makes about one or two pots of coffee each. These make great little gifts, too!

Just Love Coffee is doing a great work in encouraging and supporting orphan care and adoption, and this fundraiser can bless our family and help us toward our goal. So look around here or click the Just Love Coffee link on the sidebar to the right --->, and help yourself to some tasty coffee you'll just love.

~Katie

Breakfast For Dinner, The Moore Family's Fundraiser

Who doesn't love breakfast for dinner? Our family does, and we also love pitching in for an adoption. Especially another church family's adoption. We also love eating out with friends. This Friday night, we'll head out to breakfast for dinner in north Raleigh to support the Moore family on the journey to bring home their little Silas. RDU folks are all invited; everyone's welcome. We'd LOVE to see our north Raleigh friends there! Here are the details:

Christian Alliance for Orphans Annual Summit

I believe I have my issues resolved (well, blog issues at least). I'm always tweaking, of course.

There are so many wonderful benefits of being in the midst of a boom in evangelicals adopting and ministering in ever more ways to orphans. One of those is the accessibility of national conferences designed to equip and encourage folks involved in orphan care and adoption.

The Christian Alliance for Orphans has announced its annual Summit conference in Louisville, Kentucky, May 12 - 13, 2011. Will you be there?


~Katie

Holocaust Survivor

This past week, our nation observed both the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. The values represented by the two could not be more opposite.

Enter this woman. Gianna Jessen. Why am I just now learning about her? Gianna survived a third-trimester saline abortion and lives to bring glory to God for His immeasurable mercy. She and her story amaze me.

Part 1:


Part 2:



According to the World English Dictionary, holocaust means "great destruction or loss of life or the source of such destruction..." Even now, America is hosting a holocaust in the truest sense. The cost of our indifference is the very lives of the the least of these. This article is an example of what we allow to happen under our noses to the most vulnerable women in our society: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/22/women-claim-abortions-left-sterile/

Let us treasure and protect the tiniest lives, and let us love and protect the women tricked into believing abortion is the only way. I have nothing but the greatest compassion for these women and pray that one day we will have a culture that embraces them and loves them as well as the little lives they carry. But for a culture of death, babies would not be considered a problem, and abortion not a solution.

This stuff gets me fired up, friends.


~Katie

Why Ethiopia? Why not Ethiopia?

It's a question we get from time to time when folks learn we're adopting a baby from Ethiopia: "Why Ethiopia?" This fantastic video answers that question with, "Why not Ethiopia?"



In other news, I realize that if this blog were a flower and my posts water, the blog would have died a quick, dry death months ago. I'm having blog issues as of late, and I'll get to it when I get to it. Other things have just been higher on the list, like checking things off my application and dossier list left and right. Yesterday was a field trip to the county courthouse...eye opening for my older boys and another check off my application list. Incidentally, I'm pretty sure no lawyer has ever been more lost in the courthouse than I usually am.


~Katie

January: The New August

As a kid, and really as long as I was in school, which was so many years and well into our marriage, I looked forward to August with great anticipation. I loved the reprieve from hot summers, from boredom. I relished in purchasing new school supplies, the obligatory pair of gym shoes, new Keds. New books, new notebooks, new pens, a new planner. The expectation of seeing old friends again. A new classroom. New challenges and expectations lay ahead, ready for me to exceed them. I loved fall and the starting over and newness it brought.

But I'm not in school anymore. June, July, August, September...until recently, all pretty much the same to me. When we undertook to teach our children at home, the thrill and excitement of a new school year was overshadowed by impossible expectations for myself, to create and stick to the perfect schedule, to choose the just-right-for-us curriculum, to do it all perfectly this time. All while effortlessly continuing and excelling at my other not insignificant charges, like my paying job, laundry, meal planning and preparing. Oh, and friends and time in the Word. Yeah, then August became an albatross. My love affair with August is over for now.

But January. Ahhh, January. By January, I've usually so thoroughly disappointed myself in the previous year, I know that the coming year can't help but be better. Also, since I'm a sprinter and not a marathoner (in the metaphorical sense only; I don't run, unless there's a kid heading into the street), I know that I have just half a school year left to accomplish my goals for the year. So I like the pressure. Less than half a year before the summer months roll around, when we plan summer family fun. And a break from the dark, cold days of winter will come in just a few short months. So much to look forward to, so much to accomplish. No time to waste. The promises of a new year.

I have great expectations for what the new year holds. We have high hopes for progress on our adoption process. For what our boys will learn academically and how they will grow in the Lord. How our home will more accurately reflect the glory of the One who established it. How our Father will draw us closer to Him this year and continue the work He has started in us.

While I could have done without the heartache we experienced in the last twelve months, I have in no small way seen how the Lord has worked all of our pain for our own good and for His glory. I am closer to Him, knowing that two of my children already worship in His court. He has given me the new lifelong expectation of reuniting with them. In light of our loss, He has fanned the flame in our family's heart to adopt. He has surrounded us with loving friends and supportive family. He has blessed our extended family with new life. He has tested and strengthened our marriage. 2010 was a year of devastation for us, of tearing down and refining. He has begun the work of building up, and we have every expectation that our God will accomplish it.

Our need for newness, for starting over, to be refreshed and recreated is an imprint from our Creator. Our Maker's mark, wherein we long to be made new, just as we are created for eternity, not this vapor of a life. We long for everything around us to be new again. We long for a time and a place where everything will be made new, will be in order, will not fall apart. What a stark contrast to the world we live in, where death and age and illness mar a new creation. What an amazing promise that in the midst of this old world that we can be made new even now. My prayer for you is that you would be made new in the Lord this year, and that He would continue the work He has already begun in you.

Thanking God for the work He has done and for the promise that He will once and for all make all things new, happy new year!

Oh, and just because I don't usually share these, but because I love him so, my tiniest fella. Isn't he so serious?

~Katie