One year ago

August 31, 2009. We were in Ethiopia, meeting our daughter for the very first time. She was 9 months old. I had only seen her in pictures. I wondered what she would feel like in my arms. I wondered what she did all day. I wondered what temperment she had. I wondered if she would strange with us. I wondered what the rest of our lives would look like with her.

It had been nearly two years since God first began to burden my heart for the orphan. I was reasonably comfortable. We had four biological boys. Life was as easy as it could be w/ four little boys. :) My husband had a good job. We lived in a nice town. Etc, etc. God said I have more for you. God said I want you to adopt. I struggled and prayed "are you serious?" for about 5 months. Then in April 2008, we said yes. Yes to God's plan for our lives, not our own. Yes to adoption. Yes to a new world of people and places. And yes to maybe something not so comfortable.

One year ago today Jada Eyerusalem was placed in my arms.

What a moment of pure joy. The wait was over. She was beautiful and I was already in love. We were familiy forever.

She spent the first 9 months of her life in an orphange. I will forever be sad that I missed out on that time in her life.

But forever grateful for the staff that loved her and for God who had plans to prosper her and not to harm her.

Today her life looks much different. She has everything she needs.

She is an official, official (last piece of paper in this long adoption process!) US Citizen. She will have opportunites that most of the world never has.

She has four older brothers who think she is just about the greatest thing ever.

And she has a family. A mom and dad. A place where she is always safe and loved.

So, it seems that she is blessed. She was an orphan but has been adopted as our daughter. She had nothing to call her own, but now has everything that is ours. Lucky? NOT AT ALL. Chosen by God. Blessed because she is a daughter of the King, not because of anything we have done. We have learned that we are the ones who are blessed to have her. God has used her adoption to grow us. I can't think of anything else that mirrors God's love or the message of the Gospel like adoption. Grateful more than ever for being adopted into God's family and for my family. We love you Jada!! You help make us better!

Soles for Jesus

Hi! We're Carson and Quinn and we need your help! One year ago our family adopted a little girl from Ethiopia. Now, we want to help the people from Ethiopia.

In Africa, kids (and adults) walk everywhere and don't have shoes. Soles for Jesus is a company that collects shoes and ships them to Ethiopia. So, we are working with them and having a shoe drive! We want to collect new and gently used shoes sizes toddler to adult. We'd love for you to bring shoes that you don't wear anymore or buy new shoes and drop them off on our front porch. We will have a box sitting there for three weeks (until Sept. 2nd). If you want you can write a note and stick it in the shoes. Whoever receives your shoes will get to read your note.

Thanks for helping bring shoes to people who don't have any. Please go here to learn more about how they got started.

Love knows no color

Yesterday we had the family over for birthdays, swimming, and supper. As we were all sitting around talking, my sister in law told us about an encounter she had at Walmart recently. I couldn't stop thinking about it last night (hence the blog post). Basically, someone stopped her as she was entering Walmart with her kids and chewed her out. This lady said that she (my sister in law) had no business adopting two black children. I was shocked as I listened. I was glad it was her and not me (she handled it very well and I don't like confrontation). And then as I pondered it more last night I was getting upset.

This is obviously something we thought about before deciding to adopt from Ethiopia. Our daughter would look different than us and we live in a predominately white community. This is something we tried to prepare for (as much as you can). But this type of confrontation is something I hoped wouldn't happen.

Did you know that there are roughly 5 million orphans in Ethiopia??? That is only one country in the whole continent of Africa! These kids need a home, white or black it doesn't matter. They are children and deserve a family and love.

Jada is completely a part of our family. For a while I wondered if she had properly bonded. (This is a big deal if you talk to any adoptive parents). I have no doubt now. She is just one of us. We all love her, and at the same time get frustrated with her. We rejoice over her achievements and mourn over her losses. She is the princess of the house and yet just "one of the boys". We laugh at her and with her and can't imagine our lives without her. I have no doubt that she was meant to be a part of our family. We aren't the perfect family. We make mistakes. We will make mistakes in parenting her. We will teach her about Ethiopia and make her proud of her heritage, but she will be American. We will love her, respect her, discipline her, give her a safe place to come home to, and teach her about Jesus. These are the most important things. Maybe there are things that we won't do as well as someone of her race could do. But when you wash away all the unimportant things, there's no difference.

God has blessed me. Tremendously. I was raised with two parents who loved me and each other. They took me to church every week. I had lots of aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. I always had food to eat, clothes to wear, a bed to sleep in, an education and on and on and on. I've been reading Radical by David Platt (post on this coming later....amazing book!!). One statement really jumped out at me. He says that we are blessed for God's glory. In other words, the blessings that God gives to me should be given back to bring him glory. That is why we adopted. He asked. We had to say yes. He said Ethiopia. We said okay. God gets all the glory. It bothers me when people say "you are so good" or "wow, she is really lucky". It's not about either of those things. God gave to us so we could give back to Him. As Christians we should be changing the world, bringing glory to God. He deserves it, we don't.

Adoption isn't easy. Sure, sometimes things go smoothly, but Satan will always try to destroy what is good. This little encounter was a bump in the road. But, I think God has used it for good (at least in my life, maybe not my sister in law's!) :) I am reminded of all I've been given. I've been reminded of all God asks of me. And I'm reminded that Jesus said life would be hard. He said we would be persecuted and hated for His sake. He said anyone who doesn't give up everything cannot be His disciple. He didn't mince words. But God is also love. He became man to die for me. He said do not be afraid of the world for I have overcome it.

Thankful to be adopted into God's family and thankful for how God has changed me through our adoption!

It doesn't get much better

Just got home from our summer vacation. The first half was with Bart's extended family, the Rinkys. Always a great time, lots of laughs and good memories. (Pics coming soon.)

After spending 2 days w/ the Rinks we headed down to Lake Cumberland with my parents. One of my favorite places. I love a lake vacation. Love it. Love it. Love it. It was fun to see my kids enjoy it too. They all did great.




We did a lot of this...
skiing! My dad at 62. He still has it. :)












And this...
swimming! The water was like bath water.















Kade and Quinn loved driving the boat.

Jada thought she'd give it a try too.

My mom helped Carson learn to ski. She's a great teacher.

I couldn't believe how good the kids did in the boat all day. We left the cabin around 9:30 each morning and came back around 6. A long day.
After fighting to stay awake and not miss any fun, Jada finally fell asleep.










She woke up and was ready to go again. She even tubed with Bart. No, the boat's not going now. :) She's just playing.

Cole missed his naps too, but did great. After numerous statements about wanting to learn to ski this year, he decided to stick to swimming and tubing. :)

Carson, Quinn, and Kade tubed and tubed. I got in on the fun too.

I love a lake vacation, especially here. It's usually warm, always good skiing water, great memories of years past, good family together time...and on and on. What I didn't like was the ants we found in our room! I had five suitcases, a bag of dirty laundry, and snack bags (just imagine packing for 7 people for a week) sitting in our room where we discovered ants! Gross. So, this was the scene from our back yard after arriving home.

We took all the bags outside and emptied them out. I carried one load of laundry in at a time to wash. Thankfully I don't think we brought too many ants home with us. Just good memories of a great family vacation!