Add this to the to-do list

Any guesses what this:

and this:

and this:

have to do with Gideon?

We are getting his bedroom ready!

Goodbye, messy old storage room,

hello, cute little boy's room!

The last few days, we've been moving out huge stacks of junk valuable belongings too dear to part with.  This is the room we heaped stuff into when we moved in nearly four years ago.  You know, all that stuff that you don't know where else to put it?  That stuff.  Now where to put it?  That's a whole other post entirely!  But the room is looking bigger and bigger, and way less scary, and hopefully today we can get the last of the stuff out of there.  

This weekend we are planning on hacking a giant hole in the side of our house and installing a window in the room.  

Eeek.

Did I mention that neither Derek nor I have any idea how to actually go about installing a window where there was not one before?  We can replace windows, sure, but this is going to be a whole different adventure!  

And it's an upstairs bedroom, so there is going to be a really big ladder involved.  Gulp.  I don't do big ladders.  I don't like to watch Derek do big ladders.  I hyperventilate at the thought of big ladders.  I might need to leave for awhile when this part happens.

But we talked round and round about where to put Gideon, and we decided that, not knowing this little dumpling or what he is like, we have no idea if he will be a good fit to share a room with our other boys.  And after all, we do have a six bedroom house.  No need to all crowd in together.  Except the bedroom we want to put him in is nowhere near finished.  

So just in case the busyness of homestudy paperwork, dossier paperwork, fundraising, homeschooling, running the farm, and keeping this huge house clean and functioning wasn't enough, we are now going to be finishing a bedroom, as well!  

So here's our new to-do list 

(to be added to the top of our existing 

lengthy to-do list, of course):

Drywall 

Tape 

Mud 

Texture

Paint

Install a window

Install flooring

Install trim

and then my favorite part:

DECORATE!

(I love decorating!)

Listen Up, Church!

Religion that is pure and undefiled 

before God, the Father, is this:

 to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, 

and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

~James 1:27

Listen up, church!

There is much to be done!

God is not silent.

He has told us His will.

Yes, we CAN know God's will!

And this is it.

A man asked, "Of all the commandments, 

which is the most important?"  

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 

'Hear, O Israel:  The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart 

and with all your soul 

and with all your mind 

and with all your strength.  

The second is like it:  

'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  

There is no commandment 

greater 

than these."

~Mark 12:28b-31

Let's get back to work, church!

Tiny Heath is still waiting for a family to love him.
Forgotten by the world, this little lamb continues to wait.

Lovely Miss Victoria is waiting, so sweet and hopeful.

Josiah is still waiting.
Will he ever have a mommy and daddy?
Or will he die in an institution?

Yasmine, a.k.a. "Walking Sunshine," is still waiting.

Sasha . . . still waiting . . . still hanging on.
Still hoping that somebody out there might love him someday.
How much longer do you think he can wait?

What are you willing to do for one of these lovely children?

Will you pray?

Will you storm heaven with prayers 

on behalf of one of these darlings?

Will you give?

Will you consider giving up a bit of comfort . . . 

a latte, a new gizmo, a new toy . . .

to save one of these?

Will you advocate?

Will you yell from the rooftops 

that this is not okay?

Will you adopt?

Will you take the greatest leap of faith 

you've ever considered taking?

Let's get back to work, church!

Dancing with Orphans

Beautiful little faces.  God's precious children.

Healing

Derek's dad, Dale, has cancer.  He was diagnosed about a month ago.  Thyroid cancer.  Which, if you are going to get cancer, this is one that is not so bad to get, from what we are told.  

Today he had surgery to have his thyroid removed, and have some stuff checked out with his lymph nodes, which are looking suspicious.  The surgery went well, considering.  No big surprises, and he is in recovery this evening.  

He may even get to go home tomorrow.

But he is looking at a month of recovery time.

And then, when he is feeling healthy again,

the doctors are going to blast him with radioactivity,

in an attempt to knock out any cancer that is remaining (and hopefully not knock him out too horribly 

in the process.)

He is a wonderful husband and father, and such a blessing to all of us.  He is definitely one of the good guys.  

Five years ago, it was prostate cancer.

Now thyroid.

We are all praying for a complete and total healing for Dale, and I ask that you pray, as well.

Dale and Julie, my in-laws, adopted three beautiful little girls out of US foster care three years ago.  The girls are 5, 7, and 8.  They adore their daddy.  

We all adore him.

We praise God that the surgery went well today,

and we pray for quick recovery and total healing!

He is one of Derek's best friends.

He is "Gramps" to my kids.

He has been like another father to me.

He is The World's Best Daddy to his little girls.

He is one of the most loyal, noble, and kind husbands 

I've ever met.

He is the guy who knows everybody.

And the guy that everybody likes.

The guy who is there to help when somebody needs help.

The guy who gave up his retirement and his peace and quiet, and traded it all in for another round of building tree forts and reading bedtime stories and 

cleaning scraped knees.

He is the one who always has something funny to say.

He is the guy who always has time to stop and hunker down and listen to what the little kids have to say.

He is a man who has lived for the Lord his entire life.

Lived in obedience to Him.

He is a warrior for Jesus.

This is my father-in-law, and I am so honored 

to be a part of his family.

We are praying!

And we are trusting the Lord.

Happy Birthday, Gracie!

Gracie turned three yesterday!

We celebrated her birthday 

at a lovely little park by the lake.

She specifically requested party games, which I admit, I've not always been good at, so this year, 

we played party games!  

I think the kids had fun:

beanbag toss

tossing beanbags

the race to squeeze "strawberry juice"

my very competitive little sisters racing each other!

racing with a strawberry balanced on a spoon

my sweet little niece, Zoey

We enjoyed cupcakes:

Opened gifts:

Daddy brought Gracie roses:

We ate strawberries:

And then the kids played in the lake:

It was a beautiful day for my beautiful girl!

A week ago at this time, we were not sure if she would be discharged from the hospital in time for her birthday, and now look at her!  Our God is a healing God!

Hard to believe this little cupcake has been alive for three years.  It seems like she was just born yesterday.  

And at the same time, it's hard to remember 

a time without my lovely girl!

Funny, huh?

Of course, as with every other fun thing we do lately, it was a bittersweet happiness.  I am so overjoyed to see my children enjoying this lovely summer, and I also feel an ache in my heart because somebody very precious to me is missing.  I wish Gideon were here today.  I wish I could be planning his birthday party.  I wish he could splash in the lake, and eat a cupcake, and roll down a grassy hill.  I wish I could hug him and kiss his little cheeks and tickle his tummy.  

I am praying that by this time next year, we will preparing for a special birthday party for a very special little boy:

Love Letters

For each of my children, I keep a journal.  I write little love letters to them, here and there, throughout the years, whenever it occurs to me to do so.  I write down the funny, cute things they say.  I write down their likes, dislikes, favorites, best friends, dreams, snippets of conversations, of their personality and spirit.  Sometimes I have gone a full year without writing in the journals; other times I have written four or five times in one month.  There are no rules.  Just a book full of letters.  Someday I will give them their journals, and pray that they mean as much to them as they mean to me.  

I first wrote in Isaac's journal in November of 1999.  Derek and I were married in August 1999, so I am actually surprised, looking back now, that I started his journal THREE MONTHS after the wedding?  Wow, I had forgotten how soon after our wedding I had started that.  Oh, and by the way, Isaac was born October 2002, years after that first entry.  Who says a love letter cannot be written to somebody before they exist?  Because I already knew that I loved him very much, even then.  


And so it was with great joy that I began to shop for a new journal recently.  Because I have so much I want to say to Gideon.  My son.  True, I don't know him yet.  I have never met this child.  I don't have cute sayings or cherished memories to record.  But I do have words of love.  And so I am filling the first pages of Gideon's new journal with love letters, in the hopes that someday, they may be precious to him.  A record of how very much he was loved, even before he knew that I existed.  

And I am eagerly awaiting the day that I will have my dear Gideon home with me, when I will have so many things to write about.  Just hoping I will have enough energy at the end of the day to pick up a pen!  

Who says a love letter cannot be written to somebody before they know you exist?  I already know that I love Gideon very much.  He is my son, and I am his mom, and this is a record of that love.

The heart of our Father

An awesome message about the heart of our Father:



Thank you to Amy, sweet little Pauline's new mommy, for sharing this video!
I had to repost it here because it is worth
watching
more than
 once!

Orphan Sunday 2011 from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.

A Message from Jesus!

Have you heard of this book?

I love this book!  

And I love Jesus more after reading this book!

From Amazon.com:

Heaven Is for Real is the true story of the four-year-old son of a small town Nebraska pastor who during emergency surgery slips from consciousness and enters heaven. He survives and begins talking about being able to look down and see the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. The family didn't know what to believe but soon the evidence was clear.
Colton said he met his miscarried sister, whom no one had told him about, and his great grandfather who died 30 years before Colton was born, then shared impossible-to-know details about each. He describes the horse that only Jesus could ride, about how "reaaally big" God and his chair are, and how the Holy Spirit "shoots down power" from heaven to help us.
Told by the father, but often in Colton's own words, the disarmingly simple message is heaven is a real place, Jesus really loves children, and be ready, there is a coming last battle.

This is an awesome true story!

I read it in one sitting.  It's pretty hard to put down.  One of my favorite messages of the entire book is about how much Jesus loves children.  He really really loves the children!  Really really!  (Gotta love how a four-year-old communicates messages of truth from our Lord!)  If you ever start questioning whether it is logical to spend $25,000 to ransom one child out of an institution, just reread the words of Jesus as told by little Colton.  Jesus loves each child so very much, so we should, too.  It's that simple.  If we are loving the children, we are doing God's will.  

We don't need to sit around waiting for a big booming voice, accompanied by a hand reaching down from heaven with airline tickets extended and dossier already completed, addressed, and ready to submit.  It'd be nice, but apparently that's not how He chooses to run the show.  He has too many lessons to teach us and muscles to strengthen along the journey.  A lot of polishing to be done.  Refiner's fire, and all that.  So we keep going in faith, and we trust that He will work it all for good.  Because He loves the children.

Another really beautiful message from this book involved Colton's sister.  A sister who had been lost due to miscarriage before Colton was born.  Colton assured his parents that she is happy and loved in heaven, because she has been adopted by the Father.  Adopted!  She is not alone.  She is loved so very much, and she is waiting eagerly in heaven to hug her family again.  Awesome, right?  Can you imagine the joy that must have brought to her mommy and daddy's heart to hear?    

And one final thought on this book.  Todd Burpo, the author, is one of my favorite authors now, for this reason:  he helped to save my daughter's life.  

Colton Burpo suffered from appendicitis.  His appendix burst and he required emergency surgery.  And I just read this book last month.  And honestly, I had never known about the symptoms of appendicitis.  Had I not just read this book, I would have thought my darling Gracie just had the flu when she began to act ill last week.  She was vomiting and had a fever.  Kids do that, know what I mean?  Really, she did not seem all that sick.  But I had just read Heaven is for Real, and by Friday morning, her symptoms seemed a little too suspicious to me.  She was holding her tummy, lower right side to be exact, and started moaning and screaming, and that was the clue that tipped me off that this was no flu bug attacking my baby.  But really, she only did that for about ten minutes.  

I scooped her up, rushed her to the ER, and by the time we got there, she was calm and quiet.  Miserable, yes, but when the doctors asked her where it hurt, she just said, "My tummy."  The doctors did not initially believe anything serious was going on, because what they saw was a little girl with a slight fever, a tummy ache, and a sweet smile on her face.  They kept her in there for hours, running a couple of tests, but seeming to not really think she was in any distress.  It is now believed that it was during her screaming fit that morning that her appendix ruptured, and apparently once the appendix ruptures the pain subsides, and the poison slowly and silently begins to seep through the body.  Had I not just read this book, where this exact same scenario happened to little Colton, I would not have known to insist on further testing.  

Thankfully, they listened to my concerns and decided to transport her by ambulance to the children's hospital nearly two hours away, where I was told they would just keep her for observation overnight.  But once we got there, the doctors quickly assessed the situation, listened to the symptoms I described seeing earlier in the day, and informed me that she needed to get into surgery NOW.

And after the surgery, when my baby was resting peacefully, minus her "naughty appendix," the doctor told me that it had been quite a mess in her little tummy, and that had we waited much longer she would have been in grave danger.  

All of this to say that I believe that God made sure I read that book when I did so that I would know what I did when I needed to.  Thank you, Jesus!  It hurts to breathe when I think about having to say goodbye to my baby girl.  I am so so thankful that I do not have to do that yet.  That I got to bring her home last night and that she is back to her mischief, back to irritating her big brothers, back to leaving a trail of dollhouse furniture and baby clothes from one end of the house to the other, back to picking every blueberry in the garden and eating them all before anybody else gets a chance to try one, back to giggling and cuddling and being stubborn and cute and healthy.  Praise the Lord!

  

Found!!

(Warning:  extreme use of enthusiastic punctuation marks to follow!)

Guess who has a mommy and daddy?

Two of my absolute favorite little boys in the world! 

That's who! 

This little boy:

and this little boy:

are going to be home where they belong in a few months!  

This news has absolutely MADE MY DAY!

Shane and Oleg have a family!

I have been so in love with these two since the first time I saw their pictures, and my heart has been hurting at the thought of their bleak future.  And I was beginning to despair.  August is just a week away!  Oleg was a week away from losing his grant.  And remind me again why I was doubting?  God has not forgotten Shane and Oleg!  He has a great plan for them!!!

And the fact that they are going to be brothers?

I am SO HAPPY!!!

Because I have known since I first saw them

that they were meant to be brothers.

And they are going to live in Idaho with a wonderful mommy and daddy who are already working so hard to get them home.  

Congratulations, Christensen family!

I am rejoicing with you at this announcement, and I am praying for a smooth, quick adoption process for your family!

Gracie's Recovery, Day One

So Gracie and I will be spending the next few days in the hospital while she recovers from her appendectomy.  She had a really nice morning.  She was sweet and cheerful and sitting up, looking out the window at the lovely fountain and rose garden across the street from her room (seriously, I think they gave us the best view in the whole hospital.  It is beautiful!)  Nurses kept popping in to say hi to her, and she was so darling and polite to all these people who kept poking her and listening to her and messing with her.

I wasn't really that surprised when she grew cranky around two o'clock.  She needed to nap, and she's been through a lot.  Cranky is to be expected!  


But she went way past cranky very quickly.  She has spent the last four hours completely miserable.  

She has been sobbing, hysterical, completely irrational, inconsolable, doesn't seem to hear anything I say to her, and seems to be hearing noises that are not there.  She kept saying things like "Stop talking, Daddy!"  And Daddy wasn't talking.  And "No, it's not for the water, it's for the couch."  Huh?  There was no reasoning with her.  Nothing she said seems to make much sense.  And see how puffy and red her eyes are? 

It took us an hour to get her to take a sip of juice (that she had asked for) because she kept coming up with bizarre reasons that she couldn't drink it yet.  We weren't holding the cup right.  Five minutes to calm her down.  Then the straw was bent at the wrong angle.  More calming down.  Then she decided it was in the wrong cup.  We went and got a new cup.  More tears.  Then she wanted to pour it into the new cup.  Except she was shaking and trembling so much that it spilled.  On and on the juice battle raged.  Finally she drank a little juice.  Poor little lamb.  

And then she was writhing on her bed, screaming and calling out, "Mommy!  Mommy!  I want Mommy!"  And I was right there, holding her face, kissing her forehead, and she kept calling for me.  Break a mommy's heart!  At first the nurses didn't seem too concerned, but as this went on, hour after hour, Derek and I tried to convince them that this is beyond "I'm in pain and I'm sick of being here."  She was totally loopy, in a whole other place, talking gibberish.  She was telling me, "When my mommy comes back, she will pay me."  Uh, okay, sweetie.  

Anyway, it is suspected that all of this is a reaction to the pain medicine or the anesthesia.  They are not really sure.  She has no fever or other complications that would indicate infection or other serious problems.  There is no indication that there is any serious problem.  It was just a really rough day (and she is under the influence of narcotics, so we have to consider that.) We are taking her off morphine and trying something new.  Please continue to pray for my sweet girl!  She is asleep now, praise the Lord.  Praying that she sleeps through the night and wakes up feeling more like herself.  

And as I am here, hugging my baby and cuddling her, with nurses adoring her and popping in every ten minutes to see if she needs anything, I think about my sweet little Gideon.  

I wonder if he has ever been so sick.  I wonder if he has ever had anybody pop in to his room just to tell him how cute he is.  I wonder if he is laying alone in his crib right now.  

I think about Edwin, and his surgery he had to have a shunt put in.  I wonder if he was alone in the hospital as he recovered.  

I wonder if he was in as much pain as Gracie has been today.  I wonder if anybody was there to kiss his forehead and hold his hand until he fell asleep.  I wonder if anybody has ever told him that he is a beautiful and wonderful miracle, and that Jesus loves him?  

I think about how unfair it is that so many kids are left alone to fend for themselves, and that they don't have a mommy to sit by their bedside.  My Gracie is so small and helpless and needy today, and I wonder why the world is like this?  That there are so many kiddos who are small and helpless and needy and don't even have somebody there to hold their hand and tell them they are wonderful and loved and that things are going to get better?

I wonder why little four-year-old Camille has been left in a crib for four years.  She is in the same orphanage from which my Gideon was transferred.  Does nobody see her beauty?  Does nobody see the value of this little muffin?  Does nobody see what a gift she is?  People visit her orphanage fairly often, but nobody ever remembers seeing this little girl.  She is left in her crib, in a back room, day after day after day.  Nobody popping in to admire her, to tell her her voice is cute like a little mouse, to ask if she needs anything.  No smiley-face pain chart for her to point to.  Nobody hovering over her, coaxing her for an hour to take a sip of juice.  

There are 147 million orphans in this world.  And it all just makes me so sad.  And mad.  Sometimes mad, sometimes sad, sometimes ashamed, sometimes inspired.  There are so many children like Edwin and Camille and my precious little Gideon.  So many dear ones who have been left alone and forgotten.  And yes, I know I can't save them all.  Heaven knows I've been reminded of that enough times lately.  But still.  I can't just do nothing.  

But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? ~1 John 3:17

I have seen the need.  There are children who are left laying in cribs.  So many precious children.  Some are hurting as much as my baby is tonight, and all of them have hurting hearts.  But unlike my Gracie, they don't have anybody there to tell them how much they are loved.  I am praying for all the forgotten little ones tonight.  Praying that Jesus whispers in their ears tonight and tells them how much He loves them.  And tells them that He has not forgotten them.