The Village

Tonight I went to our church's support group for families that are adopting, fostering, or involved in caring for orphans. It's called "The Village". I love it. It reflects our value and philosophy that it will take a village to raise our 2 Ethiopian beauties. The purpose for the support group is clear and simple: "to unite, equip, and support those who are caring for children who are in foster care and orphans."

UNITE :: Though I say it's our church's support group, Newsong leaders purely host and arrange the group. Tonight there were probably 10 families and 5 churches represented. It wasn't through clever marketing that brought everyone together. It was the calling to care for orphans. AWESOME!

EQUIP :: We meet 1/month and are spending the next several months watching Dr. Karyn Purvis' video series on Empowering to Connect. Then, the plan is to read The Connected Child together and process as a group. Both resources by her rock!!!

SUPPORT :: Within 5 minutes of walking into this group of "strangers" it felt like home. Comfortable in all the right ways. Challenging to the point of discomfort. Safe. Purposeful. Emotionally intensive. Intellectually stimulating. It's the right environment for parents who are walking into the world of orphan care! It felt like a 12-step group without the steps, except maybe a shared addiction for loving kids who need a forever family.

I knew I'd found a new family when during the opening prayer I started sobbing and couldn't find a dry spot on my hands to wipe the tears. Something in my spirit opened up to these amazing men and women because of their heart for "the least of these". These are parents who are WALKING OUT THE GOSPEL in the truest form. I'm inspired by them!

If you are in Orange County and would like to join "The Village", let me know. "The Village" is an incredible environment!!!!!! If you are a Newsonger, please get ready for Orphan Sunday on November 7th. It's going to rock our worlds. My Only Prayer: that we'd be ready and say "YES!" to God's call.

3 Dirty Words

Brian and I have had lots of conversations about parenting...obviously! One of the things that comes up a lot for me is my strong, involuntary reaction to 3 dirty words that I do not want to use with our little ones: nice, perfect, hurry. Let me explain...

• NICE - I don't easily trust nice people. I've known my fair share of "nice" people, and Christians are often [even subliminally] taught to be nice, but I don't see that characteristic in Jesus at all. And "nice" is definitely not a Fruit of Spirit. Kindness, Goodness, Gentleness - YES, but not nice. I do trust kind, good, and gentle people. I guess I've seen under nice is unauthenticity, fakeness, and often anger. I've found that nice people are often trying to be nice, but underneath that is all kinds of gook.
  
  I also read a book by Lynne Hybels several years back called "Nice Girls Don't Change the World", and I nearly got whiplash from bobbing my head as I read each page. Essentially, Hybels was preaching that as little girls [and boys, I suppose, but to a lesser degree] we are taught not to ruffle feathers, push the status quo, and be what everyone around you wants you to be. My aversion is probably a reaction to my people pleasing expertise, but also to my passion to see our kids exhibit the fruit of the Spirit's work in their lives, not just behavior modification.
  
  So, at the end of the day, I don't want to tell Lil' A to be "nice" to his sister. I want to challenge him to be gentle and loving and kind.
  
  
• PERFECT - This word is deeply ingrained in me to. I've found over the years of interacting with my friends' kids that when they do something right, my first reaction to say "perfect!" Perfection is the furthest value or expectation in the world that I wish to instill upon our kids. I want them to do their best, focus on progress not perfection, and learn to live free from the constraints of coloring in the lines.
  
  Theologically, I understand that this sinful tendency is traced back to the Garden when the first people bought into the lie that they could "become like God" [Genesis 3:4] - pure perfection. It's an impossible standard and one that I don't want to set up for my children. I want them to learn and feel and internalize their desperate need for GRACE at an early age, so the less I impress perfection on them, the better they will grasp this central Christian concept.
  
  
• HURRY - My last big dirty word. I know this one will be really, really hard for me. If you know me well, you know that I live at Mach 2 speed. I get a lot done in a day. I walk fast. I drive fast. I shop in record time [My grandma loves to tell stories about shopping with me as a little girl and how "efficient" I was at selecting what I wanted!]. I love to optimize my time. Multitasking is something that I practice NOT doing.
  
  Yet, I know with little legs and little feet and the playful meandering of children makes understanding this word an impossibility. And every time I hear an adult say "hurry up" to a child, I wonder if a moment of their childhood is stolen from them. There's plenty of time for hurry - just not in childhood. Childhood is for playing in dirt, and dancing down a hallway, and exploring new territory, and slowly tying shoes, and losing track of time.
  
  Controlling my tongue to not scream "HURRY UP!" at our kids is going to be a hard lesson for me to learn. It's gonna challenge my Type A, activistic, achieving, and task-oriented personality. But it's also going to bless my nurturing, restful, utterly playful, and silly personality.
  

At the end of the day, I know I'm going to say these 3 dirty words to my kids and despise myself for it. At the end of the day, I know I'll do a million other things that scar my kids for life. That's why in addition to a college fund, we want to set up a counseling fund for our kiddos. Kinda kidding. Kinda true. At the end of the day, we'll rest on grace and mercy and God's wisdom to raise these 2 beauties to be all he's created them to be. He's chosen us to be their parents, just like he's chosen them to be our kids.

Good News

For a very long time, our prayer has been "EXPEDITE". God is now answering it in unprecedented ways!!!!

We heard this from our agency today:

"Once [our agency in Ethiopia] has all the documents from a successful court date - which can take several weeks - we can schedule your Embassy date two weeks from the time we submit your documents to the Embassy! We no longer have to wait for the grass roots investigations to occur, we no longer have to wait for the Embassy to give us a green light for families to travel. This will make scheduling Embassy dates much easier. This is indeed good news."

Basically, this means that our wait time from court to Embassy dates [the 2 different trips we have to make] have been shortened by as much as a couple weeks! Perhaps from 8-10 weeks down to 6-8 weeks. This is amazing!!!!!

Please keep praying. We received confirmation today that our paperwork is at the courts and it could take anywhere from 10 days to weeks to get our court dates scheduled. Please continue praying that our 2 scheduled court dates by the end of next week!!

As I posted on my Facebook status tonight, "It's hard to describe the love I feel for these 2 Ethiopian beauties whom I've never met and didn't come from my womb. Supernatural."