Is It Enough?

Like the last one, this is another challenging and convicting post by Robin. She seriously should write a book, her blog is amazing and so beautifully written.

I will give an adoption/family life update of our own in the next week or so, but for now, I just want to share the following in her words in hopes that it will challenge you and your family as it did ours when we read it a few months ago:



Is It Enough?

Is it enough to live a quiet happy life?


To raise our children to love the Lord, but never let them experience sharing the Lord with a lost world?


Is it enough to care for our families and go to church on Sunday and sit back and say " life is good"?


Is it enough to feel sorry for the hungry and the fatherless and maybe give some of our crumbs from our over flowing table? After all, we have to take care of our own families first.


Is it enough to keep ourselves sheltered from the real world where people are hurting, people are dying not knowing Christ and we sit back and say maybe one day when I don't have so much to do I'll help.


Is this the pattern our Lord set before us to follow?


To live our lives, enjoy our pleasures, raise our kids, be in a good church, have some good friends and grow old and die and have it said of us
"They lived a good life."


I have been dealing with some conviction in my life lately about my walk with the Lord and what He expects from me. What He expects me to be teaching my children.


To be honest I don't want to live a "good life."


I want to live a sold out, took chances, helped many life.


I want my kids to not be afraid to do the things that everyone else is afraid to do.

Example: adoption. There are millions and millions of kids around the world that need a mom and dad. And there are only a handful of people willing because the risk is too great! The money is too much, the travel too long, the investment not part of our retirement goals.


Don't we want a life after we raise our kids? Someone else will do it. I already have x number of kids, God doesn't expect me to adopt.


I believe Scripture is clear about taking care of orphans and I believe it says we're all to do it.


I believe we're all to take care of poor people.
I believe we're all to be actively making a difference in the life of those less fortunate.


We have been lulled to sleep and numbed with the pleasures of this world.


We have forgotten it's not about our comfort, it's about how to Glorify the Lord with our lives by loving the unlovable, feeding His sheep, taking chances even when it seems impossible.

We have leaned on the government system for so long that we have forgotten that our Saviour is in the business of moving mountains, if it's His will.


I believe so many of us don't really believe that anymore.


We have a "feel good" approach to life that leads to boredom.


C.T Studd wrote:

"Some wish to live a life within the sound of church or bell
I want to live to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell."


Christianity that costs nothing produces the same.


For so long we wait and let someone else do the hard things and we praise them
for their devotion to the Lord while we sit and pat our fat bellies and thank God for giving us rest and peace.


That is not the life Christ has been an example of. He was and still is a life that is constantly poured out for others. Not just for your own crying babes but for the crying babes that have no one. The ones that don't look like you.


He pours himself out for the poor. Not just bringing a meal to your friends who had a baby.


He wants you to feed the POOR. The ones without food. He wants us to clothe people.


He wants us to get our hands dirty.


He wants and expects us to all to be working for His kingdom, not for our own little kingdom.


How much money do we give to the poor?

How much time do we spend seeking out people who need our help?

How much time do we spend opening our home to non-believers?

Outside of our "safe circle" of friends, what do we really do to help?


We give money at church or to a organization, just to say we did, but we have no idea
what their really doing with that money because we're to busy to look into it.

I'm just saying..


He wants us to lose our life so He can help us find Him.


We want to be fed, sleep all night, and experience a great worship service, and then sit back and and talk about how bad the world is.


When is someone going to change it?


The right president, the right senators, etc.


How about the right US? We are no different than the luke warm Christians that hold office.


It's easy to judge them because we're here and no one points a finger at us for living a luke warm life.



We call it tolerance.



I wonder what The Lord calls it?

Leaving the Greenhouse

Just wanted to share this post by Robin. It has encouraged us and has given us some things to think about, and I hope it will encourage and challenge you as well. I pray that we will not be a "greenhouse family" but will instead be a family willing to do what God has called us to do - to leave the safety and comfort of our greenhouse to go out into the battlefield.

The Greenhouse Effect



In a green house a seed is planted.

It's nurtured under the right temperature.

It's given the correct amount of light.

Until the seed cover pops off and

out burst a tiny plant.

Healthy, strong, and growing
under the direct influence of the house it's in.

The only problem is the greenhouse
has not prepared the tiny plant for
adversity.

In our community I see so many
kids, my own included, that are raised
in green house conditions.
Perfect amount of schooling,
Perfect amount of socializing,
Perfect amount of church,
perfect amount of friends and only
"like minded" friends.
We pay for our kids to go to the best
violin teachers, piano teachers, voice teachers...
Then they will, Lord willing, get
married to someone who has been raised in
the green house down the road under the same
perfect conditions.
They start their own green house and are happy.
Of course they're happy.
Their whole life has been about them being
comfortable in their green house.

My heart breaks when I think about
all the trouble we go through raising our kids in the
right conditions, teaching them bible verses,
making sure they learn all the right truths,
but..

They never feel inclined to make a difference in
the world.

Sometimes it's a lack of passion,
Sometimes it's a lack of knowledge that
there is a lost and dying world right outside
their safe green house.
But more often
it's our fault as parents.
We are passing down our laziness.
(The sins of the father)
We struggle to live out our faith and so
our kids will struggle.
Yes, they will thrive
in our greenhouse and most of them will pass down a
great greenhouse life to their children but
we have to pass down a love for all of God's people.
We have to be willing to stand with our children and help
a lost world.
We have to pass down a passion for the orphans of this world,
the homeless, the widows. Yes, we have
to grow strong plants for the next generation but we cannot
forget the passion of Christ. Teaching our children
to love children and to love being keepers at home
is what I'm about but I also want them to be about
the orphans and the needy
that are not growing in a green house.
I can only teach that
when I come out of the greenhouse and go with my
children to the battle field.
It's all in vain if we raise up an army and our
army is never sent to the battlefield only to the
green house next door.

First Family Camping Trip

We went on our first family camping trip last weekend. We had a great time with some wonderful friends, and Javen surprised us by being a great little tent sleeper. We foresee many more camping trips in our family's future!

Setting up camp



The first thing Javen did when we put him down was eat a big handfull of dirt. He didn't make that mistake again (some things you just have to learn the hard way).


Then Daddy gave our little camper some real food:)



Yes, we all fit into that little tent - even the pack 'n' play!




What is it about men and fire?


Good morning!!!



A beautiful walk through a cypress swamp



Our wonderful group of friends


On the adoption front, no new updates since the last post - still gathering and going through lots of paperwork and hoping to be able to send our dossier to Rwanda in June.

We Are Adopting From . . . .

Rwanda!!!

Due to the current uncertainty and instability regarding adoption in Uganda, we have decided to change our adoption to Rwanda. It is a fairly new program - from what I have read, there were no more than 5 children adopted in the U.S. from Rwanda between 2000-2007. There were 17 U.S. Rwandan adoptions in 2008 and 16 in 2009.

During my research, I found a blog of a family who just brought home two baby boys from Rwanda early this year. I contacted them, and they responded quickly and were eager to help us by referring us to a ministry called Mugisha Ministries that guides families through the process for a minimal fee compared to what agencies charge. We sent our application to Mugisha a couple of weeks ago. As a part of the application, they require that you have spoken with and received counsel from a pastor regarding adoption, and we just received notice today that they received the form from our pastor (kindly filled out and submitted by one of our pastors from Summit Church in Orlando who has four children adopted from Ethiopia- an amazing and beautiful family!) and that they have accepted our application. Now I just mail them a bit more paperwork and a check tomorrow, and after that is received, they will begin helping us build our dossier (a fancy word for "lots and lots of paperwork") to send to Rwanda.

As far as time frame, it all depends on a lot of things/people/paperwork that are out of our control, but based on what I have heard and read, we will likely be travelling to bring them home within a month or two of December. It is a relatively short trip compared to Uganda, as we would spend about a week in Rwanda and then go straight to the embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, for 7-10 days to obtain their visas before heading home. We are still undecided on whether we will take Javen along, but he did get a very cute passport in the mail last week, so he is ready to go with us if we decide to take him.:)

Changes

Quite a bit has happened and come to our attention in Uganda in the last weeks and days that have caused us to make a change in our adoption plans. There is currently some upheaval going on in the government and courts in Uganda regarding adoption, and there have recently been some new regulations and rulings that have caused a lot of uncertainty on the future of Ugandan adoption and that have made the process quite a bit more difficult to navigate. They will likely (hopefully!) work through all of this and continue to allow adoptions, but as we are quite hesitant to invest thousands of dollars and months of our time into a process that is so unstable and uncertain, we made the decision late last week to adopt from a different country.

While we are a bit disappointed and frustrated, this could not be happening at a better time, as our home study and USCIS (visa) application can both be switched without cost to a new country (and are the first steps to take no matter where you adopt), and we had not yet sent any money to Uganda or offcially retained our lawyer. So we will not be losing any time or money with this change. It does mean that we will be looking at bringing the babies home closer to the end of the year, which is actually a positive thing for us, as we had been hoping they would join our family when Javen is a little bit older and were thrown into a bit of a whirlwind a few weeks ago with the news that a Ugandan adoption might have occured as soon as June (which would no longer be the case with the new issues they are facing).

We do have another African country that we are very interested in adopting from, and we will post more information in a week or two when we have spoken with a couple of agencies and hopefully gathered enough information to make a decision on our next course of action.

Maybe June??!!

We were able to speak with our lawyer late last night (this morning for him) and got a much better idea of what to do and expect for this adoption process. Our next step, while we wait for our home study to be finalized and our USCIS fingerprinting and approval (just got our notice yesterday that our fingerprinting appointment is the morning of the 17th), is to contact some orphanages and choose one from which to adopt.

Once we have chosen our orphanage, we will ask them to give us a referral (choose our children for us), and then our lawyer can start working on our case as soon as our paperwork is completed and in his hands, which we think will be by April. He believes our court date will be 4-6 weeks after our children have been identified and he has our paperwork in hand. Scott has a big licensing exam for work the first weekend in June that he must be in Tampa to take, so we will have to push it back a little bit and are – Lord willing – most likely looking at a mid-June court date, which means we would be in Kampala for 3-5 weeks and - if the judges give favorable rulings - would be able to bring our babies home at the end of that time.

While I keep using the term “adopt,” things work a little differently in Uganda than in other countries, as you must live there and foster a child for a period of three years before the courts will allow you to legally “adopt” the child. They do, however, allow families to obtain legal guardianship and then complete the adoption in their home country if the judge puts in writing on your judgment that he/she understands that you are obtaining legal guardianship with the intent to take the child/children abroad and subsequently adopt them. This is the route we are planning to take.

Things are moving along faster than we had anticipated, and we are thrilled yet a little bit overwhelmed as we realize that June is only four short months away! There were lots of preparations to make before we had Javen, but when you add to the mix loads of paperwork, various appointments, vaccinations, and planning a long international trip (with a baby) with dates you won’t know until the last minute into a country with which you are not at all familiar, it gets a little bit overwhelming!

Current Prayer Requests:
- For wisdom and guidance over the next couple of weeks as we look into orphanages and identify two babies.
-For the safety, protection, and health of these babies between now and the time that we can go to Uganda.
-For the people who are caring for these and all the other little ones in the orphanage.
-For our paperwork process (mainly the USCIS approval) to continue to move smoothly and quickly.
-That certain things on the Ugandan side of this process would fall into place to make our process smooth and quick from that end (you can e-mail me for more details).
-That as we prepare our home and go through all this paperwork and court process, that God would also be preparing our hearts to become a Mommy and Daddy to these little blessings and Javen’s to be a big brother – that it will be a smooth and sweet transition as we become a family of five.
-For our lawyer as he prepares our case and for the judge who will preside over it.

Upcoming phone call

We have a call scheduled with our lawyer in Uganda for 1AM on Monday night (which is Tuesday morning for him) to go over our long list of questions. After that call, we should have a much better idea of our next steps and of what kind of time frame to expect.