Collecting School Supplies for Orphans in Kenya

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. ~James 1:27


Tumaini Miles of Smiles is a school and orphanage in a very rural and extremely impoverished part of Kenya. We learned about Tumaini through a from college friend who spent several months volunteering and teaching there in 2008. After hearing about this great ministry/school/orphanage, Scott and I became supporters of this orphanage and began to sponsor Clifford, a little boy there who is now 9 years old.

This cute little guy is Clifford.


This past October, Rose Bugusu, the amazing woman whose vision and faithfulness started Tumaini several years ago, was in the United States along with the oldest orphan from her orphanage, 12-year-old Vivian. During their stay in Tampa, we had the privilege and honor of having Rose and Vivian stay in our home.
Her wisdom in spiritual and earthly matters and her love for the Lord are so evident in every conversation, and I wish I had recorded on video the story of her vision and struggles and God’s provision and faithfulness as her vision became a reality. Through Tumaini Miles of Smiles, Rose literally gives orphans physical life through meeting their basic needs for protection, shelter, food, and medical attention while also pointing them toward Eternal Life by teaching them how much Jesus loves them. In a country with so much darkness and hopelessness, Rose is raising up a little army of children who are receiving an excellent education, who love God and desire to serve Him, and who will have the opportunity to be bringers of Light and agents of change in their country.

So anyway . . . why am I going on and on about Rose and Tumaini?

Well, there is a group going over there to serve this summer (I wish I was saying that I was going, but I’m not), and we are collecting school supplies for them to take for the children - pencils, paper, markers, crayons, rulers, etc. It may not sound like much to send a few school supplies, but such items are rare in such an impoverished and rural part of the world, and these small things we take for granted like markers and paper are priceless treasures to these children and their teachers.

If you or your church group, school group, friend group, etc. would like to collect and/or contribute school supplies for the Tumaini children, please leave a comment or get in touch with me via phone or e-mail, and I will arrange a time to pick them up from you! We will be collecting these items until July 1st.

This is Vivian. She is at the head of her class and wants to be a doctor.

If you are interested in learning more about other ways to support Rose in caring for Clifford, Vivian, and the other children at Tumaini, you can get in touch with me or look at the Tumaini website.

The staff and children of Tumaini Miles of Smiles

Since our adoption will require us to spend about 7-10 days in Kenya (the U.S. Embassy in Rwanda doesn’t provide the visas we need to bring our kids home), we will hopefully get to see Rose again and meet our little Clifford next year!!!

Our New Baby Niece Has Arrived!

Scott's sister Cindy and her husband Jason had their baby girl, Piper Zoey Zapp, last week. We went to Orlando the day after she was born to see them (well, sorry Jason and Cindy, but it was mostly to see Piper:). As you can see from the pictures, our little niece is absolutely precious and is one of the most beautiful babies we've ever seen! Welcome to the world, sweet Piper! We love you!

Adoption and Family Udate

The adoption paperwork is taking much longer than anticipated, and things on the Rwandan side of adoptions are also starting to take more time. Thus, our time frame is getting longer and longer, and at this point, we are anticipating/hoping to bring our sons home some time in the middle of next year. We hope to have our dossier in Rwanda by the end of the summer, and then we begin the wait that will most likely last somewhere between 9-12 months until we can bring our boys home.

Something we haven’t shared with many people yet is that over the past few months we have been going through the process and training to become licensed foster parents.

It became clear to both of us at different times that in a city with thousands of children and babies needing a loving home and a safe place to lay their heads, this next year does not need to be and should not be one in which we sit around idly waiting for our Rwandan babies to come fill our empty room, that we can and ought to allow it to be filled now. We finished 10 weeks of training classes a couple weeks ago and were expecting the remainder of the licensing work to take a couple more months, but our process has gone unusually fast (mostly because we had already gone through many of the steps required for fostering during our adoption home study), and we just learned that we should be officially licensed and have a baby placed in our home within the next two to three weeks.

Psalm 68:6 ~ God places the lonely in families.
Crib #2 waiting to be filled

Oops We Did It

Before having a baby, I always swore I would never be one of those parents who let their babies sleep in bed with them. Parenthood is humbling . . . there are plenty of times when, as my friend Lindsey puts it, certain things go from the "never going to do that" list to the "oops I did it" list.

Javen slept with us quite a bit in the early months when he was waking up several times a night to nurse, then for a few more months he just slept with us from about 5am-7am every morning. There is nothing sweeter than having your little one snuggling between you and cuddling up against you throughout the night, and we are both so glad that we took that one off the "never going to do that" list, as we would have missed out on some of our sweetest and most treasured family moments and memories.

However . . . we learned last week that sleeping with a baby doesn't work quite as well as they get older. We were in a new place and Javen was having a hard time sleeping in his pack 'n' play in a room that was not very dark, so we decided that we would go ahead and let him spend the night with us in our bed. Sure enough, he fell asleep quickly, but we soon discovered that sleeping with our little son is no longer as comfortable as it once was and that Javen has become quite an active little sleeper . . .


Sad to say it, but I think Javen's days of sleeping with Mommy and Daddy are over!

Thanking the Lord for A Sweet Gift

Happy first birthday, Javen! A year ago today, you made your entrance into the world, and with every one of past 365 days, we have fallen more deeply in love with you.

It has been a year in our family that brought a new precious life and also the loss of a precious life, a year in which we have seen and experienced how the Lord gives and takes away and have been reminded to love deeply but hold loosely.

Even during some weeks, days, and moments of tears and sadness over the great loss of your Aunt Mallory (who loved you so very much, by the way), you have been a constant source of joy to us and have helped us to smile even in those moments when we didn’t think we could. I hope Aunt Mal gets to look down from heaven on you today to see how much you have grown and changed since she last got to see you and love on you. I know it would make her so happy to see you today, and I wish so much that she was here to give you a birthday snuggle.




We are looking forward to this next year that will bring so many changes for you as you grow and develop. We will get to watch you learn to walk and talk . . . we will get to begin teaching you so many things . . . you will become a big brother . . . . we cannot wait to see what your future will hold, and it is our prayer that above all else you will grow to know and love the Lord and will live a life that serves Him to the fullest, that your love for Him will overflow to everyone around you.

In closing, I just want to share some of the (many) things we most love about you:

-How I can never get anything done around the house when you are awake . . . your eyes plead with me to sit down and play with you, and I can never resist.

-Your precious smile that lights up your whole face – and the frequency with which you display it!

-Your silly personality, and how you have figured out that you are funny and can (and love to) do things on purpose to make us laugh.

-How you love your Daddy, how you crawl to the door as fast as you can when you hear his key in the lock every night, and how you immediately start reaching one arm up in the air when he walks in the door, begging him to pick you up to touch high things (you love when he picks you up to touch the ceiling, fans, or lights, or anything else high in the air).

-How you love your Mommy, how your favorite place to be is in my arms, how all is right with your little world when you are nestled in Mommy’s embrace, how you still wake up every night for a feeding and a sleepy snuggle with your Mama. So many treasured 3a.m. moments we have shared!

-How when you wake up in your crib, you sit up or stand up to peer through or over the crib slats toward the door, waiting and knowing that we will soon appear in your doorway . . . and then you start bouncing up and down with pure joy when we do.

Happy 1st birthday, sweet son. We love and cherish you, we love being your Mommy and Daddy, and we are grateful to the Lord for His kindness in entrusting you to us.

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.