Group S

After a month of being computerless, my new Dell laptop came today and I can reenter life...I can't beleive how much of life involves a computer and the internet. Anyway, that and many other changes in life that I will have to tell about later have kept me from keeping this page up to speed on what we are doing.

I am happy to say though that we are in Group S, which means we will be going to court soon, and I think we will be in the last AAI group to go to court before it closes for 2 months. We should be travelling in September, God willing.

Lisa and I will both be travelling this time, and we are so excited. We haven't been away without kids for 17 years now, so our 2 days to get there and pick up kids alone will be unique for us. I am really excited to have her see Layla and AHOPE and Addis and meet so many people I have grown to love. I would have gone alone again, but this will be so much better.

Before sending our paperwork into court, we had to make a last minute decision. As I said before our paperwork was done for up to 4 kids. We wanted to make sure that we would be prepared for any unknown siblings that Terefu and Ashenafi might have. A couple weeks ago we got confirmation that there were none.

Well, with the changes in family size requirements being imposed by the Ethiopian government we figured this may be our last opportunity to bring home kids from there, so we were discussing what to do about our approval for 4 kids. Long story short is that we have added a second sibling set of 2 kids to our case, and hope to be bringing home 4 kids this fall instead of just 2.

We will be bringing home Terefu (13), Ashenafi (5), and hope to also bring home Freweyni (12) and her little brother Alemayehu (9). I know Freweyni from my 2 trips, and know who Alemayehu is but don't really know him. I spent lots of time with Freweyni though.

We aren't sure if the courts will let us adopt them all, but AAI is confident enough to try. They have been so good to us, and have supported all of our many special requests. Thanks Merrily.

When we were uncertain, and praying for God to make things clear for us, this is the scripture that He gave Lisa.

Psa 68:5
A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows,
Is God in His holy habitation.
Psa 68:6
God sets the solitary in families;
He brings out those who are bound into prosperity;
But the rebellious dwell in a dry land.

Until that point we weren't sure what God wanted us to do. We hadn't heard anything. My only direction came from a certain theology I have. I believe that in the absence of hearing clearly what God has for you to do at a certain time, while you are waiting, that there are constants that we are to always be living. Loving our neighbors, caring for widows and for ORPHANS. Little things like that. That was good enough for me, and then at the last minute God gave Lisa that scripture, and just confirmed what we had been discussing.

So at this point it is up to Him. If they are all ours He will ensure we have favor in the courts and His will will be done. That is our prayer, and if you wish to join us in that we would covet your prayers.

He is my family...

Wow! First post since April 15th! So much to say the whole time, so much of it couldn't be shared, and I had no desire to write a word. Burned out all around from constant change...but, today I feel like jumping back in, so here goes.

As I said before I have been writing letters to many of the older children since I came home with Meklit. Every few weeks I write a bunch of letters, include self-addressed and stamped return envelopes, and send them with a traveling family. I usually write to about 5 or 6 kids, with the one common letter in each bundle being a letter to my daughter and son. The fruit of this effort is the return letters from many different kids. Days when they come in the mail are the highlight of my weeks. Today was one of those days.

Five letters from 5 different kids, and one of them from my daughter. The letter opens like this (the spelling is hers, and remember that they do not know about us yet - very soon, but not yet):

Hi Habtamu (this is the name she gave me while I was there in March, and I proudly answer to it),

Think for your letter. I am so fine. Ashenafi is good. I tell him Habtamu say "Hi" and he loves you. Ashenafi answer is "oh my dad say this!" I excited for he answer. I say you don't have a family. He say I have a family. I say who is you family? He say Habtamu love me so he is my family.

A bunch of other stuff...and,

Love, Terefu and Ashenafi

He knows...soon they will both officially know, but for now he just knows. A child who hears God speaking truth to his heart.

So, now the cat is out of the bag, and for those of you who don't know, Terefu and Ashenafi are ours. Our dossier is in, and our new home study is done and being sent to AAI. Soon we can sign placement documents and send our gift bags so they will know for sure.

Here they are on my first day at Layla in March. The picture on my previous post is of Ashenafi and I, and the one later on in this post is of Terefu and I. She is 13, and he is 5.

Believe it or not, I just jumped over to see my blog to make sure the picture of Ashenafi is there, and realized what my last post was about.

The post is titled Let Them Know Lord, and ends with this ...So God, here is my prayer. Tell our kids who we are. Give them dreams, and visions, and insights into who we are, and give us the same insight. Give them (and us) eyes to see and ears to hear, so that our first meetings with them are like long awaited reunions. Not times of butterflies and nervousness, of wondering and questioning if we are right for them or they are right for us. Lord, let them KNOW without a doubt, and give them peace because they know.

I really hadn't remembered, and here is this letter from Terefu with the answer to my prayer. Even when we don't remember, He does. He is the faithful one, and He listens, and He answers - even when we don't remember that we asked. Thanks God.

Let Them Know, Lord

I closed my last post with the comment about "my daughter, who doesn't know she is my daughter, or does she? Maybe God put me on her heart too? Who knows." And then I promptly picked up an old copy of Citizen magazine from Focus On Then Family, which we used to get but it never got read so we dropped our subscription.

To be honest I wanted a little bathroom reading material, so I flipped through the issue and settled on an article about a US Army officer from Wisconsin who was stationed in Iraq. To help deal with the reality of the daily carnage he and his men saw there, he and a group from his unit started spending time in an orphanage. The short version is that he fell in love with a little boy who had cerebral palsy, and he knew that the little boy wouldn't survive childhood if he stayed in Iraq, so he adopted the boy and brought him home.

Now I can't find the magazine to make sure I get all my facts straight, so bear with me. Life in a larger family means not being able to find things some times, so here we are. I think that the little boy told his new Grandma after he had been home a little while and had picked up some English, that he knew that her son was his dad from their first meeting. God had revealed it to him, and he knew that he was his son.

Now I know God speaks to us, and much of our family's story is based around this fact. I guess I just haven't ever really spent much time thinking about it from the other perspective of our children knowing who we are before we know about them. It is of course just as likely or even more so since children don't have all of the interference to hear that we have. And He does have a particular fondness for them, doesn't He.

So God, here is my prayer. Tell our kids who we are. Give them dreams, and visions, and insights into who we are, and give us the same insight. Give them (and us) eyes to see and ears to hear, so that our first meetings with them are like long awaited reunions. Not times of butterflies and nervousness, of wondering and questioning if we are right for them or they are right for us. Lord, let them KNOW without a doubt, and give them peace because they know.

Freedom

Last weekend we went away. We drove a couple hours east of us to Tri-Cities, WA to shop, play in a hotel pool with the kids, and mostly to see dear friends who we love.

We did shop, and we can happily say that we are 100% complete in our Christmas shopping. Very nice.

We did play in the pool, and everyone had a ball. It is amazing to me that as tired as kids get from playing in water, and as soundly as they sleep, that more of us don't have pools at home. It must be worth the cost, effort and space. Hmm...

And we did see our dear friends who love us Sunday morning at The Bridge. A few years ago we spent a year (in the midst of our nomadic period) in Hermiston, OR, and drove the 1/2 hour north to attend church at the Tri-Cities Vineyard. They have since parted ways with the Vineyard (a good parting) and are associated with Streams Ministries. None of that matters to us, because we love them and they love us. And that is really all that matters.

We love going to visit them, and wish we were closer, but we are not. So we go when we can, and enjoy the feeling of home while we are there.

When I think of Pastor Tom and his church family, what is most striking and noticeable to me in the midst of worship, prayer, fellowship, prophetic stuff, etc...is the intentional focus on, desire for, and pursuit of freedom. I won't go into their details, which would be so much better coming from Tom's mouth or blog, but I will say this - walking into a place where freedom is given such value, and where safety exists to trust that you can be free and not thrown out the front door is SO refreshing. That kind of freedom, compared to stoic, safe, follow the rules of this church kind of living is like eating fresh baked bread just out of the oven, rather than last week's crusts that are ready to be fed to the pigs.

As I drove the van to the Tri-Cities, I thought about this post, and about freedom. I thought that in the world and in our selfish nature, we think that freedom is doing things our way. Living life for me, on my terms, for my gratification and enjoyment. But in the real world, in the Kingdom of our Liberator and Master, it is just the opposite. Those are the steps that lead to bondage, and slavery, and away from freedom.

Bottom line is this - if you are not free, you are in bondage! I think of the Far Side cartoon of the slave galley. There is this one emaciated slave shackled to the bench rowing away, and whistling a happy tune. The brig master is saying to his mate something like 'we just aren't getting through to this guy'. The point is that bondage can be very obvious, or it can be much more subtle. But even when it is subtle, and hard to spot, walking into a place where freedom reigns just feels so, well, free.

Blessed are the peacemakers...

This morning when I walked into church I noticed that the US flag and the church flag (I guess that is what it is) were both brought forward from where they usually are, and were placed with prominence on either side of the worship team, front and center. I thought, "Oh yeah, Veterans Day." I am a veteran, and appreciate that I and other vets who chose to serve are recognized. I don't want a bunch of praise, but I think that sacrifice, particularly significant sacrifice such as that given by many veterans should be noted. I understand the thoughts behind the flag being highlighted, and the playing of God Bless America, but due to things I have been reading recently, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

During the past 6 months or so, as we have tried to walk down the path that God has laid out before us, my world view has changed significantly. I don't know if there is an area that hasn't been affected, if there is a way of looking at life that I don't see through a different lens than I did a year ago.

It isn't just the adoption. Much of it is about my newfound passion for Africa and its people. It is about justice, mercy, loving your neighbor, the kingdom of God. And some of what it has stirred in me is distaste for the line of thought that seems to flourish in the American church; that God has somehow thrown out His Kingdom thoughts, His ideas of love for us all, and set aside the USA as the apple of His eye. It seems as though we think that within our borders there is some special grace, mercy and favor not available to others in the world.

If that last bit ruffled your feathers, just ask yourself this question. Do you think the heart of God aches more for American lives lost on 9/11 than for the lives of thousands of children who die each and every day due to lack of food and clean drinking water? Or the lives of Iraqis and American soldiers who are being killed continuously in Iraq today?

Last night I flipped past CNN and paused long enough to have to see what was going on. The program was titled "Combat Hospital", and what captured me was that they were carrying a young girl into the ER at a military hospital (like a MASH unit I guess) in Iraq. The US medical team (Army I assume) began working hard to save her, and part of that was trying to figure out what had happened to her.

She had been shot in the head, in one ear and out the other. The lead doctor stepped back at one point and told the team the results would not be good from this case, and for everyone to essentially settle down, take things slow and careful. As I watched this little girl bleeding from her ears, thinking she will certainly die, I had to change the channel.

With a knot in my stomach I realized that if she had been shot in the US, by anyone, her story would have been all over the news, and we would hear about it for days. The fact that she was born in Iraq meant that we could care less, even if she was killed by an American bullet. I don't know who shot her, but it very well could have been one of our soldiers. Or it could have been an insurgent's bullet. Who shot her is irrelevant, it isn't the point. The point is that it broke my heart to think that she had to die. Her parents could care less where she was born, they just want their daughters to not be shot in the head.

In a chapter of The Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne talks about what led him to go, and of his experience when he went to Iraq before we began bombing and invaded. These are parts of that chapter, minus much of the detail.

I began to consider what it means to pledge allegiance to Jesus and his cross.

After counting the cost of going to Iraq and the cost of not going to Iraq, I went to Baghdad in March 2003 with the Iraq Peace Team...

Essentially, I went to Iraq because I believe in a God of scandalous grace. I have pledged allegiance to a King who loved evildoers so much he died for them, teaching us that there is something worth dying for but nothing worth killing for.

Looking back now I am embarrassed at how surprised I was to find friends and family in Baghdad. It was as if I thought Iraq was filled with Osama bin Ladens and Saddam Husseins, and not with families and children just like ours.

One of the most powerful worship services I've ever experienced was just a few days before I headed home. Hundreds and hundreds of Christians from all over the Middle East had gotten together - Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox.

Afterward, I was able to meet with one of the bishops who had organized the gathering, and I explained to him that I was shocked to find so many Christians in Iraq. He looked at me, puzzled, and then gently said, "Yes, my friend, this is where it all began. This is the land of your ancestors. That is the Tigris River, and the Euphrates. Have you read about them?" I was floored - by my ignorance and by the ancient roots of my faith. It is the land of my ancestors. Christianity was not invented in America - how about that?

The bishop went on to tell me that the church in the Middle East was deeply concerned about the church in the United States. He said, "Many Americans are for this war?"

I nodded.

And he asked, "But what are the Christians saying?"

My heart sank. I tried to explain to him that many of the Christians in the US are confused and hope that this is a way God could liberate the Iraqi people.

He shook his head and said, very humbly, "But we Christians do not believe that. We believe 'blessed are the peacemakers.' We believe if you pick up the sword, you die by the sword. We believe in the cross." Tears welled up in my eyes as he said, "We will be praying for you. We will be praying for the church in the US...to be the church."

I think that we need this prayer. I think we have been looking for too long through lenses such as conservative and charismatic, of God bless America rather than Your will be done, and we need to step back and rethink things. I think we need to speak words like those of the ER doc in Iraq - I don't think the outcome of this is going to be very good...we need to start to think of things in terms of His kingdom, without concern or regard for borders or flags. To be wholly His, our first pledge of allegiance must be to the cross of Christ, and then to other entities as this first commitment allows.

Blessed are the peacemakers...

Dreaming

Jacob left Beersheba and went to Haran. He came to a certain place and camped for the night since the sun had set. He took one of the stones there, set it under his head and lay down to sleep. And he dreamed: A stairway was set on the ground and it reached all the way to the sky; angels of God were going up and going down on it. Then God was right before him, saying, "I am God, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac..."

Last night I had a dream about meeting Marta for the first time. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a Jacob's ladder type of dream, but it was still pretty good. I don't dream much, or remember dreams much, so I take note when I do.

I was hugging her in the hall outside of a hotel room, and Lisa was hugging me from behind. My face was buried in the top of Marta's hair, and we were just holding each other, lots of happy tears and I think I got snotted on pretty good. I told Marta that I love her. That is all I needed. Great dream. Can go ahead and wake up now. But there was more.

Then we went into the room and I introduced her to 3 other kids, who we were also taking home. I don't think I knew it in the dream, but I think they were siblings. There was a girl about Marta's age, and her 2 younger brothers. I introduced Marta and the girl, and I didn't know her name, but she introduced herself to her sister as Jael...

...Jael...the "other girl" I spoke of and was looking for in the beginning of the Mary & Marta post last June...looking for her led us to our girls. God revealed her to us, and we have known about her for a couple of years, and have a picture of her, or a representation of her, on our kitchen wall with all the other kids. We pray for Jael and talk about her quite a bit around here.

You see, we believe that God still speaks to us, that He still communicates like He did throughout the bible, through many creative means. One of those being dreams. So what does this dream mean? Was it a God dream? Could be. Bad pizza? Nope, didn't eat pizza...I don't know. I just know that for the first time, she showed up in my dreams.

I also know that if there is another girl over there, with or without siblings, and God says she is for us, we will bring her home. That was decided years ago when we counted the cost and said we would follow Him.

For now, the thought of court tomorrow, going to bring Marta home, and meeting Meklit in a month is good enough for me. But who knows what dreams will become reality tomorrow?

Life as an Ordinary Radical

I am in the midst of reading Shane Caiborne's book The Irresistible Revolution - Living As An Ordinary Radical. In ways it is much like Donald Miller's books, as Shane looks at faith from a different perspective than most, which I really like. But it is different too, in that while both inspire you to rethink your paradigm for following Christ, Shane's style leads you to a more practical end, and challenges you to not only think and see things differently, but to live a life that is evidence of that change.

I got my first taste of Shane's book through some link on some blog a few months back, and was hooked and had to get the book. If you click on the book cover above, it will link you to a chapter of the book in .pdf about his working with Mother Teresa for a summer. It is such good stuff, that I don't think you will be able to resist getting the book for yourself to read the rest of the chapters.

While I am tempted to cut and paste most of the chapter here for you to read, I will hold back and just give a couple teasers from the sample chapter linked at The Simple Way.

When Paul writes, “The life I live I no longer live but Jesus lives in me,” he meant it. Over and over, the dying and the lepers would whisper the mystical word namaste in my ear. We really don’t have aword like it in English (or even much of a Western conception of it). They explained that namaste means “I honor the Holy One who lives in you.” I knew I could see God in their eyes—was it possible that I was becoming a Christian, that in my eyes they could catch a glimpse of the image of my Lover?

I came forward and sat in the doctor’s seat and began staring into the man’s eyes, and the decision had already been made. I began carefully dressing the man’s wound. He stared at me with such intensity; it was like he was looking into my soul. Every once in a while he would close his eyes in pain. When I was finished, he said to me that sacred word I had come to love, “Namaste.” I smiled with tears in my eyes, and whispered “Jesus.” He saw Jesus in me. And I saw Jesus in him. I remember thinking back to one of the stained-glass windows of my United Methodist Church bought for over $100,000. I saw a clearer glimpse of Jesus in this leper’s eyes than any stained-glass window could ever give me. I knew that I had not just looked into the eyes of some pitiful leper in Calcutta, but I gazed into the eyes of Jesus, and he had not just seen some rich, do-gooder, white kid from America, but he had seen the image of God in me. That is nuts. If we began to truly believe that we no longer live but Jesus lives in us, as Paul says, our world would look very different. Living in the leper colony, I felt like I had entered the Gospels. They became three-dimensional.

It is full of good, difficult, challenging, inspiring, sure-to-stir-some-people-up stuff. The back cover of the book says "Shane's message will comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable..."

Which are you?

Warm And Fuzzy

Lisa and I were talking this morning about a number of things, and it really got me thinking. The 30 Days of Nothing thing just came to an end for quite a few families, and I made a comment to one of Mary's posts at Owlhaven about it. My comment was on the line of thinking that while we are restocking our pantries and getting back to normal, or normal minus a little bit because of slightly changed perspectives about consumerism, the families we would be emulating are starting another 30 Days of Nothing, as they cannot restock and talk about how wonderful it is to have this new perspective, over a big celebratory bowl of Ben & Jerry's, Blue Bell, or Tillamook ice cream.

(If you haven't already picked up on it, the "Warm and Fuzzy" title was a little sarcastic. This post is far from warm and fuzzy, is not about throwing rocks, but is about looking at how we live our lives from an objective point of view, and to always try to change that which is not correct.)

I read a Mother Teresa quote today that was most likely used by her in another context, but is perfectly fitting for this strand of thoughts. She said:

It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish. ~ Mother Teresa

Lisa and I then talked about the grandness of life in the U.S., or gluttony of life here for that matter, with regard to what Mother was saying. Some things that come to mind from our life:

• We have enough clothes in our home to cover atleast 6 families, much of which is so specialized that it only sees the light of day every few years, or at the holidays.
• I am afraid to do the math and figure out how many kids at AHOPE could be sponsored with what we spend on media/entertainment/communication in our home.
• We waste way too much food. We either overconsume or throw out food that we let spoil so we could have something that sounded better at that moment.
• Our kids are too spoiled, and have so many toys it is rediculous.
• We have 3 vehicles, and as Avery talked about last week, we must have 10 bikes.
• When ever I come home from a monthly Costco trip, I wonder during the endless procession into the house with our stuff, where is the line of stuff coming out of the house?
• We are never truly in need of material things.

Then there are some recent things outside of our family that we talked about. And this isn't stuff that we are pointing fingers about, just triggers for our discussion. Like spending thousands on vacations, new cars, houses WAY bigger than the need for shelter and basic comfort, whether it all could be afforded or not. I told Lisa that I knew some would say, "yes, but they earned it. They worked hard for that and they deserve it."

Do we deserve it?

REALLY?

How do I, primarily sitting on my oversized backside, being paid way too much to do what I do, deserve more than a single mom in Addis Ababa who slaves away all day long to buy enough food for 2 of her 4 kids, meaning she will have to make a tough decision and give a couple of them up for adoption, or let them all die. Do I deserve it because I am better, more industrious, or more gifted than her? Certainly there is a component of this that is due to my efforts, but how much of it is just plain luck, or blessing that I was born here rather than there?

When I only use my block, or my street, or my town, I can possibly come to the conclusion that I deserve it. But the One who's opinion counts doesn't have such limited vision. He sees all, and in His kingdom view He would most likely agree that I DON'T DESERVE ANYTHING. It is only by His grace and mercy that my kids have not known need, ever.

We are adopting the kids God points to and says "they are yours", and we are sponsoring some kids at AHOPE. But God, do not let me or my family be comforted with doing these things while living a life of gluttony, because "we deserve it!" Open our eyes, minds and hearts God, and give us joy in the midst of learning to live a sacrificial life. Don't allow a child to die so that we may live as we wish.

Sorry to dupe you into reading this if you were looking for warm and fuzzy adoption updates about the girls. Those will come later. Today, this is as soft as it gets.

Dual Citizenship

Tomas Perez over at A Company Of Friends has a great post about dual citizenship, related to faith and not adoption. It is a discussion of residing within the kingdom of heaven, and the United States, and the responsibilities that go along with that residence status. Good stuff.

Perspective

We just returned from a weekend with friends, and their many lovely children. Out of their 22 kids, I think (couldn't ever get a good head count) that there are 11 at home, and 4 more on the way, as they are currently adopting from Ethiopia like us. We had such a wonderful time with them. It is funny. We don't get many invites anywhere anymore, but with this family our 7 was nothing big to add for the weekend. Such fun.

A couple weeks before that we met another family with 20+ kids. They too are an amazing family who love with everything they have, and would tell you that they are the blessed ones - no savior complex with these families.

Time with these families has given me a fresh perspective on many things. One of these is family size. When I tell most people that we are adopting again, and will soon have 7 kids, they are in utter disbelief. One guy I work with who is from my corporate office, and we have never met face to face, told me "you must be a Christian" last week when I answered his questions about our family. I think that is the only box he can put the idea of 7 kids in, the only way he can get his head around someone doing something "that crazy". That is the response of most of the world we live in. Now I just tell them, "oh, that's nothing, you should see the _____ family, now they are a BIG family!"

Here is my new standard for family sizes:

• Small family - less than 10 kids
• Medium family 10-19 kids
• Large family 20+ kids

The bottom line is that the perfect family size is what is perfect for your family, and there is no competition. We are happily a small family, who is open to whatever God has planned for us.

One of the other changes in perspective for us is to see people really doin' the stuff and being willing to live a sacrificial life (in the world's eyes and standards) and be genuinely selfless. Now don't take me wrong with this, I am not saying that there is any "rescuing" or savior mentality going on here. These families are purely about doing what is needed and best for their children, no matter how many there happen to be. These guys are walking out their relationship and faith, when what we are most used to seeing and hearing is something that closely parallels what the world views as normal.

These families are also passionate about something to the point of giving in other areas, and willing to live a life in pursuit of what their hearts yearn for. I want to be more like these guys and do what I say I believe, no matter what that means.

I am also into efficiency, and the way I look at it is we just made ~50 new friends very quickly, and that is pretty sweet.

So Amazing...

Today I was driving down the Columbia River Gorge to The Dalles (a bigger town in Oregon where we go to shop) with Song and Joy, our 2 kids who were adopted from China. We were driving and jamming pretty good to Dwell, a Vineyard release from a few years back.

I started thinking about when they came home, the airport scenes when family and friends saw the dear ones we had been waiting so impatiently for, and in Song's case, the first time to meet Mom. Wondering what Marta's upcoming airport scene will be like.

Also I was thinking about our drive home from the airport with Joy, and the impact of creation on that little 4 year old Chinese girl who had never ventured outside her city of 4 million. She rode most of the way looking sideways out the window, slack-jawed, silent, in complete awe at the beauty in these pictures that we have come to take for granted.

As I drove along singing very loud and drumming on the wheel like I has the dude with the blue hair and the djembe on the recording, a song was really speaking to me about His love for us in honoring us with the task of parenting these kids. The song was Love Me Like You Do by Sheri Keller (now Sheri Carr), and it goes like this:

God of glory You have made all things, all things
Who am I that You would think of me, of me
For You made the earth, You made the stars
Yet You know my name; You know my heart
You're always there; You're never far away

So amazing as You paint the sky
So amazing, makes me wonder why
You love me like You do
You love me like You do
That You love me like You do
So amazing, so amazing

I see the birds ride on the winds, they fly so high
Mountain peaks so tall they seem to touch the sky
Creation calls Your name above
Yet in Your mercy and Your love
You came to give Your life that I might live

It really hit me to think of Joy, Song, Marta and Meklit coming to this place to live a life together in our family - that He chose us for them and them for us way back in eternity - such mercy, grace, hope and love - that He made the stars and still knows my heart - and this is what His love is like for us all, that He welcomes us to dwell with Him, and we can welcome Him to dwell with us in a relationship of this type of love. It is just as mind-boggling-slack-jaw-staring-crazy kind of awesome as Joy's response to the Gorge. It is simply, so amazing...

Crock Pot Cooking and Faith

I love to cook, and I love to cook things in a crock pot during the winter. Like much of cooking, you take a bunch of things individually that are somewhat appealing, but together they become something very appealing. This can be especially true in a crock pot - after hours of cooking you walk in the house and it just smells so good.

I am a crock pot kind of guy. I take things, often from many different sources, stew on them for a long time, and at some point down the road I emerge from my fog like someone threw a switch and the light comes on to something very clear and different. A different understanding, a new perspective, a new paradigm, seeing a new aspect of truth for the first time, and realizing just how wrong I was about my perceptions and understandings from before, which can be terribly (and wonderfully) humbling.

During the past couple of years, mostly the last 12 months, I have been going down this path. It is like I decided to take this little side road, that was no more than an overgrown trail, and have been walking down it for a while. At first it was hard to negotiate, and I could never see very far ahead. It was and still is in many ways hard going, and there weren’t many other travelers I came across on the trail. It was a lonely walk. But, I had what began as a twinge of a feeling that there was something true, and clear, and good ahead. Over time this feeling has grown and grown into a deep, gut level feeling that what is slowly emerging from the fog ahead of me is very true, and very clear, and very good. And, with equal certainty, I have the feeling that what I left behind is just the opposite.

Mostly this change is about my faith, who I am as a spiritual person, what I think Jesus came to earth for, and what He says church is to look like and be about. This morning I was reading a chapter from Donald Miller’s book Searching For God Knows What and came across this:

At the same time, however, we are at a disadvantage because the Jesus that exists in our minds is hardly the real Jesus. The Jesus on CNN, the Jesus in our books and in our movies, the Jesus that is a collection of evangelical personalities, is often a Jesus of the suburbs, a Jesus who wants you to be a better yuppie, a Jesus who is extremely political and supports a specific party, a Jesus who has declared a kind of culture war in the name of our children, a Jesus who worked through the founding fathers to begin America, a Jesus who dresses very well, speaks perfect English, has three points that fulfill any number of promises and wants you and me to be above all, comfortable. Is this the real Jesus?

Is Jesus sitting in the lifeboat (you have to read the book to understand this fully) with us, stroking our backs and telling us we are the ones who are right and one day these other infidels are going to pay, that we are the ones who are going to survive and the others are going to be thrown over because we are Calvinist, Armenians, Baptists, Methodists, Catholics; because we are Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, or liberals; because we attend a big church, a small church, an ethnically diverse church, a house church, or is Jesus acting in our hearts to reach out to the person who isn’t like us – the oppressed, the poor, the unchurched – and to humble ourselves, give of our money, build our communities in love, give our time, our creativity, get on our knees before our enemies in humility, treating them as Scripture says, as people who are more important than we are? The latter is the Jesus of Scripture; the former, which is infinitely more popular in evangelical culture, is a myth sharing a genre with unicorns.

If you haven’t read Miller’s books, like Searching…or Blue Like Jazz, and any of this stirs something within you, you should. He has this unpolished, full of candor, real world way of looking at faith and the kingdom, that will inspire you to drag yourself out of the Christian box you are in, and look at things anew.

That is the path I have been walking down – to take everything but the stark truths of Jesus, and throw it all out. To question everything with a fresh and new perspective and to seek God and His word and say, what is this really supposed to look like? How much of this is really man made, watering down, clouding, and confusing my understanding of Your truth? What has my faith become as a result of being so entrenched in the institution of the church for many years? Am I a believer and follower of Jesus, or of the church (institution)?

I love what Michael Frost describes in Exiles as “the Christian experience as it was intended: a radical, subversive, compassionate community of followers of Jesus.” My hope is that a picture of what this looks like is what is emerging from the fog in the little clearing up ahead at the end of this path.

Tom Perez at A Company of Friends pointed me to the Sara Groves song “Painting Pictures of Egypt” about leaving Egypt to wander in the desert. It goes:

I don’t want to leave here
I don’t want to stay
It feels like pinching to me
Either way
And the places I long for the most
Are the places where I’ve been
They are calling out to me
Like a long lost friend…

It’s not about losing faith
It’s not about trust
It’s all about comfortable
When you move so much

And the place I was wasn’t perfect
But I had found a way to live
And it wasn’t milk or honey
But then neither is this…

I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacks
The future feels so hard
And I want to go back
But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I’ve learned
And those roads were closed off to me
While my back was turned...

The past is so tangible
I know it by heart
A million things are never easy to discard
But I was dying for some freedom
But now I hesitate to go
I am caught between the promise
And the things I know

I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacks
The future feels so hard
And I want to go back
But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I’ve learned
And those roads were closed off to me
While my back was turned...

If it comes too quick
I may not appreciate it
Is that reason behind all this time and sand?
If it comes too quick
I may not recognize it
Is that reason behind all this time and sand?

This is on her Conversations CD.

Sorry for the length and rambling of this post, but this emerging picture is such a huge part of who I am right now, that I can’t ignore it. As she said, the places that used to fit me cannot hold the things I’ve learned, so I am searching for something new. And when I walk in the house these days, it just smells so good to me.

Rich

Who I Am

I want to be defined not by what I do for a profession, but by the relationships I have, and the way I live my life through those relationships for God. The relationships I want to be identified by are my walk with God, living as part of the one flesh He created that is my wife and I, my time with my kids, my fellowship with others in the kingdom, and my extended family and friends. I work at a power plant, but that is merely the tent-making part of my life that God has gifted me to be able to do, has provided the opportunities for me to succeed, and opened the doors for me to be here doing that. It is a means to an end for me to do what I want to be defined by, which is relationship. During this season of life, much of that definition is my family life, so I thought I would share about the rest of me that is my kids.

When I reflect on our family I am truly amazed. Not at Lisa and I, but at what God has done for, through and in us in the process of building this family - a work that is not yet complete. We are blessed beyond what we could have imagined a few years ago, and beyond what we ever hoped for. Lisa and I always talked about a large family, and on that theme we even discussed running an orphanage as missions work for a time. It seems that is not for us right now, but bringing them home is.

Our son Jeff is nearly 16, and was our only for 8 years. He came into the world 2 months early, and scared me enough to begin looking for God. He went through a rough beginning, marked by nearly losing his life and then his legs, but today he is a big, strong, healthy young man who makes us very proud to claim as our son. He is an excellent student, a hard worker, and he is mature beyond his years. Jeff is intense, and has a heart for missions and travel. He has been to China twice, Romania once, and is headed to Mexico in a couple of weeks. We have always wondered what Jeff would do with his life with his unique blending of gifts, and I am still not certain. It is fun to be part of the pushing off team (like shoving a boat out into the current), and to be part of his support and encouragement team on the home front. I don't think that he is long for this continent, and will have to allow God to make us content with him being far away, which seems to be the only thing we are somewhat certain of.

When Jeff was 7 and we were not supposed to be able to have any more kids, we first began to consider the adoption option. We had no money, so we were seriously looking into foster adoption, when surprise, surprise, Lisa was pregnant.

Josiah was next, and just as foretold, he was pure joy. His beginning was much less exciting than Jeff’s was, but God wasn’t trying to get our attention this time around. Josiah is now 7, and still a delight to have as a son. He is our little prophet, and quite the dreamer, as well as being very caring and a nurturer. It is amazing to me to see how God has gifted Josiah to be able to absorb new family members right in the midst of his age, which means his space, his toys, his age level of interaction with Mom & Dad, etc., and be the guide, playmate, caregiver.....such a delight he is.

Shortly after Josiah was born, we entered our nomadic period, and we traveled around the country and Canada starting up new power plants. In 5 years we were living and working in Washington, Texas, Wisconsin, Oregon, British Columbia, Washington, California, Louisiana and finally Washington again, where we have settled. During that time we lived in 8 houses, and were part of 9 churches. It was a great adventure, but we were happy to say it was over a couple years ago when we settled here in Goldendale.

During the last year of our wandering, we felt drawn to adoption again, and to China. We began down this path thinking that we would adopt a healthy infant girl, who would of course grow into a lovely girl who would love us dearly. We began working with an agency in Portland called ASIA, and were well on our way when God began to do a major work in us. In an instant God changed our hearts and we knew that our daughter was not a healthy infant, and that we had to be prepared for significant special needs as He was in control, and not us. This is when we began to come to the conclusion that God had decided long ago what our family was to look like, and we just had to draw near to Him and see who He had for us.

In our drawing near, God revealed to us through a dream of Lisa’s, that our first was a little girl, who had a problem with her leg or legs. Then Jeff had a vision of her and said that she had a limp in her left leg. In October of 1993 ASIA had a new waiting child list come out, which is their list of children who are older or have special needs. I was traveling and called home to get Lisa and Jeff in front of the computer to see the list. Out of the 11 kids on the list, this is who jumped out at them.

WAITING CHILD: Dongqun
SEX: F
DOB: October 1999
SPECIAL NEED: Limp in Left Leg
Dongqun was brought to the institute on October 10, 1999. Since November 20, 1999, she has been living with a foster family. She is smart and loves to go to school. She counts and speaks in whole sentences. She likes to read books, watch TV and listen to music. Dongqun is introverted and sometimes stubborn. She can dress, put on her shoes and take a bath by herself. She is very independent. Dongqun is healthy although she walks with a limp with her left leg. She is a good eater and has a good appetite.

Both of them immediately said this is her. We were the first ones to see the list posted, and were first to respond and let ASIA know that she was ours. As it turned out, the “limp with her left leg” was congenital hip displacia, and her description was just as Lisa and Jeff had expected.

Not long after we had chosen Joy, we also had discussions about “what if they will let us bring home 2 of these kids?” That led to a second pick by every one, and even questions to ASIA about whether or not it could be done. They told us it was not allowed in China, but our discussions kept on. I was taken by an older girl (who we later met, and become friends with her new family in Portland) but the boys had another pick. There was a little boy on the list who looked sweeter than you can imagine, and the boys kept telling us “there is nothing wrong with him, he is just blind in both eyes”. That was the description about Song on the Waiting Child list, and they couldn’t see why that should hold us back from adopting him.

WAITING CHILD: Song
SEX: M
DOB: June 1997
SPECIAL NEED: Blindness in Both Eyes
Song is an active child who loves to smile. He has been at the institute since January 1998. He is introverted and gets along well with his friends. Song dances when he hears music. He can dress and undress himself and goes up and down the stairs by himself holding onto the rail. Song's health is very good and he is seldom sick. He has a good appetite and his favorite food is chicken legs.

We kept our eye on him on the list while we waited to go get Joy, and while all of the other kids on the list were marked as “on hold”, Song was soon the only one left.

In late June of 2004 the 4 of us flew to China to bring home Joy ChiGi Downen. We had a grand adventure, and our home has been full of Joy ever since. She was aptly named. We moved to Goldendale shortly before going to get her, and she fit in with us in our new home immediately. Today if you meet her you would think that she was born and raised here, and she is known by nearly everyone in town. I am referred to as Joy’s Dad, as she is so much more remarkable than me. She is becoming a ballet dancing, piano playing, swimming socialite, who God has seen fit to gift with such a tender and caring heart for other people. What a wonder it is to see Him transforming a little bud into a beautiful flower to be a blessing to so many people.

After we were home for a bit we contacted ASIA to ask about Song. We were afraid that they would send his file back to China and we would lose track of him. There is a one year waiting period before you can begin the process again from China, and we knew they couldn’t hold his file that long. Since we were the only ones who had shown an interest in Song, they held his file longer than normal, and then sought permission from China to waive the one year wait for us. We got approval from China, and were off and running on adoption #2.

In December of 2004 we had plans of traveling during the summer of 2005, but it seems God had other ideas. Fitting our timetable of every 7 to 8 years, Lisa was pregnant. This was such a wonderful surprise for us, but also a concern as China requires you to wait one year after giving birth to adopt. We were so sure that Song was ours at this point, that we couldn’t bear not bringing him home before then. Through the efforts of All God’s Children International and ASIA, the decision was made to try to bring him home 4 months after the baby came, and we got approval to do that.

In August of 2005 Jeremiah Gustaf came into the world, and he was such a blessing to us. He was and still is such a sweet little guy. It is amazing to think that anyone can go through the process from conception, to birth, through the first year of life and not believe that there is a creator out there who has such a deep love for us. Young Jer is just walking, loves to get in the water, and has such a sweet disposition. From his mid-shin view I wonder what this family looks like. We think that he is going to be the anchorman on this ????? person relay team, but who knows what God has in store for us down the road a little farther. I do know better than to say "no more".

After the initial pace of one son in the first 8 years, 2 in 6 months was quite a shock. In January, Jeff, Jan Ogden and I went to China to bring Song home. He was just as sweet as his initial picture, and to our surprise and delight he could see through a narrow field of view with his left eye. His vision we found out later is about 20/1000 through that narrow field of view, and cannot be corrected, but he does so well with what he has been given. In the few months Song has been home he taught himself to ride a bike, he is learning to swim, to read and write, and to play the piano. Again, it is such a blessing to see the hand of God move so dramatically, and so near to us. I think it is like people who saw Mt. St. Helens blow from a couple hundred miles away. They were amazed. But the people who were REALLY close were REALLY amazed. That is how Lisa and I feel to be so close to such a wonderful thing.

So, here we are - a family of 7, who are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our next 2 members, Mary & Marta. God has done an amazing work in our family, and He is still moving. We have found (and are still finding out) that when we submit to Him, and are willing to obey, that there is always enough of any resource necessary to do what He asks us to. That part of the deal is His job - we just have to hear and obey.

Rich

I Do

As a beginning message, I thought I should start in the middle and explain the title, which also speaks of a major theme in my/our lives at this moment.

In the midst of the process of our most recent adoptions, I came to a greater understanding of obedience, and answering the call God places on our day-to-day lives. Our girls were being presented to us by God (another story), and we were confronted with a particular detail of the adoption process that could be difficult. We were asking each other whether or not we could handle it, and praying about it, and I asked, shouldn’t we count the cost? The answer I got was a resounding NO, which was not what I expected, and was not in alignment with my understanding. And then it occurred to me, we were already to have done that.

When we are first called to follow Him, we are supposed to count the cost, and then not look back. Jesus said in Luke 14

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it— lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ (NKJV)

Now I would confess that most of us (and certainly me!) don’t have the long-sightedness or maturity when we first accept Him to do this, and that it becomes part of the process of becoming His to actually count the cost. But, there comes a day when we must decide whether or not we are wholly His, and at that point the crossroad is whether or not we are going to live a life of complete obedience or not.

In worldly terms this may appear radical, or in my terms radically obedient, but I think God just sees it as obedience. We are to hear His directions for us, and then simply obey. Without weighing options, making lists of pros and cons, without discussing it with everyone we know, without worry, without getting our ducks in a row, etc. – without counting the cost! Being radical should never be a goal we strive for. Being radical brings attention to us, but being radically obedient is different, and focuses the attention on Him.

And you know what, we may be completely misunderstood, not supported, and thought to be crazy by our family, friends, neighbors, church and even our church leaders! The point is that once we have clearly heard God speak - we have to obey! We must have faith that God has the resources taken care of to accomplish what He has called us to do, and part of that is His taking care of the understanding of others. For us in this particular case it was a matter of saying yes, we were willing to lose relationship with people we love dearly to be obedient. But God changed hearts, because He is in charge of that, and the timing of that.

I liken this process to what I consider to be the closest picture of our relationship with Jesus that we see in our lives, marriage. Think of the vows we take when we are just about to be joined as one flesh with our spouse to be. We are asked if we will love, honor, cherish, etc. all the days of our lives. Even when sickness and trying times come, we tell God and family that we promise to do these things until death do us part! The vows aren’t love, honor and cherish until things get tough, and then count the cost and see what you want to do. We have to count the cost up front, say “I do”, and then DO!

To be wholly His, and live life in the fullness He has for us, there can be no more counting the cost.

Rich