Sunday, March 30, 2008
Life and Death
Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 To everything there is a seasonA time for every purpose under heaven A time to be bornAnd a time to dieMy "little" brother, Ben, turned 16 years old today. I remember the moment he was born. I was 11 at the time and present at his birth. I burst into tears when I first saw him. I didn't understand it at the time...but now I know that it was just seeing firsthand for the first time the miracle of life. Happy Birthday little brother, I love you.My grandmother, Beulah Margie Miller, passed away today. I almost don't have any childhood memories without her in it. She was the best Grandmother any little girl could ask for. I burst into tears today when I heard the news. The miracle of death, while wrapped in sadness, is that we are promised, as Christian's, that "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." 2 Corin 5:8You will be missed Grandmother, I love you.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Changed my comments to moderator
I have had some problems with the comments part of the blog.... porn and a sales type blog comment. So I have changed my settings. While trying to erase the the ones I did not want... I accidentally erased some that were with it that I wanted. As you can tell I am still learning this blog thing. I did not want anyone to think I did not want their comment... I just don't want the porn and sales ones.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
We have an appt. date
We have an appt. date
We finally heard that we have our appt. for our SDA appt.. Which means we are going to Ukraine to get our children.... Woo Hoo ! Our date is June 3 ... We will now be making travel and childcare arrangements... It is very hard to believe we have reached this point . All of our other adoptions happened fairly quickly and these have taken a long time to finally come to this point... It has been a very trying and frustrating time and yet we have learned much during this time we have waited. Our one child and her sisters we have been waiting for over 3 yrs now to come home. Please pray for us as we journey into this next part of our adoption adventure.The kids are excited and processing thru just what this means... for the older ones they understand and have already put in some requests for food items they want us to buy in Ukriane... We are praying about who will travel with us as well. Our plans are to do this in 2 trips... We can't do what we did for our last adoption when we were in country for 5 weeks... So we are hoping to spit this up and will probably take Ben on the first trip and Joseph / Ben or one on the second trip. The little ones seem excited but we know that it is very hard on them for us to be away. Fortunately we will be done with our homeschool. It will be our first adoption trip without them having to do school. Mary Kate is praising that... We are in the process of doing an addition and are hoping to have it done by then- this is a real prayer request. As well as the money for all 5 of these adoptions. We are doing this addition with the help of a friend and we are adding on but not doing the addition that would have cost the most... Fortunately the company Paul works for has a wonderful adoption benefit of 10,000 per child, per adoption... We have to get reimbursed for our expenses which means we have to come up with the money before we go. This amount never totally covers it all but the Lord has always provided and we know he will this time as well.So won't you celebrate with us the blessing it is to receive a child into your life...... Or 5 ;)
We finally heard that we have our appt. for our SDA appt.. Which means we are going to Ukraine to get our children.... Woo Hoo ! Our date is June 3 ... We will now be making travel and childcare arrangements... It is very hard to believe we have reached this point . All of our other adoptions happened fairly quickly and these have taken a long time to finally come to this point... It has been a very trying and frustrating time and yet we have learned much during this time we have waited. Our one child and her sisters we have been waiting for over 3 yrs now to come home. Please pray for us as we journey into this next part of our adoption adventure.The kids are excited and processing thru just what this means... for the older ones they understand and have already put in some requests for food items they want us to buy in Ukriane... We are praying about who will travel with us as well. Our plans are to do this in 2 trips... We can't do what we did for our last adoption when we were in country for 5 weeks... So we are hoping to spit this up and will probably take Ben on the first trip and Joseph / Ben or one on the second trip. The little ones seem excited but we know that it is very hard on them for us to be away. Fortunately we will be done with our homeschool. It will be our first adoption trip without them having to do school. Mary Kate is praising that... We are in the process of doing an addition and are hoping to have it done by then- this is a real prayer request. As well as the money for all 5 of these adoptions. We are doing this addition with the help of a friend and we are adding on but not doing the addition that would have cost the most... Fortunately the company Paul works for has a wonderful adoption benefit of 10,000 per child, per adoption... We have to get reimbursed for our expenses which means we have to come up with the money before we go. This amount never totally covers it all but the Lord has always provided and we know he will this time as well.So won't you celebrate with us the blessing it is to receive a child into your life...... Or 5 ;)
Monday, March 17, 2008
We are hoping that Spring has come....
It has finally been warm enough for us to go outside for longer than an hour... the kids are loving being outside. I love this time of year.... Before you know it we will be planting our garden.... It is a big one but we don't rely on it to feed us.... We just have fun with it. All the kids help and we always plant tomatoes and cucumbers and then we decide on something fun to plant.... We have planted carrots, beets, corn, potatoes, radishes, peppers, egg plant, peas and green beans .... We have not decided yet this year what our extra veg. will be....
No news with our adoptions yet... other than we are fairly certain our dossiers are ok... Just waiting on dates.... It is always ,"Hurry up and then wait." Adoption is certainly filled with many uncertanties. Even when you finally get to travel you do lots of ,"Hurry up and wait." I know of one family who just got home with their child from Ukraine.... and that is always encouraging to hear about. We are hoping to hear some good news soon.
No news with our adoptions yet... other than we are fairly certain our dossiers are ok... Just waiting on dates.... It is always ,"Hurry up and then wait." Adoption is certainly filled with many uncertanties. Even when you finally get to travel you do lots of ,"Hurry up and wait." I know of one family who just got home with their child from Ukraine.... and that is always encouraging to hear about. We are hoping to hear some good news soon.
Friday, March 7, 2008
March Update
We have been sick alot the last 3 weeks..... many of us got strep and then some of us "lucky" ones got it again. This week our sweet, baby Ava was throwing up and has diarrhea. She was actually in the hospital for dehydration . Mary Kate and I did not get a whole nite of sleep since Sunday nite because she was sick.... Last nite when we came home she was better and did sleep the nite thru... 4 of us are still on an antibiotic and we are praying that this will be the end of it all. I was sick last nite with the bug Ava had but mine was quicker than hers.... Today I bought 30 new toothbrushes, new toothpaste, vaseline that we share, disinfected any thing I could think of that we share. We even had a visit from Jenn and our "grand" children at the start of all of this and before Jenn went home with the kids we had visited the ER for Ella to get 6 stiches beside her eye... then the next am she woke up with strep as well....So we are praying that we are over it. It has been a quite a winter of illness. Jenn and Jeremiah have sold their house and will move in mid April to the farm... We are so excited for them. We have started another house addition.... we are adding on and finishing our garage. So the house is busy with lots of construction... but it is exciting to watch. The older boys are helping our contractor, friend to build it. They learn lots of skills and we are able to gain even a larger home a bit more reasonably.We are waiting for news from Ukraine and hope to hear some news soon. I think that when we do we shall be in shock for this adoption has taken so much longer than all our other ones... It will be hard to believe that we are actually leaving ....