Leeland The Live Sessions - Unending Songs - Music Video

One of those days...

It's just one of those days that i'm feeling a little overwehlmed. The kids will be out of school for the holidays Tuesday so I have a lot to get done in a short amount of time. Where we thought we were done with our homestudy (for the adoptions) we have more to do... like a 3rd trip back to the Dr. this time to get a letter writen because a urinayisis wasn't dated. I have to dig up our tax records to make some more copies and at some point we have to make a trip to the courthouse in Pensacola. Every time I think were getting closer little things come up and I realize how far off it really is until we get our children!

Before I got started on my "to do" list, I googled a few words of a verse I wanted to read tonight for family devotion (it's my turn). I googled "whatever is lovely" (Philipians 4:8) and the first thing that popped up was a blog...from a family adopting from UGANDA! On it was a link to a page of Uganda adoption blogs! Sometimes it feels very lonely walking down this path, and very difficult. Most people we know think we're crazy (rightly so, lol). But God reminded me this morning that I am not alone! EVER! He is right there with me. He is the one that asked us to walk this road and He will be the one guiding us the whole way. Many of the things I read this morning were scary, like people who got to Uganda and were granted guardianship but then the child was denied the visa (meaning one parent stays there while the other comes home...with no time frame of when or if they will all be home). But somehow God used all of it as incouragement for me.

2 Corinthians 16-18 "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

Here are some highlights from some of the things I saw on the blogs:

It's a known fact in the adoption community that if you want your faith to be tested like never before...adopt a child! Why? Because this is spiritual warfare! Adoption is about rescuing children out of captivity--taking them out of darkness and bringing them into HIS glorious light. It is about the Kingdom of God advancing on the earth and many, many children being rescued from the most horrific situations our hearts could ever imagine.

But, adoption is never easy, friends. It can be so challenging (especially in situations like this one)! It takes every ounce of faith you can muster on any given day. It takes courage, a huge heart, obedience, and a promise to your child waiting on the other side of the world that you will NEVER give up on them--no matter what the enemies camp throws your way!

Isaiah 41:10 "Fear not, for I am with you. I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

And we have continued to see some incredibly miraculously powerful things happen...
things I will write down before this year is ended...
we have been privy to so many MIRACLES...
we have stood in the direct oncoming traffic of God's grace...
we have NEEDED Him...
we have been changed...
we have been scarred by Africa...
and we have been left totally off-kilter.

A best friend said it pointedly if not passive-aggressively recently:
"You're so 'activist' now."
I guess I maybe am.
Most of this year's Christmas gifts are Free Trade Approved
meaning no one was harmed to produce what makes us "merry and bright".

Good grief, I never thought of that before! I never even gave it a moment's notice!

I am off-kilter.
I feel paralyzed.
I feel unsure how to step off the speeding train we have been on
hesitant to take a
single
step
away
from this journey because it has been a paradigm-shifting event.

It's like being at a rock concert for an evening
and trying to hear a whisper afterward.
I am straining to hear
but as one friend smirked at me the other day,
I have aparently become a "miracle junkie"
accustomed to seeing something stunning happen
so I
have become afraid to
blink
so as not to miss it happening again.

It's a problem.


And I am walking through it.
I find myself asking the Lord:

"What's Next?"

I am looking forward to my faith being streched! I am looking forward to the miracles I will witness (maybe mostly inside of me). We need Him to come through! $30 THOUSAND DOLLARS being just one of the hurdles. But I trust HIM. I believe His word. I believe He has called us to this and we will not be alone. He is with us. Emanuel!

Make sure to listen to the video I posted. It was on the first blog God led me to this morning!

Merry Christmas!

More like Heaven?

We are a few months into this adoption process now. It has already been challenging. I hope that in reading this you will be encouraged, and maybe educated as to why we are pursuing international adoption. I plan on sharing with you from the beginning to the end.

Last Thursday night I was at a church for a Christmas Bizarre. I was selling Ornaments and necklaces for the adoption and a lady asked where I was adopting from. "Africa", I said. She looked at me with left side of her upper lip raised and said, "eww". EWW? As if those children had no value. Maybe worse than no value! The thought going through my head was, "you may not like the people around you in Heaven then". It is estimated that white people make up around 27% of the world's population. That probably means we won't be the majority in Heaven! Not only that, God cares for the orphan. That means we should too! "Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked." - Psalm 82:3-4. Another response we have heard is "why adopt internationally, why not locally?" I am a proponant of domestic adoption, and I will elaberate on why we are going internationally later.

But I will hit some on the physical side of why that question is ignorant at best. AIDS has now left 15 million children behind as orphans. In Africa they say that when it comes to HIV, everyone is either infected or affected- no one escapes completely (The Hole in Our Gospel). AIDS is not only a medical crisis. I met a homeless mother of three in Uganda infected with AIDS because she was a victim of some sort (in the top picture). She carries on, struggling to feed her children, mostly through backbreaking labor digging up roots to sell in the market. Soon, she will become too sick and week to carry on. Her young children will have to become her caregivers when she becomes too feeble to move. And then, the children will be alone. There are millions like her in Uganda alone! And that's just from AIDS. I haven't even mentioned the problems from starvation (the number one risk to health globally, killing a child every 5 seconds), TB (which has infected over 1/3 of the world's poorest population), malaria (which kills between 1.5 to 2.7 MILLION each year), typhoid, yellow fever, water related diseases (which kills a child every 15 seconds) and so many more deadly PREVENTABLE diseases they are up against. There is an orphan crisis going on! There is NO welfare, no government paid foster system, no foodstamps. NOTHING. The lucky orphans have an aunt or a grandmother to take them in. Grandparents in Africa struggle to care for grandchildren and even great-grandchildren by the millions! Desperately poor themselves, sometimes caring for 12 or more children. But when the grandmothers or aunts die themselves, the children are orphaned once again, leaving young children as the head of their household! Imagine a 7 year old little girl becoming the sole caretaker of her 3 young siblings! This happens!

The woman I mentioned earlier...we were able to admit her 2 young daughters into Sonrise Baby Home. They will be loved, fed, and discipled. This woman will be able to die in peace knowing her children will be ok. A luxury so many mothers don't have in Africa.

The end of all missionary endeavors to "make discipes of all nations" is described in Revelation 5:9 "And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation." There is one aim in Matthew 28 and Revelation 5: To display the glory of Christ through the ingathering of a hugely diverse and unified redeemed people.

As we follow God down the path of pure religion (James 1:27), we look forward with great anticipation to the day our home looks a little more like heaven.