I don’t remember the last time I went to a “conference” per say, but I went to one this past weekend that was anything but that. Verge Conference, centered around Missional Community, took place here in Austin this past weekend. It wasn’t really a conference at all. It was a bunch of people looking for something different. It was a lot of people who love the church, and are perhaps frustrated with it. It was Mega church pastors, and house church groupies and everything in between, and the one common denominator: our love for Christ and His church. I wont tell you who spoke, because it didn’t totally matter. I wont say who led worship, because I know he wouldn’t want the notoriety. You can visit www.verge2010.org to see some quotes and what people are saying.
I truly feel like a movement has begun. I believe that this might be the beginning of radical change in the modern day church. I think people are tired of doing business as usual, and they know that Christ didn’t intend for things to be that way. For me, the worship was convicting. Not because of anything anyone said or sang, but because the Spirit was so thick. I’m a worship leader. I’m in worship services all the time, and I genuinely can’t remember the Spirit having ever been that thick before. I think it was also good for me to be in a place where people seemed to get it. They weren’t there to play church games, or learn the next new strategy for growing their church. I believe we met to hear God say “I want justice… that’s what I want” (Amos 5:24 The Message). I’m still processing all that I felt, learned, heard, and thought. I’ll try to post more as those things become more clear.
Just a quick update on adoption: We’re still in “wait mode”. The opportunity to foster a Haitian child has pretty much closed. The Haitian government is not letting any more orphans out of the country who don’t already have adoptions in process. We’re okay with that… we just felt like God wanted us to make ourselves available to foster a child when that opportunity was in front of us. We haven’t heard any new news from China. The process is pain-stakingly slow. We’ve prayed about other options (different country, special needs child) and we just keep hearing God say “wait”. So that’s what we’re doing. We are so thankful for all of your prayers, support, and encouragement. If anything changes, or if there is any “new” news. We’ll post immediately. Until then… we continue to choose to love those around us… and we hope you do too.
WOW! You just never know what a week could bring! Thanks for taking this ride with us and praying for us! I wanted to give you guys the latest on what is happening…so, here goes….
HAITI:
The word, as of today, is that Hope for Orphans is working with Haiti Children’s Rescue Mission (HCRM). They are working with the U.S. Embassy to gain approval for 21 children who were in the process of adoption before the earthquake hit to leave Haiti and be united with their forever families. They also have +/- 40 children who were not in the process of adoption yet, but were orphans before the earthquake. Hope for Orphans and HCRM is going to approach the U.S. to try to gain approval for these kids to enter the U.S. These 2 organizations have families who are homestudy approved and ready to go for these kiddos.
Justin and I received a call from Robyn, who is with Hope for Orphans, and had an informal phone interview with her. She wanted to know our story and how far along we were in the adoption process. She asked about our journey with wanting to host/adopt a child from Haiti. We had a GREAT time talking on the phone. During our time on the phone she wanted to know what age of child we would be interested in. In these situations it is SO HARD to have a preference! We want to just do whatever God wants us to do. However, in our almost 2 years of being on the adoption journey, we feel strongly that Jaxon needs to stay our oldest child. Unless God makes it VERY clear otherwise. Birth order is important and we want to be wise in our decisions for Jaxon. She looked through the profiles of children that were available and the youngest was 5 years old. I was disappointed, but she affirmed that it is a wise decision to keep your oldest child, the oldest. She told me it looked like that door was closed for now, but they would keep our information on file and if any more new developments happened with younger children, she would let us know.
It was a big drop on our emotional rollercoaster. I am naturally an optimist, so I just knew this was going to work out. We have been trying and waiting to grow our family for over 2 years now. I was SO excited about the possibility for God to use our family as He gave us our hearts’ desire for more children. So, here we go again….struggling through this risky walk of faith! I am BELIEVING A BIG GOD TO DO BIG THINGS IN OUR LIVES!! We will continue to pray and hurt for all the HARD things happening in Haiti…knowing GOD sees ALL and He will be those children’s BIGGEST Advocate!
JUSTIN’S BACK:
Sunday we finally had to make a trip to the ER. Justin was in just excruciating pain. We had the easiest ER experience in the history of ER experiences! We got him wheeled in straight to the back and onto a hospital bed. The nurse was waiting on us and the doctor was in the room within minutes. He got a powerful pain killer shot and was feeling better…still in lots of pain, but better…within the hour. He had an MRI done Monday morning which confirmed that He had 2…yes 2…bulged discs. They were bulging into his spinal column hitting his sciatic nerve….aha….that explains all the pain! He has started an intense chiropractic/physical therapy regiment. Today has been his best day! He is still needing to take some of the pain medicine and muscle relaxers, but he is able to slowly walk. YAY! It is going to be a slow recovery, but thankfully it looks like he will be able to make a full recovery without surgery!! Thank you SO much for everyone who prayed for him!! We would LOVE for you to keep him in your prayers as he works to make a full recovery!
I do need to brag on Jax for a bit. O.K. he is the kindest little boy! I mean, he was a champ at helping with Justin. He would bring him ice, water, his houseshoes…anything he thought he might need. Usually we wouldn’t even ask him. He just wanted to take care of his dad! What a blessing! In the midst of a crazy, emotional week, it sure was fun watching him and seeing the amazing little dude God has made in him!!
THANKS for being on the journey with us! We feel so BLESSED to have friends and family like you guys in our lives!!
I just got on the Hope for Orphans blog (hopefororphansblog.com) and found out some new information. It looks like the Haitian government has said that ONLY those children who are in the process of adoption will be allowed to leave the country. Even if Hillary Clinton and the State Department allowed refugee visas, the children will not be allowed to leave the country if they are not currently in the adoption process.
Please keep praying for these children. Proverbs 23:11 in the Message says that orphans have a powerful Advocate who will go to bat for them. Keep asking and believing God to provide EXACTLY what these sweet little ones need! HE can work a miracle!
We will keep you posted if there is any new information.
We have had a lot of questions from folks about whether or not this is fostering or adopting. At this point we feel like God is telling us to make ourselves available to foster/host some kiddos…ready to see what HE has in store. Just having fun on the journey with HIM. The folks in charge have also made it clear that adoption could possibly be an option, but for now it is just fostering/hosting. Just wanted to let all you guys know…please keep praying!
We found out through a dear friend, Shelby Koch, that Hope for Orphans and Charis Orphan Care and Adoption agency were traveling to Haiti to plead the case of some of the orphans living in fear and in need of love and a safe home. Shelby received an email that they were looking for families who would be willing to foster and/or adopt some of these kiddos if they were able to get the approval to bring them to the U.S. She immediately thought of us because she knows our journey and long wait ahead to get Mae. Justin and I had heard through another sweet friend, Penny Rodgers, last Friday about the possibility of some of the orphanages trying to find homes in the U.S. for their orphans. So, our hearts were already thinking and asking God if He wanted us to volunteer for this. The morning before Shelby called me, God was REALLY speaking to both of us about it. When she called we had already heard a clear word from the Lord that we were supposed to do this, so it was easy to say YES! Here is where we need your prayers:
**Right now there are 71 kiddos ready to board a plane if the State Department and the USCIS will give approval for the kiddos to enter the U.S. They have “sort of” given approval for those who are in the adoption process to enter, but not for those who are not in this process yet. Governor Rick Perry and Senator John Cornyn have already given their word that they will be liable for these little ones if the State Department will give their o.k. Since Justin and I have a homestudy ready to go from our adoption process to get Mae, we are at the top of the list to receive one…possible more…into our home! Please PRAY that God would move in the hearts of Michelle Bond (appointed by Hillarie Clinton to oversee the Haiti orphan crisis) and Ruis ( head of USCIS). It will take a miracle to get through all of the political red tape to get them here!
**A major twist to the story is that Justin has a bulged disc in his back. He has been down on his back since Monday. He has a VERY hard time walking or sitting. Our dear friends, Ryan & Lora Osborne have been doing all they can to adjust his spine into place…it is just a timely road to recovery. WE NEED GOD TO DO A MIRACLE! We could get word at any time that we need to head to San Antonio because our Haitian friends are on their way. We NEED Justin to be able to walk and be out of pain.
PLEASE join us in believing God BIG…He is a miracle worker and we are needing some miracles to happen for us! We will work to keep any updates on our blog, so stay tuned and pray & believe BIG!
Last weekend we purchased our first minivan… sort of. We bought a 1969 Volkswagen Camper van. I have been looking for one that was roadworthy and affordable for a while now. Jana and I decided that we wanted to start going camping with Jaxon, and this seemed like an interesting way to do that: )
You get some strange looks driving around in a 40 year old VW with a car seat in the back. It’s kind of fun. The back couch folds down into a full size bed, and the top pops up and has a small cot for a child to sleep in. There’s also a cot that fits over the two front seats that is about big enough for a small child. It also has a sink, a cooler/fridge, and electrical outlets.
We went with some friends this past weekend to Lake Georgetown (about 20 min. north of here) for our first camping trip in the bus. It worked great. Plenty of space, and quite comfortable. We’re excited about the possibilities.
We’ve got a few more trips in the works. I think we’re going to take it on our travels for the Thanksgiving holidays… gotta show it to our families so they don’t think we’re completely crazy. Here are a few pics from our camping trip. Peace, Love, and stick it to the man!
Jaxon in his car seat waiting to hit the open road.
One day this question popped in my head when Justin and I were running. WHO do I choose to love? I celebrated my 32nd birthday last week and it seems to be a natural time to reflect on your life and where you are in life. I couldn’t quit thinking about this question. WHO am I choosing to love? As I reflect on my life it seems that for the past 31 years of my life I have chosen to love ME over loving my Creator…my GOD! I see this choice in the way I spend my thoughts, my emotions, my time, my money…most everything points to the fact that I have not chosen to lose myself and LOVE GOD! So, as I talk to God about this, He keeps kindly & gently showing me things in my life that I must lay down in order to genuinely LOVE HIM alone. No claims on my life, my comfort, my dreams, my expectations…laying it all down in order to CHOOSE to love HIM. He has also shown me some things that are on His heart that He desires for me to pick up and carry with Him. I have realized that I have spent so much time loving myself that I have been desensitized to the things that break God’s heart! People ALL around me that desperately NEED Him! I can see so clearly these days how satan steals and destroys so much in our lives by tempting us to love ourselves and hold on to things that are not ours to begin with. I have felt SO MUCH freedom and abundance in my heart the past week or so as I am walking with the Lord in learning how to lose myself and LOVE HIM! It is hard and it hurts, but God brings so much ABUNDANCE in our hearts when we finally surrender…daily…minute by minute! I know one day I am going to get to see my Jesus face-to-face…all of the things that seem to fill up my heart and mind will seem so meaningless in His presence. I am trusting Him to walk with me and teach me how to CHOOSE to love Him…not myself. So, when I stand before Him I can honestly say that I spent my life loving Him with all my heart, soul, mind and strength…and as an overflow of that love, I loved my neighbor as myself! Whew! What FREEDOM!
Jaxon started school a few weeks ago…Here are a few pics of this big milestone!
This is how I have been feeling all week long. We came home from Romania on Sunday. I think back to May and it seems like we have literally been around the world and back again. Not just because we traveled to so many different places, but God has let us experience so many different “worlds”. We have had a pivotal summer…because of things we have been able to experience and places we have gone, but mostly because of what God is doing in our hearts. I could write all day about this summer, but it seems like so many things God has been working in us came to a climax because of our trip to Romania and an amazing book we read on our way home. So, here we go…
our team in Bucharest
Us visiting the citadel in Sighisoara...this citadel is the only citadel in Europe where people still live!
We left Austin Friday, August 21st to fly to Romania. We met up with our new friends, Kenny, Sarah & Glenn to go on a 9 day adventure. After 3 legs of flying & a 5 hour van ride we arrived in Sighisoara, Romania late Saturday night. We were blessed to spend the day Sunday worshiping with our new friends, eating some good food & resting up a bit from the long trip. Monday the fun began! We had 50 gypsy friends from 5 different villages come to have youth camp with us! If you don’t know much about gypsies they are originally from India, but have been in eastern Europe for a while now. They are BEAUTIFUL people with A LOT of life and energy. They like to celebrate and always have a song to sing…especially the girls! They have strength, courage & resourcefulness like I have never seen. They live in desperate poverty & are disliked by the Romanian people. It was fun to be a part of loving these kids with some Romanian brothers and sisters who are giving themselves to love the gypsies when the rest of their world does not want to have anything to do with them! We learned a lot from their love for the gypsies and how they are sacrificing to help them!
This is a gypsy village we were able to visit
some of the kids...they were happy because we just gave them a big handful of candy!
a "playgroup" in the village...sure looks a lot different than here!
washing their clothes in the ditch
Pastor Florin and the bread oven his church has built in the village church to make bread for their gypsy friends during the cold winter months...opening many doors for them to share the LOVE of Jesus!
The basement of the village church that they want to make into a soup kitchen...just waiting on God to provide the money!
O.k. back to our week at camp. God put together a GREAT team…translators, cooks, helpers & all our friends from Austin! We had 4 small groups that we did Bible study with about 3 times a day and then twice a day we had a worship service. All the other time during the day we were either playing, eating or sleeping. Justin had the younger guys who were 10 – 12 years old, but in maturity
Justin & Andre'
and size they were about 6 – 8 years old. He had to share short and sweet tidbits of the Gospel because these guys did not want to sit still long! He did get to lead one of the boys, Andre’, to start a relationship with Jesus. YEAH!!! Kenny had the older boys and 12 of the 13 guys in his group chose to start a relationship with Jesus! Sarah had the younger girls, who also had a hard time sitting still. She had some great opportunity to use situations that came up to teach them about the Gospel. I had the older girls…14 of them, ages 14 and older. They were great…always listened intently, but shy when it came to spiritual conversations. We had to use translators, which was fun because WE LOVED our translators! But, hard because we couldn’t just hang out and get to know the kids. We always had to have a translator nearby. We each had a translator that helped us during our small group time. This was a great way for the our Romanian friends to really get to know what was happening with these kids spiritually. Worship services were interesting because the kids did not have long attention spans & we had to use translators. They did LOVE to sing, though! Justin did a great job explaining each song and going over it line by line. They were actually quite good at singing in English. They also
my girls
taught us some Romanian worship songs too, which usually had hand motions! These kids were so fun to get to know and just watch. One thing that I quickly learned was that they could find food anywhere! They found wild grapes, pears, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds. It was AMAZING! They know how to survive! They were happy with 2 swings, 2 ping pong tables, a tire swing & a soccerball. One of my favorite things we did was on Wednesday. We were going to have a bonfire that night and needed some wood for the fire, so they sent the kids to get some wood. As soon as the kids heard, they were so excited to go to the woods and find some wood. We walked about 1/2 a mile and up a big hill to the edge of the woods. We all hung out for a while..eating hazelnuts & sunflower seeds, picking flowers and just enjoying the view. No one told the kids what to do, they just started gathering branches from the woods and slowly everyone had one to carry back and we all went back to the camp. You have to see a few pics!
starting up the big hill
quick pic at the top of the hill
WHAT A VIEW! The big steeple is right next to where we are staying
I don't care where you are girls like to pick flowers...yes...those are wild flowers!
The camp was over on Thursday after lunch and, boy, were we tired…and REALLY ready for a hot shower! Did I mention that they didn’t really have running water the whole time we were there, so most of us had not taken a shower since Monday! There was a shower outside beside the outhouse that had sheets around it. I was not brave enough to go on that adventure, but Justin did a couple of times! I was quite impressed! Everyone involved felt like the camp was a success! Sabin & Florin, our Romanian pastors, are already planning with Kenny to have another camp next summer! This camp was meant to be an experiment to see if it could work. Now, next summer we will know what worked and what needs to be tweaked. Here is a short video of the kids singing a song in English that they taught us.
We finished up our trip hanging in Sighisoara for a night and then off to Bucharest. In Bucharest we did some sightseeing, eating & debriefing. On the first leg of the trip Justin finished a book called Crazy Love. When he finished it, he told me he wanted me to read it before we got home.
the whole Romanian crew!
these girls were my camp roomies! Sarah was my team mate from Austin & Diana was one of our translators. She was born in Romania and moved to Austria when she was 3. What GREAT girls!
He wanted to talk about it when we got home. I couldn’t wait to read it because he was so stirred up about. We had been talking about all we had seen and experienced. We had been asking God what do we do with all of this? Being in the midst of so much poverty had really put some things in perspective for us and we were not quite sure what to do with it. We have SO MUCH! From material things, to amazing families & friends, to endless supplies of things to help us deepen our walk with the Lord, to good health, to a fun, healthy marriage, to an AMAZING son…I mean seriously! And I struggle because God is not giving me more…or because He is not giving it to me fast enough! We have been faced with some questions, “How much are we sacrificing with our time, money, desires, comforts, possessions in order to more fully love our God with all our heart, soul & mind…and tangibly love others as ourself, so they will desire to love God with everything?” “Are we making decisions based on the wisdom of the world or the foolishness of Christ?” “Are we giving God room in our lives to be big, or do we have everything figured out and planned for?” “If we are honest with ourselves do we love ourselves more than we love God? What do our choices about time, money, comforts, etc show about our love for ourselves and our love for God?” YOW!!! These are HARD questions that we are struggling through…seeking God about…straining our ears and hearts to hear what He wants for US! Everyone’s story is different! We are asking God to show us in our day-to-day lives how we can live more for ETERNITY and less for the here & now comforts that seem to so easily steal our hearts away. Reading Crazy Love on the way home helped us put our minds around some of the things we felt like God was trying to teach us. We are having some good, hard conversations and prayer times as we learn more and more what it means to love God with EVERYTHING!
I want to leave you with a video of a couple we met when we were visiting one of the gypsy villages. From what we could understand of their story it went like this: The husband was a successful musician who came to know the Lord about 7 years ago. Because of his new faith, he chose not to play professionally anymore. The types of places he was able to find gigs in were not going to work if he was going to follow Christ. Since then his health has suffered, so he has been out of work for about 7 years. His wife is working, but just doesn’t make much. They have, I believe 3 adults and 2 kids living in their small house. The wife said she would go out in the forest close to their house and find ruffage to make salads for their dinners! They are faithful to the village church. We went to their house with Florin and they wanted to sing us a song, Amazing Grace.
They sang Amazing Grace as they wait on God to provide their basic needs. What a beautiful picture of what He wants our lives to be…loving Him as He takes joy in meeting our every need!
Jana has been asking me to do a post on our trip to Jordan a few weeks ago. It wasn’t until just a day or two ago that I felt like I had processed it enough to adequately put into words all that I had experienced. We spent 15 days in Jordan, the first three in Amman, and the rest of the time was spent in a city in the southern region called Wadi Mosa (Valley of Moses). We didn’t know much about what we would be doing, so our expectations were pretty vague. We knew we would do lots of praying, and lots of relationship development (hanging out with people).
Jordan is 96% Muslim, so people are familiar with Jesus as a prophet, but not as a Savior. This was something that I was nervous about going in. I felt inadequate in the fact that many of these people have memorized the Qur’an, and I haven’t quite got the Bible down just yet. I had a conversation with my dad about that before we left, and he reminded me that the Holy Spirit is bigger than that. He was right. I feel like we did more communing with the Holy Spirit and more intercession on behalf of people we had met than I’d ever done on a trip before. In fact, I think that God taught me more about the importance of prayer on this trip than anything else.
The guys and I get to be a part of “the harvest” a lot. We are blessed to get to be a part of kids giving their lives to the Lord, and it’s amazing. However, we don’t get to be a part of the process leading up to that point very often. In our prayer walking and praying silently for the people we had dinner with, conversations with, or even cab rides from, I learned how important it is to plow the ground before it’s sown, and how important it is to sow the seed before the harvest. The harvest gets a lot of attention from our churches. It’s celebrated… and it should be. But what we often forget are the people and their prayers that come before that. It was humbling and character-building to be a part of that process. I think it has helped me view people (and how I pray for people) differently.
This was my third trip overseas and I think every time I go, I realize it more and more: I have so much… Americans have so much. Most of the world does not live like we do, and I often take that for granted until I’m faced with a filthy two year old boy selling rocks to tourists on the trail at Petra. I was told by one of our hosts, that a Bedouin family with a herd of goats, can easily live off of 15 denar a month (about $21). There was most certainly wealth there. The Mercedes Benz was the car of choice, but there was also poverty. It’s hard for me to sit here on my laptop with wireless internet, in my air conditioned house and adequately describe what I was feeling when I encountered it, but poverty was there.
I think that if I choose to love, I inherently choose to live differently. It’s not necessarily a switch that I can turn on, but more of a process of learning what I really need, and what I selfishly want. I’m learning. I’m figuring out that living in communion with God and people requires me to think above and beyond what the world tells me that should be. Being around people who have a different value system than you do certainly helps bring a different perspective.
We ate our fill of falafel & humus, rode camels, and camped in the desert where David hid from Saul. It was an incredible 15 days. I can’t wait to go back someday!
Justin uploaded a video on our youtube account of him and Kyle riding a camel in Jordan. They are having a great trip…getting to meet lots of wonderful Jordanian friends, eating good food, seeing some amazing things! Keep them in your prayers as they finish up their time there!
