Memorial Day Weekend Perks

--Got out of the house for three whole days!!

--Got to do a little bit of shopping!

--Lots of good food, of course! But my mama fixed my all time favorite meal--fried deer loin, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans...its amazing!!

--Got to see lots of family while celebrating my sister's graduation from high school

--Got to play with and love on my niece and nephew!

--Best of all, I was never alone!!

Boldness

The past few weeks I have been studying the book of Habakkuk. Its a pretty short book, only three chapters, but it is packed full of amazing stuff. There are a few reasons why this book has intrigued me for the past few weeks.

First, Habakkuk was a man of God, a faithful servant and prophet. Unlike the other prophets of the day, Habakkuk didn't just deliver God's message to his people, but he took the people's complaints to God. Habakkuk is perplexed and confused at what is happening in the world around him. He doesn't understand why God is doing what he is doing. He especially doesn't understand how God could punish his own people-the chosen nation, even though they had sinned, by a nation even more wicked than they? I admire Habakkuk, who was an honest seeker of truth, because he didn't try to figure it out on his own, he went directly to God with his question or complaint, seeking to know the truth. Yet even though Habakkuk doesn't understand God's plan, his faith and trust in him is unwavering.

Secondly, I love the boldness of Habakkuk. He is honest with God and not afraid to doubt his plan, to ask tough questions, and admit his inability to comprehend. I feel like oftentimes Christians are timid. We are scared to ask the hard questions, to doubt God's plan for our life. To proud to admit we don't understand. We are too afraid to pray bold prayers, I mean, its not going to happen anyways, so why pray about it. But Habakkuk, in all things was honest, he sought the truth, and he was not afraid to question God.

Here are few of my favorite parts of Habakkuk although I encourage you to spend some time studying Habakkuk yourself.

Habakkuk's first complaint:

How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.

The first part of God's answer:
Look at the nations and watch--and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.

Part of God's answer to Habakkuk's second complaint, which is similar to his first:

...but the righteous will live by his faith...

I think chapter three in its entirety is my favorite part. After wrestling with God, trying to understand what is going on in the world around him, trying to understand God's hand in it all, this is Habakkuk's prayer.

Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.

Then Habakkuk continues to give an amazing description of God's power.

His glory covered the heavens and his praise filled the earth. His splendor was like the sunrise; rays flashed from his hand. where his power was hidden. Plague went before him; pestilence followed his steps. He stood, and shook the earth; he looked, and made the nations tremble. The ancient mountains crumbled and the age-old hills collapsed. His ways are eternal.

Habakkuk's description of God continues, and he concludes with the following.

...yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights.

Whether or not Habakkuk understood what God was doing, he realized it was his job to trust in him, and to live by faith.

Studying Habakkuk has been so encouraging to me, as I also do not understand what God is doing in my life, and the world around me. I question his plans for me. I am asking why? I am encouraged to ask God the hard questions, to seek out his truth, yet to continue to live by faith and trust in his plan. In the meantime, I am encouraged to pray boldly, for God to do great things in my life and the world around me.

Blessings

I have been really homesick lately, for Vienna, for our ministry there, the families we served and the family of friends made up of the staff. It has been a really hard transition for me to move back to the States, especially after losing the babies. I have done a lot of questioning why God brought us back, and what my purpose is here. As I have spent so much time alone the past three weeks on bed rest, it has been hard not to slide into a slump of depressing thoughts. Although I am yet to learn why God has us here, I am thankful for the blessings of being close to home once again.

One of my greatest joys of being close to family is my niece and nephew.

As you can see, they are cute as buttons! Grace is 4 and too smart for her own good. Recently we were taking them home to their house from my parents house and we were trying to pick a place to stop and grab some food. With some convincing, we stopped at Sonic. Here's how the conversation went after ordering our food.....

Grace: "Matt, can we sit outside and eat?"

Matt: "Not today sweetie, its getting late and we still have a long ways to go."

Grace: "Please? Pretty please"

Matt: "Sorry Grace, not today, maybe next time."

Grace: "Pretty please with a cherry on top?"

Matt: "No Grace, we don't have time."

Grace: "But Matt, if we eat in the car I will make a big mess."

Matt: "It's okay Grace, I can clean it up."

Grace: "But I make a really big mess."

Matt: "Its okay, I can clean it up."

Grace: "But I make such a huge mess, it will take you a really really long time to clean it up."

Matt: "Its okay Grace, I can clean it up. We're eating in the car."

Thankfully our food came at this point in time because I was dying with laughter and Matt was barely able to contain his and keep a straight face in saying no! Samuel, 2, is an ornery little guy. He will walk into the room with this grin on his face, and you know trouble is coming! He is so much fun and always on the go. He's never too far behind big sis, always having to keep up! Of course it is good to see my brother and sister-in-law, but you know how it is once you have kids...they're all that matters!

Another blessing....my two younger sisters.

I moved out of the house while they were just starting middle school, so we've never really been close as in friendship close. But now that we're starting to enter the same area of life, I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know both sisters and spending more time with them. Catherine is finishing up her freshman year at Lincoln Christian College where she is studying to be an elementary teacher. She has the biggest heart of anyone I know, is quiet, and always puts others first. Rebecca is finishing up her senior year of high school. Her graduation is next weekend. She is well, a lot like me, only worse!! HA! Seriously though, we are a lot alike, although I think shes a bit more opinionated, and way more prissy! She's got a full ride scholarship to Southeast Missouri State University where she will study to become an upper level math teacher.

Last but not least, is my mom. Like me, she hates pictures so I'd have to really hunt to find one, so we'll have to do without! My mom has always been my best friend. Although my husband calls her crazy, she has always been there on for me. She has a servants heart and will do anything for anyone. She is one of the best cooks I have ever met, and has a super fun personality! I don't know what I'd do without her daily phone calls while on bed rest. Although we chat about nothing most times, its good to just chat with another human being!

I am also thankful for my daddy who is at this moment in our basement hanging drywall. We can't fix our nursery until the basement is finished and we can move things around. He stayed up way to late working on it last night, and is working still. Love you dad!

So these are a few of my blessings. I will definitely share more as I fight my loneliness and need to be reminded of all the blessings God has given me.

Why?

--Officially, there are 730,000 orphans living in Russia alone. There are more orphans in Russia now than after World War II.

--Out of the 730,000 only 200,000 live in orphanages and internats. The rest live on the streets or in the underground sewers.

--Statistics show that only one out of ten Russian orphans becomes a functional member of society.

--The others are lost to drugs, prostitution, crime and suicide. Millions of Russian children are on the run living on the streets or in underground sewers desparately needing basic food, medicine and clothes.

--In Ukraine and Russia 10-15% of children who age out of an orphanage commit suicide before age 18.

--Worldwide, there are offically 144 million orphans. If .06% of the Christian population would adopt one child into their family, the orphanages would be empty.

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

James 1:27

Not every Christian is called to adopt, but each of us are called to look after the orphans. The Greek verb used for the phrase "look after" is the word episkeptomai. This compound verb with the prepositional prefix epi- places an emphasis on the act of looking. In the context of James' instruction, the verb would carry the connotation of giving active care or help.

According to James, we need to have these two things in our portfolio of faith in order for God to consider our faith pure, faultless and undefiled. First we must actively look out for the orphans and widows. Secondly, we must keep ourselves from being polluted by the world. I find it very interesting that James connects these two ideas together. I believe it is because we have been polluted by the world that we are no longer actively looking after the orphans and widows, which is why there are over 144 million orphans today.

Many people have assumed we were adopting only because of losing the triplets. Therefore many people assumed we would not adopt when they heard we were expecting again. But we are still adopting. Our decision to adopt was never based on if we could or could not have children of our own. For us, it wasn't a last resort option to have a child.

Yes, we realize the adoption process is expensive. We have no money or savings for it, but we completely trust God will provide. Yes, we realize the child we adopt could have physical or behavior problems. We believe God didn't call us to love only perfect children, but to love all children. We believe God will be our rock, that he will guide us, and continue to fill us with His perfect love so it may overflow into the life of our child. Yes, this process is overwhelming, we are scared, we know we will be hurt, and we sometimes selfishly don't want to adopt. We realize the journey we are embarking on will be one with many valleys and few mountain peaks, but God has called us and we cannot turn our backs on his call.

Next week we will offically embark on our adoption journey. We are adopting from Russia, which is why I focused my statistcs there. We are planning to adopt a little boy, as young as possible (12 months) and no older than four. We will begin raising money in earnest, I will be filling out grant and scholarship applications.

Please join us in praying for the following:

--Pray for God to reveal to you how you might actively look after the orphans and widows.

--Pray for God to work in the hearts of his people, that they will be moved to care for His children, the orphans and the widows.

--Our biggest and most obvious need is finances. Please pray for God to provide the finances we need. $7,000 in the first month for agency fees, homestudy fees, legal paperwork fees. We need to raise $30,000 total.

--Pray for Matt and I. That we continue to trust God and lean on him to be our strength.

--Pray for our precious baby that is out there somewhere, that God will provide for his needs and keep him safe until we can bring him home.

Belated Thoughts

The week of Easter I travelled with family to Jefferson City to watch my brother and sister-in-law in their churches Passion play. This church means a lot to Matt and I, they supported us faithfully while we lived in Vienna, it was our church home before moving to Wentzville, the pastor, one of the most compassionate men we have ever met, never left our side through losing our babies. When we knew things were going bad Tuesday night, we called our family. Ken came first thing Wednesday morning and stayed with us the entire day, through everything. Not only was he there for Matt and I in a huge way, but he was there for our family as well. He prayed with us, cried with us, and was a silent strength to all.

Anyways, I was really excited to see Ken and his wife, and to visit our second church home. This particular Passion play was written by a guy in their church, and it was written from a completely different perspective than most, and I loved it. The play looked at life from the peoples perspective, particularly the theives. It gave several glimpes into the life and ministry of Christ, which I really liked, because it gives so much more meaning to both the ministry of Christ, and his death and resurrection.

I completely lost it when it showed Jesus' ministry with the children. Seeing children sit at the feet of Christ, listening to him teach, broke my heart. Thats where my babies are, sitting at the feet of Christ, basking in his perfect love. This moment both broke my heart with the reminder of our loss, but touched my heart in the sweetness of where my precious babies are.

Shane and Shane

Matt and I first met at Metro, a weekly college night--worship and a message-- put on at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas. Matt Chandler was the speaker and worship was often led by Shane and Shane. The worship was amazing, and Matt preached the Word, holding nothing back, which always encouraged, but also challenged in the most amazing ways.

Since then, we have been fans of Shane and Shane. Here's why:

-They have the most amazing voices

-We love their acoustic style

-The lyrics to the songs they write are powerful, and real

-We love their hearts for God, they don't put on "concerts" they lead in worship, and are always accompanied by a speaker and a mission

So when we heard they were going to be in Columbia, we knew we had to go to their "concert!" We were truly blessed. The theme for the night was "Turn Down the Music." The speaker, David Nass, explained how they came to this title for their tour by telling the following story, in my words as I remember it of course.

There was a small town in Germany with a train stop across from their local church. It was a popular stop for the passengers to get off, stretch their legs, eat and use the necessary. It even stopped on Sunday mornings while church was in session. Until World War II started. Then the carts on the train were crammed full of Jewish men, women and children. When the train stopped in their little town, the people would cry out for help, a drink, for food, or for someone to save their child. The train continued to stop on Sunday mornings, the noise created from the Jewish prisoners was loud and interrupted the church service. They decided to change the order of their service, moving their worship time to the same time the train was scheduled to stop across the street. Although it worked at first, the prisoners eventually became louder than the people's worship. They only began to sing louder, and louder, and louder, trying to block out the Jewish prisoners cry for help.

David's point being, as Christians, we often times turn up the noise in our "worship" in order to drown out the cries for help in the world. We become so involved in our little Christian world, in our worship and activities at church, in our lives, that we tune out those who need us most. Our world shrinks, and the problems of the world are blocked out, even as we claim to be at a high place in our spiritual lives. Our worship has slowly become about us, singing on Sunday mornings, reading the Bible during the week, but it no longer includes helping those who need it most. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, sould, mind and strength. We have that one down to perfection. Yet what about the second commandment? Love your neighbor as yourself. We no longer hear or care or do anything about the averaged number of 35,000 people who die everyday due to starvation. We don't reach out to the elderly and the orphans. We do not help the poor. These are all parts of our spiritual act or worship. Worship through music is a beautiful thing, but worship is so much more.

If you are not familiar with Shane and Shane, I encourage you to visit their website at http://www.shaneandshane.com/. Their songs will bless your heart. As you have read this post, if your volume is turned up, you have been listening to the many talents of Shane and Shane, if you haven't heard anything, turn up the volume!!

Latest Addition to our Family

A little over a week ago I went into PetSmart to buy some cat food and some litter and I happened to walk by the aisle where they have the pet adoption center. As I passed by the first time I noticed a cute kitten playing in her little pen. So after I had picked up my two items, I ignored the voice in my head that said "Stay Away!" and went to look at this kitten. It was a little 7 month girl who played with me the entire time I stood there. I put my hand on the glass and she was rubbing up against the glass trying get herself some loving through the glass, and would swat at my hand and chase it. She was so cute! I called Matt....told him about this adorable kitten, then went to pick him up from work to bring him back to PetSmart.

We had been contemplating getting a new cat for the past few months and have been going back and forth about it. We have done a lot of research and found out that cats are very social animals. Apparently single cats can get lonely as they age and become mean due to their loneliness. But we couldn't decide, until I met Pip. She was so cute and playful, and my heart fell in love! After holding her and playing with her for a bit, we filled out the paperwork and brought her home. It took us a week to think of a name, and we finally settled on Pip, short for Pipsqueak because her "meow" is definitely more of a squeak than anything else!

Gideon wasn't sure what to think at first, but it wasn't a bad reaction, so we knew we had hope! Over the past week and a half they have bonded and play well together. They especially love to chase each other in circles around the house! Gideon has definitely gotten more exercise with Pip around and he would now much rather cuddle with her than me. We are thrilled with how well they are getting along, and are glad we went ahead and got her, so they will have each other to play with when the baby comes and we no longer have as much time to spend with them.

Here are a few pictures of their week, Gideon is obviously the monster cat, and Pip is the cute white and grey stripped one.

Busy Weekend!

This past weekend has been full of blessings and very busy! We were lucky enough to host Samuel's, our two year old nephew, second birthday party so all of my family came in. He is so cute, and soooo ornery! We made magnetic boards for him and our niece, then made a ton of magnets for them to play with! For Samuel we made a bunch of farm related magnets, for our four year old niece, Grace, we made a bunch of words, names, and life related pictures. She is really into writing and learning to read, so this should be a fun thing for her!

Everyone spent the night and Saturday the boys went to work on our basement, while us girls watched the kiddos, played cards and hung out. Both kids love to play outside, and after it had warmed up it was a battle to get them to come back in! We are trying to get our basement finished by May, and the guys got a lot done so we are well on track.

I love that we are close enough to have weekends like this together with our family. It is a trememndous blessing.

Superstart!

Last weekend we travelled with 17 preteens (4th-5th-and 6th grades) to Bloomington, IL for Superstart. This is a conference CIY (Christ In Youth) puts on all over the United States, just for preteens. We joined with 850 preteens for an amazing weekend. The worship by Yancey was funky and awesome. The illusionist battles to test best friends were mind boggling. The speaker was able to bring the Bible and a real issue with preteens--friendship-- to their level in a practical way. It is during a child's preteen years they begin to really understand friendship, and pick friends. Over the weekend they were taught how to be a true friend based on Proverbs 17:17: "A friend loves at all times..." There were three main sessions, each session had a main point with how to love at all times. 1: Put each other first 2: Always stand beside each other and 3: Forgive each other of your wrongs. They did a great job meeting the kids where they were in all of their preteen awkwardness. The kids LOVED it and were ready to go back the next weekend! I however, needed a break, a nice QUIET break! Did I mention how loud 850 preteens are??!?

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

We wouldn't consider ourselves big fans to the point we have to see every episode, but we do enjoy watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. We particularly enjoy the variety of stories the families have. The things these familes have went through and experienced, are heartbreaking. It is very rare for me to make it through an episode without tears.

For last night's episode the team had travelled to Keller, Texas to help out the Augustin family, whose house had been destroyed in a flood. Their story touched our hearts in so many ways. Brief Summary: Their youngest son, Lane was born premature and spent several weeks in the NICU. Throughout those weeks there were many days the family was told it could be his last. Through this time, the family had taken hundreds of pictures of their baby boy. They are blessed to have Lane with them today. The mom had always wanted to be a photographer, and after her experience with Lane, she wanted to use it for good. She began using her gift by taking pictures of premature babies, babies in the NICU, and stillborn babies. They showed some of her pictures on the show, which were beautiful, along with testimonies from families whose child she had photographed.

What a precious gift this woman is giving to so many families. I admire her strength and heart to be able to take these photos. It is an extremely difficult and emotional situation to a part of. These pictures are something the family will treasure for the rest of their lives. The photos we have of our triplets mean so much to us. It is a way of keeping our babies near to our hearts, for them to continue to be a part of our families, for us to remember every perfect detail about them.

Needless to say, I wept through the entire episode, but it touched my heart in so many ways. Little things that people have done, helped us through the difficult loss of our babies. For example, at the hospital we received tiny crocheted hats and blankets for each of our babies. The nurses made plaster imitations of each of the babies hands and feet. I still have all of them, each of them a precious treasure.

When my heart is ready and able, I fully intend on crocheting hats and blankets to donate to hospitals for this specific purpose. We are also planning on getting involved in March of Dimes. Their mission is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality. They carry out this mission through research, community services, education and advocacy to save babies' lives. March of Dimes researchers, volunteers, educators, outreach workers and advocates work together to give all babies a fighting chance against the threats to their health: prematurity, birth defects, low birthweight.

To watch this episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, go to their website at http://abc.go.com/primetime/xtremehome/index?pn=index. Make sure you have a box of tissues at hand--you will need them, I promise!

To find out more about March of Dimes or to find out how you too can get involved, visit their website at www.marchofdimes.com.