A Dream :: "Orphan" Becomes Personal

This is a message I got from one of my oldest friends, Laura. We have been friends since 8th grade. Although we've only lived in the same city for 1 year, God's knit our hearts together and bound us together for over half our lives. We were bridesmaids in each other's weddings. She sent me this dream God gave her a couple weeks ago about her 2 daughters. I absolutely LOVE how God personalizes the plight of orphans and vulnerable children for his people...

Kate and Ella were on some adventure which involved catching large sea slugs [don't think that even exists] and all sorts of other mayhem, but Ella was being sneaky and brought one of the sea creatures into the large room that she and Kate were sleeping in. In that room were a bunch of bunk beds lined up. They had nothing in their possession, Kate only had some silly bands on her arm. A woman entered the room where they were sleeping and saw that Ella had disobeyed a rule by bringing in the sea creature [ok strange I know], upon seeing this she kicked Ella and Kate out. At that moment I realized they were orphans...I weep as I write this. I saw the sweet amazing eyes of my Kate and the tender gentle spirit of her big sis, and there they were- all alone in the world. And I woke up.

It was 4:30 this morning and all I could do was run into their room and lay my hands on my 2 oldest girls. In that moment, the plight of orphans went from my head, past my heart, directly into my GUT! I literally felt sick. I realized that in a different place in the world or a different set of circumstances, that could by the life my daughters faced. The image of my sweet little 2yr old, w/ her big brown eyes, all alone in the world, was more than I could handle. And I pray that if they were in that circumstance, someone would scoop them up and love them, someone would choose them, someone would spend whatever money, sacrifice whatever it took, travel any distance to rescue my little loves.

I wonder how God's made adoption personal to you. I LOVE the private conversations I've had with so many readers about how God's expanded your heart toward adoption. Please share. It's so encouraging to hear and see how God's mobilizing his people toward orphan care!

It Takes a Whole Village...

For the past 6 weeks I've wanted to brag on our community a little bit because of how awesome they are! Seriously, our friends have walked us through the thick and think, pains and celebrations, every single seemingly meaningless detail - they have cared about. It moves me to tears to even think about how they have expressed such real love for us and our babies over the past 18 months.

When it came time to "announce" our referral, our small group was among the first round of people we were dying to tell. We found out about our referral on a Monday morning and planned on telling our small group on Tuesday night at small group. It was an agonizing 36 hour wait, but totally worth their reactions...

We made the announcement by presenting these t-shirts [below] to them. Brian calmly pulled each t-shirt out of a bag and excitedly announced that WE GOT OUR REFERRAL and they were finally going to be ah-gots [uncles] and ah-kasts [aunties]! Shock and awe and screaming and laughter and tears erupted! This is a picture of our amazing small group: Tony and Erin [left] and Loc and Christina [right].

After the intitial shock wore off, they wanted to know every single detail. This beautiful picture of me with my eyes closed is describing the past 36 hours and our kiddos. Erin got her kids out of bed to hear the news! You can see Christina here totally being Christina - thoughtful, introspective, totally crying, and overwhelmed at God's faithfulness.
The next morning I got to tell our staff at Newsong. I had already told my staff [minus Abe who was on vacation...SAD!], so when I made the announcement to our entire staff these guys ripped off their 2nd layer shirts to proudly display their new Ethiopian ah-got and ah-kast shirts.
This last pic is just another classic example of how supportive my girlfriends are. Christina and Erin held my hand through Babies R Us, carefully helping me select the 2 items I need from a walls of 100s of items. In a little over an hour, I registered for most everything we need for them. True love! NOTICE: I'm wearing my very own "eh-my-ay"/mama t-shirt that Erin got for my last birthday!!I have to say, we have the best village ever to bring our babies home. Though it breaks our heart not to have biological family in the area, our understanding of family is so much deeper and wider than blood...in more ways than one! :)

He Is...

A couple months ago, my dear friend, Amena Brown, came to Newsong and did this spoken word piece for our Sunday services. She is a passionate preacher and a worship leader through spoken word. That day [9+ months into our wait for a referral] I needed to hear that God is so much more than I can wrap my mind around, fill my heart with, or contain in words.

Enjoy! He is...



Amena travels the country doing spoken word. She'd be an amazing woman to have come to your church, event, or gathering. She's the real deal and an artist of true, gigantic proportions!