Goodbye 2010 Hello 2011

What a year! I will always remember the year of 2010. Why? Cause this is the year that God has changed my life! I have always been a Christian, growing up in a Christian house with a wonderful extended Christian family. However, this year was different. This year God took some of the blinders off of my eyes that I had on. He has allowed me to see more clearly! My daily prayer has been to "see things as Jesus sees them." As the months have rolled by it has actually gotten harder to pray that prayer. It has gotten harder because it is changing my life. Sometimes, I lie awake at night heartbroken for the lost, the hungry, the orphan. At times it aches me and it is all I can think about. But this has been the best thing that could have ever happened. The more I learn about Christ the more I want to know. I would never want to go back to where I was. Once I started to really taste and see the glory of God there is an overwhelming desire for more.
I am starting this new year as a completely different man than who I was a year ago. Yeah, I look mostly the same, maybe a couple of more gray hairs.
But mentally I am different.
My thoughts are different.
My prayers are different.
The way I read my bible is different.
The way I give my money is different.
The way I spend my money is different.
My conversations are different.
My concerns are different.
The way that I lead my family in Christ is different.
I want my life to count.
I want to live a radical life for Christ in light of the fact that there are billions that do not know Him, and billions living in desperate poverty.
I don't want to waste my time anymore.
There are too many important things to do now.
I am not normally a new years resolution type of a guy, (except for when I gave up soda at work.) This year, my goal is to
BE INTENTIONAL! I want to be intentional about everything that I do.
What an awesome year this has been. I so look forward to seeing all that Christ is going to be doing through this next year.
I hope that you have an incredible year. I will end with a prayer. Ephesians 1:15-21

For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may five you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance of the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.

Now that is one long sentence:)

We are so very blessed

WOW!
We spent the day with family celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. All of our kids are fighting some sort of illness, which makes for a long night and day. By the time that we pulled into our driveway to recoup, so that we can celebrate again tomorrow we were beat, and tired. We put the kids to bed, put the presents under the tree and brought the mail in. In the mail today was a stack of Christmas cards, as usual. However, one of these cards had an amazing present in it for us. Somebody sent us a check and a little card with it. What a mood changer! The card said that they had been watching us as we have traveled along on this adoption journey and they have been encouraged and challenged by it. WOW! We don't really even know what to say but Thank you God. All the glory is His!
It is very humbling to know that God is choosing to use us to challenge and encourage others to the point that they give so sacrificially.
We are grateful that God has put this journey before us. We are blessed beyond belief. Back in April, when we started this adoption, we felt God telling us that HE is taking us on a journey. This is only the start of our journey and we just need to trust in Him, follow Him, and he will be with us. So, that is what we are doing. Since then God has taken off blinders that we had on and we see Him more clearly. We pray that God will allow us to see Him.
Our God is good!

Have a Merry Merry Christmas.

Field trip

Today we took a field trip. I was thinking that it had been a little while since we had used our pass to the SF zoo so we needed to make a trip of it. These kind of days are always the best there. It was cold, cloudy and completely deserted. it is on these days in the winter that it seems like the animals actually move around cause nobody is really watching them. I think that we were the only people at just about every exhibit. We then decided to take the girls for a walk on the Golden gate bridge. We were supposed to do this after Thanksgiving and the girls were kind of bummed when we didn't. To top the day off we watched the sunset at the beach while the girls were napping. (Everybody but Capri, she actually kept pulling their hair. yeah they have it coming.) Then we went to get some Gyro Pitas. All in all, it was a great family day.
Still nothing happening on the adoption front. Pray that the courts start moving people through and the embassy starts clearing children to leave the country. It is causing a back up of children and so no new referrals have been sent out in a long time.

Rocket ship

Today marks the 3 month mark of being DTE (dossier to Ethiopia.) The average wait time for a baby boy is 4-6 months and 7-9 months for a girl. So I would say we are somewhere in the midway point to getting our referral and being able to find out who our new baby is going to be. We are starting to get more and more anxious as time goes on.

We have some great news to share. We have been denied the grant that we applied for. This is the only one that we thought that we might qualify for. I know, you are questioning why this is great news. Let me explain. First, this means that there are tons of other people out there that are in the process of adopting. That in itself is really encouraging and awesome. It is also encouraging to know that others that are in the process have a greater need for the grant and are going to be getting it. Second, God is going to allow us to raise the money needed by other means. He could have chosen to let us get this grant, instead He has chosen more personal ways for us. Just this week we were given a huge amount of money by some family who are choosing to live sacrificially. God is good. Finally, God has gotten us this far, why would we ever begin to doubt that He won't provide the rest of what we need? It is encouraging to see the marvelous wonders of God as He takes us on this journey.

What else have we been up to? Well, we are having a party for our Sunday school class at our house on Sat. I am excited, we are having a smoked ham. This "ham" was just running around in our yard a couple of weeks ago. Today, the girls and I made a rocket ship. Why a rocket ship? Well, they had made the space helmets the day before, but this way we can travel the world.




Remember to slow down this Christmas season and reflect on what it is all about.