Expanding our yes, Expanding our love

I never set out to adopt a 7-year old with Downs Syndrome. I didn’t think big enough. His plans are greater than my capacity to comprehend.

For those who have never gone through the adoption or foster process, I’ll explain a little. You are given a form, or more likely several forms with very similar (if not duplicate) questions of what you will accept. Will you accept a child of a different race? Yes, No or will consider. Will you accept a child with mild visual impairments? Yes, No or will consider. Will you consider a child with an extra finger or toe? What about missing a finger or toe? What about missing an arm or a leg? A child with a cleft palate? What about a child who is blind? Deaf? Malnourished? What about a child with Spina Bifida? Downs Syndrome? HIV? Autism? Other genetic disorders? What about a child who will need major surgery?  What about a child who is not expected to live past childhood?

In other words, how far are you willing to go? How big is your yes? How much are you willing to trust God?

I’m not saying it’s wrong to choose “no” on any of those questions. We said no on two things, things that just seemed like they wouldn’t fit with our family or were too overwhelming to think about. But our goal was this: to expand our “yes” and make it as big as possible. To trust Him with whatever grace He would give us. Saying no to a child felt very much like saying no to Him. It felt like Song of Solomon’s “You go leap on the mountains. I’ll stay here, thankyouverymuch.”  (Please read:  this is the process God was taking us through. It’s most likely not applicable to all situations.)

So we said yes to a variety of special needs, believing that if we were chosen to parent one of those precious children, God would give us the grace to do so. And we were chosen for a precious, joyful, handsome boy. We’ve disrupted birth order and thrown ourselves into a world we haven’t had to navigate previously, a world of therapies, specialists,  special school district, trying to understand what our son is attempting to tell us… a whole new world. We know there will be challenges ahead of us. Aren’t there always? But we cannot describe the sheer joy that this precious boy has brought into our family.

80-90% of babies with Down Syndrome are aborted.

In Nazi Germany, having Down Syndrome was a death sentence. It made you worthy of a concentration camp or of being lined up and shot.

And yet I was secretly hoping to welcome a child with DS into our home. Why? Because adults with DS have the highest rate of satisfaction with their lives. I think the world could use more of that, not less. And this little boy will reveal God to us in a new and beautiful way. And because he is pure in heart, we know that he will SEE GOD!

Thank you Jesus for Your amazing mercies! Thank You for enlarging our capacity for love and for enriching our lives with this precious addition to our family!

Harvest is Coming Home!

What a whirlwind!

Tuesday I was in the middle of writing a blog post about how I asked God for a match by Christmas, but He doesn’t always answer my prayers. Truly, it looked so impossible that it was going to happen. While I was writing, I got the call!

We have been matched with an adorable, sweet 7 year-old boy with Downs Syndrome. 

Yes, I know. That’s much different than we were thinking too! But it’s SO God and everything has just come together in such an amazing way. It’s a long story… one that I can’t tell here and now, follow our journey on Facebook this next week. We are leaving for Oklahoma on Sunday night. Placement will take place Tuesday morning! We are SO incredible excited and overwhelmed with gratitude. God is so incredibly amazing! 

Merry Christmas to us!

 

 

Saying “Yes”

So Hadessah and I put up Harvest’s crib the other day. I know that sounds like a simple statement, but it took me awhile to “get there” and it has many implications. 

The short of it is: I am finally at peace with adopting an infant. 

I still don’t understand my 2 distinct dreams about adopting a black toddler, but I’ve let my own understanding go. Enough to put up the crib. 

We’ve been presented to 5 birth-mothers so far. That means 5 chances to say “Yes” and hearing 5 “No”s. I have no idea how many “opportunities to say yes” we’ll have before our “Yes” is returned with a “Yes”.  (Okay the quotation marks are getting annoying. I’ll use CAPS instead.) All I know is that each YES is a YES to Him. Each YES is recorded in Heaven. Each one counts. Each one moves His heart. And so if we are “rejected” 50 times, I choose not to look at it as being rejected. Instead that would mean there are 50 YESes recorded in His book of remembrance. 50 opportunities to ravish His heart. What a beautiful opportunity. 

Follow His Voice

Money is a taboo subject. No one talks about it much… I hesitate to talk about it much, mostly because of the “do not let your right hand know what your left is doing” thing. But it really seems that we in the church need such a huge paradigm shift in the area of finances and we won’t get there is no one talks about it. When Kirk Bennet spoke on finances at GHOP, I sighed a huge sign of relief. Finally! Someone said it! Let’s jump into that flame, shall we?

Before we moved to Kansas city, we thought we were doing pretty good because we tithed and occasionally gave a little extra to a missionary or something. We were kind of proud of ourselves for that. I made $44,000 and Kevin made maybe $20,000. We had one child, went out to eat weekly and to the movies once or twice a month. We had cable. We didn’t feel like we had tons of extra money, but we were just happy that we could pay our bills (unlike during our first year of marriage).

We moved to Kansas City and got wrecked. We raised support and frankly weren’t any good at it. We raised enough to be full time missionaries for a year, then Kevin had to get a job to supplement. Even in our support raising time we used credit cards. We racked up a lot of debt buying groceries. The one thing we couldn’t put on a credit card was our rent, and in that area, God miraculously provided for us. I look back now and wonder how many more miraculous 11th hour breakthroughs would we have seen if we had ditched the credit and walked in true faith (not faith with a plan B in the back pocket).

We move back to St. Louis and the only job Kevin can find pays $9 an hour. We live in an apartment. Total utilities are $80 a month. We are eeking by, still using credit cards for groceries. We are on WIC and Medicaid. I wonder each month whether we’ll be able to pay the rent.  We’re tithing, but not giving a penny extra. We make it through that year.

We buy a house. Kevin has gotten a new job with a slight raise, but really we are not sure how we are going to afford the house payment being that it’s $100 more a month plus utilities (and we had no idea about the utilities) but we KNOW THAT WE KNOW THAT WE KNOW THAT WE KNOW that this house is God’s will for our family. I mean, we are SURE. We know it will be a stretch, but we believe we can do it because we know it’s God.

It’s an old, big house and we find that the utilities are 7Xs what we were paying in the apartment. I get hired on at Southgate, which helps. Then God challenges us to get off WIC, then off Medicaid, then off Holy Harvest (church’s food pantry). We do this, even though on paper it looks like we can’t afford to. We do it because we know it’s God. Without medicaid, we deal with very large medical bills, but then Kevin gets hired on at the bank and starts bonusing. His bonus every month is just what we need to pay the medical bills.  We have never been late on a bill. We have been able to pay our bills in full every month. We are tithing, and now giving a little extra a month.

One day I’m reading the “give to everyone who asks you” verse, arguing with God about how that’s impossible. Give to everyone who asks? Do you know how many emails and letters we get in the mail asking for money? All are good causes, but no one could possibly give to everyone. God challenges us to try Him. In our budget, we have every dollar allocated and there are no extra dollars to give away. But we say okay and try this experiment. We give just $5 to everyone who asks. It ends up being around $200 at the end of the month… $200 that we didn’t have on paper, but somehow we ended up having it to give. No missed bills.

I don’t believe that giving $5 to every charity that asks through a letter in the mail is quite what that verse means. Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing and He didn’t heal every sick person all the time. It was an experiment to teach us to trust.

We moved forward on adopting, knowing that we don’t have $30,000. Every dollar in our budget is allocated. We don’t have cable, go out to eat once a month only, don’t go to the movies.. really don’t go much of anywhere. We have what we need. We are thankful. We are happy. But we do not have $30,000! Then God begins to challenge us to give more… to give a certain percentage of our income ABOVE our tithe. Again, on paper, we don’t have that percentage above our tithe to give. It doesn’t exist. But we know this is God, so we move in faith.

And guess what? We DO have it to give. God gives it to us so we can give it away.

This is so counter cultural. Everyone would tell us to save, save, save. We need a large amount of money for this adoption. We should be saving every penny. But God told us to give, give, give and trust that we can’t out give Him.

We still don’t have $30,000, but we believe we will.

God math is different than our math, right?

I’m not trying to draw attention to ourselves. I’m trying to encourage YOU, whoever you are, to trust God and follow His voice in regards to finances.  We are playing JV. God is wanting to move us into this deeper.

I get so very frustrated that the Noeth’s don’t have enough financial support to go to Indonesia right NOW. It’s not just a fly-by-night dream. It’s been on their heart for so long. Come on church, let’s do this. Let’s get behind them. Let’s funnel finances into Kingdom purposes.

If we weren’t adopting, maybe we’d have more money for things that would be nice to have. Our washer and drier are on opposite sides of our very large basement. To fix the electrical problem and get them to be side by side like “normal people”, it would cost $300. Kevin and I share a steak knife. (For real). We have all that we need, but we’ve had to redefine need. What’s more important? Towels that match or redeeming a life? I so want a dishwasher, but I want Harvest more. We would really like a second vehicle, but I want more than to be able to get out of the house. I want my destiny.

Give, give, give! Give when it hurts. Give when it’s easy. This is not a fundraising plea. Give to us if you want to. But give to the Noeths or to the Clausens or to the prayer movement… Just Give! Let’s do this together.

Follow His voice.

 

Adoption Auction

Hi guys!

We’re moving along with another adoption fundraiser. This time we’re linking arms with the Clausen family, who are in the process of adopting two beautiful girls from Latvia.

This fundraiser is open to St. Louis and Kansas City residents.

This fundraiser will be an online auction. We will “reveal” different items for people to bid on for a full week (dates TBA). So, right now we are looking for people to donate their time, talent or possessions to help us raise funds. For those of you who support our adoption, but don’t have the money to donate, this is a great opportunity to help us out!

Here are some ideas:

1. Things – something of relative value in good condition (a set of dishes, a coat, etc.) or something handmade (a quilt, jewelry)

2. A service – What talents do you have? What do you do well? Some ideas are babysitting (one date night), cooking (a dessert a day for a week, a dessert a week for a month, a home cooked meal, etc.), maintenance (an hour of handyman labor, an oil change, painting a room, detailing a car, etc.), cleaning (2 hours of housecleaning, doing laundry for a week, etc.), photography (one photo session), technical assistance (setting up a website, etc.), accounting (free tax return preparation), lessons (voice, music, sports,etc.)… and much more. Be creative! If you own a business, this could be beneficial to you as well, gaining you customers.

We’ll post items/services to bid on on a blog and people will have the chance to bid on them until the close of the week. There will be a St. Louis page and a Kansas City page.

Please let us know if you would like to assist us in this way. Every little bit counts, and everyone who sows into this adoption will receive eternal reward! How cool is that?!?

For Harvest,

Sarah

What a week – adoption update

What a week!

Last Tuesday we were informed that there were “major concerns” with our adoption paperwork, due to our lack of net worth. We were told that there was a 50% chance of us being rejected by Ethiopia, and that rejection would come after we had already gone to Ethiopia to meet “our” child. This was a lot of risk… and we decided too much unless we heard clearly from the Lord that we were to proceed.

A lot of people were praying for wisdom and discernment and on Friday, we experienced a breakthrough of peace in that respect. We switched to domestic.

I haven’t a clue how all of the pieces fit together. As best as I can figure, this is all about timing. If we knew we were going domestic, we would have started months ago. But we’ve got to believe that now is the right time, not then, and that these twists and turns are only part of a grand adventure that we don’t understand yet.

Maybe I’m selfish… I have 4 children and I want more… but a piece of our family has seemed to be missing ever sense we decided to begin our adoption journey 2 1/2 years ago. Our house is so big and is longing to be filled. I have tried to detach myself and I just can’t. So, here I am jumping into an abyss that I can’t see the bottom of, heart exposed and vulnerable. I would rather live that way than all closed up inside. I would rather risk the bleeding, knowing that there’s redemption in all things when you turn them over to the Lord.

I don’t fully trust that this will all work out the way I’ve dreamed, but I know that He has called us to it and He will be faithful.. so we move forward.

In our home there are many maps, many cultural books from Africa and beyond, and so in one way I’m mourning the loss of that heritage meshed with our own. Maybe I will only visit those foreign lands in my prayers. Or maybe there is still a “someday” for international adoption for us. Maybe not. I am not the author of my story.

But I know my story has a good Author.

And I can’t wait to read the next chapter.

Prayer Time and Praise Time at HHOP

I had been feeling the tugging of the Lord to incorporate more PRAISE into our family altar time… only I didn’t know how. Our family prayer time already included prayer for families, global issues, our countries of the month, the Samaritan’s Purse prayer calendar, an Old Testament story, New Testament Story, communion and prayer of dedication for our children. We couldn’t simply just make it longer to add praise, but I knew we needed to lift high His name more.

So, here’s our solution: on odd numbered days we do PRAYER time and on even numbered day we do PRAISE time. Praise time includes a time of spontaneous thanksgiving, reading a psalm (Hadessah or Hezekiah reads it!) and playing worship songs and dancing to them. It has been SWEET.

I always want to go deeper, deeper, deeper… on depth calls to the next saying “come deeper”… and my children are coming with me!

Redemption is Costly (Adoption Update)

We’re nearing the end of the home study process. The paperwork trail is coming to a close… we think. It’s only a matter of time before we’re working on our Dossier and paying the first chunk of $.

We don’t have the money yet, but we’re optimistic, idealistic and perhaps naive. And we’re doing our first fundraiser (details later in case you’ve missed it).

Asking others for $ (aka: fundraising) is something that didn’t set well with us in the beginning. Our main reason for initially being hesitant to jump on the intercessory missionary train was that we didn’t want to ask others for money. God we’ll do anything for You, but leave us our pride. We were really, really bad at support raising, but God showed Himself so gracious even in that weakness.  Still, we breathed a sigh of relief when we once again joined the “normal” world of 9-5ish, regular employment.

But I’ll tell you this: I LOVE being able to give towards other people’s adoptions. We have tried to do so for the past few years, depending on our current income. Sometimes it’s a small amount, other times we’ve been able to give larger sums. The amount doesn’t matter as much. The beyond cool thing is, by helping someone bring a child into their family via adoption, we’ve gotten to stake a claim into their destiny. We get eternal reward and we get to play a part in every single life that child will touch. We get to partner with God in the great miracle of redemption. What can compare with that? We could go out to a nice dinner or we could reap an eternal reward with lasting implications. Seriously? We GET to do this. It’s so exciting. God’s economy is so different from ours. The returns in eternal investments blow my mind. But, there is a cost. There’s always a cost.

How much did your redemption cost?

Oh yes, the life of the Son of God. Talk about blood, sweat and tears.

We can talk about how wrong it is that adopting costs so much. There are so many crazy fees and why in the world are things so complicated. Surely there have been abuses in the system, but what would it mean if it was all cheap and easy? It wouldn’t be a very good reflection of our adoption into God’s family. He made us children of God. And it wasn’t cheap and easy.

I don’t understand the timing here. There’s this whole swirl of troubled times coming and in my limited, earthly understanding it really doesn’t seem like the best time to be attempting to gather $30,000 together to bring a child from Ethiopia to St. Louis. But we truly believe this is what God has called us to. We’ve asked again and again and we feel His prompting to do this thing that’s been on our hearts for so long. And my understanding is just that: limited. We have to bring ourselves back to the fact that God is in complete control. All finances are in His hands. He is the God who provides. He is not worried or stressed. His economy is oh, so different than ours. Ours says you’d better hold on to what you’ve got or you will be empty handed when you really need something to get you through. God’s economy says to LET GO. Give where and when He calls You to give and trust Him to provide your for your needs when they come. He is so faithful.

So many times He’s called us to give away that last $20 in our bank account and we have NEVER so much as gone with out one meal because of it. Have we gone without something that we may have liked to have? Yes. Have we gone without something that we needed. NO! He is so good. So faithful.

All this to say: Give us money.

Okay, that’s *partly* a joke. We’re doing what we can. We’re going without a lot of stuff that most people in America wouldn’t know how to go without. We’re looking at reasonable, normative things that we could do with our money and saying “Harvest is more important”. We’re not expecting someone else to pick up the bill. We ARE expecting God to provide, and throughout the ages He has used other people to do so.

Our first fundraiser is our adoption T-Shirts. Jack Whitney has come up with some great art for us. We’re taking ads for the back of our t-shirts, so if you have a small business or know someone who does, it would be a good opportunity for a walking advertisement. (suggested donation: $75). We’re also taking signatures (suggested donation: $25) because it’s FUN. Yes, people can give without getting their signature on our shirt, but it’s more fun to see all those names and see how God uses His body, working together, to accomplish His purposes on earth. We’ll also sell the t-shirts for $15.

Whether you’re in town or not, please consider joining with us by giving us your signature (on a plain white note card with a fine point black sharpie – out of towners can mail it to us, just let us know it’s on the way) or purchasing a t-shirt.

If this is all offensive to you and likely to come in between our friendship, then please feel free to just ignore it. God brought water from a ROCK and He is able to redeem this life without your money. The only one who will miss out on anything is you. If you’re okay with that, I’m purposing in my heart to be okay with it too.

Regardless, we appreciate your prayers. Many don’t understand why we’re doing this when we’ve got 4 children of our own and are not struggling with infertility. I can’t really explain why besides the fact that when God puts something on your heart, you do it. I’ve written about adoption. I’ve prayed for adoption. We call ourselves pro-life. We are now going to walk out what we’ve written, said and prayed. God is raising us a people who have His heart for the fatherless. We want to partner with Him. We want our hearts to beat in line with His. We want to be His hands and feet. We want to go as far with Him as He will allow. We want to help bring Harvest to America.

I only have a minute…

I’ve had a lot of thoughts I’ve wanted to blog about, but haven’t had time to do it. I’ve wanted to write down thoughts about the tornadoes (or as Kiah says “tormadoes”), preparing, redemption, family altars… and of course about Harvest… but my time has been taken up with paperwork and training. And I’m okay with that. But right now I have a few minutes… not nearly enough time to develop anything of weight, but enough time to give an update and throw some thoughts out into the restless air.

We’re in the home study process right now. After all the paperwork is accounted for and our face to face training on the 21st is done, they’ll allow us to schedule our interviews and complete our home study. So far, the process has been laced with grace. We’re not that far into it and haven’t even tried to raise money yet, so we’ll see how things pan out. If how it’s gone so far is any indication of how it will continue to go, God is in this. I try not to think too much about the money part… we have a few months to come up with around $6,000. Then we’ll have a few months to come up with another chunk. Then we’ll have until travel time to come up with another chunk. One step at a time. God has really blessed us financially lately and we’re trying to be wise stewards of that. We still want to give extravagantly and live minimally, yet we want to funnel money into this adoption… and there’s the added element of preparation for what’s to come (emergency preparedness) and the money that entails. Prayers, as always, are appreciated. Wisdom is continually needed.

In other news, my novel is on hold right now. It is written, but needs some tweaking. Then it needs to be edited. Then published. I’m not sure what to do, as it could be a fundraising tool but those things cost money up front and I’m not sure if it’s a wise investment right now. Again, wisdom needed.

Oh, there’s so much more I’d like to say…

It will have to wait for another time…

Only, I’ll say this: I’ve been “seeing” red trucks. I’ve been pondering the possible prophetic implications of bringing Harvest to America. I have a burden for altars to be built in families RIGHT NOW.. as in there’s no time to waste.. and this will be a major, heavy strategy of kingdom advance in the days ahead (read: sooner than we think). I’ve been asking God a lot of questions, one of the themes being St. Louis as a city of refuge. I’ve been wondering how all of this fits together. I’ve been mourning my own dullness and the dullness of my ears to hear what He is saying. Everything in the earth has gone crazy and is going to go crazier.

I want to be unmovable, unshakable, let my roots go down deep…

Super Quick Update

Green light to move forward: March 28

Filled out preliminary application (again… it had been over 6 months): March 29

Preliminary application approved: March 30

Formal application submitted: March 31 (The God of the 11th hour… the application was submitted in 3/11… barely!)

Formal application approved: April 5th

Next steps: attend info meeting, sign contract, pay fee, begin homestudy paperwork

Here we go!