The joys of life

Tonight we went to the end of the year celebration at the small Christian School our oldest 3 kids attend. Our youngest is still home schooled by my wife Lisa. As I watched my 3 kids with their friends, I began to realize how quickly life passes us by. My oldest is 17, he will be graduating next year. I cant believe how swiftly the years have flown by. My sons went out after the celebration with their friends to dinner and possibly a movie. My daughters are home with us now, but they are not alone. They brought with them 4 girls from the school. I have 6 young girls and my wife in the house right now. I have escaped to my room to type this on the computer but just a few moments ago, upon my return from getting pizza for this gang, I was in the living room just listening to all of the ruckus in the dining room. There is something very beautiful about the laughter of 6 little girls, its contagious. I found myself laughing just listening to them having fun, celebrating their friendship and the end of the school year. As I thought about this, I started to think about the joys in life. How the simple things are so fullfilling. How if we just open our minds and our hearts just a little more each day to all the wonder God has surrounded us with, how much deeper and richer our lives would be. I cant wait to one day in the not to far off future, enjoy the laughter of my new son/s or daughter/s as they have their friends over for some pizza and an end of the school year party. I long for the day where they wont be worried about where their next bit of food will come from, or to be faced with another day with no Mommy or Daddy there to love them. I want them to be able to sit back, and like I was tonight, simply be thankful for the joys in life!

Motives

This weekend I was blessed to go on a weekend backpacking trip with my buddy John and his two cousins. It was in Southern Ohio about 40 miles south of Zanesville. The trail name was Wildcat Hollow. It was a 15 mile loop trail. We expected from what we heard the trail to be somewhat moderate and easier than others. We were wrong. We walked through quite a bit of mud which really helps to slow you down and tire you out quicker. There were parts of the trail that were overgrown with quite a bit of overgrown bushes etc. There were downed trees all over the trail where we had to climb over and crawl under. There was one particular part where 2 trees had gone down. One was high and one was low but they were right next to each other. After watching 2 of the guys maneuver around and under with their 40# packs on their backs, and seeing them getting stuck in between the 2 trees, and mind you these guys were much smaller than I, I decided I was going to get on my knees and crawl. Guess what I had to crawl through, you guessed it, mud. I survived and found myself laughing at what I had just done. Sometime later the trail became much tougher with several steep sections to climb. Now mind you, Im not talking about Mount Everest here, but for 4 out of shape weekend warriors it was a killer. After finally making it up the last of this grueling section we found ourselves in a beautiful area of pine trees with very soft pine needles all over the ground. It didnt take long for each of us to realize we needed to swallow our pride and drop our packs. I have found that backpacking is good to humble oneself. After about 1 minute, all 4 of us were prostrate on the ground sucking frantically for oxygen. I gathered myself a few minutes later to find enough strength to get my water bottle and drink the last of my water supply and layed back down. We layed there for about 30-45 minutes. After a while it became one of those neat experiences that makes backpaking worthwhile. I layed there under a large pine and looked up at the beautiful blue sky. One of the other guys said something like "now this is what its all about". We finally gathered enough strength to set out again. We had traveled at that point on our second day about 8 miles and we still had 2-3 miles left. About 1 hour later we found ourselves on the homestretch. One of the guys started talking about how he is always reminded of his mortality when he goes on these challenging trips. He started musing as we approached the trailhead that we should have someone there to applaud us for what we had just accomplished. As a group we started talking about how it feels to push ourselves and accomplish something like this ( ok ok I know its not like we just saved the planet). There is a sense of adventure to go on one of these trips and it does feel good to make it through. After just a few brief moments we found ourselves at the end of the trail. Another hiker who was sitting by his tent at a site right at the front began asking us how we did and we explained it to him. How we had started late the first day and only managed to get in 4-5 miles and that we had gone the remaining 10-11 miles the last day. He looks at us and says, " good job guys". We thanked him and walked away laughing to ourselves at how we had just talked about someone praising us for our efforts. As I have thought about that moment today, I could not stop thinking about wanting to hear when I get to heaven, "well done thou good and faithful servant" from my King. And I pondered all the reasons I do the things I do. What is my real motive? Do I desire the praise of others around me or do I simply wish to do those things that will please my God? Yes I mean my God. He is mine and I am his. You know, its not necessarily what things we do, sometimes its a better question to ask why do we do the things we do? Even something as wonderful as adoption is, something so near and dear to the heart of God as the care of orphans, if you do these things for the wrong reasons, ask yourself why. Do you think you can work your way into Gods good standing? Do you think you can earn your ticket to paradise? Please let me beg you to rest in the arms of God and he will carry you home. Its only by his son Jesus who died for me and you, to take our place for all the wrong we do, and yes that even includes good things for wrong reasons, that we can find ourselves one day hearing those words, "well done thou good and faithful servant". Do you want to hear those words? I have heard it said, that for a child of God, one of the most critical things to always do, is to examine your motives. So make sure you are following after the praise of the one who gave you life and sustains it, not all of us around you who are made out of the same dust of the ground as you are.

Food crisis in Ethiopia

I saw this link on another families blog, please read this and pray for the people, especially the helpless children in need of Ethiopia.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-05-18-voa15.cfm

Whats $50?

I was thinking tonight about the value of $50. My daughter Charity won an Ipod shuffle in church today. She was one of 7 kids that had perfect attendance over a period of time and all 7 names went into a drawing and her name was chosen. She told me today they cost about $50 now that they have dropped in price. She has a ipod already that her grandma gave her for Christmas. She chose to give me this ipod for an early Fathers day present. I have been wanting an ipod for sometime but I could not justify the expense in my mind. I have really been thinking a lot about money and what we choose to do with it. I was watching the other night a world vision show about the condition of orphans in Africa. One paricular child worked for an entire week and was payed only $1. Week after week she would only make that $1. I began thinking tonight as I walked in my neighborhood listening to my new ipod, how rich I am. This ipod was given to me by my daughter. The expense of it would be equal to that little orphan girl who would have to work about 1 full year to make the equivalent amount of money. Also this weekend my wife and I bought used beds for our girls at a neigborhood yard sale. We were able to get 2 beds and 2 mattresses for, yes you guessed it $50. Yes we were frugal, yes we were good stewards to invest in these beds, but thats not my focus of this post. Its just about how much we all have, how easy our lives really are in relation to most of the world. So the next time you spend $50 on something, try to be thankful for all that you have, think of that orphan girl I just told you about, and do what you can to help others around you.

I saw what I saw

Here is another video for you all to watch. I found it on youtube tonight. For those of you who have been reading the blog the song will be familiar. Its set to a video for another adoptive family who adopted from Ethiopia. I liked it and wanted to post it for you all to enjoy.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=vEnWk9kjZlU&feature=related

Off and running again

Well very good news everyone. We were informed yesterday by a local home study agency in North Canton, that we are a go to adopt. They are an agency that works with Holt International and that is who we are choosing to go with now. I had contacted them a few weeks ago asking specific questions about our status. They sent us a financial form which we filled out and sent back into them. The news yesterday was that our financial status will not prevent us from adopting from Ethiopia as we so desired to do as we felt led by God. The next step will be to send in an official application and begin the home study work. Please continue to pray for us as we embark on our exciting journey again.

To your mission be true

I dont have much to say today, I am tired after spending 6 hours watching 3 different softball games for my 2 daughters. I am going to go to bed and read some before I go to sleep. I did want to tell you what I was impressed with today by God at my church. We were singing an old hymn and these words were part of the song. I immediately wrote them down on my church bulletin as a reminder to myself but I thought I would share them with all of you. The words were:

Be a helper to the helpless,
To your mission be true.

They were seperated by another line but I did not get that down in time. I think these words are what God wanted me to remember anyway. So this is what I plan on doing. I want to help an orphan from Ethiopia who can not help themselves. And I intend to, with Gods help, to be true to the mission he has given me. I was asked this morning by a dear sweet older brother at church how things were going and I said ok. He asked if things were on schedule and I said more or less. I told him that its going to slow as far as what my schedule would be like, but that I was on Gods much better schedule that I dont always understand. And thats ok. After all, he is God and I am just one of his children.