There is no me without you

I am reading a book by the author Melissa Fay Greene titled "There is no me without you". It is a true story of a woman who lived in Ethiopia, still does I believe, and who lost her husband to a heart attack then one of her daughters to AIDS. She ends up starting a orphanage for kids and its an amazing amazing story. I am about 60% of the way through the book. Today at lunch the story begins to speak of adoption and how she began working with agencies to have some of her kids adopted out. She ends up traveling to the U.S. to receive an award she won and gets to visit many of the children she took care of that were now in the states living with their adopted families. The book tells of a time when she was staying with one of the families and the mother overheard her daughter praying one night. This is the prayer she prayed-

" Thank you, God, for my mom. She's a good, mom. She knows how to be a good mom. Even when I mad, she love me. Even when I sad, she love me. Even when I do bad thing, she love me. My mom, she so cute. My mom, she not ugly. But she ugly, I still love her. Even if she ugly, I love her. Even if she really, really ugly, I love her. And she love me, if she ugly. But she not, she cute. Thank you, thank you, God, for good and cute mom."

All together

At church our family is always spread out all over the church.  Some of our kids go to the Contemporary service, we usually go to the traditional one, and our son Christian is usually serving using his musical talent somewhere.  So needless to say we dont typically all sit together as we did for so many years when they were younger.  However, now that there is a new kid in town, haha, we have been sitting in the cry room which is a sound proof room so the babies dont disturb the service and they can be more comfortable.  Well, this past Sunday, all 4 of our kids found their way into the cry room to sit with us and to hold and play with her.  Lisa and I just smiled at each other.  We were all together again.

Someone in need

We had someone come up to us in church today and handed us a $100 bill. I started to tell them they did not have to give us anything and they said it was for someone in need. We are to find someone who is in need and give it to them. Please pray that God brings us to the exact person or persons in the exact moment in time that we are to meet their need. Its yet another exciting part of this journey we are about to embark on. I am picturing in my mind a Christian woman who maybe takes care of orphaned children and who right now is praying and asking for God to meet a specific need that maybe, just maybe we will be able to meet by passing on this donation. I just cant wait to see God work.

1 week left

Only one week left until our plane takes off in Cleveland. This time next week we will be in New York City for a 10 hour layover. We hope to be able to see a few quick sites as neither of us have ever been to New York. We had wanted to see the Statue of Liberty but our flight arrives at JFK around 105pm and the last Ferry leaves at 2pm. We have been told we wont have time to make it there so we are not sure what we will get to see. We both cant believe we are so close to meeting our daughter. We cant wait...

Its been a while

Sorry that it has been so long since I posted, we have been very busy with softball, home fixes and we went on vacation to Savannah GA 2 weeks ago and had a great time. We swapped homes with a great family who had a wedding near our home the same week. It was a very cool way to go and it allowed us to have a very inexpensive getaway.

Please pray for us as we should be hearing soon if we will receive a grant from Shaohannas Hope. Also please pray for my 2 older sons, they are on a missions trip this week here in Ohio on a local missions outreach.

Its Spring!

One of my flaws is that I love change (maybe its a strength). So since its spring and everything will be turning green real soon I thought I would change our Blogs template for a fresh new look. Hope you like it.

So the world may know

Its Valentine's day and I want the world to know what I think of my wife after 20 years of marriage. Here is my song to her. Follow this link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjfq0Fr85Yg

So the world may know

Its Valentine's day and I want the world to know what I think of my wife after 20 years of marriage. Here my song to her. Follow this link.

The latest

Well everyone its been over 2 weeks since I posted so I thought I should get one out there. Its been a bit busy around here, we celebrated some sort of holiday, what was that again? Yes yes, it was CHRISTmas were we had a birthday party for Jesus. Our family had a wonderful time together going to Lisa's Mom's on CHRISTmas Eve and then to my Mom's on CHRISTmas day. My dad and my Stepmother came over with my Stepsister to our house on Christmas Eve early in the day as well. I love this time of year. I am off work until Jan 5th, my vacation started on CHRISTmas Eve. Have you noticed I like capitalizing CHRIST in CHRISTmas. It is after all about him isn't it?

We are having our in home interviews on Tues Jan 6th for our home study. We decided to install carpet and paint the living room which has needed new flooring for about 2 years. I am actually waiting for them to arrive to install as I type this post. We painted on Saturday, thanks to my Mom Laura for her help painting. We rushed all of our CHRISTmas decorations down the day after CHRISTmas knowing what was coming so its really been nuts around here. Right now all of our furniture is in the Kitchen and dining room area awaiting the installers. We did manage to leave a path to walk through so we can at least get to the sink and let the dog out on the deck.

Well I hope you all had a great CHRISTmas and will enjoy a Happy New Year.

God Bless

The day has arrived!

Well everyone its Friday September 12th, the day of the dinner / auction. We have so much work in front of us today, looking forward to it all coming together. We hope you all can make it out tonight and that you will be blessed with a great evening. We are SO thankful to all of you who helped make today possible. Tonight's program has a list of all the donors, I can't believe how long it is. It has been amazing how God has orchestrated all of this. Whenever we had a need, there someone was to help us along the way. People secured donations on their own, places that we had not already been to, then some of you made phone calls to places we had been to as follow up, and then all the creative people who helped make our signs, put together our baskets etc etc etc. We have 150 items to auction off tonight. Something for everyone. Pray for everything to go well tonight. God Bless you all. We will update within the next few days or so how everything turned out. Here we go......

Basket Mania

I have never seen so many baskets in my life! We are in the midst of craziness at our house. We are working like crazy trying to put together as many cool baskets of items for the auction. We have stuff everywhere. Many people have helped us. One of our friends friend put together about 19 baskets for us from our items and even some of her things. She was very creative and they look great. We now have more baskets and some other folks coming over Saturday to finalize everything hopefully. We have to have all of our items ready by Monday so we can get all the info over to our good friend who is publishing our program for the night. Somewhat stressful these days as the clock is ticking. Lisa and I have been on one another's nerves lately it seems as we have had a few arguments lately. We are just tired and stressed just a bit, but its all going to work out great. Once again we are overwhelmed by all of the people helping us. We are SO thankful for everything everyone is doing. Only 6 days left!

4/5/2008

My son suggested I add a picture of my multi-color door to the blog so I thought I would take his advice. I also took a photo of the exterior of our home so everyone can sort of visualize what a house looks like where crazy people live- haha. Without further ado, here are the photos for your viewing pleasure. One more thing, if you like the house it is for sell. It will only cost you $1,000,000. That will leave us then with $980,000 to become missionairies to Ethiopia! Just kidding, its not for sale, although your investment would have brought you eternal dividends. My wife says I like change too much, we cant move again for at least a lifetime from now, that is unless God tells us to. Ok ok, I will shut up and add the photos. Have a great Saturday.