Apparent Project

Several of my Team Haiti friends started selling jewelry made by Haitians and provided by the ministry The Apparent Project.  I decided to jump on the bandwagon and start selling the jewelry too! Items from The Apparent Project have even been featured in Vogue. It is a wonderful opportunity to give to the people of Haiti and help our adoption in the process! Half of the proceeds go to the maker of the item and the other half goes toward our adoption expenses.




These make perfect Christmas gifts! If you are interested, please let me know! I will be receiving my shipment early this week.  I will post pictures of some of the items as soon as I can.

Regimens

I am terrible with regimens and schedules and I love to procrastinate.

So why am I signed up for a one-month treatment plan to ease headaches and neck pain?

I am signed up for Living Social (which I LOVE) and when I received a deal for a one hour massage for $20, I was all over that!

I had the best massage I think I've ever had and they offered a free chiropractic consultation. What's the harm in that?

Doc took an x-ray and determined I have a bit of arthritis in my cervical spine. My posture is terrible and my neck and upper back are weak.  He recommended physical therapy, chiropractic manipulation and massage 3 times per week for 4 weeks. Yikes! Thankfully I have good insurance.

Did I tell you I can't stick to regimens?

Poor Stephen. I'm set up for appointments from now until 2012 which means we won't be getting home until 7:30 three nights per week.

I had my first session tonight. I can tell you honestly I haven't felt this good in a long time. We'll see if it lasts. It's probably not normal to experience a headache almost every day, ringing in the ears, and other issues. Instantly after doc manipulated my neck my ears popped and I could hear as clear as a bell! I was in shock!  I had gone to my regular MD before Haiti and he had given me steroids for my ears which didn't do a single thing.

Tonight I sit on my couch, head in alignment, ice pack on my neck.  If history repeats, this will last, mmmmmm 2 weeks.

But, I really do want to be a good little patient. And I do want to feel better. Maybe this is a way to pass the time while we wait for our kids to get here. Heaven knows, I need all the distractions I can get!

New page added

When I discussed my blog with a dear friend, she mentioned that people might be interested in our home remodel we completed a few years ago. I finally got the chance to scan some old photos and organize them and post them. p.s. Google Blogger, you didn't make this very easy.

It's quite lengthy so grab a cup of coffee, or a bagel and enjoy. You can link to it here or at the top of my blog in the tabbed section.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Ms. Angie

Angie, along with the nannies at Maison is the mother figure to our two children right now. I don't know if I can really put into words the gratefulness I have in my heart for Angie and the nannies. I know she's too humble to talk about herself, but I would like to take a moment to share a few words about her.

When we were planning our trip to Haiti in March, besides meeting our kids, I was most excited about meeting Angie. You see, she named our little boy, Samson.

Samson was the first picture we saw when we received children's files. His name immediately caught my attention. I always desired to have children with strong Biblical names and you can't get more Biblical than Samson! His name was partially what drew us to have him be a part of our family.

Angie inspires me. She lives and serves in a country with unbelievable difficulties. Nothing is easy in Haiti. I've only spent 4 days there, but I came away from there wondering how she does it. I know she relies heavily on the Lord and prayers from her supporters. Would you take some time to pray for her today? This week has been especially difficult as one of the children at Maison went to be with Jesus this week. You can visit her blog here. 

Sitting in the Port Au Prince airport with Kim Harmon from For His Glory and Angie.

This and that

My dear adoption friend, Mandy posted this video from her church. I know you have a busy life, but this is one hour that might just change your life.  Do you know how much you are loved by God? Watch this and find out.





We received new pictures of Lydie & Samson this afternoon. A sight for sore eyes for sure! Enjoy the new pictures!

Thoughts on loss

This post has been coming for a while now and after hitting and killing a beautiful deer with our car a week and a half ago, the Lord prodded my heart that the time was now. Strange, I know.

My family had an opportunity recently to minister to a small community that has suffered tremendous loss. In 2008 an EF5 tornado ripped through the north part of the town followed by an even more devastating flood. Since that time, this small community has tragically lost several of its residents. 

The town is spiritually dead. Sometimes when things happen that we don't understand, we shut God out. People begin to say, "If God was so good, why would He have let this happen?" I love Billy Graham's daughter, Anne's response to this question after Hurricane Katrina. "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"

Ouch.

During the year of 2008, I was dealing with my own loss. Loss of a dream, loss of loved ones. These words came to me as I was lying in a bathtub one morning feeling like I had lost my sanity: 

I am broken.

With the weight of the world on my shoulders, I come to Him again, Broken.

My Savior needed me to get to this point.  A place where I once again put my faith

in Him.  I cry out to Him.  It feels like He's not listening.  I beg for mercy.  Silence.

Hope is fleeting.  He's teaching me something.  He has to be.

I have turned into something I don't recognize.  An unloving, selfish monster.  Full of

pride, full of fear, full of doubt.  Doubt-an interesting thought.  The One I so willingly

trusted as a child. Why do I not trust Him anymore?  Have the callouses on my heart

caused my unbelief.  My unbelief is laughable if I think about it.  When I look back on my life.

The things he has brought me through, how he's protected me and carried me.  Shameful.

So now I've recognized my wrongs.  I need Him and Him alone.  But He leaves me here.

Why?  I'm tired of being in this muck.  I want to get out.  Day after day I search for answers.

I listen to His word and try to obey.  But my circumstances do not change. I'm sinking deeper

and deeper and wonder if I am ever going to get out.

Then I hear a whisper, "grab my hand."  I think it's been there all along.  The dirt in my

face has clouded my vision.  Now that I think of it, He's been whispering all along as well,

but my head was too focussed on my circumstances to hear it.  I grab on.  I'm in deep so

the pull is hard.  It stretches my body and hurts a little,  But now that I'm out, I can breathe.

He wipes the dirt of my face and sets me high upon a rock.  When my eyes focus I realize this

rock he has set me on is actually the palm of his hand.  He's got me.   My wounds instantly start

to heal.  I lie down.  I want to rest in Him.  He holds me there.  He reminds me of his promises

once again.  He reminds me that those who wait patiently for the Lord will be renewed like the

eagles.  He tells me every perfect gift comes from Him.  He tells me I'm forgiven.  Forgiven.  What

a thought!  I entertain the thought that I don't deserve that gift.  He reminds me who paid the price

for that precious gift.  I willingly take his forgiveness.  He offers me so much more.  He offers me

pure love, peace, joy unspeakable.

I start to wonder, why did I ever leave His side?  Why did I stop trusting Him.  I got complacent.

I was becoming lukewarm.  It wasn't really anything that I was doing.  It was more about what I

was not doing.  I was serving Him just enough to get by.  I let fear get a hold of me so I could not

bring the good news to the lost around me.  Saying all the right things but doing none of the right

things.  I was lukewarm in the flesh.  So He broke me.  He broke me and it hurt.   But now I am

better for it.  Just like when our parents disciplined us as we were children, our Heavenly Father

disciplines us so we can be restored back to him.

I am so thankful I have a God who loves me enough to let me be broken for a while, so I can

see my need for Him, and then rescues me once again.

Written out of a broken and contrite heart.

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008.

Naomi Probert

I pour my heart out to encourage you. God knows your hurts. He wants you to trust Him.  This isn't the easiest post to write. But there is good news! One of the songs that my family sings has this line, "God sees the storm from the other side...He knows the lessons learned and just beyond the clouds He sees clear skies. He speaks peace to the raging storm when peace could not be found, He already sees the rainbow, when we see only clouds." 

I don't know if we had made the decision to adopt if we hadn't experienced this loss. God took us from a place of complacency to a place of listening to His voice and His call on our lives and trusting that He knows best. 

Unfortunately, loss is a very real part of adoption. Babies have lost their mommies. That's a loss I cannot fathom. Adoption is a way to restore something terribly broken.  My prayer is that we can lead Lydie and Samson through the periods of loss they may experience and to let them know that God will NEVER EVER let them go. It's the best gift we can give them, the knowledge of the love of God in this broken world that has denied it. 

Team Haiti

It started with 7 families in March. "Team Haiti"-my lifeline. The people who know exactly what we're going through. Prayer warriors, friends for life. It's a group of adopting families-27 members and growing. All adopting from Maison. Our kids know each other, we know each other. We communicate on a daily basis, offering encouragement to those who need encouragement. We answer each other's questions, we share photos and videos. On family bonding trips those of us who aren't able to travel to Haiti receive word from those who have about how our kids are doing.  I don't know where I would be emotionally without these people in my life. They are all gifts from God.

November is National Adoption Month and Sunday, November 6th is Orphan Sunday. I felt a need to make a video and present it to our home church and ask for people to pray for those currently waiting for their children to come home.  Prayer from God's people activates the Heavens. Would you consider praying along with us?

These families have beautiful hearts. I can say with certainty that none of them feel what they are doing is amazing. They are just answering a call. Please pray for my dear Team Haiti friends.

P.S. Just a little note about the song I chose for this video. It is written by another Haiti adoptive mom Cindy Foote. She is adopting from a different orphanage and waiting just like us. I felt the song was so perfect for this video so I asked her if I could use it. If you have a minute, stop by her place and check out her music or offer an encouraging word.