Artem

I got permission from Reece's Rainbow to post photos and information for Artem (the boy I asked prayer for).  Just look at this precious face!  He's been waiting for a forever family for a long long time.

Artem K.

Date of Birth: June 4, 2006

Gender: Male

Eyes: Brown

Hair: dark brown

Temperament: good-natured

SIGNIFICANT RISK, PLEASE ADOPT ME SOON!



It is so painful to see these kids whose mothers drank during their pregnancy :( (( Artem’s mom was clearly not interested in giving him the best chance in life. This was her first pregnancy, he was born at 38 weeks, but she smoked and drank throughout the pregnancy. His mother kept him home until he was nearly a year old, so there is no telling what other damage she may have caused him during that time. Despite his difficult beginnings, he is described as a good natured boy, and will thrive in a loving family. He does have a minor myocardiopathy that should be followed once home, but he is active and doing much better now that he is in the orphanage.

FULL MEDICAL RECORDS AVAILABLE! SINGLE MOMS WELCOME



Lots more photos available

I have $3615.5 in my grant fund towards the cost of my adoption!

Back on my post!

After a 3-month rest from blogging, I'm climbing back on my post.  It was 3 months of seeking direction, examining my motives, learning humility and just being QUIET.  Amazing what we can hear and learn when we are quiet!

My father-in-law helped get all the technical issues ironed out on the blog.  And God has had me in a boot camp of sorts, getting some spiritual issues ironed out.  So, here I am again.  He's placed me in full-time ministry...ministering to the precious family living in my own home, and serving the orphan...not part-time but full-time, wholeheartedly, without distraction, running the race He has set before me, aiming to hear one day, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Part of my calling is to be a voice for orphans.  So, let me begin that right this minute.  This little guy has been waiting for a family for quite a long time.  His name is Artem, and you can find his sweet picture and all his information HERE.  He is at significant risk, so I ask you as a reader to send this information on to your circle of friends and family.  You never know whose heart has been readied for this moment to step forward to give Artem a forever family.  You may not be able to adopt, but we can all help spread the word.  Artem (and many many others like him) do not have a voice...they cannot call someone to help them...so we MUST be their voice.

And the very BIGGEST thing we can do is to pray for these children.  God works in amazing ways.  I remember when we stepped forward to adopt our daughter, I received an email from a lady who said she had been praying for months for our daughter's forever family to find her.  And the string of events that led to us finding her was nothing short of miraculous, so I know God heard this lady's prayers and guided us to our daughter.  So, today...right now...take just 2 minutes to lift Artem up to Him in prayer.  Pray His Scriptures back to Him: "Father to the fatherless, defender of widows---this is God, whose dwelling is holy.  God places the lonely in families...." (Psalm 68:5-6a) and ask Him to set Artem in his forever family.  And please pass that prayer request on to your small group or circle of friends who knows the power of prayer. 

This blog exists to tell the story of the orphan because they cannot tell it themselves, and I will soon begin by telling our daughter's story.  I will be seeking people willing to share their own stories of orphans.  More on that later...

For now, let me say it's good to be back.  And I ask you to help make this blog an active work in orphan ministry.  Please give this blog address to every prayer warrior you know, and tell them there's a work for them here.  Brick-by-brick, person-by-person, we CAN rebuild this wall of orphan ministry.  We all have an important role to fill.  Let us be about that work wholeheartedly!

 

Into Obscurity

"Take care! Don't do your good deeds publicly, to be admired, because then you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven. When you give a gift to someone in need, don't shout about it as the hypocrites do--blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity! I assure you, they have received all the reward they will ever get. But when you give to someone, don't tell your left hand what your right hand is doing. Give your gifts in secret, and your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you." Matthew 6:1-4

The funny thing about doing "good deeds" is that our motives can get shifted, even just a tad. Sometimes it may be pure and righteous motives; but introduce an applause, a high-five, a wow-you-did-an-awesome-job...and it can tilt our motives. Sometimes we ourselves cannot even notice that slight tilt. Other times we can sway vastly between pleasing God and pleasing man.

Here's a question: That "good thing" you're dong... Would you still do it if nobody were watching? If you were the only one on the face of the planet to know, would you still do it? What if you were to drop to the bottom of the pile...to be the very least and last...to be in an obscure place where nobody knew your name (and certainly didn't know you had a blog or a facebook page...and most definitely didn't know your every move twittered)? What things would you do then...if the only ones who knew your deeds were God and yourself?

I cannot even begin to pretend to know God's plans for me. I used to think I knew...then I thought maybe I could give an educated guess...then just a plain ol' guess sounded good. But now I know that I cannot begin to understand His ways or His plans for my life. I do know that the past several months have shifted my mind and heart into a different mode. I find myself thinking of how to further His Kingdom. It consumes my thoughts. I find myself less and less attracted to the things of this world...all the STUFF we have bombarding our every moment is crazy! I find myself asking every day, "What do You want me to do today? How do I further Your Kingdom? How do I invest in eternity?"

Full-time ministry is my field of view. Full-time servanthood is the target I want to hit. I fail daily (sometimes hourly or minute-by-minute!), but it's my aim.

But it is ever so easy to let my eyes slip from intently staring at that target. It's all too easy to be tilted to the left or right...to be caught up in a million details that simply don't matter...to be swayed by the slightest breeze brought on by a pat-on-the-back or by an are-you-crazy look of disapproval.

"...Let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends, from start to finish." Hebrews 12:1a-2a

It's time for me to drop into that place of obscurity where He seems to be leading me right now. As much as I love to blog, I am stripping this off of me as well. I cannot explain it in words, but I know when He needs me to do something. Maybe it's a test to see if I will continue to do the same "good deeds" while in an obscure place with nobody watching and clapping. Perhaps it's only temporary; and perhaps I will be back blogging sometime. I really don't know. All I do know is that I need to follow Him. That is the air I breathe.

So, for all of you very sweet people who follow this blog (both officially and all the others who are keeping up unofficially), I want to point you to my sweet friend's blog. She is a Down Syndrome adoption advocate, and she's a rare treasure in that she is REAL. She is also seeking to follow God, and she and her family just recently placed their house on the market with the aim of letting God place them where He wants. This will be a great "faith walk" to witness as she writes about it. If you are interested in following a blog that highlights adoption, this is one of the very best ones!

And if you stumble across my blog and just want to help on orphan somehow, I highly recommend starting here with Show Hope.

I've placed the Joshua Project on the side bar of this blog, and I encourage all bloggers to place this on their blogs and to pray daily for the unreached people groups that are highlighted. THIS is what truly matters in life...souls that will last for eternity. Not cars, houses, reputations, money, portfolios, insurance or even good intentions. Think on it. We all have a choice in how we invest our lives.

I leave with you with a quote from the book Crazy Love, by Francis Chan (which, by the way, is a book you simply must get your hands on, devour and act on)...

"How many of us would really leave our families, our jobs, our education, our friends, our connections, our familiar surroundings, and our homes if Jesus asked us to? If He just showed up and said, 'Follow me'? No explanation. No directions.

"You could follow Him straight up a hill to be crucified. Maybe He would lead you to another country, and you would never see your family again. Or perhaps you would stay put, but He would ask you to spend your time helping people who will never love you back and never show gratitude for what you gave up.

"Consider this carefully---have you ever done so? Or was your decision to follow Christ flippant, based solely on feelings and emotion, made without counting the cost?"

Be about His work, even if it seems crazy to the rest of the world!

Trip to Disney World!

When we were planning our adoption, we told our children that after we adopted, we'd plan a trip to Disney World to celebrate our new addition to our family. We waited a year after the adoption to give our daughter time to acclimate. Taking a child with sensory processing issues to Disney World was a big step for us! :)



The first night she had a very hard time with all the noises and craziness of the restaurant we went to in Downtown Disney. But by the first day in the parks, she did much better than we expected. We took it easy with her, taking her on only a handful of rides each day. Mama spent a lot of time pushing her in a stroller and seeing the more quiet things likes birds sharing her crackers and the gorilla who was eating his lunch while we watched (amazing creatures, those gorillas!). But, at Disney World, there's simply no escaping the noise and other sensory input...parades, music, people busy running here and there, screaming children. But she LOVED Disney World! By the time we left, she had grown very accostomed to everyone calling her "Princess" and giving her royal treatment! I'm afraid it's going to take some time to undo some of the princess factor over here. She's still waving at strangers and wondering why they aren't calling her by her royal title. :)



Here she is in the shadow of that towering castle. Some say it belongs to Cinderella, but this Asian princess thinks it's HERS!





Here she is at an African restaurant in one of the Disney resorts. They brought her a fun drink with a glow-in-the-dark Tinkerbell. Just look at the awe factor! For ME?!!





Here we are on a boat ride to the Magic Kingdom. Florida sun is something else! :)

Ahhh, and here's the crew at EPCOT (our favorite park!).

On the way to and from Orlando, I read a book called Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Ever read it? It will change your life and MESS YOU UP! :) I'll post more on that later. Go get that book!

Our Web Page

We are pulling our orphan ministry web site off the web. Most of our traffic comes through our blog (which is free), so we've decided to stop paying for a web site and just make use of the blog. As you know, there are some definite shifts going on in our direction, but orphan ministry will remain on our plate and dear to our hearts. All of the info that was on the web site will be moved either to this blog or to another one. I will keep you posted as we move forward. :)

Special Needs Orphan Ministry

I was contacted by a wonderful lady who "provides early intervention services and support to orphans with special needs." She gave me her blog address, and I wanted to pass this along to you. Click on this link to visit her blog. She is advocating for several orphans in Ukraine, and she recently delivered hats, sun bonnets and orthopedic equipment to a Baby House in Ukraine. Precious ministry! This is her "brick." She's using her specialty and knowledge to reach out to orphans, and she's also advocating for those children who desperately need families. Please share her blog address with your friends and family. Pray for the orphans she is advocating for on her blog, and pray for her as she works on her portion of the wall of orphan ministry.

If you want to help out orphans but don't know how, a GREAT place to start is to simply advocate for orphans who need a family. They cannot advocate for themselves, so they need you! Just choose a few children and become their unofficial advocate. Go to Reece's Rainbow for names and pictures of many orphans who desperately need their forever family to find them. You can put their pictures on your blogs or share information with your family and friends. You can have a yard sale to raise $ to put into their adoption fund, and you place a photo and information of the child for everyone to see as they shop your yard sale. You can pray every day for this child, as it is quite possible that nobody else is praying for him/her. You really CAN do something! It may not seem like a lot to you, but for a child who cannot speak up for themselves, your little bit of help can make a world of difference.

Changes

When this blog is silent, you can always be certain that something is going on.



It's been one of those seasons in life with a zillion questions and deep pondering... What should I pour my life into? What do I want my legacy to be? What really matters? What lasts for eternity? What should be my priority and focus?



It's been a season of reflection, seeking, praying.



It's been a season of testing and struggling.



While reading the book Live Life on Purpose: God's Purpose. Your Life. One Journey, I was hit by a statement: "Every map has an expiration date." Things change, life moves, time advances. And maps expire.



The point in that book is to line yourself up with God as a compass lines up with true north. Maps are great for the journey, but every map expires. If you're using your compass, you can still stay on course.



And this is where I find myself today. With an expired map. To be more precise, my map has some added things on it now. It's like the world globe I recently unpacked. It had been my grandmother's globe, and it was amazing all the changes that have occurred in the years since that globe was made! All the continents were the same, but some countries have changed names.



And my life map has been altered. Three years ago it read: "Orphan Ministry." No details. One year ago, it read, "Orphan Ministry: Rebuild the Wall." The plans of Nehemiah came into focus as a way to look at orphan ministry. We all have bricks...we all have a portion of the wall we can work on. And today the map reads, "Ministry: Physical and Spiritual Orphans." It's as if a "country" on my map has shifted its borders and created another "state."



The basic framework is there...orphan ministry. The basic blueprint is there...we all have bricks and can do this work together. But the vision has expanded.

I will soon share more details about that, as it is a blog entry in and of itself. But here's a short version that will catch you up to speed...

During every step of our adoption last year, God spoke in my spirit, showing me how it related to my own adoption into His family. The parallel was beyond coincidental. And on that day when we arrived at the orphanage and saw our not-too-receptive child who waved goodbye to us and wanted us to leave, I was struck by something. I could see the parallel so vividly in how God longs to adopt us into His family, but we don't see the need. Or worse...there are so many (millions upon millions) who don't even know that they have a Father who is longing to adopt them into His family as His very own children. Just as our daughter had never heard of us, they have never heard of this God of love. Instead, they worship idols, ancestors, etc.

These are what seem to me to be "spiritual orphans." They have a Father who yearns to adopt them, but they just don't know. They've never heard.

So, how do I serve these precious people?? Ahhh, now you know what this blog has been silent. It's a deep pondering to really truly seek God in this question. Will we follow Him to the foreign mission field? Honestly, I do not know exactly what He's leading us to do, but I DO know that I have to be 100% open to WHATEVER that is and WHEREVER that is. So, we've made ourselves available for Him to interrupt our lives in whatever way He wants. Dangerous prayers! :) We've agreed to say YES no matter what He asks us to do. That means that if He opens the doors for us to serve on the foreign mission field, we will go. So, there...I said it...I'm on call now!

There are other options that are just as powerful. I am being trained to be a prayer leader for a missionary agency, and we can enter into very focused and dedicated partnership with missionaries already on the field...to pray for them specifically, support them financially, etc. This is a support role that is just as crucial as actually being "on the field."

Options. Paths. Decisions. New maps. But same compass and same North Star.

There is so much more to say, and I will blog about it in segments as I can. But I did want to finally break the silence and spill bits of news.