The Adventures of Foster Care Part 1

As most of you know by now Steve and I are passionate about adoption. This past Tuesday might be considered a turning point in our family's journey. Steve and I started the BIG BIG adventure of looking into the Fost-adopt program (foster care to adopt) in our state.

 For those of you who might not be as familiar with our heart for adoption I feel I should back up and tell you a little about our decision to pursue this. Back in college we were very blessed with the preaching and teaching and personal examples of pastors Dr. Tony Merida and Dr. David Platt. Both of us were convicted through sermons of theirs on the needs of orphans around the world (one I would highly recommend can be found here). So from the time we were dating it has been on our radar as something we wanted to do in the future. One day during my last year in college I found myself walking though our church bookstore and a found a table with recommendations from the pastor. A book caught my eye and I found myself almost through the first chapter before I realized I should purchase the book if I was going to read it. This book is called "Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian families and Churches" by Dr. Russel Moore. It talks about our adoption into the family of God and how that should move us into action. You can find this wonderful book on Amazon for under $11 here. This book pushed us that much more into taking the act of adoption seriously.

 From the first night of marriage during our family bible time we began praying for the Lord to bless us with children and the ability to adopt. The question wasn't ever if it would happen but how the Lord would accomplish this in our lives. As we began to look at the practical aspects of adoption the financial aspect seamed almost impossible (with international adoptions being a minimum of $20,000). Looking at full time ministry as the being the rest of or lives we were tempted to put it on the back burner and stop looking at adoption seriously. Thankfully the Holy Spirit continues to work even when we are discouraged and managed to spark the idea of Foster Care. A quick google search on foster care in California quickly felt like a dead end too. Somewhere I found that they look for people with at least 10 years of parenting or childcare experience. That is clearly not us. We've never been parents and certainly don't have 10 years of childcare experience each. However, even when we are not expecting it God is always working everything together for Good for those who are called according to his purpose. Randomly I met a guy at church who had worked for a foster care agency (on a night I almost skipped out on!). I shared with him our desire to adopt but the lack of experience. He quickly shared that somehow I had found miss information and that I should look into it again....

Low and behold I found the official website for our county and we were more than qualified!

We found out that there was a monthly informational meeting so we picked April 24th to attend.

Stay tuned for Part two with what we learned and where are we going from here!

Getting Crafty

So despite the fact that I have a paper Due on Tuesday I managed to put that to the side and make a craft... and then blog about it. (As my mother told me I have to keep my priorities in order "Craft first and then stay up all night on the paper")

My Sweet Friend Cynthia informed me that she was hosting a craft party and that I was invited. Of course I excepted the invitation without hesitation. Then came the problem. What do I make? I have been working on a knitting project (which I will post about in another blog) but had come to a stopping point and run out of yarn. I knew the project had to cost me little to no money so I turned to Pintrest for inspiration. After about 10 minutes of looking I decided I would make a wreath.  Thank goodness for creative people because I managed to find an idea that used strips of material and a coat hanger. As luck would have it I came into some free material a while back and  was the owner of a coat hanger!

So I wanted to share the results with you of how it turned out...

Not bad for a coat hanger, material, and a little bit of time if I do say so myself!

The inspiration for my wreath came from this blog: http://smilemonsters.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-burlap-wreath.html

If you want to make one too this blog gives a really great (easy!!) step by step. The only thing I did differently was I added a hanger to the top and knotted strips of red checkered cloth in between the strips of material for a touch of color.

Well I guess it's time to get back to writing that paper now.

Holy Week

I have always known of the idea of Holy Week but have never really had a church (that I remember) celebrate it before. Aside from our normal weekly activities we also added two additional services to our church week.

The first was Maundy Thursday. As a kid I am embarrassed to admit I always thought they were saying Monday Thursday. I was educated at this service, however, that the word "Maundy" comes from the Latin word commandment. At the passover dinner Jesus gave a final commandment to his disciples

In John 13 we read:

¹² When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. ¹³ “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. ¹⁴ Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. ¹⁶ Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷ Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

So each year the day before Good Friday we celebrate the last supper where Jesus gives us a missional speech as Maundy Thursday!

This service was one I'm sure I will never forget. It was totally different from any one I have been to. We had a guest artist come and paint a picture in front of us as we took communion. Remembering the last supper and the words of Jesus to his disciples. As the painting progressed it brought different thoughts and images to mind.

Here are a few pictures from the service:

We also had a special Good Friday service at our church. I learned a fun fact on the radio this week about Good Friday. One possibility of where the word "Good" came from is that it came from being called "God's Friday." For our service our choir members did a cantata and scripture reading performance for us. Steve even played hand bells! I knew all of you would want to experience that so I recorded a little of his playing for you.

Finally to end our Holy Week Steve and I had a great Easter. Taking the time to reflect so much on the sacrifice of Christ and the resurrection day earlier in the week really made Easter that much better. Our church was full the first service and packed out for the second one. After our second service some of the ladies of the church put on a free Easter Lunch for everyone. Steve and I enjoyed fellowshiping and then headed home for a nice relaxing afternoon after a very busy week.

Steve and I hope you had a wonderful Holy Week this year too. We pray that Christ's gift of eternal life has continued to impact your daily thoughts this week. We love miss you all!