The Adoption Bug T-shirt store is up and running!

Our Adoption Bug t-shirt store is up and running as of this morning!  Hooray!!  We're so excited, and can't wait to get some t-shirts of our own so we can wear them and spread the good word about adoption!  We have six shirts for sale, and proceeds from every shirt go toward our little girl's adoption expenses.  Just click the t-shirt link on the right to take a look and see if there's a shirt (or a few) you'd love to get!  


Also, if you feel so led, please consider sharing this link with your family and friends!  Thanks again for all of your support!! 

It takes a village...

I've always liked the old saying "It takes a village to raise a family."  I think it also takes a village to bring one together sometimes.  We've had several friends in Lebanon who have offered to help out in the adoption fund raising, and I want to say thank you!!  We would not be able to do this alone!  :)  It means a lot to all of us. 


We're throwing around lots of ideas for the first fund raiser to get on the books, and ask that you all help us pray about what one(s) to do first.  There are so many possibilities, and so much to do!  It's exciting, and maybe a little bit overwhelming, but right now I'm just eager to get this ball rolling and make some progress!  If you have any ideas or suggestions, please feel free to share them with us.  We're currently considering a teen lock-in, a "Forever Family Fun Day", barbecue sales, and several other ideas we're looking into.  Of course we need to acquire permission, locations, and volunteers for these ideas, so we can make them happen.  I think we can do it!

Of course we already have our coffee store up and running (see the Just Love Coffee link to the right), and now we have another online store almost ready!  I got an e-mail this morning from the good people at www.AdoptionBug.com, saying that our adoption t-shirt store will be up and running some time this weekend!  (I'll post the link to it when it's operative.)  Profits from these t-shirts go to help orphans here and around the world.  And if you buy a shirt specifically from our store, it will go to fund our adoption!


In other happy news, today we're sending in our initial application to the adoption agency!  WOOHOO!!  Adopting requires a ton of paperwork, but I'm glad to feel that we have a start, even if we've only filled out the first few papers.  :) 


Sara is very excited about having a sister, and the boys seem to be feeling more excited about it, too.  When we first mentioned the idea, they had mixed reactions of feeling happy, and wanting to give a child a family, and just considering and adjusting to the idea of having another family member to share our things and space with.  They're such realists, like their mom and dad.  :)  They think of all the wonderful parts, and all the challenges of having four kids in the family too.  They are very compassionate by nature, though, and I am so proud of my kids for that.  Just the other day, we were talking about conditions in an African village we recently learned of, where there are 300 children in a single orphanage set on a 5-acre plot, and 1,200 children in the streets, waiting to get into the orphanage to have a better life there.  With Sara being only five years old, she doesn't fully understand the scope of things like that.  The boys think of these bits of information soberly, though.  Jacob thought for a moment, and said "Thank God we live here!".  He meant it literally.  I wholeheartedly agree! 


Later that day, we later saw a listing on an adoption website of a little 8-year-old Chinese boy who was perfectly healthy, made good grades in school, was beginning to learn English already, and really liked sports, especially martial arts.  If we weren't looking to adopt a little girl this time around, I would definitely have contacted the agency about that little guy.  Then the kids started talking about possibly adopting another boy some day, and how if we had all the money in the world, we could adopt 10 or 15 kids!  (Okay, this might be entertaining to talk about, but let's not get Too crazy!)  They talked about how happy the kids would be just to have a family who loved them, and brothers to help teach them Taekwondo, and how to shoot an air soft gun...then the conversation shifted to having a family air soft war, if we had enough people, and went off on a tangent from there.  But in the end, I hope and pray that my kids all grow up with a grateful heart, and a willingness to help others, and to open their hearts (and sometimes their homes) to those who need love.  I think they may be growing into just that kind of people. 


Did you know there are an estimated 147 million orphans in the world today?  It's a problem of epidemic proportions!  It can be overwhelming at times, because goodness knows one person (or one family, or even a city) can't help them all.  But when I get overwhelmed, even with my to-do list or with every-day life, I have to just break it down, pick a starting point, and take it one step at a time.  I saw a t-shirt the other day that said "How do you reach 147 million orphans?  One at at time."  I love that!  Of course, that doesn't mean every family should adopt.  Some people can adopt, while other people can help these kids find families by helping out with adoption fund raisers, donating to adoption agencies, by praying for them, purchasing fair trade coffee (see the link to the right) or purchasing an adoption t-shirt like this one, or in general helping spread the good word about adoption!  We can all be a part of the 'village' to help to raise a child, even if it's a child we may never meet.  There's a lot we all can do, and every little bit makes a very big difference in a child's life, in giving them something that can never be replaced--in giving them a family.  

To all the people who are a part of my kids' 'village', thank you so much!

Sara's Adoption Story is here!

I wanted to publish Sara's adoption story, in case any of you wonderful blog readers would like to share it with us!  It's a bit longer than the average blog post, so I set up this stand-alone site at www.SarasAdoptionStory.blogspot.com.  I will not continue to make posts to the new site, though, as its sole purpose is to publish Sara's story.  For updated posts, please continue to visit this site.  Also, if you enjoy reading about our adoption experiences, and would like to help us along our journey, please share this site with your friends, post it to your Facebook or MySpace profile, hand out fliers on the street corners, announce it to the neighborhood with a megaphone...you get the idea.  ;-)  Please help us spread the word!  (Fyi, at the bottom of each post you'll see a small row of buttons you can use to share this easily.  There are buttons to share this in e-mail, blog, Twitter and Facebook, and Google Buzz.  Just a simple click away!)

ALSO, here's a happy side note!  On the right of this blog page, you'll see the logo for our online Just Love Coffee store!  Please take a moment to visit the store, and see if there's anything you'd like to order.  $5 from every bag goes to support our adoption!

One sweet moment...

Okay, I don't intend to blog every day (or anywhere close), but this one was too sweet not to share.  

Sara has always been good at tugging at my heart strings without even knowing.  When I'm not feeling well, she's the one who brings me a blanket and gives me a kiss, and asks if she can get me anything.  Sometimes she'll show me a baby doll in a stroller, and says "Look at my new baby, Mama!  I just adopted her today!  It's her first day home, and look--her hair sticks up just like mine did."  And sometimes she simply asks questions, and her innocence and sweet sincerity in those moments touches me in a way that is hard to describe.  


We don't only talk about adoption when we celebrate her Gotcha Day, but it happened to be on her Gotcha Day this year that the conversation came up.  Apparently, it had never really sunken in for her that I am her brothers' birth mother and their forever mom too.  When that came up this time, it seemed like it really struck her for a minute.  "You mean, you were their birth mom, and you didn't give them away??" she asked.  "Well...then...why did my birth mother..." she wondered aloud.  (Fyi, I wouldn't have referred to Sara has being 'given away', but those are the words she used in this case.)  We said of course we kept the boys, because her Daddy and I were able to take care of them just fine.  If we didn't have the money to buy bottles and diapers, or didn't have proper medical care (I explained what that meant), or we didn't have jobs, then that would be different.  John and I also reminded her a bit about why her birth parents decided what they did for her.  But, we said, we wanted to keep the boys just like we wanted to adopt and keep her, and God meant for us to be their forever parents, too.  I think she really thought hard about that on the way home that night, even though her thoughts were frequently interrupted intermittently with utter silliness and giggles between herself and her brothers.  The kids were really hamming it up that night for some reason.  But I know she thought more about it, because later that evening, she brought it up again.


"Mom, how come my foster parents didn't just keep me and adopt me themselves, instead of just keeping me for a while until somebody else adopted me?" she asked when we were getting her ready for bed that night.  We talked about that for a minute.  We told her how foster parents' jobs are to keep babies and kids until they go home to their forever families, and her foster parents knew that's how it would be.  I explained how we already knew she was ours, and her foster parents knew that too, but adoptions just take a long time, so they took great care of her and loved her while we all waited.  "I'll bet my foster mom sure does miss me sometimes, and would be so happy to see me now," she told me.  I said I'm sure she would.  Who wouldn't be?!  "And how did the people know that I was your baby, and how did you and Dad know that I was your baby too?  How come I didn't just go to some other family?  How did they choose?  How did they know...who was the right people?" Struggling for words, she looked like she was fighting back tears.  So I told her that in the case of many Korean babies, the people at the agency actually pray over the babies, and ask that God lead them to just the right parents for that child (true story), and out of the whole world full of parents, God chose us for her!  Lucky us!  (She liked that!)  Her expression changed quickly, though, and she was back to blinking away tears.  I thought she must have felt hurt that other families didn't all want to keep her, but then I realized that wasn't it.  "I mean, I wouldn't want to hurt another family's feelings or anything, but I just would have to tell them."  
"Tell them what, honey?  What are you saying?" I asked her.
"I'd have to tell them that there was some kinda mistake or something, and I was supposed to be with you.  I wouldn't want them to feel sad or anything, but I would have to tell them they needed to take me to you and Dad, and God chose you guys for my family."  
I scooped her up in my lap, gave her a great big hug, smiled and told her that we wouldn't have to worry about that, because God had it all taken care of for us.  He would never lead her anywhere else but here. 
"I'm sure glad about that!!" she replied, smiling a relieved smile.  "And Mom, um, that was a long hug."


I thought it was going to be our first conversation in which she felt any sense of loss or rejection from being "given up" for adoption.  I know we may have a conversation about that (or several) some day, and that will be okay too.  But for today, I was blessed to hear her telling me just how glad she is that God chose us to be together.  I can't help but think she's not half as glad as we are.