Laughter has come

The words "I'm in" have a quiet power

Bob Goff

Sometimes it is the power to change our lives forever.

                                                                                                                                                                      

If you know Jay and I, you know that we rarely say "No". We desire to live lives that are open to new people and new experiences. Life in Christ is life abundant. We also knew when it came to our adoption, we would need to deeply consider our "Yes" as it would be one that would alter the rest of our lives.

To our absolute shock, that moment to say "yes" or "no" came a lot sooner than we had expected.  On Thursday, October 11, we received a phone call from Bethany telling us about a "gift baby" that was to be born that day or the next. Our adoption worker told us about the family and the circumstances and a little about why we were being called as we hadn't even received our completed home study yet.

Jay and I talked, prayed, jumped around, called some friends who have had made this decision for counsel, prayed some more, called the adoption worker with more questions, and soon we both reached a very confident "YES - we're in"

In my previous post I mentioned that Bethany said we would have baby by the end of the year instead it ended up being by the end of the week!

World, meet Isaac!

Full Steam Ahead

"You will have a baby by Christmas" was the jaw-dropping statement made by our Adoption specialist yesterday afternoon.

Finally we were told why we were being rushed through the home study process. Bethany has too many birth-moms giving birth soon and not enough families who are open to bringing these babies home.

Needless to say, I couldn't sleep last night. My mind was churning with all of the preparations we need to make. We have nothing for a baby yet - well not nothing - we have a toy (singular), a crib sheet (no crib), a high chair (that I hear a baby can't use for a while), but that is it. We also have (had?) all sorts of plans for fundraising because we do not have the savings to cover the cost of the adoption.

(Oh my . . . )

Although, this is the timing I had hoped for, I never expected things would move this fast. Now, I am fully aware that there could be complications (legal and otherwise) that could slow this down, but for now we are functioning under the impression that we will have a newborn in the house within two months.

(Give me a moment while I catch my breath. . .)

Soon our little family will be growing and we don't know the baby that will be joining us. We don't know their family history, gender, face or name. But God knows what is going to happen. He knows the plans He has for us.

Whatever may come down this road to adoption, we are moving forward full steam ahead.

Decisions, decisions . . .

Jay and I are terrible at making decisions.

Perhaps I should correct that - I am terrible at making decisions and I pull Jay into my indecision.

We have had to make so many big decisions in less than 5 years of marriage, you would think I would be used to it by now, but I'm not.

The decision to adopt was an easy one for us. However, all of the other decisions were born from that single decision seemed crippling at times. Which agency will we use? Domestic or International? If international, which country? How open are we to special needs? Age ranges? Race?

And in the adoption process you have to have clear answers for all of these and more.

Jay and I decided to read the book Adopted for Life as part of the decision making/infertility grieving process.(I would highly recommend it anyone to read, especially if you are feeling apathetic about adoption) One thing the author mentioned in his chapter written specifically to couples who are infertile was to pray for clarity of vision moving forward in the adoption process.

So pray we did and we held off moving forward in making any of those decisions until we really felt clear about what direction was right for us.

Over the next several months I felt like we were given the answers.

On the questions of race, we knew from the beginning that didn't matter to us. We know there are and will be many obstacles to overcome by adopting a child of a different race, but God doesn't discriminate about which races He allows into His Family, we aren't going to either.

On the question of special needs or medical conditions, we will consider almost all. That was a hard answer to come to because we know that if we were pregnant, we wouldn't be able to discriminate.

One the question of age ranges, we have asked for 1 year or younger. We discussed older child foster/adoption, but this answer came as a tourniquet for my still-grieving heart. I would love to know my child since the day they are born or as close to it as God allows. Since that may never happen with biological children, I am praying that this happens in adoption.

Finally the big question of domestic or international. Both Jay and I felt like we are called to fill the gaps, to adopt children who might not otherwise be part of a forever family. Logically, that led us to attend an orientation on International Adoption. As we listened to the information presented, we were struck by how many countries in the world were closed to adoption simply because there were too many families waiting to adopt and not enough children to be adopted. Realistically I know that is a bureaucratic issue more than anything else, but when we talked to an adoption specialist after that orientation she mentioned a drastic lack of families in the US who were willing to adopt a child of any race.

And that did it.

We walked out of the office that night knowing we were going to adopt domestically.

We decided on Bethany Christian Services as our agency and within a week of turning in our paperwork packet, we received a call telling us that they were expediting our paperwork because of our open preferences.

We should be a waiting family by the first week in November and only God knows what will happen after that.

We would appreciate any and all prayers and encouragement moving forward with this process, and we are so grateful for everyone who has come along side us in the process, those who have grieved with us, and  those who have celebrated with us.

God is good - all the time.

Photo Friday

The not-so-glamorous side of traveling for work

my desk on the road

To my dear Summer Admins

(SpringHill Day Camp summer 2012 is nearly over and this is a thank you letter to my Admins)

To my dear Summer Admins (Jonathan, Mac, Emily, Rebekah, Megan, Julie, Sammy, and Laura),

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

The eight of you have made camp possible for over 11,000 (and counting) campers this summer.

Megan - D-easy

 You have spent countless hours in front of the computer.

Emily - Indy

You have set up your office in nurseries, basements, lobbies and backstage areas. You have worked in all extremes of weather and noise levels.

Mac - D-West

  You have bandaged hundreds of cuts.

Reba - D-easy

You have dealt with angry customers. You have mastered stubborn technology, and handled the stress of registering thousands of campers. 

Laura, Julie, Jonathan and Sammy (Cinci) at training

You , as well as anyone, have lived out the phrase "for the kids" day after day and set the bar of service and sacrifice high on each of your teams.

Laura (Chicago), Julie (Expansion)

You have worked hard and you have (hopefully) played hard.

Jonathan - Grand Rapids

You have shown God's love to all kids this summer no matter their age, race, special needs or socioeconomic background. 

And just in case you haven't heard it enough this summer - THANK YOU.

Everyone else - don't forget to hug your admin today!

Just like Harry

I have been trying for weeks to figure out how I wanted to share the information that I am about to share in this post. I am not one to share deeply personal things on the internet, and I somewhat despise social media for the mere fact that people use it for that reason. Also, my mind thinks in analogies and until I have a good analogy or word picture to explain the situation, I typically don't share it at all. 


In this case, some very wise people in my life have encouraged me to share my ongoing story and the Harry Potter books, of all things, provided the inspiration. 


Jay and I recently found out that we may not be able to have children. This news has caused a type of grief in my life that I have never experienced before; the helpless loss of hope and long held expectations. 


And no one gets it.


At least no one among my current interactions (including Jay) gets it. Everyone has a quick solution - IVF, adoption, foster parenting, etc . . ., and although I am excited to see where God is going to take us in this journey, something inside me has been altered and scarred forever. (Wait for it - Here comes the Harry Potter analogy).


The only way I can explain it is this: In the Harry Potter books, Harry witnesses the death of one of his classmates. When he returns to Hogwarts a few months later, Harry feels isolated, but to his surprise, he can now see the once invisible creatures that pull the carriages that carry the students up to the school. His friend can't see them, but it is explained that only people who have experienced death can see the Thestrals.

In my own way, I feel like I can see the Thestrals. My world view has changed and it seems like no one sees it the same way.


But I know this isn't true. Our God has prepared me for this in so many ways. He has given me so many friends who have struggled with infertility. He has created a longing in my heart to care for the widows and the orphans. He is teaching me what it means to be adopted into His family and how to open my life to children who need a family.


I am excited to see where we will go and who God will bring into our lives and our family and we would love your prayers as we move forward in this journey.

Fill 'er up!

A year ago, Jay and I were blessed with the opportunity to purchase a home . . . a big home . . . a home with 5 bedrooms! It is a little two big for our little family, but we love to fill up the extra rooms by having people come and stay with us. In the past month we have a had a lot of people make a temporary home here at Taylor Manor. Here is  glimpse of their visits:

Allison Zandarski (the name just drips with . . . ) was on our India team. She has a passion for the people of India and soon (Lord willing) will be attending medical school in India. She drove from South Bend to stay with us for 24 hours, so we gave her a whirlwind tour of the Metro Detroit Area.

She also was on a Danial Fast (Fruits, veggies, whole grains only) for her visit. I love to feed people, so this provided an extra challange to the weekend.

One of most unexpected part of the day was when we accidentally found ourselves serving at Mack Avenue Community Church's Saturday morning corner store.

The other surprising part of the day was all of the people who were openly upset that we were not wearing green on St. Patty's Day. One lady in Detroit actually pinched Allison and yelled, "B#@!h, where's yo GREEN?!"

A couple off weekends later our friends Levi and Courtney came to visit from DC. (We went to visit them this same time of year last year). We did similar tour, but since they were here longer than Allison, we were able to take things a little slower. 

A few weeks after that, we had 9 people from SpringHill stay at our house for the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast.

We feel blessed to be a blessing and thank God that we are able to provide a bed and food for the people God places in our lives.

P.S. This summer we are housing several people for several weeks: Bruce, our friend and Indian videopgrapher/photographer who is coming to work in the states for the summer, Danae, our friend and co-worker who is temporarily homeless, and April, a friend and (soon to be ex) co-worker and bride to be who will be crashing with us as needed until her wedding.