A Bit Mixed Up

I knew this was going to happen.  I feel sort of as if my life/routines are puzzle pieces that I had gotten into a nice picture and now the whole thing got dropped on the floor or somehow has been all mixed up and when I put the pieces back together this time it's going to make a different picture, so I can't just try to put them back where they were.  How/where I'm serving at church right now is changing, our house is (hopefully) changing soon, our adoption process is in transition (from work, work, work, to wait, wait, wait).    It's happening to my spiritual life right now, too.  Everything feels out of place and unsettled—my journaling, my prayer time, Bible study, worship, intercession…  Even stuff as simple as when to take a shower isn't the same as it was a week ago or last year.  But I know that if I give things time, we'll settle into a new routine.

 

I have to be patient.  

 

I am so thankful that it's really only the details that are changing.  The foundational pieces of my life are still the same:  my family and my God.  And as long as God doesn't change, I know I'll be alright.  J

Things Toby and I learned while Mik was at school today

1.  (This was all very non-graphic, by the way...  purely too many Gingerbread Man stories!)  Toby asked me what I would do if a real fox ate my head.  I said I would cry.  He informed me that I couldn't because what if the fox ate my face, too? 

 

2.  "Look Mom!  They're selling rocks at Costco!"  A closer look revealed to him they were actually mushrooms, not shrink-wrapped rocks in between the carrots and broccoli.

 

3.  If Toby parks Mikaela's Dora scooter on the far side of the van and Mommy doesn't see it and tries to back over it, the scooter won't drive perfectly straight afterward--even after Daddy fixes it.  (Oops.)

 

4.  I learned that when Toby goes to the Diego Live! show next week with his grandparents there will be 190 boys there and 10 girls.  Because he saw a little bit of it on TV so he knows.

 

And finally...

5.  There are such things as Attacking Tornadoes that shoot fire and even if you erase them (they only exist on dry-erase boards, thankfully!) they can still shoot fire through the eraser.  Wow. 

 

Toby and I sure had fun today.  J

 

And in case you're wondering, Mikaela had a nice day too, even though she said the day was longer than she thought it would be.  But I think we're off to a great start.   

It's the End of the World as We Know It...

And I think I feel fine. : ) Well, it's actually just the end of summer vacation. Mikaela starts first grade tomorrow! Which means she's going to have to be at school at 8:00am everyday (no, not Saturdays and Sundays, silly!) Anyway, her class will still be taught 90 percent in Spanish and 10 percent English (which amounts to about an hour a day) and as the years go by she will end up with 50/50 Spanish and English in 5th and 6th grade where all the kids are so fluent in both languages it is close to impossible to tell which language is their first language. Which is so cool! In case you don't know, my hubby and I both speak Spanish, so we love it for lots of reasons. So if you've been reading my blog since the beginning of summer you might remember that I had a list of things to accomplish. And I'm grateful that I think we did a pretty good job. While we didn't have her friends from school over, we did go to VBS with a couple of them and both of those girls are in her class this year. : ) I also DID get a lot done for our adoption, even though we haven't started our taxes yet... (Don't panic, we have until October to file.) But what I'm most glad about is that we enjoyed the days and weeks and went camping a couple times and the kids just played and played and life felt more peaceful (except for a few weeks ago when you might recall I was about to lose my mind). And amazingly, I'm sort of ready to get back into a routine and expecting it will go well. We're also carpooling!!! My good friend Paula's kids are starting at our school this year and they live very close to us so they're taking the morning shift and I'm bringing Mik, Elena and Ethan home. Hopefully it will turn out to be a time, money and sanity saving venture for us all. Tomorrow I'll try to report on how it went along with pictures of our big first-grader. As for now, her clothes are ready, her backpack is ready, her shoes are ready... If only she could fall asleep......... : )

Talk about Wild!

I just watched an incredible AMAZING video.  If you have 8 minutes and 23 seconds to watch it (and you aren't my poor sister who lives out in the country with only dial-up internet access) you can click here and watch it BUT read below first...   

 

I think this video powerfully captures what happens in some people's lives when they are suffering.  Whether they've been attacked by people or taken advantage of by the enemy, they are trapped and it seems easier to write them off as lost than to believe they can be rescued.  Yet when the sufferer truly wants God to rescue them and is willing to submit to God AND when the body of Christ is willing to surround them with love and to fight the enemy on their behalf, the enemy flees!  God, of course, is the rescuer, but WE are His body on earth and He wants us to fight on behalf of the lost and abandoned and lonely and hurt and wounded and trapped.  Knowing how to do that can be so complicated sometimes, I know, but wow.  If a herd of buffalo can be willing to fight for their calf, can't we be willing to fight for the minds, hearts and souls of those around us???  Sure, it can absolutely be possible for people to find freedom with only God and the Bible, but I believe wholeheartedly that in the vast majority of cases, GOD WANTS THE BODY OF CHRIST TO BE A PART OF THE PROCESS.

 

And just like the lions know the buffalo are stronger, demons know WE  as Believers in Jesus are stronger than they are because we are filled with the Holy Spirit of the Lord God Almighty.  (They just don't want us to know that.)

 

James 4:7  "Submit yourselves, then, to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." (!)

 

1 Peter 5:8-9  "Be self-controlled and alert.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings."

 

Ephesians 6:10-12, 18b  "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.  Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.....  With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints."

 

Stand firm brothers and sisters!  May God give us wisdom to know how to fight for those around us who need our help.

 

Blessings...

   ~Melissa

Fruity Update

While we're on the subject of updates (see below) I thought I'd let you know about the current fruit situation. I am very sad to say that we have discovered another threat to our trees lives. (Prepare to smack me on the forehead.) NOT ENOUGH WATER! (You can smack me now, but not too hard, please, because Lowell's really the one in charge of our yard.) Our O'Henry peach tree, which should be full of gorgeous, big, luscious peaches right now has some sad looking very small peaches... and a bunch of broken branches. "A bunch" as in there are more that broke than there are that didn't. It looks so sad that I can't even bear to take a picture of it. (And it's dark outside and I don't want to go out there right now...) I think the water for the trees is quite symbolic of the time I spend reading the Bible and praying. No matter how well I'm doing everything else, if I'm not spending enough time abiding with Him the results will be small at best and disastrous at worst. John 15 has always been one of my favorite passages, yet I can still at times get out of my routines and find myself not spending as much time praying and in the Word until God smacks me on the head and gets my attention. (Please don't ask me where all this head-smacking came from tonight. It's late.) I hope and pray that you all are spending time with Jesus on a regular basis. And that you're not discouraged when it feels like what you're reading or praying is water running off of dry ground. Eventually the water WILL sink in if we keep asking Him to pour it on. I promise.

Adoption Update

Hooray! Our dossier is now in the care of a courier in Maryland who is going to take it to the US State Dept and then to the Thai Embassy for the final steps of authentication, certification and legalization. While we're waiting, we have a few other papers to work on and get ready to be sent up to the Holt office in Eugene, Oregon with our dossier when we get it back from the courier. Once Holt receives it we will REALLY be on the REAL waiting list to be matched with our REAL child! (Right now we're on the list sort of tentatively, pending their receipt of our dossier.) Holt will then send it to Thailand. We're also working on immigration paperwork right now. They are still saying that the time from when they receive our dossier to when we are matched is about 6-8 months for a boy, and more for a girl (we don't have a preference). And once we have a match we agree to it could be 7-9 months til we travel to pick him/her up in Thailand. (And yes, we are planning on taking our kids with us, crazy as it may be.) But again, only God knows how long it will really take. It could be slower or faster. And... if you check out the Holt website, right now there is a 3.5 minute video you can watch of some families meeting their new children for the first time in China. On the main page, look toward the bottom on the left and you should see the video link. Our situation will likely be very different, but it's still interesting (and of course a little emotional!) to see. : )