Meet our friends: Logan & Brandi Wade, they are adopting from Ethiopia too. Check out their wonderful Blog.

http://www.ourethiopiandaughter.weebly.com/

People who inspire me most are those that give and love without limits. Check out Kari's limitless love for orphans and what she is doing to encourage others to step out in faith...

•     
• Prize: Mission Trip to Ethiopia, February 17-26, 2011
• Prize value: $3100
• Number of winners: 1-2
• Number of Tee shirts to sell: 183 + 183
• Ending date of the giveaway: 10/28/10
• Where it can be won: My Crazy Adoption Blog
• The prize is from: www.mycrazyadoption.com
• To enter this giveaway, you can: purchase a tee shirt at My Crazy Adoption Store
  

Thanks for all your cheers, support and prayers for the missions project!!  You can continue to purchase ANY tee shirts for the giveaway at My Crazy Store.  1 Tee = 1 Entry to win… it’s up to you.

                                                    BUY a T-Shirt to enter this contest.  I have several of Kari T-shirts, they are soft and comfy.

My thoughts a little over a year ago...

When I asked God to bring us a child, his child, I always hoped that he would bless us.  After 13 years I wondered if he would, not if he could.  His child, our child, what did they look like?  I imagined they wouldn’t look like me.  That’s o.k. because I had always imagined they would be His and we would get the benefit of loving them.  Questions… What would the world say about our decision to adopt internationally/interracially?  People had plenty of concerns and lots of hesitation and advice.  But I still felt God’s leading, prompting… a lot of the time to tears.  Would the world understand our little mixed up family of different race and beginnings?  Or did it matter?  What does God’s heart say?  What does God’s family look like?  Are we meant to love his children based on color, or social status?  ”Of course not” I felt Him say.  Then why do I struggle so?   God, I came to realize, was doing exactly what I have asked him to do.  Over and over I have prayed, “Use me Oh God, empty me of me, and fill me with you.  Help me to see your will God.  Let me see with Your eyes, not mine”.  My heart struggles with the needs of the worlds’ children, her orphans.  So many, how will we choose which one to help?  Then months of waiting turn into years, and we wait.  God’s word says “Wait upon the Lord and he will renew thy strength”.  My concern… will I be strong enough, bold enough, and fearless enough?  Can I be Jesus to the world?  Lucky for me God made both myself and Tim naturally bold.  So that hurdle is crossed, but still to be different, God’s kind of different, you not only have to be bold but armed… armed with His strength.

The waiting looks a little to those watching us like lethargy.  It probably doesn’t help that we have become somewhat private about the matter.  Some have said maybe we are just selfish for not having any children, some pity us for not being able to have “your own children”, and others are just honestly perplexed with us.  We are well… just waiting.  Tim and I determined a long time ago that when God had a child for us he would bring them to us.  Hence my wonder if he ever would after 13 years, not if he could.  We would never pretend to know better than God, so we wait.  I pretty much can’t sit still, just ask my Mom, so I determined that while I waited I would study.  What does God’s word say about adoption?  Plenty!  Well this will fill some time.   Funny that God’s strength seems to pour from his word.  So, while we wait we will gain strength and understanding.

I now pray for peace.  Peace that God is moving.   ”God moves in his time not ours” I’ve heard over and over and have begun to realize it is true, and that someone before me made up that saying because they too waited and waited, then God moved. 

 I see God moving in big ways in our Sunday school class formed to teach believers about what God says about orphans, adoption, and “the least of these”.  The pure love of God pouring right down into our classroom, out into the congregation and then across the sea is almost unfathomable.  To ask God and actually watch him move moves me into speechlessness.  I do not have the words to express how thankful I am to God for using a little Sunday school class in Linton, IN to be part of His will for His people.  His grace is sufficient not only for us but for this hurting world.  You know your God is big but there are times when I truly see His magnitude that I can hardly contain the emotions that sweep over me.  I know God can, and will do immeasurably more than we ask.  I see him do it every day now, strange how I missed it before.    

A.C. 09/07/09

Malaria facts...

Malaria

Mosquito borne disease

 

Second leading cause of death in Africa

Malaria is gaining global momentum

Female mosquitoes feed on blood

Mosquitoes carry a parasitic microorganism that is the cause of malaria.

When a mosquito bites an infected person it picks up the parasite along with the blood, then when it bites another person it releases the parasite into that person who then becomes infected.

More than 2,000 children die each day from malaria- approx. one every 40 seconds.

An estimated 50% of the world’s population is at risk of malaria.

An estimated 250 million people are infected each year.

85% of malaria deaths are children under 5 years old.

There is hope:

If 80% of the community population is sleeping under mosquito insecticidal-treated nets the malaria prevalence can decrease by 50%.

There is currently no cure for malaria, but we can help prevent the spread.  See World Visions web-site www.worldvision.org/ReadandRespond or check out www.gocrossway.org