Visible Grace

Today I wanted to inform you about a fabulous non-profit and my even more fabulous friend who started and runs it.  Ashby Rauch started Visible Grace a few years ago.  In Ashby's own words, Visible Grace is "a non-profit organization committed to providing faith-based education to children in need. Our goal is to help alleviate poverty by empowering children through education. With a holistic philosophy, we believe that children will best learn when they are cared for physically, mentally and spiritually."

Their first major project is to build a school and home for orphaned children in Nairobi, Kenya.  They have purchased 10 acres of land, have blueprints of the buildings, and just received their building permits from the Government.  They are hoping to begin laying the cement foundation this summer.

Please take a few minutes to watch this video and get a glimpse of Ashby, the country and people she loves and is trying to help, and learn more about Visible Grace.  If you would like to donate to this wonderful organization, head on over to the webpage. 

Recycle Love is also teaming up with Visible Grace this summer.  We are fundraising to send two people to Africa this July with Ashby.  Our goal is to send Pete Dryden and Jesse Beam to Kenya to document the work that Visible Grace is doing.  Pete and Jesse will be able to brig new light to the work going on there, and bring that vision back here to the States.  By sharing the documentary they make, we can educate and inform more people about Visible Grace and the home/school in Kenya.  

If you are interested in helping Recycle Love send Pete and Jesse to Africa, visit HERE.  And if you are local, we are having a FREE benefit concert here in town on Saturday June 4th, 7:00pm.  Hope to see you there!

Lots of stuff going on!!

I have been absent from blogging for over a month again, and it's from lack of time to just sit and write!  Things are kind of crazy around here with lots of different things going on, which I'll update on later.  For now I would like to point out two very very important things happening that are near and dear to my heart from two non-profits that I work with.

First off is the Love Feeds Raffle.  Love Feeds is a non-profit that's main mission is to feed and clothe people in need, both here in the US and in other countries.  I am directly involved in this non-profit, as I am their Oregon coordinator.   Entries in the raffle start at $1, but the more you spend the more you get.  A $25 purchase option will get you 60 entries!!!  There are 4 prize packages with fabulous prizes!!  Please go check it out!  :)  LOVE FEEDS RAFFLE!!!!!!   (here is a sneak peek at the Grand Prize.....rest of the prizes show at the raffle page!)

 

Next thing going on is for Recycle Love.  We are fundraising to send 2 people to Africa to work with Visible Grace and document the work going on there.  The goal is to show people here in the States all that is going on to educate them, get them excited about Visible Grace's work, and maybe get more financial supporters.  Our goal is 420 people each donating $10.  Check it out and see if you would like to help with our fundraising!  

Anyone who would like to repost about either of these two fundraisers going on right now, it would be GREATLY appreciated!  We are running out of time on both.  Thank you!!!!

No two are alike

When I was pregnant with Jazmine, I was tiny and petite, no one even realized I was 7 months pregnant if I had a sweatshirt on, I wore my regular jeans the entire pregnancy, she kicked and kicked and kicked for hours upon hours every single day, I was never sick, never tired, and honestly, minus the fact that she was competing to be an Olympic Soccer player in my tummy and actually bruised me from those kicks, it was a cake-walk.  Well, until labor...haha.  But 22hrs later and a very smooth delivery, I held a gorgeous baby girl (who was supposed to be a boy, though I was the only one in the room NOT shocked that I was holding a girl not a boy).

Jazmine got started in the world and never stopped.  She was walking at 9 months, running at 10 months, counting to 10 and saying half her alphabet by her first birthday.  By the time her brother came along when she was 15 1/2 months old, she could count to 20, knew colors, shapes, alphabet, and could easily get across what she wanted/needed using words.  She was a sponge.  She would sit forever in my lap and read books with me soaking up all the knowledge I was actively trying to give her.  And as soon as the books were put away, she was on the run again.  She was writing her name 2 years ago, and could add and subtract any amount of numbers under 10 (ex 1+5+3+8+5) almost a year and a half ago.  To this day she continues to amaze me with her knowledge, focus ability, attention span, and her grasp of complex ideas.

Isaac had me sick 24/7 for months.  I was exhausted constantly and was trying to chase a toddler all day long in the middle of that.  I needed maternity clothes by 3 months, by the time I was 6 months along I had people thinking I was due ANY DAY and asking me "How come you haven't had that baby yet?" since I was so huge.  I was miserable.  By 7 months I was ready to ask the doc to let me have a c-section just to get him out I was so "done" with being pregnant.  When he moved it was slow and deliberate rolls.  And he didn't move very much.  To the point where I was in the doc office getting monitored every week or so to check for heartbeat, fetal movement, etc...

After only 7 hours of labor, Isaac was born.  He thought it would be fun to come out not breathing and give me a heart attack when they had to call the code team.  The little joker went ahead and started breathing just as they walked in the room, so they weren't actually needed.  Just a little chaos to stop this mama's heart from beating.  Speaking of this mama, something happened to me and I was only able to hold him for about 5 seconds before they took him away and worked on getting me stable.  It was definitely not the experience I had expected after the ease of Jazmine.

Isaac was also able to walk by 9 months...but usually chose not to.  He was in no hurry, and I used to joke he was lazy.  When he didn't know his numbers, shapes, colors, etc... by the time Jazmine did, I was asking the doc about him being "behind".  I read and read and read convinced I was not doing right by him.  Jazmine knew all this stuff....what was I do wrong that he didn't?  Even worse, what if he wasn't learning this stuff because he couldn't.

Isaac will be 4 next month.  He can recognize all the letters in the alphabet, tell you his phone number and address, including city and state, he can write a couple letters.  He isn't writing his name yet, definitely can't add and subtract like his sister could, and runs out of interest in anything that has to do with that sort of stuff after about 2 minutes.   He CAN use most the tools in daddy's tool bag very effectively, throw a ball with crazy accuracy, swing a baseball bat like a pro, take things apart in a half a second, tell you what plants and bugs you can eat if you are trying to survive in the wild (thank you, Bear Grylls) and repeat every step of how something was made once he has seen it on How It's Made.

If I want to keep comparing....then is my Jazzie behind?  The good Lord knows she can't hold a screwdriver to save her life...haha...yet alone actually use it effectively.  Her aim leaves something to be desired, and she can't throw a ball that well, and is terrible at swinging a baseball bat.

My point is that my children are very different.  I am finally almost at peace with that...celebrating what they are great at, encouraging them in what they need help with, and taking advantage of what they are interested in currently to grow their little minds.  I can't force Isaac to write all his letters....Lord knows I have tried with an epic fail.  I can't make Jazmine be better with her hands and more athletic.  I have tried that, also with an epic fail.

My amazing children are who they are and they are PERFECT just as they are.  I am trying to stop Googling, stop being a perfectionist, stop comparing....just enjoy who they are and where they are.  And I get better at it every day.  

Wasting my gift

I am not a boastful person, so these couple paragraphs are going to be uncomfortable for me to write in a way. I usually underplay most of my accomplishments. Truth be told, I feel guilty about them most days. I am by no means anyone that people would consider "gifted" but I have been blessed enough to be successful at pretty much whatever I set my mind on.

Sports came easy to me. Softball, soccer, dance, karate, running....if I wanted to do it, I could. And pretty darn well. In school I basically got straight A's. It's not like I was one of those people who didn't have to study, because I did. But not too much. My friends would take hours and hours on their chemistry or calculus homework, I was done in an hour or so. At times, teachers played favorites to me because I did catch on so quick. I felt bad for the other students.

In my work life, I was blessed there, too. I started out as a hostess in a restaurant, but I was a good one. I could clear a lobby and fill an entire restaurant in a matter of minutes. Actually, I was so good at my job, other restaurants in our chain would call and ask me to come be lead on expected busy nights. I worked hard and worked my way up the ladder. Hostess, server, supervisor, manager, corporate trainer, general manager.... If I wanted it, I got it. By the time I was 27 I had everything I wanted from work. I was traveling, had the restaurant of my dreams, had received every award I wanted, had helped to develop and roll out nationwide training programs, I was training new managers, and I was even being sent to restaurants that were having trouble to help the management team "fix" things. And it had been easy. I didn't even go to school for it, and I knew more than the people with their nice little 4yr degrees. I was blessed.

A few years back , as we all know, I took on the job of stay-home mommy. Now, I am just going to leave that topic alone. LOL. I'll let ya know in about 18-20 more years if I was any good at that one. ;)

And it's not just school or work related. It all seems to come easy. My husband(boyfriend at the time) was running a painting business, and after a day on the job with him I was prepping houses to paint better and faster than he was. Working on our car and hubby can't get to the radiator or water pump, no problem. I'll just put them new ones in myself...can't be that hard.

I have been teaching myself some HTML and all my blog and web work is because I wanted to learn, so I Googled tutorials and don't stop until I learn what I want. And it's not all techinical/logic based stuff like I thought it was. I found out I have a creative side. Who knew?!?!? Not me! I spent 30 years of my life saying that God created me without a single creative bone in my body. I was wrong.

My point is that for the most part, I have been able to do or accomplish whatever I have wanted to. Whether the gift from God is the ability to do all these different things, or the gift is that I can do anything I set my mind to I am not sure. It doesn't matter. Either way it is from God. And what I am doing with it? More and more lately I feel like I am wasting it. I should be doing more to glorify HIM with them. How does fixing a radiator or being great at math or a fabulous career or my recent creative outlets bring glory to HIM? And if I still keep finding stuff after 35 years that I am good at, what more is there that I have yet to uncover? And what am I supposed to be doing?

What talents/treasures/gifts do you have that have yet to be discovered? And are you using the gifts you already know you have to bring glory to the Lord?

Love Feeds

WOW!  It's been a month and a half since my last post.  Might be my longest hiatus thus far.  February was crazy crazy crazy busy, and well, March...just haven't been able to put my thoughts into any sort of organization when I had something to share.  So I have tons of drafts and no postings.  LOL.  Maybe I will work on editing some of those into readable posts sometime.  :)

As for now, though, I do have some very exciting news!!  I am honored to announce that I will be an Oregon coordinator for Love Feeds. Love Feeds was founded by my friend Audrea and her husband.  Their mission statement is.... 

The Love Feeds mission is to be more like Christ and feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the unclothed, look after the sick, and take in the stranger that needs a home. It is to show the love of Jesus by meeting the needs of the impoverished, homeless, orphaned, and less fortunate, not only here in America but around the world. Matthew 25: 35-40.

My role here will be to first off, spread the word about Love Feeds.  I will also be working on collecting donations; half of which will be donated locally, and the other half sent to the LF headquarters where it will be distributed to other countries.  Items for donation will range from baby formula, to shoes and clothing, to items for care packages for the homeless, to monetary donations to buy these items.  For anyone interested in finding out how they can help out, I will have a wish list of items posted on the side of my blog by tomorrow!

I am so excited to get this opportunity to work with an organization I feel so strongly about!   Thanks Audrea for this opportunity!   

Happy Valentines Day!

Well I mentioned the other day that I had someone new to introduce you to....so without further delay I'd like you to meet Amy. She blogs over at feet 2 our faith. Amy and her family are in the middle of adopting two children from Uganda. Currently there is a fundraiser going on to help Amy's family through Uppercase Living. Let me tell you....I have never heard of Uppercase Living until this fundraiser started. And now all I want to do is shop!!  I wanted to tell you about this great fundraiser, and I also thought it would be fun to learn more about Amy, her family, and their adoption journey.  Below is Amy, in her own words, answering some questions I had for her.  Oh, and remember.....head over and check out the Uppercase Living fundraiser on her blog!   <3

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Our family is: Brian (a dairy farm manager, loves photography, missions, Indian movies and P90X), Amy (SAHM, Star Diamond Beachbody Coach, runs our photography business Silver Sand Images, loves people, blogging, missions, reading and exercise), Jensi (5th grader who loves horses, is a constant entrepreneur, plays basketball and loves to write), Anneli (3rd grader who loves to read, play imaginatively and is an excellent gymnast), Oliver (a homeschooled preschooler who loves dinosaurs, tractors and making spaceships out of couch cushions) and Darrah Kate (a 20 month old who loves to dance, explore her siblings possessions, pretend with Oliver and has a best friend: her elephant Fluffernutter). We have three children who await us in heaven as well: Timothy, Hope and Oskar.

God led us to adopt. This was a decision that was not made by emotion but rather out of obedience. We knew that orphans were living without families all over the world. The command in Scripture to care for the orphan as well as the psalm that declares God is a Father to the fatherless and that he sets the lonely in families spoke deeply to our hearts. I have also had a life-long desire to have twins. One of my pregnancies was a set of twins but about halfway through, sweet Timothy went ahead to Jesus. I have accepted that perhaps I will join those in Hebrews 11 who did not see the answer to their promise in this life, but will receive it in full in Heaven. However, after our son Oskar died, I felt the Lord encouraging me to not give up in praying for another set of twins. Of course I assumed my next pregnancy would be a set of twins, but it was not (it was Darrah Kate...who is arguably as busy as a set of twins!) After feeling “settled” with our 4 children, God reminded me of praying for another set of twins. I stayed silent regarding this and told God that if He were referring to adoption, then He needed to speak to Brian about this. Less than 2 months later, Brian called me broken over the orphan crisis and the above mentioned Scriptures were burning in his heart. He asked me if I had ever considered adoption. I smiled and answered, “well, yes I have.” That week we decided to follow God in obedience to adopt and have never looked back.

We began with the countries closest to our hearts: China (we served there for 2 years) and India. China’s adoption timeline is running 4-5 years and we wanted to adopt while our oldest girls are still children. India has a policy that 4 children in the home is too many...and we’d need to adopt older than our oldest, something we came to understand was not in our other children’s best interest. We then considered the neediest areas in the world: Africa. We pursued adoption from Zambia and applied to an agency, but just as we did, they closed their Zambia program due to the corruption in the Zambian government. They recommended us to our current agency, Generations Adoptions, and after much research, we took this recommendation. They work in Mexico, Uganda and Ghana. We chose Uganda because our hearts drew us there.

We are nearing the end of the first 1/3 of the process. We have completed our home study...almost. We await a document that takes up to 4 months in Ohio. (It’s been 2 1/2 months so far.) Once that is finished, then we will apply to USCIS (Immigration). Then we will be able to send our dossier to Uganda and await our referral.

We do not yet know anything about the specific children we will adopt. Our agency works with a babies home that is a ministry arm of a local Ugandan church. All of the children in the home have been abandoned and most are double orphans (have lost both parents). Most children are under the age of 2, although age is sometimes difficult to assess given malnutrition and lack of history. We have requested at least one boy and have mentioned a preference of twins, although we are okay if they are not.

Advice...I don’t know that I’m far enough along to give advice! I would repeat some advice given to us: “If you know this is what God is asking, do not delay in getting going. The process is so lengthy, just get started!” I would also encourage interested adoptive families to do good research into agencies and ask lots of questions about where the children will come from. There is sadly a lot of corruption in the adoption “market” and one must be vigilant to find an agency that comes highly recommended with no record of shady dealings. I would also recommend that they get involved in the blogging community, whether or not they choose to blog themselves. I have met the most amazing people this way and they have taught me much and encouraged me along this sometimes difficult path.

Other things about our family...we have a passion to serve God overseas and feel we are constantly trying to go. However, we have been placed in this NW corner of Ohio for a reason and we are embracing that as His place for us for now. We would love to one day go overseas and serve in some capacity as an entire family of 8...but we will wait for God to reveal that plan in His time!

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5/28

Okay, I am cheating!  Yes, I pulled this pic from one of my older favorites.  But this so perfectly is the love that my children share for each other which makes this mama's heart overflow with more LOVE than I even know what to do with!...... (I'll try to not cheat tomorrow...hahaha!) 

4/28

Hello!  Okay, yesterday was just one of those busy days.  Basically left the house at 6:15am and not home until around 9:30pm.  So I am just now posting yesterdays pic....and I see LOVE in the beauty that God gives us everywhere we look.

3/28

Tomorrow I will have an actual post introducing you to a wonderful new friend! Today, I just have my Love Strand Challenge Photo. This one is about my love of quiet time to just be......Every morning I wake up before everyone else, grab my coffee, and relax to prepare for the day.  I'll read, pray, listen to worship music....  It starts my day off on the right foot.  And honestly, it makes my day with my family that much better!