Please Meet...Two Toby Heroes!!

I'd like to introduce you to some Toby heroes:

Pete and Aaron

These dear brothers had a combined birthday party yesterday! Long in advance they told their mom, "We don't want to have people bring presents for us...instead we want people to bring donations to help Toby come home."

Wow.

Speechless.

Mom said it was fully their own idea.

These boys gave up their birthdays...for the sake of an orphan they'd only seen pictures of on the other side of the world.

They found us in church this morning with big smiles on their faces, "We had our party yesterday," and they held up a wadded white envelope. 

Inside, $289.

That's right.

Two hundred eighty-nine dollars these brothers collected to help bring Toby home.

Tears welled up in my eyes, "So you boys had no presents at all?" my heart aching as I realized their sacrifice.

"Oh we had cards!" Pete piped up. "Lots and lots of cards!!"

They get it. I love that they get it.

Children with hearts bigger than mine. Children who walk away from me at church with the joy in their steps from giving sacrificially.

My heart swells with joy as I watch God bring a far off orphan into our family. He amazes me daily.

:)

Toby, come home.

You Cannot Change the World with a Click

Surprise, surprise! You cannot change the world with a click of the "Share" button on Facebook.

But oh, we'd love that wouldn't we?

We could sit back on our comfy sofas, think about ourselves and our needs, have a heart for 30 minutes for the world and click "Share" and feel GOOD that we've done our part in saving the world and then go back to our self indulgence.

Although we would LIKE that, it isn't like that. And for good reason. Wow. Imagine how much MORE full of ourselves we would become! Already our country is at a dangerous state of comfort, self indulgence and ethnocentrism.


Let me let you in on what has been brewing in my mind since last night.

As I watched a very well made movie by a talented man about Joseph Kony, it hit on a very tender nerve for me: suffering children. I looked at several things before I posted and gave my social support, but I certainly did not look into the sponsoring group's method of handling donations. And as time has given my brain time to percolate, I've considered that maybe I don't want to help make an evil man famous. The end goal of the video Kony 2012 is to raise awareness in the US so that our leadership will send/maintain troops in Africa to help find Kony. At first glance this seems great. But I've begun to wonder, is this the BEST way? I am not doubting our militia/intelligence, I'm just wondering if this targeted method by Jason Russell is the best way to end this horrifying war and crimes against humanity.

The idea of the Kony 2012 video is great: let's do SOMETHING to help. Let's rally our voices, utilize our social media tools and move our leadership to solve the problem. I like this. I do. But reality is that things are complicated. Things are not so black and white and "just click here" to solve the problem.

The thing is, this has been going on for 26 years. TWENTY SIX YEARS. The idea of removing Kony is a great one, it will not solve all the problems borne from this crisis any more than our adoption of one orphan solved the orphan crisis for the entire planet.

Reality is, this is a VERY COMPLICATED MATTER. We cannot sit at home and judge the best way to solve such things anymore than we can read a friend's status update that she's a bit blue and tell her exactly how to get over it.


WE CANNOT FIX AFRICA. ONLY JESUS CAN.

And He can! Oh yes He can! And His healing will be one heart at a time.

I am so glad we have all become aware of this war criminal and the people who have been victimized. They need our prayers. And shocking as it may be, Joseph Kony needs our prayers. He must be stopped and then he needs some serious mercy. It is counter my all human nature to want to pray FOR him, but we can rest in the knowledge that our God is JUST. He is also forgiving, and these matters are only between Kony and the Almighty. We are commanded to pray for our enemies. And I qualify him as my enemy because I align myself with the helpless children.

So, if clicking "share" on Facebook isn't going to solve the LRA problem and tweeting to get Kony famous isn't going to do it, what will?

So glad you asked.

I don't know.

But I do know this, it won't be easy. It will require sacrifice. It will require involvement. Two things we Americans just really don't want to do very much, do we?

Here's a story I came across today, of a woman becoming DOWNWARDLY MOBILE for the sake of Christ. She literally moved into a trailer park to better minister to fringe people for whom God had burdened her heart.

Ah. Now that involves sacrifice. That involves involvement!

See here's the thing, if saving my soul from sin cost my Savior EVERYTHING...why on earth would I assume I could get off scot free by an easy road? If I want to walk with Jesus, doing the work He has for me in this world, it will cost me. (Click here if you want to read Jesus say it in His own words.)

I do not have any answers about what needs to be done. I think the people who have been studying this problem don't know either. But I DO respect them, after all they haven't looked at a problem and shied away from it because it was too hard. They invented a solution. It may or may not be the right one, but they got involved. And although I may not get behind them 100%, I sure respect them for sticking their neck out and working for change.

I want to be keeping my eyes on Jesus and march when He says march. And He just might. I'm just waiting for the word.

Raw and Real

With a post title like that, you know it's gonna be ugly.

Dontcha?
I cannot bring myself to blog often. Let me be raw and real with you: parenting two toddlers who are stagger stepped in age by 7 months is nothing short of HARD, THANKLESS WORK.

We have come to realize that adoption is not all it's cracked up to be. Well, we have given a very needy child a home, more importantly a family...and we've given ourselves more and more WORK.

Better look at that with some "Christian-ese" right? We've given ourselves "more opportunity to trust God."

I think that is what most people would say. That sure sounds better than, "Man this is WAAAAY harder than I ever dreamed!!"

I have discovered that I truly love the IDEA of adoption but the actual work of adoption, not so much. I love the idea of rallying people to help, but the actual helping part, well...that's what I've rallied people together for, right?

Please do not misread me: I love adoption! And I adore Zareb!!! (The children waiting for families break my heart daily!)

But I am NOT liking the discomfort adoption causes in my life. It's clipped my wings in every sense of the word. 

One of the most challenging seasons I have faced, this first 5 months home has been full of so much. And the bulk of it I cannot share. Just know that if you've felt a burden to pray for our family, we have and still do indeed need it.

Something I have come face to face with about myself is that I am a visionary. That's great and awesome when a group needs a leader. When people need motivated. It's great when direction needs to be found. But it's not so great when life is so repetitive, exhausting and well, daily. (You've heard this before from me lately haven't you?)

I have been given hope by those who listen as I bare my soul that God is working on me. At first this thought shocked me. I truly thought NOTHING GOOD was happening. We are not progressing in potty training, I am not progressing in my patience level, I am not doing anything different than I did 4 weeks ago. (I really need to see PROGRESS in order to keep going!) But here it was from two different sources:

"God is working in you. Doing a great thing. He's getting you READY."

Really???

My soul perks up at this. Hope. I feel the lightness of the wind of hope blowing gently into my sails.

God might truly be changing me through...this???

I have now observed myself able to clean up giardia-filled diarrhea that spills out of diapers without losing my head. I stayed up till 2 am last night rocking a feverish Zebby filled with nothing but love and adoration for him. (Previously, I am QUITE SURE I would have been far more worried about how I'd survive the next day because of my "sacrifice!" Blech!) I've knelt down and tried to patiently decipher his stammering sentences. And we've made it out the door for the bus this week with everyone in happy moods and we haven't even missed the bus once this week.

Could it be true?

God is working on me in this...daily nothingness?

YES. It comes to me resoundingly.

Also that I am not surrounded by mundane. This is not "nothingness." I am given a front row seat to the metamorphic changes in a former orphan and a selfish woman. These are the building block moments for his life. These are the slow one-step-forward-two-steps-back days of healing. And for our little Darrah Kate as well. These are the moments that provide them a good strong, solid start in life that they need. The solid base of love they need to know is always here. Their God-infused years of toddlerhood that launch them into life.

This gives me the hope and encouragement to carry on. To see this thing through. To love without measure. To trust my exhaustion and personal needs into the hands of my Savior. He's promised to not only never leave me, but meet all my needs according to His riches (not in accordance to my lack!).

And there I rest.

Time to dole out a snack and change the laundry over. And stop these two from fighting over the Barbie laptop.