Dairy Love to Uganda!

We've been blogging several of the things that have happened while we have been in Africa. But honestly,

there is NO WAY to tell it all.

However, I want to share some of the work that Brian did while he was here.

As many know, Brian is a dairyman. He operates a large (1,500 head) dairy operation in Ohio. Although he works in this small corner of our existence, he has a heart that goes out to the nations. He knew we were coming to Africa to adopt, but he could not pass up the opportunity to help out a few villages with his dairy expertise.

He spent two full days deworming cattle and goats and giving them an extra nutritional boost. I followed him around with the camera. (I preferred the safety of distance from some of these long horned fellows!)

We traveled on this footpath in a 4WD vehicle to reach the villagers!

Valuable tools to Brian's work!

This village man was a very happy, willing assistant!

"Open WIDE!!" It was funny, some goats whined and complained like toddlers...others said nothing!

Fortunately, deworming cattle is a topical thing now...

This should serve as a reminder to not ask Brian to give you your next shot!!

The goat hold!

A sweet boy who captured my attention while Brian worked on nearly 103 goats and over 50 cattle!

"You said you want to DE-WORM me??!?!?!"

Going to Uganda!!

We bought tickets to travel to Uganda!! We are incredibly excited!!!!! 

We are going to hold this sweet little one's hand and love all over him!!

Many people are dying to know details...and well, we can't give out too much at this point. (Sorry!) But we can share with you that our trip is NOT to bring him home, as we do not have a court date assigned to us at this point. We are simply going because we are in love and we MUST be with this sweet boy and begin bonding with him and his culture.

As many of you know, we have lived overseas before. We absolutely cannot wait to spend some time in his culture learning what life in Uganda is like. We will be spending time together with Z in his orphanage serving all the children while we are there. (It's a big job to feed that many kids 5x a day!)

We are also excited to be able to help out different ministries with their dairy cows and goats as well! We are so thrilled that a pharmaceutical company is DONATING some special deworming medicine that will greatly help out the Ugandan animals! Brian will use his expertise in many locations and we are so thrilled to have this opportunity!

Now the hard part...waiting to board the plane!! Hmmmm, I sense a theme here! Do you?

She surpassed her goal!!!!

I am so very very pleased to report that Jensi's earring project far exceeded her  goal!! If you missed this project, check out the second to last day of the Love Strand Challenge or just click here.

Jensi's goal was to send TWO flocks of chickens to impoverished families living in Africa. She spent 2 years raising chickens herself for 4H projects. She was thumbing through Samaritan's Purse Gift Catalog at Christmastime and got the idea to raise money to send chickens. She got so excited to think of all the ways that a flock could help a family: they could have fresh eggs, they could hatch new chicks and sell them, they could butcher the chickens for meat as well as use their manure for fertilizer for their fields.

After all the money was counted and earrings delivered, we were thrilled to realize she sold enough earrings to send EIGHT flocks of chickens to needy families!!!! WOOOOO HOOOOOO!!!

Here's to good ideas, young kids and awesome organizations who facilitate such practical ways of helping!!!

How could you do that to your kids?

This is a question I've heard from people over the years. "How can you take those precious children to China for two years?" "How can you think about moving to India with those children?" "What about your REAL children...(when you adopt)? What will it do to them?" [This causes me to shudder as I realize that others place a separation between our biological children and our someday-to-be adopted children!]

These are real questions I have fielded. From people I love.

How can we do these "mean" things to our children? How can we cart them halfway around the world in the name of Christ? How can we upheave their world by adopting orphans who have an unknown past and might bring in unknown diseases? How can we return their Christmas presents and give to the poor instead?

We are called to do these things, not as individuals, but as a family. We do things together. That means serving God too.

It wasn't my idea...we tried tirelessly to go overseas before we had children. God stopped our plans each time. It wasn't until Jensi was 3 and Anneli was 1 that God opened the door and rolled out the red carpet for us to go. And we did. And it was amazing. We saw Him work miracles, both in us and around us. We went through great hardship, but He was enough for us and carried us through.

Certainly, you must know, as human beings we want to shelter our children from pain, hardship and turmoil. We want nothing to touch them that hurts. But don't we all know that our character grows best under the pain of these very things? Consider how a diamond is made--PRESSURE! Might we be praying a more effective prayer if we prayed for God to do whatever He needed to so that we might grow closer to Him rather than 'keep us safe,' or' keep us healthy' or 'bless us' with stuff?

I honestly think I thought I was saving my baby (Oskar) as I allowed Jensi, Anneli and Oliver's hands to be on my belly as they would boldly pray in their childlike faith, "Please God, let this baby live!" I couldn't fathom that God would ever allow a third child of ours to die. I truly thought that by involving my kids, God would protect their hearts from such pain and allow the baby inside me to live. (This is all months before we had any clue that he would in fact die at 39 weeks.)

But guess what? Our sweet Oskar did die. My children, the very same ones who prayed and did not receive what they asked for, walked through the grief with us as a family. They attended their baby brother's funeral, kissed his casket and squeezed my hand when the anniversaries roll around and the tears roll down my cheeks. We have experienced this as a family. And as a family, we have met God in the depths of our despair. Ask any of my children and they will tell you that GOD IS ENOUGH. No matter what they face, they know that He is real and He will help them to learn, grow and glorify Him through it.

So I don't see the fear that others do in our adoption. Questions like "how could we do this to our biological kids" doesn't even compute. How could we not? If God is asking us to take this journey, one that will cause our very family structure to change forever, how could we not include our children in such an opportunity? Even if it goes atrociously bad (which it could), would it still not be worth it? What is the value of living out our faith with our children? Teaching them what forgiveness looks like on a daily basis; learning what it means to love sacrificially; learning how to have faith in God when circumstances say that you should give up. In the end, is that not worth it? And would the fear of such pain seriously cause us to turn around and disobey God's command in our lives? I think you know the answer.

"Truly, truly, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." John 12:24.

We are in the process of dying to ourselves, that we might bear much fruit. It is our prayer that God is glorified through ALL we do. 

Love Strand 10/28

Is it really real? Did I stage this? Ha! No way could I get this happy look out of a child if it weren't there on its own! My son has begged me all day to vacuum and I find myself telling him, "Okay now, that's enough vacuuming!"

Have I died and gone to heaven? Did my cleaning fairy finally arrive? Perhaps the answer is yes...but if this is heaven, I want new carpet!