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Here’s a photo of our Letter of Acceptance that we FINALLY received on Monday and returned, so it should be on it’s way to China! The title says “Letter Seeking Confirmation from Adopter”. So basically they want to know if we still want her. Like there’s any question!!!
Yesterday the boys and I spent a couple of hours volunteering at the Operation Christmas Child drop-off center in Starkville. This is the 3rd or 4th year we’ve done this, and we all LOVE it! We collected and boxed for shipping close to 400 shoe boxes yesterday. The coolest part is that all of the volunteers stop and pray over the boxes every time someone drops new boxes off. The boxes are also all prayed over again at the distribution centers, and hopefully prayed over by the individuals and groups who packed them initially. Such a small things to do to impact the life of a child. Go here for more info on how to pack a box and a place near you to drop them off. You can drop boxes off thru next Monday. Here are photos from yesterday.
Caleb and Titus pushing a filled shipping box over to be sealed.
Me and Eli checking boxes
Caleb pushing a filled shipping box.
And finally our Halloween photos ( a little late). I’m a little bit stressed trying to get ready for the holidays and for Rachel and still make time for school. So my computer time is suffering.
Eli as a Wii remote (he and Tommy made the costume)
Brave Sir Titus
Tim Tebow Caleb in his Heisman pose
Tommy and Titus with Titus’s pumpkin
Eli with his pumpkin(All of our pumpkins had to have ears this year, thanks to the Thompsons!)
Titus with his pumpkin
Caleb with “The Giant”
Kim is on the road today so I am posting this. We heard today from Lifeline that our LOA (Letter of Approval) had arrived! This is the official letter from the Chinese Government approving our Adoption. In 2-4 weeks we will get a Travel Approval then we will be planning the trip based on when we get our appointment at the Consulate. So we might travel end of December but probably early January.
Just want to remind everyone that it’s time to get your shoe boxes ready for Operation Christmas Child. Drop-off is next week, November 17-24. To find out how to pack a shoe box, go here. To find a drop-off location near you, go here.
Our family has done this for the past several years. Our kids love it! I let each of our sons pack 2-3 boxes for boys their age. Then I have fun packing girl boxes. 
We are so very blessed in our country. Most of us will spend a significant amount of money this Christmas even with the struggling economy. This is a small way to give to those who may not have a Christmas. If you don’t think that you can pack any boxes, you can donate money to help ship the boxes. $7 ships one box.
I went to see the movie The Secret Life of Bees week before last. I read the book this past summer. I thought that the movie did a pretty good job of telling the story. It’s a story set in South Carolina in the 1960s about a young girl, Lily, who runs away from her abusive father who has raised her since her mother died when Lily was very young. Lily and her black friend/housekeeper run away and end up staying with three black sisters, May, June, and August, who are beekeepers. The story contains powerful messages about racism and healing. But the one passage from the book that stuck with me, although including in the movie, was poorly interpreted I felt. It’s a conversation between August and Lily about how August’s house was painted bright pink because of May. May’s twin sister died when they were young, and she has been “different” ever since, personally feeling the weight of anything bad that happens in the world. Here it is:
We walked to the woods beside the pink house with her stories still pulled soft around our shoulders. I could feel them touching me in places, like an actual shawl.
“There is one thing I don’t get,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“How come if your favorite color is blue, you painted your house so pink?”
She laughed. “That was May’s doing. She was with me the day I went to the paint store to pick out the color. I had a nice tan color in mind, but May latched on to this sample called Caribbean Pink. She said it made her feel like dancing a Spanish flamenco. I thought, ‘Well, this is the tackiest color I’ve ever seen, and we’ll have half the town talking about us, but if it can lift May’s heart like that I guess she ought to live inside it.’”
“All this time I just figured you liked pink,” I said.
She laughed again. “You know, some things don’t matter that much, Lily. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person’s heart–now that matters. The whole problem with people is–”
“They don’t know what matters and what doesn’t,” I said, filling in her sentence and feeling proud of myself for doing so.
“I was gonna say, The problem is they know what matters, but they don’t choose it. You know how hard that is, Lily? I love May, but it was still so hard to choose Caribbean Pink. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters.”
All I have to say is that this is BRILLIANT!!!
Something I’ve been trying to do for the past few years is to read scripture with new eyes–like I’m reading it for the first time. The reason for this is that I was taught–not in words, but more in action–that we already know what scripture says and the only reason that we need to study it is so that we can know which scriptures support what we believe. The reason that we need to know this is so that we can set everyone else who is living in error (those outside of our particular denomination) straight.
The Message//Remix: The Bible in Contemporary Language is one translation/paraphrase that has helped me to read scripture anew. I constantly find myself referring to other versions to check, “Does it really say that?” The answer thus far has been “yes”. It’s just that I’ve read scripture so much with the idea that I already know what it says that I’ve missed a lot. I’ve missed what tremendous good news is really contained there!
Recently, I’ve been reading the Gospel of John in The Message and in the New Living Translation. This morning I was struck by this passage where Jesus is speaking to the Jews who wanted to kill him:
“You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you’ll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren’t willing to receive from me the life you say you want.”
Here it is in the New Living Translation:
“You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.”
I even read it in the NIV and KJV. (Old habits die hard. )
This passage was just confirmation of what I believe God has been trying to teach me for the past several years. For so many years I was a dedicated student of scripture because that was what just what I was “supposed to do.” But I have begun to understand that, while I had a relationship with God then, I was putting almost all of my energy into having a relationship with a book, which is impossible. Don’t get me wrong. I strongly believe in the authority of scripture and the importance of studying God’s Word. But for so long I was missing what God was trying to teach me through His Word–that He is the point of everything, getting to know Him more and more is the whole point of everything!
Here’s a link telling why The Message was written and also a little about how it was translated. Pretty interesting. At the bottom of the page you can also read any passage from The Message.
There are numerous families on the web trying to raise money for their adoptions. Here are two items for sale that I’ve run across recently. I love them both!
First is a magnetic bumper sticker:
Next are some t-shirts:
Okay, I had decided that I was not going to broach the political realm for a while because I’m simply sick of the whole thing. All I could think for the past few weeks is, “Can this PLEASE be over all ready so my inbox will once again be free of political junk!”
But the responses on Facebook of all of my conservative friends was very discouraging and in some cases appalling. I voted for Obama, but I would have been fine if McCain had won. I would not have acted like it was the end of the world.
I have received some of the craziest e-mails ever in the last few weeks–everything from Obama is another Castro in disguise to he’s the beast described in the book of Revelations. How about…he’s just another politician who may or may not be able to enact changes that will make our country an even better place to live.
Most of the folks I’ve talked to over the past few months about the election stated that they didn’t like McCain but they were voting for him because Obama scared them. I attribute much of this fear to the insane amount of crap that is passed around on the internet as truth. The worst part of the whole thing is that when my husband continued to suggest that friends sending us anti-Obama e-mails check truthorfiction.com or another such sight before forwarding these things, they lamblasted truthorfiction as being biased. They also accused Obama of being willing to say anything to get elected. Strangely enough, these same people were willing to say anything to keep him from getting elected even if it is not the truth.
I’m also sick of my friends talking to me as if they KNOW my political views simply because I’m a Christ-follower. I wrote earlier about my former beliefs that Christians could not vote for a Democrat. I feel the need to expand my explanation.
The reason that so many Christians believe that a Christian should not vote for a Democrat is mainly because of the issue of abortion. While I am strongly against abortion, I believe that it is solely one issue–an issue that very little has happened over the past 30+ years to change our countries’ policy on. I guess the main reason that abortion is not such a huge issue in determining who to vote for is that I don’t believe that you can legislate morality. Reversal of Roe v. Wade will save lives, but it will not change hearts. Only God can do that. And He has, for some crazy reason, chosen us as his vessels to carry His love and heart-changing message to all of the aching hearts in our country and around the world.
So my challenge to all of my mourning friends is instead of grumbling and complaining, you be the change that you want to see in our world. Our God is powerful, but His power can only reach those who are hurting if we spend time with those hurting souls. Too many people I know are too busy enjoying their comfortable American prosperity to step out and find those people in their towns for whom the American dream is not a reality. Maybe we need to introduce them to One whose love for them is not dependent on where they live, the color of their skin, the mistakes they have made, their level of education, or how much money they make. I’m guilty of what I described above, but I asked God for years and he has finally brought people into my life who are very different from me who have very different backgrounds from mine. He has used me to minister to them, but even more amazing is the way that these folks have blessed my life! My relationship with them has also helped me to see that it’s not as easy as it looks to pull yourself up when you’ve made mistakes(like we all do–some just have more lasting consequences than others). One of the biggest things I’ve found is that many of them just need someone to care about them, to show an interest in their lives, and to encourage them not to give up–someone to love them unconditionally the way God does.
Here’s a post from a blog that my husband reads. It expresses well the struggle that many Christians have had in deciding who to vote for in this election.
I passed on an e-mail several weeks ago concerning violence that had broken out against Christians in India. The violence continues and has been going on for two months now. Please pray for peace in this part of the world and for strength for the Christians in India. Here’s a link to information about this at Mission India. You can read about the situation and listen to an interview with a staff member from Mission India.
One of my favorite charities Love Without Boundaries has started a special project called “Coats ‘n’ Cribs for Kids” to make sure that orphans in China stay warm this winter. For $12 you can provide a coat for an orphan or for $75 you can provide a safe crib. They also will sent you gift cards if you would like to give this donation in someone’s name. I love this kind of gift idea–most of my friends and family have far more than they need. So this is a great way to honor them by helping someone who is truly in need. I think I’ll give a coat in each of my nieces’ names. My sister and I are always looking for gift ideas to give each others’ kids to help reinforce the message of how very blessed we are compared to others in the world. For Easter last year she fed a child for a year in honor of my children.
Also, check out this blog post about the 143 million orphans in the world.
One last thing, my husband introduced Rachel to our church a few weeks ago when he preached. If you haven’t read it on his blog already, go here.
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