Living on the edge

With the girls out of town and some moderate temperatures, it was a good day for the boys to get out and explore. We ended up at Ruffner Mountain checking out a few of the trails. It ended up having some terrain I was a bit nervous with as can be seen with D hanging his legs over, and yes it was straight down from there! F kept crawling on his knees to stick his head over and look. I couldn't hang out at this spot too long needles to say.

It was good getting them out to get dirty, throw rocks and sticks, pee in the woods, and generally let their inner caveman out for a while. You should check out the slide show and see how primitive they got.

We topped it off with burgers and shakes and I think I saw one of them loosen their pants and collapse in front of the TV. The girls are still gone so the inner cavemen can hang around a little longer I suppose.

Can Doing God's Work Screw up your Kids?

I can honestly say this is probably not something most Christians ever even wonder. I think most people I know would say of course not, how could that be possible? I bet if you ask a missionary though, you'd get a response like, "Well.............." If they were being honest anyway. Very few of us are ever put in a position of even thinking about this. We are never pushed to think perhaps there is even a chance of us doing something that might not be in the best interest of our children or even thinking God would ask us to do this.

This had been weighing on my mind a bit lately (more as to why in a bit) when I received an update from a missionary family our church supports. Within it was the following:

It was one of the harder letters I’d ever written. The gist of it was this: “Boarding isn’t working for your child, despite all the support you and we are offering.  You need to make a change.”

Let me clarify what a “change” implies: For a bush missionary whose child doesn’t “make it” at boarding school, almost everything about life must change. It may mean bringing that child back to the bush/village and homeschooling them, which may require one parent giving up part or all of his/her ministry. It may mean the family needs to move to a different location where the child can be a day student – giving up home, ministry, church, and friends. It may mean a return to the home country, giving up all the above as well as “Africa”. Whatever the cost, letters like mine are among those missionary parents hope never to get.

You can imagine, then, why this family’s humble and open response brought tears to my eyes. The gist of what they said was: “Thank you for sharing this. What should we do? We are praying for God’s wisdom and help in meeting our child’s needs.”

Seriously? I mean, I can't quite fathom having to wrangle with God on this. Here this family is doing what they believe God called them to do in the middle of stinking no where Africa for a people group they've been lead to, and it's wreaking havoc on their child. How could this not be screwing up their kid, and their family? Just think if they end up leaving and this kid knowing he/she is the reason their parents had to stop doing what they thought God wanted them to do. Holy smokes, that's heavy!

I had been thinking on this just a bit myself because I have been spending a decent amount of time organizing some missions opportunities for our church and I found myself telling my little boys, "no I can't play right now because I have to get this trip organized and some information out tonight!" I immediately felt bad about it, but then told myself this is what God has asked me to do right now, surely it won't hurt my kid's feelings too bad. Will it?

Please don't think I'm at all comparing my few Sunday afternoon and evenings of short term missions planning instead of tossing the football in the yard or playing the Xbox for the umpteenth time with my boys anywhere near this families struggle. It just got me thinking as both events occurred within the same week and as I dive more into short term missions, orphan/adoption advocacy, another adoption, and other generally "Godly" endeavors on top of my regular work a day life.

I don't have any answers other than God has my family and this missionary family in His hands and His grace is so overflowing that it will be ok, I hope, it will, right? So how does one balance God's callings and kids?

C'mon man, this is crazy!

Do you ever find yourself asking, how did anyone live without the global connectivity and speed of the interwebz? I mean, coordinating a group outing by actually calling everyone on their home phone is so 2007, right?! I even recently pondered, how in heaven's name did missionaries actually get anything done in terms of communicating their activities, vision, and fundraising? How did anyone ever plan a short term mission trip for crying out loud with a missionary in the field? Are you serious, pick up the phone at some predetermined time to call half way around the world to have a sketchy conversation at best and try and organize something? Or God forbid have to do it by writing letters back and forth! How did God mobilize his armies and people around the world? How did He do that without all of this technology? I mean, seriously? C'mon man, how did all that stuff actually get done?! I seriously want to know how Moses created the first flash mob to make a run for it out of Egypt?

Just this week alone I've coordinated a mission trip to Honduras in 140 characters or less, Skype on my cell phone connected to a public wireless access point, and a crap load of email blasts. This alone was exhausting, I'm on the verge of carpel tunnel. I think I'd have to take the pencil to my eye if I had to have written everything i've digitally composed this week with said pencil!

Annnnd, we received a most amazing update on our advocacy for Xiao. Through the last blog post and a few emails from that, we received the following from someone on the ground, in China!

Last night we spoke to a US family living in Xi'an who are willing to bring him into their family as a foster child (and in this way we can get the right investigations done, get their immunisations done to international standards, and get them on ARV's (which they almost certainly are not on when they are in their orphanages)

Seriously, how crazy is that?! Now I'm not saying just because I was killing time surfing Google+ late one night in bed, and emailed an article to Melissa about a boy in China with HIV being neglected, then wrote a blog post about it, which had Melissa bumping around the interwebz for all things China, HIV, orphans, etc... to then run across someone on the ground there, who she emailed, who read our blog, who posted some feedback on our blog with another contact, who we emailed, and then began digging a bit, is why Xiao might be having a family to foster him... but C'mon Man, this is craaaaazy!

What an amazing example of how all things we create, dream up, build can be used to God's glory and to accomplish His mission. Keep praying for Xiao and we'll keep blasting emails, tweets, FB posts, and blog posts until we know he is where God wants him to be.

Christmas Card Photo

When we first had B 16 years ago, it just sort of felt like fun to send out a Christmas card showing of our new bundle of joy. As this year's pic can attest, it just becomes an attempt to tame the chaos just long enough to get something in focus. Melissa's dad wanted family pics made when we were in Tulsa this summer, which included her sister and her kids too. There was no way we were going to attempt to even try and accomplish this again for Christmas cards so we found something from that batch. And when you look at this picture that we actually chose from the pile, you have to ask, what did the others look like if this is the one you picked?! At least in this one, we are all looking at the camera. None the less, the kids look great and are excited for Christmas. As you could probably ascertain from the photo, Melissa and I are just hanging on, in a good way though.

Tis the season!

11 Takeaways from Together for Adoption including cottage cheese

For the past 2 days I've had the privilege of representing Lifesong for Orphans at this year's national Together for Adoption conference in Phoenix. What a great honor and blessing this has been to be in the middle of such an amazing group of people and to share about the great work Lifesong is doing!

I've got so many things flinging around my head that it's difficult to string them together, but a few takeaways from the 2 days in no particular order of priority or seriousness:

it's still seriously hot in late October in the middle of the afternoon in Phoenix (the exhibitor tables/booths were all outside!)

there isn't near the volume of hipster christians at an adoption/orphan conference as there is at a Catalyst conference, but they are still seriously committed and crazy about orphans!

young couples with no children who travel to an adoption conference to learn about advocating for orphans and knowing God has called them to this journey deserve a HUGE amount of praise, respect, and support (and no they aren't infertile and don't "have" to adopt)

Noel Piper can draw a crowd!

God never calls you to do what YOU can do, but rather what He can do so there's no doubt who's pulling it off! @JeffVanderstelt

American Christians have to figure out concept of "enough" to make big kingdom impacts in areas like adoption

Christians should be about social justice because we have God's grace, shouldn't do social justice to get God's grace

If I was anywhere near Memphis I would definitely be trying to get to Bryan Loritts' church Fellowship Memphis

Black people, for the most part, don't/won't eat cottage cheese (see Bryan Loritts above)

Young pastors with families who start new churches in difficult places amaze me! (see @JeffVanderstelt above)

There are some crazy cool organizations doing amazing things for orphans and adoption in general and I'm learning so much about God's grace through it all!! 

He's party rockin fine, thank you

It's been 18 months since F joined our family from China. Having come to our family as a 3 year old, it's logical to wonder how a child of that age will adapt to a new family, new language, new culture, etc... We quite often get the question, "how has F adjusted?" Well let's see...

For better or worse, I'd say he's doing just fine, thank you for asking.

But, but, but...

We've all been there right? We whole heartedly believe God wants us to do something spectacular, jump in with both feet, do something requiring stupid faith, right? Right! So we commit, and we tell people we have committed to _____, and we say to ourselves,

whew, glad I'm obeying that call, glad I've got some time to figure that out, i've got some time to figure out how to ask others for $$ to pull off this God sized project

And then.... it's "some time" later and we/you/I have that, oh crap! moment, it's just around the corner! We then go through the but syndrome.

• but God, I'm so busy right now
• but our septic tank just went out
• but work is really chaotic and time off might not help my career
• but that's a really long time to leave the wife and kids at home
• but that's a stinking long way from home
• but those travel arrangements are ludicrously difficult
• but I feel REALLY cheesy/grimy/slimy asking people for $$ to do something God asked ME to do
• but....

I'm now at that point where I asked God to open doors for me to use my education, training, experience in missional ways, and you know what, he brought them to me. But... they are in Honduras, Zambia, India, Liberia, etc... and those are a long way from home and cost a lot of $$$ to get there and back.

Dutch and I are going with Lifesong for Orphans  to their orphan care ministry in Zambia at the end of September. So here it is much closer than I had in my mind, and we don't have extra piles of $$$ laying around to get us to Africa and back (we do have 5 kids after all). Those of you who know us, know we've been to Guatemala and Honduras this past year or so, but didn't have to raise any money. Going to Central America isn't much different than California these days, airfare and other things included. But going to Africa is on another planet for airfare and logistics!

However, we are being faithful, committed to going, committed to using the skills and knowledge God has provided me to help their teachers and 200+ orphans and highly vulnerable children. Will you consider helping us go and serve these children by donating $25, $50, $100?

Will you help us begin to change their story? (link to fundraising page or you can talk do me directly)

Brush to Berries from Lifesong for Orphans

Tooth Fairy or Tooth Rat?

It's not his first, but seems to be the most memorable so far; E lost one of his front teeth a few days ago. Given that he is such a tender and weepy boy, it's no less than a miracle in and of itself we got it out.

A little back story... Melissa and I have to be the worst tooth fairy parents on the planet! I can't tell you how many times now going onto child number 4 we've had to pull out the "i'm sure the tooth fairy was just super busy tonight and will surely come tonight"... I'm sure you are on the list or the database given it's 2011, right? All the while feeling like such slouches for not thinking to run out to the ATM or scrounge around for some change in the cushions or something, sheesh!

The good news is the first 3 love their tender hearted little E so much, they can't stand to see him sad or heart broken. So now we have 2 momma birds and a daddy bird nagging at me and Melissa, DON"T FORGET the tooth fairy! Well D had a stroke of genius in the midst of reminding us and he said, hey you should give E some Guatemalan money from the tooth fairy. While we NEVER seem to have dollar bills or enough change to equal $1 (for those of you driving up tooth inflation cost by giving $5, $10, or even presents, please stop it! You are killing those of us with more than 1 kid and your economic model for valuing a tooth is stupid crazy) but we do have a bunch of Quetzales. And besides, it's about Q7.50 per dollar right now, so we are coming out pretty good on this exchange rate for 1 Guat tooth.

E was pretty excited he got something the next morning and when he figured out it was Guat money, he couldn't believe it. He said, "Daddy, the tooth fairy knew I was born in Guatemala!" He had the biggest, toothy grin knowing the tooth fairy knew this about him.

Turns out though, they don't have a tooth fairy in Guatemala, they have a tooth rat! Seriously, a rat? Now my friend in Guatemala says it's a mouse, but they still call him Ratoncito, which according to Google translate is still a rat! I have a little time to figure out what crazy creature will show up at our house when F begins to lose teeth, but I'll be seriously disappointed if it's not seem really cool dragon creature.

What fun cultural traditions do you attempt to bring into your family?