January Challenge

I know I know, it's not even Christmas yet and I'm already talking a challenge for the New Year, but hear me out!
We have the best friends in the whole world. Anyone that knows Ryan and Melissa Matlock know what I mean.  Melissa throws baby showers, wedding showers, parties, and give birthday/christmas/house warming gifts to people like its going out of style. Her friends, her co workers, her sister's friends, her mom's friends, people she barely knows! She has one of the most giving hearts I've ever known.  She has taught me a lot about serving.  Ryan has been such a solid friend to my husband for many years.  They are just flat amazing people with hearts for the Lord....

One thing I want more than anything in the world is to see Melissa become a mom. I always joke that she is a better mom to my children than I am. Seriously. I just wait with such anticipation for the day that they bring their child home from Bulgaria.  She's already a mom in my opinion.  She prays for her child, loves someone she hasn't met yet so much to pursue them, and has taken the hours and hours of time filling out paperwork, going through home studies, dr visits, consultations and anything else that is so labor intensive to adopt overseas. She has spent more time "in labor" to deliver her child than many of us ever did giving birth.
I wish I could just write them a check for the thousands of dollars it takes to adopt, but I can't.  But one thing God has laid on my heart (especially through reading Jen Hatmaker's book 7...ouch) is that I can do something.  I can give up something for a month and give them the money that I would have spent on myself and silly pleasures to help go toward their cost.  It may not be much, but it will be a sacrifice. It's not so much about the money as it is the sacrifice. I feel God calling me to make a very hard sacrifice....drum roll please.....COKE. I started to go through my bank statement last month and calculate the money I spent on buying a fountain drink..... but even the thought of doing that horrified me because I knew that it would be embarrassing. Every time I get the urge to go to happy hour (umm....everyday) and treat myself, I won't.  It's that simple.  I will not spend any money on Soda in January.  If I order a meal out and it comes with it, that is the only acceptable time to have my Coke.  I need your accountability, I need your help! Anyone who knows me knows how much I love fountain drinks..Sadly, this will be hard.  That's hard to even write or say out loud because it is such a first world problem.

Here are 3 ways you could help me during the month of January

• Go along side me. Is there something you splurge on that you could give up for 30 days? Starbucks? Happy hour drinks? Fast food? Buying something for yourself that month? I encourage you to join with me in sacrifice during the month of January. What a temporary time to make such impact for 1 couple seeking to do God's will. Think about if 25 people came together and gave up something that means something to them for the sake of helping one couple reduce the orphan population. What a statement to Ryan and Melissa of support! and think about the $$$ (25 people x $30 = 750!!!!!) 
• Match my total.  I am going to tally every time I would normally purchase a coke or get the urge and embarrassingly announce it at the end of the month. (I used $30 just as an example if you spent $1/day on something) Maybe you don't want to give something up, but would you be willing to match my sacrifice? If I got 5 people out there to match my $$$, instead of ME giving them around $30 WE could give them $150.  If 25 people that choose to sacrifice get 5 people to match them we would then have 25 people x $150 = 3,750!!!!!! 
• Pray! pray for me, pray for my poor husband having to endure a Coke-less wife for an entire month, pray for others that might engage in this challenge in january, but mostly pray for Ryan and Melissa and their child in Bulgaria.  They are in the waiting phase being matched with a child. 

Let's let God teach us through sacrifice during the month of January!  If you feel led to join me, please message me and let's get the details worked out and accountability set up!

Fostering: Should young families with small children do it?

Home study is Thursday, we get our license to foster-to-adopt next week! It is a reality that we could feasibly be expanding our family (again!) in a few short weeks! Our son turned 2 1/2 yesterday and our daughter is 5 months old today, so understandably we are getting some mixed responses to this call that has been placed on our life.  So, let me back it up a few years for you! 

When Jake and I married, one huge concern and priority on our hearts was how God was going to call us to engage in the care of the orphan, or the least of these.  We know that God calls all Christians to do this, and we know that it looks differently for everyone. I think both of us originally thought that maybe overseas missions to orphanages might be the route God wanted to use us in at this point in our life, but when we started popping out our own kids quickly, we each barely scraped in 1 overseas mission trip each before realizing God might be calling us to something more domestic for the time being.  We have felt the call to add to our family through adoption since we were engaged.  We weren't sure if we would do it domestically, internationally, privately, or through fostering really. It wasn't until last year when God made that pretty clear to us. 

Through prayer, seeking out our options, and really just God wrecking our hearts for little ones that come from hard places, God has called us to foster to adopt, but many are asking why now? Why when our own children are so young and we have 3,927 other things on our already full plates? Quite simply put, because God said so.  We aren't promised tomorrow, and right here, right now this is what engaging in orphan care looks like for our family.  We have discussed what engaging in orphan care might look like down the road in every other stage of our life, but for now, this is what we feel God calling us to do. I give you, 5 reasons I think fostering is a great idea for a young family with small children! 

1. Fostering as a young family gives a child coming into your home a chance to feel like they really belong, and are not out of place generationally.  Not knocking kids that are being raised by their grandparents (major respect for grandparents doing this!), but why in the world can't our own generation rise up and take care of the children of our peers instead of expecting the older generations to pick up our slack. Grandparents should get to be grandparents! One day, I look forward to being a grandparent as well, but for now, I am in full fledge parenting mode!

2. We might as well get all the exhaustion over with at once! Right now God has given me the gift of raising my babies, as exhausting as it is sometimes. I think it is a natural thing to add to our family while we are in the thick of this stage of our life.  Since we were given bio babies close in age, why not throw in some more and just enjoy the chaos of little children all at once :) People always approach me and sigh and say "Enjoy it while you can, it doesn't last long, I would give anything to be back in your shoes right now" This comment is usually said while I am wrangling my uncooperative 2 year old through some store, lol. I usually mumble under my breath, "Dear Lord, are they stinking insane?" But I know deep down I will miss this too one day. 

3. To set an example of the gospel to our own children.  What better way to teach your children to actually live out your faith than by doing it, day in and day out.  A sweet friend of mine sent me such an encouraging text today that said "Landry and Norah will truly be blessed by parents who demonstrate what it looks like to lay down you own life and desires to serve the least of these." Exactly. This ministry belongs to our family, this is a family calling, and I hope that Landry and Norah can take ownership of this endeavor as much as we do!

4. To set an example of Christ in our world by DOING what the Bible says. In the world of social media and information at the drop of a hat, words are starting to mean less and less. You can tell everyone you know anything you want anytime you want to say it.  But DOING, that is entirely different.  I don't want people to have to ask if we are Christians, I want them to see it.  What better way than to give a child a home that desperately needs one? 

 

5.  Because God is bigger than our fears.  Am I terrified to take on another mouth to feed? Another human being to be responsible for 24/7? The baggage this child entering our home could potentially bring with them?  To disrupt our own children's lives? Absolutely.  I'm scared to death. But what better way to allow God to stretch us, grow us, sustain us, and prove himself faithful time and time again.  How exciting to get the opportunity to rely fully on God, because I will tell you people, this isn't happening without him! 

Please pray for us in the coming weeks to come.  We are nervous, but anxious to begin a new chapter.  Do we need another thing on our plate? No. But I don't really consider loving and taking in a child that needs a home "another thing on my plate." I call it the gospel.