Wednesday, April 30, 2014

book review: A Call to Resurgence

Call to Resurgence by Mark Driscoll is a poignant call for the church to come together and quit fighting one another. This has been a long time issue and is one clear warning that Jesus gave us before he left this earth. It must have been important to him for us to love one another and not fight over our small differences. Driscoll does a fabulous job of concluding the book in the 7th chapter when he gives his call to action: Preach the Word, Love the Church, Contend and Contextualize, Be Attractional and Missional, Receive, Reject, Redeem, Consider the Common Good, and Evangelize through Suffering. 

I would recommend this book to anyone who believes in Christ and wants to love his brothers in Christ in a Christ-like way. I would also recommend anyone who feels comfortable with where their faith is at to read this book. It will ignite a new passion for the Lord in you. I received a copy of this book to review. The opinions are my own. 

Uganda

If you are interested in seeing a bit more about Uganda check this video out Uganda

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Resurrection Sunday, 2014!

We were so thankful to get to celebrate with friends and family today. We did miss my gramma and aunt Barby. We were also missing two littles that we can't wait to meet, learn about and share life with. But we got to enjoy good times!
The boys Easter baskets had a couple of books and a couple items we bought from the garage sale pile. 


They each had a "candy" item and had a note on it like this.

Cousins opening checking out their baskets

We dyed brown eggs and loved the way they turned out. Yellow was a favorite color choice because they were deemed "Golden" eggs by one of the kids, so they all did them that way.





Forgot to get someone to take our picture, so the tripod did ok for us to get one of ourselves!
We are so thankful for our risen savior of the world! Thankful that he took our place. Thankful that he gives us grace...every minute of every day!

Saturday, April 12, 2014

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! SOOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!

I am going to UGANDA in July! I am thrilled about the chance to go and experience traveling to Africa, Ugandan culture, food, and just see what God does during the 10 days I am there. I am going with an open, but guarded heart knowing that I will be interacting with a bunch of beautiful and wonderfully made kids that I can't/won't get to adopt. I am sure it will be so hard...yet so rewarding and I will come back with more knowledge about Ugandan Culture, what our time in Africa will be like, what kinds of things to expect when traveling and being there for the extended period of time like we will.

BUT...that is not the only exciting news...

So maybe we got some good news on Friday...and maybe I am a tad bit enthusiastic about it!

Our agency was approved and can now continue with their adoptions under the new law! I talked to our agent on Friday and was so pleased to hear that they got their approval. So we are excitedly finishing up the loose ends with our home study and preparing for our next GIGANTIC garage sale. We had an impromptu garage sale a couple of weeks ago with just what we had collected in a few weeks and it was very successful! If you want to know details, just ask me :) I am anticipating our sale coming up on April 26th. It will be our biggest one to date and I cannot wait to see what the Lord does this time. We have been amazed at what he has provided thus far and I am anxious to see what happens next.

So while all this is super exciting, we still need your prayers! Please pray for our process in this crazy world of adoptions. Pray that our agent and the orphanages would seek God in our placement (of course this is >9 months away), Pray that our hearts would be prepared for new lives coming into our home and the challenges that will present for our heart-grown littles and our home-grown littles, pray for our marriage that we would make time to be together and enjoy one another, and pray for the protection of our heart-grown littles who are not with us.

Leaving you with recent pictures of the shenanigans going on here with the first 2...
I tried my first cornrows and Foster actually sat still and liked having them in.
Foster's hair when we took the cornrows out
Foster loving on "our" dog Sandy. Sandy lives with "Baga Sue" but we still claim her as ours :)
Noah at his first Pray then Play Flag Football Game
Noah holding the Praying Mantis I found
Nate helping Foster hold the Praying Mantis