The short bus stops here....

You've probably heard the jokes. 

You know... the ones about riding the short bus.

I've heard them and I'm sure I've even laughed at them. 

But this week, my perspective on that has changed a bit.  

Beginning this week, that bus will stop at my house twice a day. 

It will come in the morning to pick up our sweet Malachi and take him to a public school classroom with other children like him where he can receive therapies and special instruction from qualified teachers that work with preschoolers with special needs. In the afternoon, it will deliver the same sweet boy back into the arms of his waiting mama. 

It's humbling to see that bus stop in front of your house. 

It's a public declaration to all that pass by..."Hey! My kid isn't like yours. He's special!" 

For me, it's been a big yellow reminder of the death of a dream. The death of the sweet dream in which all your children are "normal" and don't struggle with intellectual or physical disabilities. 

So, yesterday I had a cry about my little guy having to ride the short bus.

Then I scooped him up from where he was playing happily with his brother and cousin, put his hearing aids in each ear and whisked him away to church where he clapped and cheered his way through a gospel music worship service. 

In a few minutes I will leave to pick him up early from school so we can go see the cardiologist.  (As a side note, I recently thought to myself, "Out of all the 'ologists' we've seen with M, at least we haven't had to see the cardiologist." Sigh.) 

Dreams die hard. 

But, with the grace of God, new ones take their place, and reality can still be sweet. 

Our sweet guy brings joy to the life of every single individual he meets. 

He shows us the heart of God in a way we didn't see before. 

So, when the short bus stops here later this week, I will hold my head high and look heavenward. 

I'll thank God that His plans are not our plans, and that His best for us is better than anything we could have dreamed for ourselves. 

I'll thank God that He chose me to be Malachi's mama. 

Then, together, M and I will turn and give a big, happy wave to the bus as it drives away.

Heather

A Fool for Jesus...

I always knew the Rev. Husband loved Jesus. 

These pictures prove it. 

Love that man of mine and his heart for the Lord. 

It seems the mission trip is going well. Samuel was happy to report to his mother that where they are in South Dakota,  prairie dogs carry the plague, there is reportedly 1 rattlesnake every 10 feet, and tornadoes occur frequently. Now that will bless a mama's heart. 

I miss my boys, but I'm glad they are having fun while serving the Lord. 

Heather 

First Mission Trip

Do you remember your first mission trip? 

This week my big guys (Samuel and the Rev. Husband) are on a mission trip in South Dakota. They are working with our church sponsored missionaries among the Lakota Sioux on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. 

This will be Samuel's first mission trip and he was beyond excited about going. 

The rest of us at home will miss them, but I am excited about the opportunity my 4th grader will have to spend time doing missions for a week with his dad and experiencing firsthand how much God has blessed our family. His dad was excited about the opportunity to pour into his son for the week while they serve on the mission field together. 

This week holds IEP meetings, school open houses for Malachi and Ellie, and homeschool planning for mom as we gear up to get everyone back to school next week.

I hope your week is happy as you seek ways to be on mission in your neck of the woods. 

Mission field wood working skills courtesy of Granddaddy! 

Heather 

A Note From The Weird and Brain Damaged...

This evening was a happy one. We spent a lovely time at the pool as a family, me and the Reverend Husband and the boys, plus our new Ghanian exchange student "daughter." All the kiddos were tucked in and I was folding laundry when Reverend Husband said, "Hey. Come check this out. Try not to explode." 

"Me?! Explode?! (said in mock horror). Do you mean in a good way or a bad way?"

"A bad way," he replied. 

Then he began to read to me an article referencing a truly asinine comment made by, wonder of wonders, Pat Robertson. I tried to suppress the urge to roll my eyes at the mention of his name. I quit watching or listening to Pat Robertson when he advised a husband to divorce his wife with Alzheimer's so that he might meet his need for companionship without committing adultery. Because it's all about our own needs, right?  Great, godly advice there, Mr. Robertson. 

Not.

As Brad read further I learned that, apparently, Mr. Robertson made a ridiculous comment on a recent show about never being able to tell with those adopted kids. They might be brain damaged and "grow up weird." 

Well, sir. Actually, my adopted son is brain damaged. And normal is overrated. 

But that really is beside the point. 

The real point is that, according to Scripture, each and every person, regardless of ethnicity or ability, is immensely valuable to God.  Each one bears His image. 

I've never seen God more clearly than when I look into the face of my special needs child. 

I've never felt His presence more strongly in my life than since I became mother to this special child. 

The real point is that, according to James 1:27, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

If you want to read a world class response to Mr. Robertson's latest foray into ridiculousness, check out :

www.russellmoore.com

The point of this whole post was to point you to that link. So, please, stop reading here and go there right now. Take your tissue. You'll need it. 

Heather 

Practicing Joy...

Currently I'm reading a book by John Ortberg called The Life You've Always Wanted. It's about spiritual disciplines for regular folks. I'm currently about halfway through and I LOVE it.  


I wish you could see my book at Chapter 4, "A Dee Dah Day: The Practice of Celebration." It is underlined, starred, circled and there are lots of notes in the margin. Apparently this chapter spoke to me. 


It also gave me a glimpse into one of the (many) reasons I believe God put Malachi into our lives - to bring us immense and immeasurable joy.


In fact, Malachi has a way of bringing joy into the life of anyone he meets for even just a minute. It's his gift.


We go to the grocery store, a restaurant, or (yesterday) the doctor's office and he is waving, blowing kisses and telling everyone "Hey!" or "Bye! Bye!" But he does it with an endearing little lilt in his voice that captures hearts. He leaves people with the impression that he is so excited and truly happy that he got to see them. And he is. Plus, he laughs the whole while, and is full of smiles and giggles. People are instantly in love with him. Occasionally he encounters a sour puss, but never mind those guys. He blows them kisses and waves anyway. They've been blessed whether they like it or not. 


They've seen the heart of God in a child. 


Some of these instant friends have offered to take him home. 


So far, I have politely declined the offer. 


 It is not uncommon at all to hear the comment, "He's a happy little guy isn't he?" 


Yes. Our guy is the happiest guy I know. 


And people need more happiness in their lives. 


In his book, Mr. Ortberg tells the story of his daughter doing the dance of delight or the "Dee Dah Day Dance" after a bath while he was trying to hurry her to get dried. He was becoming frustrated with her until he realized, "I was just so used to hurrying, of moving from one task to another, that right here was life, here was joy, here was an invitation to the dance right in front of me - and I was missing it." 


Ortberg points out that "Joy is at the heart of God, himself... Joy is God's basic character. Joy is his eternal destiny." and that "Ironically, often the thing that keeps me from experiencing joy is my preoccupation with self."


Ouch.


He also points out that, "the problem with people, according to Jesus, is not that we are too happy for God's taste, but that we are not happy enough." 


He is not speaking in the sense of a "name it and claim it" theology that makes God out to be Santa. On the contrary, he makes the point that "one test of authentic joy is its compatibility with pain. Our joy in this world is always "in spite of" something. Joy is... a 'defiant nevertheless' set at a full sopt against bitterness and resentment." 


 He is speaking in sense that we miss all the thousands of opportunities we have in a lifetime to be joyful because we are preoccupied with ourselves. 


Preach! Man does that describe me. 


He reminds us that, "every tick of the clock is a gift from God. Every day is a Dee Dah Day."


My Malachi teaches me this. This is how he lives. 


Right now, my sweet boy is in the backyard waving and blowing kisses at the garbage collector and the garbage truck because the truck blessed him by  stopping and making a wondrously fabulous racket with a bucket lifter and air brakes. 


It was a "Dee Dah Day" moment. 


When I look back on my life, the day we brought home our little guy was a Dee Dah Day moment, though I didn't realize it at the moment, as I was preoccupied with self. 


Hopefully, we have many more days to celebrate together, and I hope that I can see more of them for the real, true joy God means them to be. 


What are you waiting for? Go out and celebrate. Today is a "Dee Dah Day".




Heather

Celebrating the blessing of a special needs child....

Many know that with our first adoption, we didn't seek out a special needs child. 


We were given that blessing without our prior knowledge. Honestly, without our consent. 


Some have wondered why we didn't disrupt our adoption of Malachi once we realized what was in store. 


That question always makes me cringe though I really do understand why folks ask it. 


Trust me. I don't cringe because I'm some sort of super saint. Frankly, there are lots of days that it's tough not to look back on our "former" life and think about how easy it would have been. 


There are days that I wonder why I just could not get to a place of contentment with one biological son. 


I'm sure I have relatives that wonder as well, though thankfully, none has ever asked. 


I cringe because one of the foremost thoughts in our minds during the adoption process was how adoption is a picture of the gospel. We were helpless and without hope until our loving Father sent His only Son to provide a way for us to be adopted into His family for all eternity. 


That loving Heavenly Father doesn't throw us back when we come to Him with issues. His love for us and our place in the family are forever secure through His Son, Jesus. 


 If adoption is a picture of the gospel, how could we give back our child once we realized this was going to be harder than we thought. Life is not about us, anyway. 


There are challenges every single day. I grow weary. I second guess myself and God's plan for us. Sometimes I wonder if God dialed the wrong number. 


But, in our lives,  there is also more joy, more celebration, more laughter, more music, more of the important and real things that life and faith are made of as a result of the blessing of our special needs child. 


And I wouldn't trade one minute of it. There are many things I would do over and try to learn faster on the journey, but I wouldn't skip the trip. 


Our God is perfect. He makes no mistakes. His ways are not our ways.  He asks us to do hard things for His glory,  while giving the strength, the grace, and the wisdom to do them. And in the living it out, we get to see His glory. What a tremendous privilege! 


The really awesome thing is we are not alone in this journey. There are many other families learning the same things, loving their very special children, and celebrating the blessing of a special needs child. 


Check them out right here. 


Heather

Southern Baptists and The Orphan Crisis

Part of my daily routine consists of checking my emails first thing in the morning. This morning, I awoke to my email version of the NC Baptist paper, Biblical Recorder. As an adoptive mommy, the second headline immediately grabbed my attention, "Adoption to be discussed in New Orleans." You can read the article here.

I'm nearly positive the article's comment section won't allow me the number of words I need to sum up my mixed bag of emotions on its contents. But comment I must. 

I found the article to be....frustrating. 

I want to be thankful that the Southern Baptist Convention has decided to acknowledge there is an orphan crisis that our churches should be working to alleviate. Surely a call to awareness has to start somewhere, though I'm not certain we aren't involved due to lack of awareness.  I should be grateful that we are beginning to notice there's a problem and that the Church, specifically Southern Baptist churches in this case, should be heeding the call to get involved. I really, really want to be excited about all of this.

Really I do. It's just there are a couple reasons I'm not.

We (the Southern Baptist Convention) passed a resolution in 2009 stating (in my paraphrase), "Hey Southern Baptists! There's an orphan crisis! We should encourage churches to evangelize and care for the orphan! It's biblical." That's supposed to be great, right? The orphan crisis got its own resolution. Yes. It's very own resolution. Our conventions churches were officially encouraged to care about the poor and helpless among us. 

And now, three years later, the orphan crisis gets it own little one hour breakfast from 7am to 8am with a panel of big names on June 20th at the Southern Baptist Convention in New Orleans.  "The purpose of the event .... will be to gauge the interest of Southern Baptists in the topic while also creating awareness of orphans and neglected children." That's also supposed to be great. Right?  

But that whole "gauge the interest of Southern Baptists" thing. That really sticks in my crawl.

Our Heavenly Father must be so proud of us.

A whole hour, early in the morning, to gauge our interest...

Bless our hearts.

I'm fired up all over again just thinking about it.

It has taken a whole three years for our distinguished convention to devote an entire 60 minutes to discuss whether or not we might be interested in doing what the Bible tells us to do from the first page to the last. Love God with all our hearts, with all our mind, and all our soul and let our love for Him pour through our hearts and hands to love the most helpless, the most hurting, and the most vulnerable among us.

Are we interested Church?

I really hope the Southern Baptist Convention gets this right. I really hope we decide to care, particularly given the words of James 1:27, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Please Heavenly Father...

Let us be a denomination of Christ followers, the sort with pure and faultless religion, the kind with a real and living faith that isn't afraid to get dirty and do the hard things in service to our King, rather than a religious country club of pew warmers and spectators looking for a good show on Sunday morning.

Please, Jesus. In Your precious name and for the sake of these precious orphaned children...

Let us care.


Heather

The Big Catch Up Post

Wow! Who knew over 3 months would pass before I'd blog again.


 Life has been seriously busy. For one, Christmas happened. Then, we bought a house, remodeled it and moved in it. 


'Nuf said. 


Recently, we took Malachi out of preschool and began private speech, occupational, and physical therapy. 


Brad started up his masters classes again after a short break over Christmas and our move. 


To say life has been overwhelming lately would be an understatement. But we're making it. 


In happy news, we got all of our paperwork submitted to our adoption agency to be sent to Korea. Korea had not processed any adoptions this year until the last couple weeks, but hopefully things are moving again. We were fingerprinted last Wednesday to fulfill the US Immigration requirements for bringing adopted children into the country. And, in the most exciting adoption news of the week, we received a video of our sweet Zach. He is truly precious and we can't wait to get him home. 


I wish I could post it here, but due to privacy concerns, adoption agencies require parents to sign agreements stating we won't post pictures or videos of our children online. 


So that's what's been up for us. Hopefully, the blogging hiatus was short-lived. 

Heather