Home Again

Our bus with the majestic mountains behind.
Uncle Ken and Aunt Karen took us to the Grand Coulee Dam.
These beautiful children with their mother at the training in Spokane.

Eleven days away from home and here we are. We traveled to Spokane for the Older Children Adoption training. It was a good trip with no major problems. It took us three days drive there and back. We were planning on it taking two but our little bus doesn't like to go faster than 30 up any incline whatsoever and since we went through the Rocky Mountains and several other mountain ranges it was slow going. But oh so beautiful. We enjoyed God's beautiful creation and since we are from the flat part of North Dakota the mountains were especially enjoyable.

The training was wonderful. We met so many people. Most of them will be adopting from Ethiopia. The trainers Steve and Michelle Gardner are truly inspirational. They have adopted 9 children and their story makes you cry with what God has done. We heard the beauty of adoption and the difficulties and we are more determined than ever to bring our children home to be a part of our family. I know they have a lot to show us about life and God's love. When you watch a 19 year old biological son with 9 adopted siblings get choked up over how his life has been touched by these children you know you are in the right place. We were treated to an Ethiopian meal the second day and it was great. We met a family that in their retirement have adopted 6 girls from different countries. They are a most beautiful family. I am including their picture hoping they wouldn't mind. Another family has 9 mostly grown children and will soon have 6 adopted children. She is a grandma already and God has shown them this direction for their life!! I will sign off with several witticisms we heard over the two day training.

"Life is short. Eternity is long. Live like it!" John Piper

He who dies with the most joys WINS!

Why do we spend so much money and effort to decorate something that burns?

When we get to heaven what do you want God to say to you? "Well done." or "Well,... you're done."

Please continue to pray for God to meet our needs for this process. We have the second half of our home study to complete then we should see things really move. Thank you all.

Spokane, WA here we come!!

We leave tomorrow morning for Spokane and our two day training for adopting from Ethiopia. The blessing for us is that Kevin's Uncle Kenny and Aunt Karen live there and we are staying at their place. They are taking us site seeing the first half of the week. Friday and Saturday is the training and they are watching the kids:) Then we start home on Sunday. I've added a couple pictures of what we are living in the next 10 days. I've packed it all week with all the amenities of any fine hotel. We have a fridge, stove, running water, toilet, iron. We even have music as Jordan is bringing along her guitar and harmonica. Our day is getting quite long here as we mowed lawn, picked and canned green beans, butchered 60 chickens and made the food we are taking along and now are cleaning up everything. Kevin's parents stopped by so we could see our niece Ally and nephew Arik from Wisconsin. Pray for safety and good gas mileage:) We love you all for praying for us and helping us bring these children home. God Bless You for your love and kindness. We are praising the Lord for his loving kindness too. He is so good to us.

Psalm 63:3-4 ...your loving kindness is better than life, My lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.

A Little Setback

Good evening. We had a little setback which has me a bit disappointed but we know these are inevitable. We had set up our second home study meeting for Thursday night and had a bit of a plan to pay for it but that fell through. The meeting is to be set for another time. Please pray specifically for the finances for this part. Kevin has completed the jobs he had until now and only has one in the works. So (with a smile on my face) please pray for Kevin to get more jobs so he can be away from home more:) Seriously, a couple of jobs would be good just to get through the next step. It was a bit of a blessing to have the meeting canceled because this week I am packing for 9 people to be away from home 10 days. I was getting a bit anxious for how clean should I have the house for this meeting. What do you think? Should we paint the bathroom and tile the floors and replace the garage door and fix the broken window or should we let her see the place as we live in it? One reason we decided now was the time to adopt and not when "all" the projects around here were done was then we would never adopt. The projects when you own a home are never ending. The trip to Spokane, WA is getting us excited. We are attending an Adopting Older Children from Ethiopia training there next week. We are taking the bus and Kevin and Troy just got the air conditioner installed today. The fridge is the next order of business and then we will be road ready. We are looking forward to next year's trip to Somewhere, USA with all of our children (adopted too).



Emily picked out today's verse:

I Corinthians 13:13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.