"Submit to God"

"Submit to God" - Job 22:21 (from Morning and Evening)

If we honestly want to "submit to God and be at peace with Him," we must know Him as He has revealed Himself, not only in the unity of His essence and substinence, but also in the plurality of His persons. God said, "Let us make man in our image" - don't be content until you know something of the "us" from whom his being was derived. Make an effort to know the Father; bury your head in His bosom in deep repentance, and confess that you are not worthy to be called His child; receive the kiss of His love; let the ring which is the token of His eternal faithfulness be on your finger; sit at His table and let your heart delight in His grace. Then press forward and seek to know much of the Son of God who is the brightness of His Father's glory, and yet in unspeakable condescension of grace became human for our sakes; know Him in the singular complexity of His nature: erternal God, and yet suffering finite man; follow Him as He walks the waters with the tread of deity, and as He sits upon the well in the weariness of humanity. Don't be satisfied unless you know much of Jesus Christ as your Friend, your Brother, your Husband, your all. Do not forget the Holy Spirit; endeavor to obtain a clear view of His nature and character, His attritubutes, and His works. Behold that Spirit of the Lord, who first of all moved upon chaos, and brought forth order; who now visits the chaos of your soul, and creates the order of holiness. Behold Him as the Lord and giver of spiritual life, the Illuminator, the Instructor, the Comforter, and the Sanctifier. Behold Him as, like holy unction, He descends upon the head of Jesus, and then afterwards rests upon you who are like the skirts of His garments. Such and intelligent, scriptural, and experimental belief in the Trinity in Unity is yours if you truly know God; and such knowledge brings peace indeed.

Diverse World Composition

If the entire world were a village of 100 people, what would it look like?

Do you know?

Here are a few facts about those 100 people courtesy of Dr Donella Meadows

• 57 Asian, 21 European, 14 from the Western Hemisphere, 8 African


• 52 Female, 48 Male


• 70 Non-white, 30 White


• 70 Non-Christian, 30 Christian


• 89 Straight, 11 Gay


• 6 people hold 59% of the world's worth (all from the US)


• 80 live in substandard housing


• 70 are unable to read


• 50 suffer from malnutrition


• 1 has a college education


• 1 has a computer

32 Weeks

I know I haven't blogged in over a month and I am so far behind in posting my entries. Since everything has come to a halt, I haven't really felt like posting them. Several of you have been asking if I have quit blogging, so I have decided to catch up in my post, especially since the whole reason I have this blog is to chronicle our adoption journey for our children and to keep family and friends updated on our adoption. So, I continue.....

Here at 32 weeks and we continue to wait. Somedays I feel like I have all the patience in the world and other days are filled with anxiety. Since my sister, Brittany, has been living with us, she has helped me tackle many of my "projects" during this waiting period. And since she is a movie buff, we have watched "many-a-movie". However, we have a rule (okay, really it is my silly rule) that we must always be working on completing a "project" while watching a movie (most of the time, we follow our rule...sometimes, we don't!) So, in an attempt to honor our favorite movies, we took WAY too much time and created this number 32 with our favorite DVDs!

Can you spot some of our favorite movies? (and notice I said "some" since we couldn't fit all of our favorites!!)

1st Purchase

I haven't bought anything for the kids during this entire process and it has been killing me! When we were in the China program, I began to buy all sorts of things in anticipation of bringing home our little girl. During that time, we actually knew a little more specifically "who" we were buying for....a little girl 0-12 months. Since we switched countries, I have been hesitant to buy anything since "who" we are buying for is a little more vague....siblings, either gender, under three years. I have run the gamut on the different combinations of gender and age I can think of and there are so many possibilities, so I have held off on the "buying" side of things....until now! I have been "eyeing" these adorable Amharic bean bags from Amharic Kids that have the colors and numbers on them with the English and Amharic language (as well as the Amharic spelling), so I took the plunge and bought them.

I also bought an Amharic language book so we can know some basic words if we should need to know them. I figured that they were very universal as far as age and gender and would be a really neat thing to have anyway. This is probably all I will buy (for now) until we receive our referral. However, I have made a spreadsheet (I LOVE spreadsheets!) of all the items I want to buy for the kids as well as all the many sites I have come across during this long wait!

And, no, Brad does not know about the spreadsheet (although he probably assumes I have one)!

Hangin' on!

This picture cracks me up but sure gives a great picture of how we are feeling right about now!!! Isabella was playing outside and yelled for me to look outside our master bathroom window. When I looked, I couldn't stop laughing as she had ever so gingerly "hung" her baby's hands (that are formed into a baby's grip) from our zipline! It has given me such joy looking at this picture and the one below!This picture was taken after she took her other baby and hung her arms over the zipline since her hands were in tight fists! By the way, her babies are girl and boy twins, Joy and Loy! (I guess she is getting ready for her brother and sister!)