Safetytats.com

OK- so I stumbled on this link through a friend's blog today- and as the mother of a diabetic kid that will sometimes go to day camp or be cared for in a public setting... I love the idea: www.safetytats.com

They make all kinds of personal'ized/able' tattoos for kids... for everything from when you send your kids trick or treating- to alerting nursery workers of food allergies! Awesome.

And, for the sake of complete randomness to my postings... Did any of the rest of you know that Benjamin Franklin wrote a paper on farting? An essay on flatulence. Somehow my teachers skipped past that in history class...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fart_Proudly

What a total God thing!

When we moved here we spent a good chunk of our adoption savings account on a beater car for Steve to drive to work (since he had a company truck with his job in Colorado)... so we got here, got settled in the house, bought a car, and felt like we were nearly back to $0! So, we set out a few months ago to have a garage sale to fund raise for our adoption expenses. (We've spent just over $12,000 so far, and have an estimated $12,000-$15,000 to go.)

Out of the kindness of some friends' hearts, they donated everything from furniture, clothing, toys, to a Christmas tree! We even received an amazing quantity of items through a friend of a friend who just moved overseas to serve as missionaries in Morocco! GOD bless you, AWM missionaries who donated all of the stuff you didn't move with you!!!

We craigslisted, we advertised in the paper, and we prayed feverishly for God to bless this effort and to bring people in! I was just amazed. All of our furniture was gone in the first 15 minutes. Some people bargained, but some people gave more than the asking price and told us to keep the change! We also had friends write checks for more than their purchase price! The forcast said rain all weekend- but it didn't start to sprinkle until 6 minutes before our pre-set closing time!


All in all, I was flabbergasted. God came through in such a beautiful and amazing way! I will confess that I would love for the process to be one where someone comes up and writes us a check for $15K... but God hasn't chosen to do that for us- so we'll scrimp and save, and be AMAZED at his faithfulness in strange ways (i.e. bringing hundreds of people out to our house to buy junk off of our driveway!). :)

So, in total we raised more than $1600! One of my FB friends commented, "Who has a $1600 garage sale???" To which I want to say- apparantly that's God's kind of garage sale... :) So, THANKS again to all of you who donated items, shopped and prayed!

I ended my weekend in a great way as well! Steve told me that he had heard Kari Jobe was going to be at Victory for a worship service on Sunday night- so I headed over there, worshipped my guts out and cried my eyes out. Great ending to a great weekend!

Wheels are finally in motion!

It feels SOOOOO good to have wheels rolling on the adoption again. I joked the other day that we'll meet our daughter sometime right after we take our current 5 year old off to college... (lets just say it is moving MUCH slower than I expected)!

We passed the one year anniversary of the start of our adoption journey- and although it did make me sad, I was glad to know that we're actually DOING something on the adoption front again.

So, today I finished up the i800A application and checked with Dillon to see when our homestudy update would reach our greedy little hands... :) I'm getting the envelope ready and the check written so that I can stick it in with our other paperwork and swoop down to the post office and get it sent to the powers that be!

We're also amassing a large quantity of stuff (some nicer than the rest...) for our adoption fundraising garage sale that we hope to have on the 11th and 12th. Pray for lots more donations of valuable stuff, and for good, sunny weather. :)

ahhh... I'll update the sidebar when we actually get the I800A mailed.... :) until then I'll pace around the house- or do dishes. :)

Don't know what to call this...

OK. Haven't blogged in a while.

I experienced a moment yesterday that was one of those almost ethereal moments that stands out of space and time:

I'm in line for communion at church yesterday (a church I attended in College, and this was my first Sunday to go there in 10 years...). I hear the pastor say that there are two bowls next to the bread; one is white grape juice and one is wine. So, my immediate thoughts are like this: Wow, wine, huh... Can they do that, legally? In all my years as a Christian, it seems odd that I've NEVER had a communion with actual wine. It has always been grape juice... In the bible it was wine...

So, I approach the table to take communion and hesitate. I don't really like red wine. But, then again I've NEVER had communion with REAL wine before, just like in the Bible... So I dip my bread into the wine.

It's bitter.
I started to cry.
Jesus' blood is bitter.

It was a bitter, bitter thing for him to have to die on the cross for all of my sin. (I'm crying again as I type this.)

What a bitter, horrible thing, for God to have to give his ONLY son, in death so that He could be closer to ME! Oh my sorrowful heart. I had such an intense time in communion, like I've not had, probably since I came to Christ the first time. Just having that taste in my mouth, took me to an image of the upper room where Jesus, knowing he's going to die, serves the disciples bread and wine.

Very interesting experience, crying my eyes out during communion. Thank you God that your Spirit is still moving in that church, and that I'm still sensitive enough to feel it.