Wednesday's Child

 

Monday's child is fair of face,

Tuesday's child is full of grace,

Wednesday's child is full of woe,

Thursday's child has far to go,

Friday's child loving and giving,

Saturday's child works hard for a living,

But the child who is born on the Sabbath day

Is fair and wise and good in every way.

 

 

WAIT A MINUTE!!!

 

Wednesday's child is full of woe??

 

Full of woe?

 

I have read that poem many times before but never really thought about that line. 

 

How sad! 

 

What a sad poem for the Wednesday Child.

 

 

Full of woe.

 

Sorrow. Misery. Distress.  Sadness. Unhappiness. Heartbreak.

 

Wednesday's Child.

 

 

I was so stressed yesterday morning.  After writing my blogpost and whispering prayers for Ten Thousand Tuesday we climbed in the car and hit the road for Alexandria.  I was a wreck.  The entire time Rob and Ben and I were talking in the car I was, in the back of my mind, rehearsing what I was going to say to the officer when I was asked why we had arrived 6 days early for our appointment.  By the time we arrived my brain was a muddled mess.  I had no idea what I was going to say.  Rob's sweet nature precluded him from leading the charge and Ben just laughed when I asked him if he wanted to take the lead.  So I took all of our papers in hand and when the time came... I said nothing.  At all. I handed the officer our paperwork and shut my mouth.  She looked at the papers.  Saw our appointment dates.  Rustled the papers a bit. Sighed.  Then she looked across the room at the waiting area.  There were actually two waiting areas.  The first waiting area had three rows of chairs that were half-filled with people working on the forms she had just given them.  Once those forms were finished they would bring them back to her to be checked and she would send them to the second waiting area.  That area was five times the size of the first.  It was that waiting area where I followed her eyes.  It was just about empty. Empty.  Only a few people were sitting in there waiting for their number to be called.  She looked. I looked.  She sighed.  I held my breath.  She stamped us through.  I looked at Rob and he looked at me and we grinned a thousand grins in that moment.  No words.  Literally. No words.

 

We were in and out within an hour. 

 

I danced all the way to the car.

 

Harper my sweet girl... we are one HUGE step closer to bringing you home!!

 

 

 

Once in the car I had the pleasure of getting updates on the babes who were dropping over the 500 wall on the Angel Tree.

 

 

 

TEN THOUSAND TUESDAY WAS AMAZING!!

 

Tuesday's child is full of grace.

 

By the end of the day all 86 babes dropped over!!

 

 

 

WOW!!

 

It was a day of GRACE for all those Tuesday Children!! If you were one of the many many who helped a babe over then consider yourself hugged by me! 

 

 

   

 

But it isn't over....151 children are still not over the $1,000 wall.

 

151 Wednesday children.

 

 

Children who HAVE experienced much woe in their lives. 

 

Despair.

 

Children who have lost everything. 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday's child is full of woe.

 

 

  

 

We cannot save every orphan in this orphan-filled world.  I get that.  But we can make a difference for these.  We can be their voice.  We can shed light in their darkness.  One solitary child at a time.

 

These Wednesday Children who have suffered so much.

 

 

 

We can make a difference.

 

Today is New Year's Eve.

 

 

 

If you didn't take part in Ten Thousand Tuesday... would you take part today?  Pick a Wednesday Child on the tree??

 

Whisper a prayer for them.  Ask the Father of the Fatherless to call out a family for him or for her.  Donate to their grant account?

 

  

 

Be their voice!

 

They don't have one!

 

ANGEL TREE

 

I have no idea if we will get all the Wednesday Children over the $1,000 wall.  It would be fun and amazing and I would have my Elizabeth Dehority socks knocked right off my feet.

 

What I do know is that each child matters. 

 

They are Wednesday Children and they matter.

 

ANGEL TREE

 

 

 

 

Ten Thousand Tuesday

I went to bed with my head filled with a thousand worrisome thoughts.  We are driving up to Alexandria today to get our fingerprints done for immigration.  Our appointment is actually next Monday but because I teach six classes on Mondays and Aaron has school and needs to GET there and all the drivers in the family have to get fingerprinted.... we are going early in hopes they will take us.  I'm nervous.  Driving 2+ hours to beg for favor from a fingerprinting officer isn't my cup of tea.  I would rather stick by the appointment date. 

 

I also went to bed worried about the Angel Tree.

 

 

Yesterday the day started with 128 babes under 500 and when I went to bed 126 babes were still under 500.  That was hard.  Really hard.  All day I watched and prayed and hoped.  I have to admit I was terribly discouraged. 

 

This morning I woke up and counted as soon as I came down...

 

40 BABES HAD BUMPED OVER!!

 

 

Only 86 babes left under 500!!

 

Oh how sweet to see the movement in the tree.

 

And this morning.... I find out that I get to announce this sweet piece of news...

 

Ten Thousand Dollars...

 

 

That's how much has been offered in a matching grant to the Angel Tree!!!!

 

TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS...

 

The goal...

 

 

Get those left-behind 86 babes over 500...

 

Every single time a babe bumps over the 500 mark... the donor will bump a babe from the bottom over the 500 mark...

 

That means that we only need to bump 43 babes and 43 more will bump over!!

 

Please... CLICK HERE.... pick a child who is under 500....  PLEASE... bump them up... You can bump them all the way over 500 or you can just bump them a little... If we all work together we can get them all over!

 

 

And don't forget that there is a HUGE Giveaway happening so once you give CLICK HERE to enter into that giveaway!!

 

I am going to be on the road today and won't be able to do more than watch from my phone.  I'm so hoping we get those babes bumped today!! Please join in!!

 

IT'S TEN THOUSAND TUESDAY!!

 

This is going to be fun!!

 

 

CLICK HERE TO GET TO THE ANGEL TREE

 

Join In!

 

PLEASE!

 

 

The Whisper That Changed Everything

(part of this was originally written December 29, 2010)

 

 

Just a whisper.  A Holy Spirit breathed whisper.  A longing.  A stirring that began years before but began to grow louder and more insistent as time passed.  Adoption.  One day we said.  One day.  Later.  Too busy now.  Our days too full.  Not enough money.  Not enough time.  Later.  Much later.  When the boys are gone.  When we finish our current projects.  When our bank account is above 0.  Another day.  Not today.

All good arguments but the whisper stayed.  The stirrings continued.  The voice wasn't silenced.  The God-ordained encounters with those who had gone before kept happening.  Consider.  Just consider.  Pray.  But... but...no... can't... not.... all the arguments.  Mental gymnastics.  The money, God.  Where?  It can't work.  Our boys.  It's crazy.  We are broke.  Our business is tumbling down.  We are consumed with our side projects.  Our schedule is insane.  Dear Lord, it's just not the right time. 

 

Louder.  No longer a stirring but a wave.  A push.  An emptiness.  A realization that we lacked.  Something.  Someone.  Our lives were full of nothing.  Crazy chasing after useless dreams.  Circling - protecting our boys from what?  Our spiritual lives - Church - worship - tithing - going through the motions.  For what?  Our passion gone.  Realization of our empty cup.

 

Then a picture.  A smiling face.  A helpless child.  The Holy Spirit whisper becomes a scream. 

GO GET HIM.  HE'S YOURS. 

 This child.  In that country. GO.  Now.  Say yes.  Despite the bank account.  Despite the schedule.  Despite the arguments.  Despite it all.  GO. 

 

Five years later.  Our 'whisper' celebrating Christmas with us.  Our son.  Our child.  Our little brother.  Ours.  But more than Ours - God's.  His child.  His son.  His treasure that He called out of darkness.  To our family. 

Aaron. 

 

And five years later. Another whisper.  Another child.  A little sister.  A treasure needing to be found.  Go get her.  From that same country.  Despite the turmoil. Despite the schedule.  Despite the bank account.  Despite the diagnoses.  Go.  GO!

 

Harper.

 

December 29, 2009 - five years ago - Just a whisper in our hearts. 

 

Five years later a second whisper has us waiting to go again.  Waiting and wondering and praying for our whisper across the ocean.  Waiting and hoping.

 

Just a whisper.

 

Are you listening??

Do you hear??

 

 The whisper that will change everything for you?  Despite the bank account.  Despite the diagnosis.  Despite your schedule.

 

There are 140 million orphans in the world.

 

We can't save them all.

 

But we can make a difference for one.  Or two. 

 

Listen.

 

Consider.

 

Pray.

 

There are 199 children on the Angel Tree this year who do not have committed families.

 

199 children.

 

That's 199 whispers.

 

Are you listening?

 

 Even if you can't right now..... Please.... go help a child over the $1,000 wall. Give one of those 199 children a greater chance of a family.  We can't let money be the reason why a child doesn't get a family! 

 

Please!!!

 

Go help someone's whisper.  Maybe, just maybe it will be yours.

 

 

ANGEL TREE

 

 

 

 

 

To Us...

 

For to us a child is born,

 

 

to us a son is given,

 

 

and the government will be on His shoulders.

 

 

And He will be called

 

 

Wonderful Counselor,

 

 

Mighty God,

 

 

 

Everlasting Father,

 

 

Prince of Peace.

 

 

 

Of the greatness of His government and peace there will be no end.

 

 

 

He will reign on David's throne and over His kingdom,

 

 

 

establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness

 

 

 

from that time on and forever.

 

 

 

The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

 

 

 ---------------------------------------

 

In the midst of our hustle and bustle and fun and laughter and pageants and travel and baking and presents....

 

Let us not forget that it was to US a Child Was Born!!

 

 

Isaiah 9: 6-7

 

Without Christ in our Christmas it would be an empty holiday for us!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stuffed Stockings

Every year that cagey old Grinch shows up at our house and STEALS OUR STOCKINGS.

 

Every year we have to send out the troops to get them back.

 

 

Losing our stockings at Christmas is a HUGE issue because we can't start any of our Christmas traditions until they are found.

 

Traditions that include listening to the Christmas story and putting Jesus in the manger on the Advent Calendar. Traditions that include dumping the contents of our stuffed stockings out on the floor and chowing down on the candy inside.  Traditions that include each person finding Angel Tree dollars in those stuffed stockings and then 'spending' that money on sweet orphans who are lost and alone on Christmas morning.

 

Ben told me the other day that those Angel Tree dollars hurt his heart every year.  They hurt mine too.  In the midst of our Christmas celebrations we are confronted with the reality that hundreds, thousands, millions of children around the world don't even know what a Christmas stocking looks like. 

 

My heart is going to hurt even harder this Christmas.

My little girl is across the ocean. 

She's not here and that makes this Christmas a bit of a wreck for me.  The empty place at our table feels terribly empty right now.  The empty hook hanging on our chimney makes me sad.  Each time we pray around our kitchen table and cover her little head with a whispered prayer we are reminded that we are missing a piece.





She doesn't know about the problems we have with the Grinch or that I have been looking for a stocking for her to fit on that lonely hook.

She has no idea that we have a few presents for her set aside. Simple things that we will take with us when we meet her the first time. 





She doesn't know about us. That hurts my heart.

I haven't bought my Angel Tree dollars yet.  I plan on doing it soon.  Five years ago the Angel Tree led us to Aaron and our lives were radically changed forever. Even though Harper's isn't on the Angel Tree this year, we never would have found her without Reece's Rainbow.

205 children are on the Angel Tree this year.  200 children who still need families.

200 children who desperately need us to be their voice.

Is their space in your stockings for Angel Tree dollars?  Do you want your heart and your children's hearts to be "hurt" a bit in the middle of your Christmas festivities? Click to buy some Angel Tree dollars.  It's a great family tradition!

P.S. Make sure you redeem them BEFORE the end of the year!

 

Fatherless Friday

 

Okay.

 

It's Fatherless Friday and I'm crying out for two fatherless little boys.  Do you see them?  Can you see the utter need?  Both these boys have been neglected beyond belief. One of them was literally locked away behind doors.  Hidden. 

 

 

 

If you want to read that story go HERE.

 

Thankfully, they have a family coming.  A really cool, fun, crazy family.

 

I met them this last summer.

 

I was standing at the pool when they came walking in... 

 

 

This is what they looked like when I met them...

 

 Goodness me they were a mess!!

 

Meet the Chocolate Maas Family

 

The two youngest Maas babes are little RR babes!

 

 

They live on the wild side!!

 

 

Do me a favor..

 

Scroll back up and look at those two tiny, emaciated boys ...

 

 

 Now imagine those two precious little boys surrounded by this crazy bunch!!

 

 

 

How utterly different their lives are going to be in just a few short weeks.

 

Yes.  I said weeks.

 

You see those two little boys are in such desperate shape, their process has been speeded up and put on the fast train.

 

Fast!

 

The Maas family started the process in September and are traveling to get the boys in January.

 

5 months.

 

It's a rescue mission.

 

A rescue mission that is going to cost $45,000.00.

 

They could buy a new van with that.  A vacation in the Bahamas.  A pool. 

 

 Or they could invest into two precious little boys.

 

 

 

They choose the boys!

 

They have raised $15,000.00.

 

They need $30,000.00 more.

 

Won't you help?

 

Every tiny little bit helps!

 

THE MAAS FAMILY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Hole in the Plan

We built Harper's puzzle almost two months ago.

 

We even started filling in names on it.

 

The names of all the people who have donated to our adoption so far.

 

I wrote somewhere around 70 names on different puzzle pieces.

 

I wrote several blogposts about it.

 

It wasn't very smart of me.

 

We had a rather glaring problem with the puzzle but instead of addressing the issue, I ignored the obvious and plowed on ahead.

I wrote names thinking that the problem would eventually just go away and no one would be wiser.
 

That HUGE glitch should have given me pause....

 

I should have paid more attention to that rather GAPING hole...

 

Do you see it??

 

That glaring hole where a piece is supposed to be???

We saw that hole when we were building the puzzle.

 

We kept figuring it would show up. 

 

It didn't.

 

We looked and looked.  We took up the carpets and moved the fridge and looked in cabinets and pulled apart our pockets. 

 

It was gone.

 

Most likely it had never been. Since we built the puzzle in the same place and had it finished within a day of opening the box, and after tearing up our house... we were fairly certain it was not part of the box to begin with.

 

But we were optimistic about our dilemma and went ahead and started putting names on puzzle pieces.

 

We figured we had three options; find the missing piece, design our own piece to fit into that empty spot or get another puzzle and just replace the missing piece. So I happily wrote names and took pictures and figured the hole would eventually disappear without anyone being any wiser.

 

But the piece didn't appear which meant that hole didn't disappear.

And creating a piece for that spot really wasn't very realistic.

Buying another 20 dollar puzzle wasn't where we wanted to spend our hard-earned money, but we didn't want a puzzle with a messed-up piece so we decided to get another puzzle.  I called the company.  I shared with them why we were building the puzzle and explained our dilemna. They replaced the puzzle for free.  Wow!  Even though we couldn't prove that it was missing from the box, they went ahead and replaced the puzzle.  The Cobble Hill Puzzle Company has INTEGRITY! 

 

They sent us a new puzzle.

 

 

Home free right???  We just had to sort through the box and find that missing piece and put it in and get on about the business of adding a whole bunch of new names of KIND PEOPLE who keep dropping donations into our hands for Harper!!

 

Right???

Easy Peasy!

Problem Solved!

A hole in one!

 

Wrong!!

 

When we received the puzzle last week, Rob immediately opened it up only to discover that the pictures match perfectly BUT THE PIECES DO NOT.  The puzzle is cut completely different from the first one.

There is no way we can use the new puzzle to fix the old puzzle.

 

We have to rebuild the puzzle and redo all the names!

 

You are allowed to Laugh.

 

It's funny.

 

We are laughing.

We feel like a bunch of goofballs!

 

Honestly, we don't really mind too much redoing the puzzle. Our family enjoys building puzzles together. 

And writing the names again allows me another opportunity to whisper grateful prayers of thanks to each one who has  given.

 

Plus, building the puzzle again with Ben helping this time is definitely sweet because he is beyond thrilled to be getting a little sister.

 

So our little hole in the plan is getting fixed soon, and we will be back to writing names on puzzle pieces in the coming weeks.

And man do we have a LOT of names to write on that puzzle!!

 

If you look at the thermometer on our sidebar you can see how much has come in.  It is a total of all the donations we have received so far: In our Reece's Rainbow account, our You-Caring account, checks and cash people have given us and all the little envelopes and bags of change from my precious precious students. 

God has been good.

 People have truly been kind. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Candle of Hope

This has been on my sidebar for almost 2 years now.

 

Two years ago I watched a whole host of families, many of them friends of mine in the adoption world, get sucker punched when Rus*ia closed its door to U.S. adoptions.  So many of them had crossed the ocean and met their child only to be standing on the wrong side of the doors when they swung shut. 

 

It is easy for us who were not affected to forget the agony they feel but trust me - they will never forget. 

 

One mom in particular has been fighting on every level for her sweet girl. She has been tireless in her efforts to keep the children left behind from being forgotten.

 

 

This is Natasha - the sweet babe she left behind.

 

I'm not asking for money.  I'm only asking for a very simple and easy way to show support.  If you are on Facebook - please click THIS LINK and like the page. The goal is to get 10,000 likes by the end of the year in order to show the world that the orphans behind those closed doors have not been forgotten.

 

That's it.  Just LIKE THIS PAGE.

 

Today in Mosc0w, a documentary is premiering called Children of the State. It tells the story of the ban and the impact it has had on the families and the children left behind. Natasha is in that documentary.  She was 6 years old when her family met her, held her, kissed her and promised to come back for her.  2 1/2 years later she still sits in the orphanage...

 

Please please do not stop praying for the orphans in Rus*ia.  Pray for that documentary.  Pray that it touches hearts and brings about sweeping changes. Pray that hearts of stone will soften. There are so many locked away.  My Yegor who was on the Angel Tree two years ago and had a Mama who was just starting the process to get him is one of them.  This is an updated picture of him.

 

  

 

Sweet boy will most likely spend the rest of his life in an institute. So will Natasha.  They are the hard to place, given up at birth, children that no one wanted.  But they ARE wanted. They ARE loved. They HAVE families who have room at their table. That's the hardest reality of all.

 

 

Please don't stop praying.

 

And LIKE this page.  Let the families who left their babes behind know that you care.