.Stories.

Stories are so precious. They connect us, they inspire us, they embolden us, and warn us.  It is in a story that we find solidarity and so often find ourselves nodding along thinking, yes, me too. Humanity is found within the pages. There is a desire inside of us, no matter our temperaments, to know and be known, and stories foster this. This is one of the main reasons that I have been feeling the desire to come back to this little space and share again. I miss what happens in the sharing. I need what happens to me in the sharing. There is no better way to point to Jesus then for me to bare my story.

BUT.

And that but makes me hesitant, and question and sometimes it makes me stuck staring at a blank screen. Because the truth is, the story is not always easy. It is not always easy to tell, and it is most definitely not always easy to live. I want to write transparently, but I also really desire for it to be tidy. Tidy, however, is seldom authentic. Because this one wild life that makes up our one wild story is messy. Honestly, every great story has a mess, but think about the greatest stories, that mess is sometimes what leads to the most beautiful ending, those endings that take our breath away and make us feel alive. The tension is what makes us keep reading. It is what keeps us interested. I think maybe it is because the tension is something so many of us can relate to. It might look differently for you, than it does for me, but humans understand tension.

I really want a lovely story. I am a simple girl, and would like a simple story, but God has some crazy ideas about my story. So, here I am in Ethiopia, and the story is anything but simple, and many times far from lovely, and honestly, a lot lonely. 2016 started ugly and pregnant with tension. Hours into this clean slate, this beautiful brand new chapter and fresh start, the enemy came back with his old tricks and snuck in with things that we thought had already been dealt with and stamped out. I am learning that parenting really “messies” the story. It also refines and chisels. I made some very intentional parenting goals for this next year, and held onto that goal as a bomb was dropped in front of us. But then six days in,  I had already failed miserably, and the goal was nowhere to be found. Oftentimes in these failures, I recognize how much I am trying to do this alone, and am brought back to my knees again to face my failure head on and acknowledge my need for Jesus. And so the story goes - messy and full of chances to try again on the next page and in the next chapter. I suppose that is a beautiful way to describe grace – all these second chances to rewrite the narrative.

So, as we press into this new year, here is to our stories, our collective ones that collide and intertwine, and our individual ones that illustrate our unique plot. May we be brave in the telling, gentle in the living, and open to the hearing of the stories around us. The gospel was based upon the greatest story ever told, and its main character was the greatest storyteller who ever lived. May this example guide us to be courageous with our own stories.

And that bruise under my eye? It has a story. A story involving a water balloon. Sometimes the story is different than it appears on the surface, or that we create in our mind. Might we also be gracious and tender as we wait and listen for the truth of the stories bravely shared with us, because not every story is as it may first seem.

.The Tension.

It’s been nearly a year. Nearly a year since we landed in Addis and emptied suitcases and threw ourselves into making this place our home. It has been nearly a year since we have begun the laborious process of establishing an NGO here, so that we can actually DO what we were called to do. It has been a year of God growing us, changing us, and pursuing us in remarkable and extravagant ways. It has not been a year without hardships and tears and questioning, but looking back it has been one of the best years that we have ever experienced. We have seen Jesus like never before. We have seen his transforming power, and we have witnessed the Kingdom break into daily life.

We came here desperate to put off any arrogance that we had in preconceived ideas about this culture and about the “right way to do things”. We prayed that God would humble us and make us learners in this journey. He answered our prayers over and over. We thought that the “right way” to do missions was to do business as missions. It is such a beautiful idea, and one that we felt compelled to flesh out. It also, honestly, sounds so much safer and comfortable to be able to support our mission with a business and not have to rely on churches and individuals to support us. We were eager and sold-out on this model, and prayed up, certain that this is how God was leading us. Only to have God literally slam every single door to every single business opportunity here in Addis in our faces.

Every time a door slammed, we heard His gentle whisper, trust Me.

It soon became evident that our ministry plan for street children was wildly different and wildly counter-culture, and radically going to take all of our efforts, all of our energy and focus in order to be done in a way that will bring glory to God. And the truth is, we came for the boys not a business. The business was an aside – it was just supposed to support us, but God has very clearly let us know that at this time, He wants us to trust Him for the support. So here we sit, fully reliant on people across the globe from us. To be authentic, that is scary, and it gets scarier as Jesus continues to whisper follow Me, trust Me.

I felt confident that In order to keep support and gain support, we need to tell stories. We need to tell you about the lives that Jesus has touched this past year. The sad stories, the sad photographs, they tug at people’s hearts, and they share the real need that is here, and I really, really bought into the necessity of them. But sometime this year in the midst of the stories and photos, the pause button was jammed on, and I started seeing things differently and questioning my motives with throwing up a photo on social media of a person in a horribly sad, vulnerable position – perhaps even a person we were able to help out of that position. Something wasn’t sitting right with me. My heart was beginning to feel uneasy. It started to feel a little bit like exploitation, and even objectification. But I knew that it worked. I knew that people across the ocean would be more likely to make a financial donation if I shared the photos of people suffering and their sad stories. If I shared about the man who tried to hang himself and about literally cutting down the rope and tucking him safely into family, about the teenage girl who came home so drunk every night that she had to be nearly carried up the stairs and undressed and cleaned up and placed into bed, about the hours upon hours spent in a hospital and then the deafening screams that came with AIDS diagnosis, about the baby who died from AIDS because we were just too late, and the father who refuses to have her brother tested, because he just cannot bare to know. About the woman who mourns for her murdered son. About the teenage boy who never knew his mother and endures beatings from his grandmother and meals at our table because at least then he gets fed. And even sharing this is making me want to delete the whole post. Because these are REAL PEOPLE, and their story is not my story to tell. I have no right.

And then in the midst of this wrestling one day, our son came to us with trembling lips and big eyes and said, “please do not post photos of street kids sleeping on the streets. It is wrong.” We were taken aback. Street kids is who God has called us to, telling their hard stories seemed like a great way to raise awareness and honestly, money, in order to be able to serve them. But this son who came to us that day, so visibly distraught had at one time, for several years, been one of those boys. He had had countless foreigners come and take his photo, photos of him when he was most dejected, most vulnerable, and still very, very much a child. He had been enrolled in numerous NGOs and his photos were distributed and used and profited on. And he never benefitted from it, and even years later it still hurts to have been exploited at the most vulnerable and challenging time in his life. We listen to this child when he speaks of this, because he knows. God has used his voice to mold and shape many of our dreams for our future ministry with street children. His voice is the same reason that we cannot do a drop-in center and feed street kids only to turn them back out onto the streets, because this exact kind of thing hurt our child more than it helped. It is why we have to pursue family-based care starting with a small number. It is why we cannot do behavioral modification but rather passionate pursuit of the heart of children. Although, there are good ministries right here in Addis with very different philosophies and practices that do great things, we have chosen to join in in a way that looks a bit different.  

So, we are trying to learn a new way. We are trying to be creative with how we share and what we share. It is why so many of our posts lately just focus on our day-to-day family life here in Ethiopia. It is so NOT because there is nothing to share, or we have not seen Jesus in people’s lives, but rather because we are still trying to figure this out. The use of photos and stories of disadvantaged people and vulnerable children to illustrate what we are doing, and what we need to raise money for risks exploiting humans - humans made in the image of God. For right now, we have decided not to take that risk. This creates quite a tension for us as missionaries. It is important that we share what Jesus is doing. People are supporting us, and they need to know how their support is impacting the Kingdom. But I think that people, whether in poverty, whether vulnerable and in crisis or not, have a right to share or not share their story. It is their choice. It is not mine. It is what we have always clung to with our boys who came to us via adoption. Their story is their story for when and if they are ever ready to share it with the world.

This is an ongoing conversation. We continue to press into Jesus and into the people He brings to us, and we continue this dance of knowing when and how to share with you. I believe that the answer is creating an avenue for their own voices in their own time and of their own free will. How? I don’t know. What does it look like? I have no idea. But there has to be a way, and I am desperate to figure it out. We still have so far to go, and so much to learn, but until then we press on keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus 

What is Love?

It's been so long since I have written that there are too many thoughts trying to squeeze their way out my fingertips. I fear these fingers cannot dance across the keyboard fast enough to keep time with heart words spilling over. This may not be eloquent as the words just gush out. At first I thought this post would be about grace. God is teaching me so much about what His grace really is, and it seems like the message has been bombarding me for months from all angles. I have had opportunities to see it played out and to put it into practice. I haven't been able to ignore it. I understand now how much I misunderstood His radical grace, but I am not sure if I am confident enough to share all of what I have learned yet. It's still so new, and to be very honest, it is still strange and hard to grasp. The denomination that I grew up in taught grace in words, but the actions of grace - the fleshing out - often fell short, which even now, as an adult, is confusing, but as a child, even more so. I think this is where my misunderstanding began, and I think this is why I am hesitant to share. So then my thoughts turned to love, perhaps because this week marked my thirteenth wedding anniversary, and love has been on my mind. Perhaps because it has been swirling around social media. Perhaps because my teenage son is growing older and daily closer to love and marriage, and I am desperate for him to grasp true love and experience it first here inside of our home, so that he is capable and ready to give it away when the time comes. Perhaps because a friend and I had a mild freak out yesterday realizing that we were raising somebody's husband. {deep breath} That's heavy. As I have walked through these past few days knowing that I would eventually find myself drawn here, locked inside of my room, in front of a laptop, that I had to carve out the time to come here and fill up this space with words, I realized that grace and love are so mingled. The truest version of them is married together. Real grace cannot exist without real love, and true love cannot exist without true grace. When we encounter authentic grace married to authentic love it is one of the most beautiful reflections of the heart of the Father and the gospel of Jesus that we get the privilege to discover here on earth.

There has been a lot of talk about love lately. There are some heated debates swirling around social media. In truth it is rather ugly to witness. It's polarizing. I have remained quiet, because there are humans involved, and i have yet to figure out how to add my voice in a way that does not heap on hurt to one side or the other. So many people on all sides are hurting, and it is so sad. Let's be honest, in the spewing of arguments on social media, especially when they are not cloaked in genuine relationships with one another, nobody wins. In arguing about love; it just looks like hate. In the midst of all of this tension, though, I have personally been reflecting on love - what does real love look like? For several months now, actually since the beginning of this year, I have been meditating on I Corinthians 13; the passage known as "the love passage" in Christian circles. This passage is slapped onto wedding programs and sweetly read over naive wedding couples in numerous churches. It was true for my own wedding. The verses are made out to be cute and pithy and easy as two young people gaze adoringly into each others eyes, dreaming of the life they are starting together. Hollywood has glamorized love in such a way that is is unrecognizable to the real thing, and so many of us have bought into it, and our children are growing up mesmerized by the allure of it. They think that the fake kind of love, the selfishness, the lust, the mushy gushy feel-goodness that masquerades and parades itself as love, that is displayed all over movies and TV and sung about on the radio is attainable and desirable and right. And they think if they don't find that then they are missing out on what everyone else has. As I am writing this post the lyrics of that cheesy eighties song is bouncing around my head, What is love? Baby don't hurt me; don't hurt me, no more. But the truth is that silly song, like so many of us, has missed the mark on real love. Real love does hurt. Love deliberately gets up, goes again toward that person it is aimed at, and it understands that in the process it is choosing to serve someone and put someone's needs ahead of its own in a way that is so vulnerable and so exposed that when you truly love someone, hurt is unavoidable and it will happen again and again and again. 

Love actually does hurt.

Real love entwined with grace is wild and different. It's mature and wise. It's strange and unnatural. It fights against our flesh and our human bent. Just look carefully at I Corinthians 13. It doesn't look very much like the love in the movies. There is so much more to the depth of it. It is the heart beat of our life. It is all that matters. Without love, nothing we do or say even makes a difference - it's all empty. We are given two commands from Jesus to live out our days. The first is to love God with everything inside of us and all that we are, and the second is to love others as much as ourselves. (Matthew 22:37) He promised that if we could love Him and others that everything else would fall under that. Can you imagine what the tapestry of our world could look like if Jesus followers actually practiced these? Almost everyday I hear myself quoting these two commands to my children in hopes that they will comprehend and live out what so many of us have forgotten. But what does this love look like? If it is not the Hollywood love, what is it? The Message version says that we are bankrupt without love, and then in verses 4-7 clearly spells out what love is, what love does. And it is pretty radical.

Love never gives up.

Love cares for others more than for self.

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.

Love doesn't strut; doesn't have a swelled head.

[Love] doesn't force itself on others.

[Love] isn't always "me first'.

[Love] doesn't fly off the handle

[Love] doesn't keep score of the sins of others,

[Love] doesn't revel when others grovel.

[Love] takes pleasure in the flowering of truth.

[Love] puts up with anything.

[Love] trusts God always.

[Love] always looks for the best.

[Love] never looks back, but keeps going until the end.

Love never dies.

I Corinthians 13:47 The Message (emphasis mine)

Love shows up and shows out. It is not dependent on the love of the other person. It is active and pursues, and fights again and again and again. Yes, there are all kinds of love, romantic love, friendship love, family love, etc., but all real, genuine love have these same above characteristics at its core. To never give up, to care more about another than oneself, to forget wrongs, to cling to truth, it's all hard, and it all hurts at times. But it is always worth it, and love like this - the real deal kind of love is enduring and the greatest gift we can give to another human. But if love hurts so much, and is so self-sacrificing, and demands so much of us, why would we want it? The truth is love chooses to hurt, because love chooses to love. It sounds cliche' to say love is a choice, but honestly it is. Love is a daily choice. Our perfect example of flawless, true love was Jesus, and He chose you. He chose me. He looked at us in all of our weakness and brokeness and mistakes - past, present and future, and with a love that cannot be comprehended, He tenderly cupped our chin with his scarred, nail-pierced hand, and said, "I want you". We did nothing to deserve His choosing, His love. We could do nothing. We were incapable. His love chased us down, pursued us, and His love sunk into our mirk and sat in the mud with us, embraced us right where we were and accepted us wholly, completely - as is. It's a wild, untamed, alluring kind of love that is not afraid of our filth, and in the filth is where its partner grace enters in, grace goes right into the mess, holding hands with love, and rescues us and carries us out, while we are helpless and unable to rescue ourselves. When Jesus, perfect Love incarnate, allowed Himself to be carried to that cross and murdered, He saw you and He saw me. He saw everything we would ever be and do, and He saw that we were incapable of anything on our own, and He lovingly came anyway to get us. He LOVED us. And now we are compelled to love, because He first loved us with an unfailing, never-giving up love. A love that is yours and mine despite us, a love that we could never sustain, and we don't have to! We cannot make God love us, He already does. I cannot earn His love, and I cannot do anything to deserve it, and wrapped up in that truth rushes in love's mate grace. Authentic grace is cloaked in love and it races in hot pursuit after us and meets us right, exactly where we are, looks us square in the eyes, sees our innermost ugly, and loves us into a beautiful invitation of abundant life. Because love compells it to, grace so gently and tenderly drags us out of the murk and into life.

I am speculating that the way we love others will look a lot more like I Corinthians 13, rather than the phony Hollywood love when we finally recognize the complete way that we are loved and accepted. The way we love must change when we truly understand the outrageousness of the love that was poured over us, while we were so unworthy, love that manifested itself in drops of Jesus' blood, and when we finally get that this perfect love has absolutely nothing to do with us, and the grace that is married to His love crashes over us and transforms and breaks in and heals and changes us. This marriage of love and grace that is ours is explosive, and it it permeates everything about us. Perhaps when we truly grasp how deeply we are loved, we will stop feeling so threatened by the world around us, and instead will see people as people just like us- some still sitting in that murk, not needing our rhetoric and lectures and debates, but needing us to pursue and flesh out the kind of love Jesus has for them. I Corinthians says without love we are nothing. So, perhaps, maybe when put our attention on loving God and loving humans, and just focus on that, maybe then Love really will win.

This knowledge of how much we are loved, changes how we love. Because HE first loved us.

.A Spoonful of Honesty.

We are headed into our eighth month living here in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We continue to love this city and the people, and to feel as if we are exactly where God wants us to be. We have spent half a year  intentionally leaning into God and His purpose for us here. Some original plans fell through, and God clearly has pointed us in the direction of creating a brand new indigenous NGO for street children. This is way bigger than what we had prepared for, but it is exactly how God loves to display His perfect strength - in our broken weakness. As God’s purpose and plans have been unfolded we continue to solidify our methodology and philosophy for working with children, and at its simple core it comes down to pursuit. For years we have seen how the Gospel, how Jesus, pursues. Jesus doesn’t wait for us to be ready for change or to even have a desire for change. He doesn’t wait until we have cleaned ourselves up, or have outwardly changed our behaviors, so that we look as if we measure up to His standards, because the truth is there is nothing inside of us that can change or even be ready with a desire to change outside of the working, initiation, and pursuit of Jesus Christ. If we are to be imitators of Jesus, then we must pursue, and that pursuit must be relentless and not dependent upon anything that the child/person does. Through much thinking and praying a three part purpose for Mercy Branch Inc. emerged. A purpose that we believe in and see beautifully exemplified in the Gospel. The three parts must coexist but flow from the first one, and are as follows: relentless pursuit of the whole person, radical grace, and reverent mercy. That’s easy to write, and lovely to think about, and I really do believe deep inside that it is the core of the Gospel. But let me tell you, that there are far, far easier philosophies and methodologies out there than this one, and the past few weeks as we cemented God’s plans and purposes and committed to establishing an NGO that echoes the Gospel, the enemy has attacked the very heart of what we want to do. It’s as if God is allowing us to be tested in this very commitment right here in our own family.

Is this what you really believe?

Are you really willing to pursue like I have pursued you? Because it is hard, messy, and it hurts.

I am going to try to be transparent with you, and yet be ambiguous enough to still protect the privacy of my family. Although we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are exactly where we should be, these past few weeks have been very, very hard for our family. Everything kind of crescendoed today when my children found their puppy had died. It’s time for a little honesty and to get our spiritual boxing gloves on, and to gather our people around us in solidarity and prayer. I am sick and tired of the cowardly way that Satan is attacking our family – by targeting our children. It started way back in February, when it was brought to our attention that rumors were flying, and apparently had been for years, about our family. Disgusting, filthy, and grotesque accusations that “Christians” were giving ears to and seemingly perpetuating. We were crushed. It seems so many times when we seek out authentic community with believers, we are instead wounded and betrayed. Sadly these rumors really involved our oldest child. Satan is very crafty, and he knows our weaknesses and insecurities so intimately. He knew these horrible speculations would plant a huge seed of doubt in our child’s, already traumatized heart. He knew the way to do it was to attack family and have adults question his very identity in our family. It literally makes me shake with anger even as I type this. As parents we desire to protect and nurture the hearts of our children and give them security as a member of our family. This is an especially unique challenge when your child has spent years rejected, abandoned, abused, and not part of any family. Unfortunately, Satan used these lies to manipulate, not only the minds of people, but also our child. He used other lies as well, but all of the lies built upon these rumors. These lies culminated in us coming dangerously close to losing our son. I cannot and will not go into specific details – none are needed. It was the most horrifying, terrifying, and painful experience that we have ever had as parents (and we have had our fair share prior to this). This is where the rubber met the road, and we had to put all of our beliefs about the Gospel into practice – we had to pursue and pursue and pursue. Behavior modification and trying to make a child follow rules is so, so much easier than pursuing the heart and the entire child with grace and mercy. Let me tell you that as a family, we all HURT, and although it looks as if we are slowly limping to the other side, it still hurts, and we are still pursuing – all four of our children through this ugly time.

Satan absolutely hates families. We believe that it is inside of a family that healing can take place, and Satan would much rather traumatized children never heal. We believe that street children can best experience true healing and freedom in Jesus inside of a family – a family that pursues at all costs. Our son is NO longer a street child, and we have treated him as nothing less than our beloved son (because that is WHO HE IS), but we have had to and continue to have to pursue him in crazy, intense ways. Knowing so much about us and about families, course Satan is magnificent at attacking and destroying families. BUT HE CAN’T HAVE MINE. We are surrounding ourselves with truth from God’s Word, with the knowledge that Jesus is pursuing each one of us, praise and worship music and very, very tangible reminders that we are a family – family that God miraculously established. We have a team of counselors firmly surrounding us, and we have God for us. To be honest, we still desire to find community here with other Kingdom builders, but sadly we will now proceed more cautiously. God has given us just one precious family to steward, to cherish, to protect, and to build up for His Kingdom. This is our primary role here on earth, at this time, no matter where we live, or what else God has called us to.

Yesterday, Jim got to explicitly share the Gospel with someone whom we love like family.  For almost eight months we have been praying and pursuing this person, and we have gotten the privilege of watching Jesus pursue him. This morning we hung up a gallery wall of family portraits to daily remind us that we are in this together, and that we truly are FAMILY. At nearly the same time that we experienced these glimpses of grace and mercy poured out over us, the childrens’ beloved puppy unexpectedly died. They are grieving and hurting, as she has played a vital role in comforting them here in a strange country so far away from what they are familiar with. This is not just a coincidence. Satan is alive and well, and he is not done with us. He sees something in us that perhaps we cannot yet see. He is forecasting a future for our family here in Ethiopia that terrifies him. I don’t know what he plans to do next or how he will attack, but we are readying ourselves for this battle. Jim and I are praying over our family, our marriage, and our future ministry with children here in Addis, and we humbly ask you to do the same. We are so not special or super-spiritual. We are messy. We are broken. We are normal – just a family who desires to follow Jesus. We know that God wins in the end, but we desperately desire to come to the end unified and together. Our family can’t be a casualty. So I share this to ask you stand beside us in prayer. None of us were meant to do this alone.

.God Writes THE BEST Stories.

I wasn't going to write, because I have already been gushing all over facebook all day long. I am obnoxious like that. But I couldn't stay away from here either. The place where so much of this story has tumbled out of my heart. The space where I shared my hopes, dreams, and prayers with you all. I feel like shouting to the world this story, and what God did. This morning in a little courtroom in NY state, with some of the people who love us best, our family made history, and God did what we were told over and over and over could never happen. He did what we had been told for three years was impossible. He did what has never been done before in the United States. He pulled out all of the stops, and showed His power in a way that will leave me breathless for the rest of my life. Today Habi became our legal, official son through the miracle (and it truly was that) of adoption.

There are so many details that we have hidden away to protect our Habi. While what we have shared of this story is miraculous enough, all of the other little details added in, the huge hurdles that God had to break down to get us to this point, the number of doors He had to crash open that had been tightly shut, it is all more than I can even comprehend. I know that for the past three years we have stood inside of a move of God, and it was HUGE, supernatural, and mind-boggling. As I sit here in the quiet, my mind flipping through all of the events that have taken place to get here, it doesn't seem real. Everything that had to happen was so perfectly timed out and orchestrated by a loving, creative, Author. There is no way that we could have scripted this. I told Jim that it feels as if we are in a movie. And it does, because this just does not happen in real life. BUT it did happen!

The most powerful lesson that I have learned in all of this, and what I hope people see when they hear of this is that God writes the best stories. Shortly before we decided to adopt from Ethiopia, God began to work in our hearts and lives in a brand new way. A more real way, but a way in which I had to intentionally surrender the pen to Him, and allow Him to write my story. It wasn't easy for me to give up the sense of control that comforted me. None of it has been easy - not one paragraph, one page, one chapter. I haven't always done it right. I have faltered along the way, and I have questioned the story so many times. Sometimes I have not appreciated His plot line, and I have thought that I could have written it better. But God in His mercy allowed me just enough strength to not yank the pen back, and God kept scratching out this story over my life. While I do believe that if I had held on to the pen, my story would have been easier, I also know that it would not have been nearly as beautiful. I would have under-written my story. The beauty needed to be sharpened by the pain that can only come with surrender. He is strong in our weakness, and that is why I believe he chose my family for this story, because we are weak and ordinary.

Today is a huge 'ta da' life-changing moment in our story. A chapter closed with a big reveal - a movie-style ending. But what you need to know is that there has been a lot of middle to this story, and that today is not the whole story. What I want you to know is that God wants to write your story, too. Perhaps you have not yet handed Him the pen, and I want to encourage you to give it a try. Or perhaps you have, but you are inside the middle, and it is hard and lonely and painful, and it feels like it must be the end. But friend, it's not the end. He is still writing your story. He hasn't left you and closed the manuscript. The pen is still hovered over you, and He is still writing. The hard times, the moments when God is silent, the painful pages that seem to suck the life from you, they all have a purpose in your story. Don't read my ending of this chapter of my story and be discouraged thinking that God only writes stories like this for some people. The story God has for you is unique and beautiful and YOURS. Sometimes God is just writing further into the story than you have read. Be patient, wait with hope and expectation, because God writes the best stories. Trust the Author of your story. What He is writing is better than you can ever imagine.

Today this chapter in my story came to a beautiful close, but tomorrow a new chapter looms before me blank and white and ready for His pen. I am ready for the story to continue.

Here we are just after the judge declared the adoption to be final. This is our son Habtamu (his given name in Ethiopia which means "rich") Theo (which comes from the Greek word theophany which means "in the image of God" - my name Tiffany is also from this same Greek word) Byron (a family name that has been passed down through generations - all of our sons have this name).

.A Moment.

I am sitting here pecking out letters that race across my screen, and I know I should be packing instead. Because in just 17 (almost 16 now) days our family boards a plane and embarks on a new journey in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia serving street children. I am giddy about that and about all that God is inviting us into, but this moment, right now, I am even more giddy about the absolute miracle that is about to unfold tomorrow.

It was January 20, 2011, when I first laid eyes on him, and in the 1,335 days and 32,044 hours between that moment and tomorrow I have not stopped dreaming of and fighting for this very day.  It was a moment. Just one minuscule, unnoticeable to passers-by, moment, and my life and its path were forever changed. I have said it all here a thousand times a thousand different ways, but the story doesn't get old. How could it? Out of the almost 8 billion people that live in this world, out of all the millions of street boys - a woman born into luxury and comfort and a boy born into squalor and pain, an ocean apart, collided in what could only have been a God-ordained moment. And it really was only that - a moment. A few words exchanged, a few tears, a beaded bracelet and some granola bars. But that was all it took for our hearts to become entwined.

I have repeated it so many times, and it sounds crazy - even still - but I knew the moment our eyes held each others that God was up to something. I knew this child was destined to be my son, and I his mama. There were so many other boys that day. I had been tugged on, hugged, and begged from, but in that moment, I only had eyes for one.  I knew he was mine when his grubby, little hand thrust the beaded bracelet through our van window, because my heart could not contain the moment. I could not fathom another breath without knowing that this child was safe and secure, wanted and loved. Every single day since then, I have expended myself to be sure that he knows this with every fiber of his being. In that van that day, a new part of me was born, a fighter, a part of me that I did not know I possessed. Even then courage took root, and I turned to our friend, Job, and asked what was the likely hood of me adopting a street boy - that boy. He smiled at me, amused at my ignorance and naivety, and said "Oh, Tiffany, that is impossible."  And when I typically would have just backed-down, as was my nature, a fighter emerged. I nodded, and prayed, and dreamed big, and I ignored the impossible.

I ignored the impossible because I have a God who specializes in the impossible. If ever I doubt this, all I have to do is look back over these past three years and remember the way that God has smashed through the impossibles and obliterated the no's. God taught me how to stand up and to fight for justice in this journey, but the truth is that He didn't need me to do anything. He could have done this without me. All of the glory is His. The only thing I did was step into His invitation, and even in that I am pretty certain He dragged me in.

.

The day I met Habi.

Tomorrow, a miracle happens. Tomorrow, what so many people told us was impossible happens. Tomorrow that moment - the one that took place on the dusty street of Addis, comes full-circle. Tomorrow, what we were told would never happen is happening, our family stands before a judge, and my sweet, precious boy, the one that is so connected to my heart in a way that could only be supernatural, becomes my legal SON. 

Our God still preforms miracles, He is the exact same God that made the sun stand still for Joshua, and He still moves mountains to do the impossible. Tomorrow He is moving that mountain for us. This has not been an easy journey, for anyone involved. It has not been without tears and fear and heart-ache, but every single step along the way has been worth it. I would do it all over again in a heart beat.

In just a moment that boy will become mine.

[If you are new here, and don't know this story, click here.]

.The In-Between.

I have seen the topic all over social media lately and in book stores. The topic about saying yes to God. It's beautiful what God is rising up inside of His Church, in this generation. The invitation to say yes to what He is doing in the world is exciting, and I believe that He has big plans for us - for this generation and the generations to follow us. The creativity and the uniqueness of His personal invitations are limitless, and it leaves me breathless. But lately every time I see another blog post, or facebook status, or cute instagram quote pop up that talks about saying yes to God, I cringe and my heart hurts, because I am inside of the yes, and it hasn't felt very cute being here. Saying yes to God cannot be reduced down to the next cute, fad thing. It just can't. Everyone that says yes to God knows this. There is a realness and rawness that comes with the yes that is both exhilarating and excruciating.

I am beginning to discover that there is often a gaping hole between saying yes to God and the fulfillment of that yes. That gaping hole is dark and deep. Right now my family is inside of that gaping hole. We are in the in-between; no longer are we living off the high of the yes, and we have yet to see the yes fulfilled. We are just hanging precariously in the middle. I wish that I could say that since last summer, when we finally surrendered our yes to God to move to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia -when we stepped out in faith and accepted His invitation to partner with God by serving street kids - that our life has been rainbows and butterflies. But it has been anything but that. It has been hard, ugly grueling; we have fough tooth and nail to fulfill the yes. It has become a sloppy mess of intentional daily obedience. There is very little glamour inside of the gap where daily scratching out obedience becomes your battle cry. It's continuing to say yes, by putting one heavy, aching foot in front of the other and burrowing deeper into the gaping hole of the in-between.

Being completely transparent with you, I have cried buckets of tears, eaten my way through too many chocolate bars, questioned our sanity, doubted our call, and been more fearful than brave in every single step of this process. The in-between is hard. Some moments when I look at what is before us, and what is left to be done in order to fulfill this yes, I am more scared than anything else. It is inside these shaky moments, where my heart is panicked and terrified, that my soul knows that this yes has been and always will be God-ordained. Because the Tiffany that I know so well, would never ever set out to do something so big on her own. We know that this is where God works and moves. Sometimes He asks us to do hard things, to claw for that daily obedience after the initial yes, with no reality of that yes manifesting itself.

Sometimes He makes us wait inside the gap, and sometimes the wait is long.

The scariest part of the journey comes after the yes. Sure the journey begins when one courageously surrenders that yes and takes the leap of faith. Absolutely that is hard and scary, but to be suspended in the gap after the yes is frightening. It's a painful place to be to be caught between your yes and the dream of that yes becoming a reality. It is in this chasm that the enemy slips in, and we must guard our hearts. But it is also inside this chasm of the unfulfilled yes, that I think God intentionally backs us into, in order that we might see that there is no way for our yes to be fulfilled except from Him. Our desperation is just a way to set the stage for God to finish what He started in miraculous ways that only He can.

That's where I am right now - where my family is - inside the chasm between the yes and the fulfillment of that yes -we are waiting - wandering aimlessly in the dessert desperate for that Promise Land. But while we wait, I have to believe that God is working behind the scenes - in our hearts and on the details of the yes. We are in some kind of supernatural holding pattern. Somedays I am okay with that, and I am intentional about enjoying the here and now and building the Kingdom from here. Other days I am discouraged and confused and fearful and doubtful, and both kinds of days are okay. God can handle my questions and concerns and loves me through them. I am learning that every yes, every dream, has difficulties, and during this time where we wait, God is preparing us. I now believe that a year ago, our hearts weren't ready for the unknown reality of what lies ahead in Africa. Today, a year later, I believe that although we are not there yet, we are much more prepared for our future life. It is in this delay that our faith has been tested and we have grown. We have had to learn how to better respond to pressure, to stress, the unexpected, and disappointments, and how to continue striving for that daily obedience to our Jesus. All things that we will need in order to survive in Ethiopia.Things that I now believe we had to go through this past year, here, before we move there.

We are not alone in this waiting period. There are so many examples of Biblical precedent to where we find ourselves.The Egyptians always come to mind. When we say yes to God, there is no easy guarantee, there is a promise that we will never be alone and that God's way will always be best, but most likely it will not be easy. Saying yes, puts the reigns firmly in God's hands. I've surrendered control and yielded to Him. My yes offers everything back to Him - even this moment right here between the yes and the fulfillment of that yes - the in-between - He has it all. He's here now, in the in-between, and wants to do more with this than I could ever imagine. I trust that - even when it is hard.

A recent family photo - thanks to my sweet friend, T!

.Homeschool Fail.

We just entered our eighth week of homeschooling. We started early this summer, in anticipation for our upcoming move to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The kids and I did not want to jump into a new country, a new culture, and a new school year all at the same time. So we decided to school throughout the summer, and take our summer break when we move to Addis. The first five weeks went swimmingly. There were a few bumps to smooth out, we hired a nanny for Jamesy, and there were attitude adjustments to be made (the kids and mine), but overall we fell into a rhythm and it was working.

And then Habi had surgery - a complete ACL repair and in the midst of surgery the surgeon also found a meniscus tear and repaired that. We took two weeks off. It was a nice break for all of us. In the middle of the two weeks some friends offered us their home to rent, so that we could have some privacy and re-group as a family, so we moved {again}. We had our second week off here at the new place, and then we jumped back into school. This time we have no nanny for Jamesy. We also do not have access to a printer - for my lesson plans I use a free block lesson plan printable, and then print a daily checklist for each child. The printer is my life line. Without it things began to spiral down hill.

Rapidly.

I am notoriously unorganized when it comes to physical things (like my closet or the pots and pans cupboards - pretty much if it goes behind closed doors it's almost guaranteed craziness, and I am okay with it if I do not have to see it), but I am obsessively organized on paper - with my calendar, schedules, lesson plans, day planner, etc. I am pretty careful with the homeschool books being organized as well - everything runs better this way. I am detail oriented and a planner when it comes to school. All of this may sound contradictory, and that is me in a nutshell - a juxtaposition.

Aaaah. Neat and tidy, and we all know what we are doing!


The kids just check off as they go, that way they know for sure, and I know for sure that everything that needed to get done was done. It's beautiful.

But we moved here with no printer, and I decided I was going to be care-free and go-with-the-flow - tra-la-la - everything was going to work itself out just great and homeschooling and all the things would be amazing! Becuase I am such an easy-breezy, fly-by-the seat-of-my-pants kind of mama. EXCEPT THE OPPOSITE. But for two weeks I gripped my mug of coffee and put on a happy face, I tried to be carefree and work through school with no. lesson. plans. and no. checklists. (I am jittery just typing that.) I went into these past three Mondays with a vague idea of what I needed to accomplish that given week and some random lists written on papers, but let me tell you I am freaking out without my PLANS!!

You would think that I would have put an end to this craziness the very first week of this nonsense, but no - I don't like to fail - like not at all. I am a weirdo perfectionist, that will dig my feet in and become psychotically stubborn about making something work if there is even the slightest inclination that it's not working. Make sense? No?! Welcome to my world. And we are now headed into week three with no lesson plans, no checklists (I do have notes scribbled on a paper, but it's not cutting it), and today, I will admit that I went all nutbar on my four darlings. Let me paint a picture of what we are dealing with after yet another school day where I was floundering completely lost without my plans ....better yet let me show you.

For some this chaos just leads to beautiful creativity. For me it leads to one crazy mommy. This was the result of homeschooling today with no lesson plans and no check lists. After about the gazillionth time that I had three different children asking me what was next, and Jamesy escaped out the house sans diaper, I totally and completely lost it. I may have yelled something really immature and ineffective, like I can't do this, and I don't know what is next! And why do you all keep talking to me anyway?! I may have ran out of the room, leaving four stunned children. I may have ran into my room, where I could privately sob into my cell phone to my unsuspecting husband about the tragedy of trying to do school with no plans and no printer.

Yeah, something kind of like that might have happened.

I came back, apologized, gave out hugs and kisses, wiped tears (mine) and plugged on, but alas, I can't go on (yes, my children come by their drama honestly). So, I am putting this out on the world wide web, for all of you that have this figured out way better and way faster than I do. I know in Africa I will most likely not have access to a  printer every week. And yes, I do know that right now while here in the states, I could just go to a Staples and print out oodles of blank lesson plans and check lists; I have thought of that. But that requires time, a vehicle, a Staples, money, more organization on my part, and all the things that I just cannot do right now. So I am looking for a CHEAP, lesson plan book that I can buy - either one that I can purchase multiples of, so that I can have one for each child, or one that has enough blank plans for all of my kids. I like my kids to be able to see the work they have for the week, and to be able to work autonomously whenever possible. I do not like being asked what's next fifty trillion times a day. I just don't. It makes me die a little bit every time, and I become a really crappy mother. There are things we do together, absolutely, but there are things that they do on their own, and it works for us. When it works, that is. So, please, please please, for the love, send me your links of your best, cheapest lesson plan (block, please) books, and help a girl out.

Because I am not sure if my kids can handle mama going all nutbar on them again tomorrow. In the mean time I will be in the fetal position, rocking......errrr cleaning the above mess.

.The Importance of a Calling.

I am not a theologian, so I won't pretend to be one. I am simply a Jesus follower, who has the same Holy Spirit living inside of me that a theologian has. That's my only qualification for writing this post; that and my own life experience. As we get closer and closer to our move to Ethiopia, I have been reflecting a lot on our calling. When I say calling, just so that we are all on the same page, as the term tends to be interchangeable and muddy, I am referring to God's intimate, individual invitation to a person, to partner with God in His Kingdom work here on earth, by carrying out a specific task. I don't want to spiritualize the definition or get too churchy, so let's agree on this definition for the sake of this post.

I have shared so many times here about how God drew our family into this specific calling, so I don't want to rehash too many of the details. However, it never gets old for me to look back and see how God has slowly, graciously, and beautifully been whispering His invitation to me as far back as I can remember. When, as a little girl, I sat in AWANA mesmerized by those missionary stories read to me, He was whispering. When a little later I felt my heart race as I listened to missionaries who shared their experiences. Or how on every single spiritual gift assessment test that I have taken in my lifetime, my gift always comes up as "mercy", and how I was born loving the broken, underdogs, and rejected people in this world. More whispers. So many whispers, from being drawn to Africa in college and considering teaching in the Ivory Coast, to finally landing on Ethiopian soil for the first time and feeling a peace in my soul that I had never, ever felt before. In realizing when being in Ethiopia those first ten days, that although I was experiencing the worst pain that I had ever imagined, as my eyes were opened to incredible needs and I entered people's stories, that I was also the most content that I had ever been in my life. And the whisperings continued. There were moments, when I knew that I knew that God was moving us to Ethiopia, and I would have an amazing peace, only to have it quickly snatched away by fear and doubt. This happened over and over for three years after landing in Ethiopia. For three years we found very good, logical reasons to say "no" to God's calling - his invitation to join the work He was doing in Ethiopia with street kids.

Even when we witnessed the miracle of redemption in our home with our son, who was a former street child, and understood that we had discovered a great purpose in discipling him and sharing the love and mercy of Jesus, and what it means to live in a family with him, and how God had uniquely skilled us for that task - even when we let ourselves think about how we might use those very same skills for other children in Ethiopia we said "no". Even though, this very "work" of joining God in the transformation of a street child felt so good and right (even in the hard moments), and without a doubt I now know, this is what we were meant to do; we still said "no". Even though we felt the most purpose in abundant family life, and discipling others to find that same joy was the beat of our heart; we still said "no". I am so thankful for a God Who is so patient with us, and just waited and continued to quietly invite us to say "yes", and I am thankful for the people in our lives who saw the invitation long before we did and upon hearing the news exclaimed, "what took you so long?" Such sweet confirmation. God's calling started years ago, it wasn't something that we suddenly woke up and discovered, it was just something that we finally had eyes to see and recognize.

Some may wonder why a call is so important in the first place. Why does it matter if you know you are called, as long as it is something you have the desire to do? And although desire does have a place in the call, desire will not be what sustains us. It is with certainty that I can write that there will be hard, excruciatingly painful, taxing days, weeks, months to come for our family in Addis Ababa. God doesn't invite people to comfortable; He invites them to share in His suffering. There is nothing easy or comfortable about moving a family to a third world country, and this is not me being a martyr or looking for a pat on the back - this is just plain reality. We are walking in, having counted the cost, with the full understanding that what we were invited into will be hard. However, I have great hope, that on those discouraging days, when we are homesick, when we make mistakes, when we lose a supporter, when nothing is going the way we planned, the certainty of this call on our life will sustain us, and the very One Who called us will walk the hard with us.

Adversity is sure to come, because the adversary does not like Kingdom work. The adversary is a pro at planting seeds of doubt, but remaining confident in the truth that we have been invited into this work will keep us grounded. I love that a call always invites us into what God is already doing. His Kingdom advancement is not dependent on us, yet He invites us and carves out a place where the talents He has gifted us with can be used. One thing that God keeps bringing to mind, through various resources, is that there are people that have gone before us in Addis and will come after us, we have no superman complex, we are simply linking arms with what God is already doing. It is an exciting thing to know that we are being invited into this!

I am really thankful for the peace and confidence that this calling brings to my life. To learn more, click here. The creativity and intimacy that He pours into His calls are inspiring. I love hearing the many, many different ways that He is using all of us to advance His Kingdom. Please feel free to share your calling in the comments below. It's part of your story, and part of the Great story He is weaving together. I can't wait to hear yours.