.Just Waiting.

Just waiting for something of worth to write about. I have a lot in my head right now, and I have been writing to get it out. I drafted up two posts last week, but just felt the Spirit leading me not to publish either of them. I am not sure the reason. I claim to write for my audience of One, and I think that is Who those two posts were meant for.

In between waiting I am very much enjoying summer with my family. It has been gloriously hot! I just love these bright sunshiny days, with my children playing barefoot in our tiny yard. I love laying them down for a nap, exhausted from their hard play, and kissing their heads that reek of sunshine. These are the moments I will remember all of my life. These beautiful hot days are what make the crisp fall air so wonderfully welcome.

On Friday we finished up a three week stretch of everyday 30 minute swim lessons for Cadi. Our city offers free swim lessons in the summer, which we were very grateful to take advantage of. I was rather proud of myself for being able to get the three children out of the house to and from lessons. This was my first time taking all three children anywhere by myself. (I will admit we missed three lessons - Jamesy had three bad mornings during that three week stretch and needed the security of home.) Scotty and Jamesy did really well sitting with me while Cadi swam. They are such sweet boys. Definitely ALL boy and crazy at times, but sweet nonetheless!

This week starts a two to three week stretch of summer insanity, but I am excited for everything that is to come. I am so looking forward to this Friday and tent camping with our friends JO and Steve and their family. I dare say this is the highlight of my entire summer, and I have been counting down the days. I can hardly wait! This is our first time tent camping as a family. I believe Jim is a bit skeptical that I can do it. He keeps saying You are not as rustic as you think you are. Ha! We'll just see! I don't really care where or how I sleep - the thought of that many hours with my family and my sweet friend JO thrills me! JO and I can certainly fill the air with a lot of words - you should have seen us walking the streets of Addis together. The guys behind us - we girls out in front, jabbering a mile a minute paying no attention to the guys desperately trying to get our attention in order to lead us in the correct direction. Ha! No photographs of that walk, but the portrait is burned eternally into my heart. It is not everyday that one gets to walk the streets of a foreign country with another whose heart beats out the same rhythm for that country and the people that walked among us. My camera is definitely locked and loaded for this weekend!

Next week we travel to Kentucky where Jim will be the best man in one of his closest friend's wedding. We will splurge and take our children to The Creation Museum as well, and visit some family along the way. It should be a fun trip. This will be the longest trip by land vehicle that we have taken with Jamesy, but he seems to travel just as well as his older brother and sister do. I look forward to the hours of sweet conversation with Jim. Some of my favorite moments are talks in the van on trips. I am sure we will be scraping our loose change together to stop at many of the Starbucks along the way between here and Kentucky as that is our tradition. Hard to go into a Starbucks now, though, and not visualize the Ethiopian women that we watched sorting the coffee beans by. hand. for Starbucks. Kind of puts things into perspective.

I told JO this last week, I feel as if God is stirring something inside of me. I am not sure what. I am not fearful, but anticipating the refining that I feel is about to happen. I haven't adequate words to describe what I am feeling. I have an intense and urgent hunger for the Word of God lately. Ethiopia is constantly on our lips, and Jim and I are feeling more and more burdened for a friend in Ethiopia that does not know the truth of the gospel. But God has also impressed upon us that we must share the gospel with the people here, too. We have been discussing this in length, and are very convicted over this blind spot in our lives. I am not sure if this is part of the stirring or not. My heart for the lost is enlarging, though. I feel it. The things of this world are slowly growing dimmer. Eternity looms ahead, and the world fades. So much that mattered to me before really doesn't matter at all. Amazingly my heart is filled with more joy. I feel at times as if the veil is lifted and I can really see with kingdom eyes.

Now to figure out how to hold onto that every moment.

.Searching for the Middle.

43 days ago I did something so horrible, that I never predicted I would have to be faced with. I kissed my second born son, the one born in my heart, goodbye and placed him in the arms of strangers. Then, not only did I turn and walk away - not only did I leave him, but I also left his country and flew an ocean away from him. And I literally feel as if I left half my heart behind with him. I am functioning here only half-heartedly, and in some ways that has numbed the hurt of the reality of what I have done.

It has been much harder than I ever expected to come back home, and not all of it is because of Jamesy. Africa - Ethiopia - burrowed itself into my heart and leaked into my blood, and I will never be the same. Much of what I saw was hard for us here in America to even fathom, and most of us cannot unless we experience it first hand. I now know that. My photographs, Jim's videos, and certainly not my words - none of it resonates like seeing it with one's own eyes. My memories are not only filled with the cruel truth that is life for many in Ethiopia, it is also filled with a sea of brown faces that were filled with JOY. A joy that did not come from possessions, status, or circumstances. We were met with kindness, some of the most genuine kindness that I have ever experienced. A kindness that is not found here. We experienced and witnessed community and relationships so full, authentic, and vibrant it left me feeling empty when I compared it to what I know to be true of relationships here.

I miss the beautiful people, the children, the babies, my street boy, our Ethiopian guides, the other adopting families who understood the bruising of our hearts for a country a world away from our everyday lives.

I miss seeing with new eyes and feeling as if I was truly Kingdom living - really making a difference.

I miss the coffee ceremonies and the popcorn and the sunrise on the roof of our guest house, and our cook with the kind, soft brown eyes, and the way the clouds looked so puffy and white against the dirty but beautiful city of Addis.

Not a day goes by without the remembering, the knowing, that my life here is far from normal for most of the world.

Yet, I am still terrified that I will somehow forget.

And I have yet to learn how to live in the middle.

Jim and I have talked a lot about how to go on from here. We are both changed, and we want this change to be permanent. We never want to go back to who we once were. But how do we live in the middle? Obviously poverty is not the answer. We do not feel as if God is calling us to a life of poverty - living homeless on the streets so that we can truly know and understand what we saw in Ethiopia . However, living in excess is not the answer either. Both of these are so extreme, and I believe neither is at God's heart for our life. But what measuring stick do we use for excess - certainly not America's. Yes, I know God's. But what is that? What does that look like? Is it different for every believer. I think it is different for us. I think it will be more extreme for us. It has to be, because we were given that amazing blessing to see the truth, and I pray that truth lives in our heart and our every decision and every purchase.

I do not think that God wants me to walk around Walmart, to yard sale - just because I might need something there, to shop on ebay without remembering the children I saw eating scraps from garbage on the side of the street wearing their entire wardrobe in rags that hung on their bones.

Is there a way to live in the middle and not forget?


Is there a way to live in the middle and continue to have the scales ripped from eyes?

I don't know, and that terrifies me, because maybe truly the middle is not where God has called me to live.

I am called to be an imitator of Jesus. Did Jesus live in the middle?


Open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in your instructions. Psalm 119:18