Money Money Money

Some of you may be wondering
 (or maybe you're not, so feel free to click away now)
"What are all these "costs of adoption" they're raising money for? Isn't foster care adoption cheap/free?"

No.

And yes.

And no.

If you compare it to international adoption, it is SIGNIFICANTLY less expensive. Like, by a lot :)

And I guess "cheap" is all in the eye of the beholder. So here is a (sorta) breakdown of (some) of the costs:

Application fee: $100
Homestudy fee: $1200
Mandatory training: $150
Mandatory Background checks: $165
Basic physicals/checkups for whole family: $300
"Safety" supplies for home:
Gate for woodburning stove, firearms cabinet, outlet covers, cabinet locks: ~$200
New furniture: Beds, Mattresses, Desks, Dressers, Sheets, Comforters... ??? We are always scouring Craigslist looking for deals on these things :) Except for mattresses. Who wants a used mattress??? I am estimating it will be about $700 (for two of each!)\

We are also saving for travel costs (we have no idea if we will need them, but if we adopt out of state I anticipate having to travel!). Let's just guess around $1000.

So that's $3815... and I know there will be other incidental costs along the way that will make it more like a nice, round $4000. Its only about 10% of what people adopting internationally will pay, but still, it's a decent chunk of change, right?

We know that God will provide and we are SO thankful to all our wonderful friends who have already shown their support.

If you'd like to help out (every dollar helps) and get a prayer bracelet... click here!

As always, our love!!

Beka, Nik and Midgets!!

In the whale

I found possibly the best book ever at the library.

It's called Jonah's Whale

 

Yeah, it's a kids book. So what?

 



I found it lying at the end of the shelf during story time, and since Jonah is one of our tried-and-true favorite bible stories around here, I figured I'd pick it up for the girls to read.

They like it, but that's not what this post is about.

What this post is about is the fact that this book BLEW MY MIND.

And here is why:

It's all about the whale. It's all about how God created this whale, nurtured him, loved him, and basically orchestrated his entire life to be present for that fateful moment when Jonah had a rare inspired second of courage and told the sailors on his boat to throw him overboard.

And the whale was there. Not to punish him, but to SAVE HIM.

Maybe it's just me, but I have NEVER looked at that story (and, as I said, it's a favorite around here, so I've read it pretty often) with that perspective. But I don't think it's just me.

We read it thinking that the whale is a consequence, a punishment, a trial for Jonah. That due to his disobedience, he gets to spend 3 days in nasty-intestinal-fishiness.

And we apply this metaphor to our lives. That our problems or our trials or our difficulties (our "whales," if you will) are there as a valley on the way to the high places of our callings. That if we can get through all these bad things, we will make it to the other side.

But what if we change our perspective? What if God really did orchestrate that whale to be there at that moment not as a punishment, but as a savior?

"Suddenly, Whale saw the man Jonah flying through the air, hurtling into the sea. And God said to Whale, "Save the man Jonah." Whale had never saved a drowning man before. He opened his mouth as if to swallow a thousand tiny fish and--- sluuuuuurp! went the man Jonah..."

 

What if all these problems we are encountering are there not to hinder us, not to punish us, but to SAVE us? See, I realize now that the punishment, the consequence in the story was that Jonah was to drown. His disobedience and stubbornness and sin were causing the storm and were going to cause the deaths of the entire crew, and he knew that he had to jump overboard and drown himself to save everyone else. THAT was what was due to him. But God had mercy on him, and sent the whale to save him.

 

I'm sure Jonah didn't see it this way. Reading Jonah's prayer from inside the fish, he sounds pretty miserable. And I always picture him being kinda whiny (is that just me? He sounds like a whiny dude, right?)  He was in there for 3 days, and all we read is a short snippet, that starts (basically--- my paraphrase) with "God, YOU did this to me!" And that's the way we sound most of the time, isn't it? "God, why are you doing this to me? God, why am I in this job? Why don't I have more money? Why can't I be happier/stronger/wealthier/more talented? God, why have you forgotten me?!?"

 

But maybe we need to shift our perspective and consider that maybe, just maybe, we are in the belly of the whale to be saved from drowning in the storm of our own making. Maybe, just maybe, what the consequences of our actions SHOULD be is much worse than fish guts and whale goo and seasickness (I mean, he must have been seasick, really).  Or much worse than driving a dinky car and not being able to afford steak and working a job that sucks or ~insert problem here.~

 

Maybe God orchestrated our current situations from the very first moment of creation to save us from ourselves.

 

And maybe what we can learn from Jonah is to lift our eyes to the Lord (even hundreds of feet under the sea, in the belly of a whale) and say:

 

"When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God's love for them. But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, 'Salvation comes from the LORD.' " (Jonah 2:7-9)

 

Because when Jonah finally did this, when he said "I'm going to praise you and keep my vows to you no matter what's going on, and I'm going to focus my eyes on the LORD and not on my circumstances," a great thing happened.

 

"...the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land."

 

The end. 

 



Kindness

These past two weeks we have been learning about Kindness in our morning character time.

... I have noticed that whatever character quality we are studying is the one that the devil really tempts both Bean and our whole family with at that time... sucks to be him, though, because I'm taking this as an encouragement and "counting it all joy" instead of being deterred!

As I wrote about in my initial post on our character studies, we use a few tools to help with these morning study times:

--We Choose Virtues mini-posters and Character Chart
-- "God, I need to talk to you about..." books by Dan Carr
-- Character Builders DVDs
-- Memory Verses
-- Bible stories that relate to what we're studying

So, for this *series* (for lack of a better word) we're reading "God, I need to talk to you about... sharing and hurting others" which are both really relevant to an almost-3-year-old, as well as watching the Character Builders on Sharing and Kindness.

Our current memory verse is Luke 6:31 "Do to others as you would have them do to you."

We are reading about The Good Samaritan and Jesus healing the paralytic who was lowered through the roof.

It's really funny how the things that a preschooler struggles with are the same things I struggle with as an adult. That's the one thing these character studies have really convicted me of---

I am no better than a preschooler.

My problems are slightly more mature (sometimes) or complicated (sometimes), but really no different. We are trying to teach her to "Use gentle hands, nice words, and think about how others feel."  That part I (sometimes--- are we catching a theme here?) have down. But the most important part is that we want her to show kindness to others even when she doesn't feel like it, when they are mean or unkind to her, and when they don't *deserve* it. Why? Because this is what Christ did, and continues to do, for us. He shows us love, forgiveness, grace, and yes, kindness when we least deserve it. When we've denied Him, or disappointed Him, or disobeyed Him, or ignored everything He's told us, he returns all those downright *mean* actions with love and kindness. With gentle words, kind correction, and thinking about what is best for us.

And how often does my first reaction to some one's actions--- no matter how I try to intellectualize it or reword it so it sounds grown-up and responsible--- really amount to "But they're being mean to me! I don't wanna be nice!!!" I'm only a (sometimes VERY small) step away from chucking a toy at their head and screaming "I don't like you!" while stomping into a corner to pout.
... or yelling angrily what an idiot someone is while flashing angry hand gestures and speeding as fast as I can to get in front of them and cut them off in turn...



I asked Bean to tell me ways she can practice kindness and wrote them down. I said "How can you be kind to..." and listed people. This is word-for-word what she said:

My Sister: "Not push her, share toys."
My Dad: "Not get in trouble, listen to him, give him hugs and kisses."
My Dog: "Pet him."
My Mom" "Use Nice Words to her."
Jesus: "Give him hugs, celebrate his birthday, not think about myself--- think about Jesus and THEN myself after."

Morning Bible Time

I get to brag on myself, a little bit.

... well, not really...

But I get to brag on GOD, which I like much better.

Bean, Bug and I have started doing morning bible time. Like, actually DOING it. Over the past 5-6 months, I have *wanted* to do it, and I have done it occasionally (read, every 5-10 days). But this past 2 weeks, I have actually been doing it.

Let me just tell you what a difference starting our day with God makes.

I am seeing more and more (and more and more and more) how important it is to start everything with praise and worship. I realized (I know, LIGHTBULB!!) a few months ago how important it was to go into prayer time and church all praised-up, but it just clicked with me that our days should start out the same way.
The Bible says "Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name," (Psalm 100:4, NIV). I don't know about you, but I'm figuring out I prefer to spend my entire day (and not just my Sunday, or my Tuesday night) in His courts.

Before (read, last month) I would send Bean and Bug to our playroom for their "play alone" time right after breakfast. This almost always ended in Bean being angry because she wasn't getting enough attention (rightfully so), and Bug standing at the gate, shaking it violently and yelling in her best prison-movie-riot-impression. They had too much energy, not enough Mommy, and definitely not enough Jesus to start their morning on a good note.

Let me tell you what we do NOW:

Eat Breakfast
Get Dressed
Bible Time!

Right now, this consists of:

Praise and Worship--- Usually 3 songs (although sometimes 4 or 5). Bean pretty much ALWAYS insists on "How He Loves Us" by John Mark McMillan (FYI- I personally think this is a MUCH better version than the more popular David Crowder redo).  She also really likes "Deep Cries Out" by Bethel). Bug usually tots in and out. She likes to shake her booty, so she's more patient with the fast songs. Although she's getting into cuddling and worshipping, too. She sits next to us and raises her hands up during the slow songs.

Prayer--- Short and sweet. Bean likes to thank God for "our wonderful day, all our friends, all our family, and Jesus amen." I pray for patience for ALL of us, good attitudes, etc. I think it helps Bean to hear me pray for help from Jesus for things I have been struggling with because we teach her to do that as well. She likes to pipe in during my prayer and say "I pray for patience with Mommy and Sister, too."

Bible Story--- We've been going over what we are studying as a family with Bible Study Guide for All Ages (right now, Joseph) and whatever other story Bean wants to hear. She's really into Jesus Calming the Storm right now, although today we also talked about how Jesus was sold for silver just like Joseph was. That kinda blew her mind.

(once "school" starts in August, I'm going to put all our character study into this time as well, but I'm easing myself into that... a first, for me!)



We start our day off this way, and it is (I was going to say magically, but) faithfully transformed. I find myself with more energy, a much better attitude, and MUCH more patience. My kids are better behaved, with an added bonus of having gotten a substantial amount of energy out of their systems during praise. Bean plans (yes, the 2 year old plans) what we will read about and worship to during Breakfast. It's a great moment for me to see her eating her cereal and having an out-loud debate with herself:
"Hmmm. I think I want to hear about Joseph. No, Jesus calms the storm. No, maybe Joseph. Maybe both. And we will listen to 'How He Loves Us.' And maybe 'Furious.' Or 'Mountaintop.'"

I will end with this (our latest memory verse; Bean mastered it a few days ago):
"I have written you words on my heart, O Lord, so that I might not sin against you." --Psalm 119:11

Character for Preschoolers

I really wanted to do some good, in-depth character lessons with Bean when we start "offical" preschool in August.

Immediate problem encountered: I did not like anything I found. I like peices of what I find, but it is either too watered down, or too complicated for her, or not engaging enough... I decided very quickly that doing a little song and pointing out when she was being (insert positive Christian character quality here) was not going to cut it. While I'm all for letting kids learn as they play and as they go about their day, I do think some things NEED to be purposeful--- especially those things that relate to building their relationship with Christ. So if I want them to grow up displaying Christ-like qualities, I need to be intentional in teaching them those qualities and making sure they know what they are (and are NOT), what God says about them, and how they can display them.

I ended up borrowing (hey, I paid for everything that needed to be paid for) aspects of a bunch of different programs and came up with something that I really like. Let me tell you about what we're doing for Character this coming year and how I came up with it.

First, I started with a chart that was recommended on a message board. It is the Operational Definitions of Character Qualities. This particular link will send you to the Duggars' website where you can download a PDF of the chart. It is available other places, as well.
           There are a lot of versions of this list out there. I like this chart because it is quick and easy. I went through and highlighted everything I wanted to cover with Bean (in an ideal world) that I thought she could grasp at 2 1/2. I then ordered it in "importance" (for us), and narrowed it down to 12-14.

Another friend had recommened We Choose Virtues as having great resources for Character Curriculum. After searching this website, I found some things I REALLY love. The first clue that this was going to be great for us was that the 12 virtues the beginner program focuses on were the same ones I had already chosen. I ordered the Kids Virtue Poster and the Kids of Virtueville Mini-Poster Set to use as visuals in our "school room." They also have a great free PDF download of bible supplements that has a bible character and a bible verse to go along with each virtue.

The virtues/character qualities I'm going to cover with Bean for at least the first part of school this year are (in no particular order): Attentive, Content, Diligent, Forgiving, Gentle, Helpful, Honest, Kind, Obedient, Patient, Perserverant, and Self-Controlled.

Then I just kind of looked around, went with some recommendations from others, and found what I needed to supplement the visuals and the information from the first two sources. One source I really like is the Kids of Integrity website. They have free PDF lessons for many, many character qualities. These lessons include memory verses, bible stories that demonstrate the quality and/or its opposite, and (my favorite) suggested prayers for the kids and parents. It is so important that my heart is in the right place when I'm teaching Bean these things, and that I am demonstrating what I want her to learn in my own life, so I really love the prayer and parent prep portion of these materials.

There are also some great activities, visuals, and songs on Hubbard's Cupboard. We will be using some of those, as well.

I am using DVD's called Character Builders. I bought the boxed set (8 DVDs, 16 episodes) on Rainbow Resource Center. The same site has these great little books called the God, I Need to Talk to You About... series. I got 11 of those, as well.


Now that I look at that... it looks like a lot! But you have to factor OUT all the thought processes that go into that long list of information :)

What I ended up with is a basic outline of what I want to cover every 2 weeks. It looks like this:

Character Quality:

WCV “I am/ I am not”:

Webster’s Definition:

Age-Appropriate Definition:

Memory Verse (s):

Child’s Prayer:

Parent’s Prayer:

Animal:

Bible Stories:

DVD:

Book:

Song/Chant:

Activities:

We won't be doing every item every day. What we will be doing every day is going over the We Choose Virtues materials (They have an "I am... I am not..." statement for every virtue), the age-appropriate definition that I come up with, the memory verse, and the prayers. Bean is at the level where she can memorize about 1 verse/week, so, depending on if there are any memory verses from our family bible study, we will have either one or two verses for each quailty. Everything else is going to be cycled in and out for the two weeks.

So that's that... I'm very proud of anyone who made it this far! It was quite a lot of information, I admit.

Until next time...