While the Wife is Away

A couple of years ago, long before the thought of adopting more children was on our mind, my wife went out of town for 10 days.  When we were planning the trip I asked her to take Henry, our youngest with her, mostly because I wasn't sure how I would cope without her to help me.  She kindly obliged and left me at home with the oldest two kiddos.  After a couple days of her being gone I realized that I actually had no idea how hard it was to be a homemaker.

Fathers:  take note.  This is something that you need to do at least once.  Not only does this give you and idea what it is like to be the full time homemaker, it lets your wife know that you care about her enough to let her have some time away.

Well, fast forward to these past couple weeks.  It is now the third time I have been home with the kids with no adult supervision (I'm the fourth child in our house right now), this time with all three kids.  The older two are in school most days, so a lot of my time is spent with just me and Henry.  I am learning the same old lessons over again:  parenting is hard work, and to be expected to keep up with the house work on top of that is...well, a nightmare.  By the time the kids go to bed, I just want to put my feet up and watch a movie.  The last thing I want to do is the dishes and laundry.  But, after making the wrong choice on those things once (okay, maybe a couple times), and waking up to a stinky kitchen or kids who don't have clean underwear, I've learned to think better.

Gretchen, enjoying some well deserved time away

It took me a little while to get into a routine.  Waking up early and making breakfast, then waking the kids up to have them eat while I make lunches.  Taking them to the bus and returning home to get ready for work, which also means getting Henry ready.  Going to work and trying to get stuff done while parenting.  Making sure I am at the bus in time to get the kids.  Making dinner and getting the kids ready for bed.  There is simply no room in there to fold clothes!  I am blessed with an amazingly smart wife.  She read somewhere, and decided to implement this laundry plan where all she does is sort the clothes.  The kids each are responsible for putting away their own clothes.  This has saved my life these past few weeks!

Looking back at my time with the kids, I would says it was awesome.  It was a lot of hard work, but I had so much time with our kids, time I don't normally have.  I am awesomely blessed with an amazing wife, who allows me to do things like this.  All that said...I don't know what it is going to look like when we have 7 kids.  I mean, life was great with just me and the kids, but it was also hard.  I may have to call in reinforcements...Grandma's beware!  I may also think twice about going away and leaving Gretchen and the kids at home...

Revenge of the Fifth

May 5th.  Cinco de Mayo.  Kodomo no hi.  Each of these days mean different things to our family...some more important than others.  No matter which way you look at it, May 5th is very significant to our family.

Kodomo ni hi is Children's Day in Japan.  It is part of Golden Week and it is a huge celebration.  Every year, on the fifth day of the fifth month there are huge festivities and parties to celebrate kids.  For weeks, and sometimes months leading up to this day you see these Carp flags flying around Japan.  It really is an amazing sight.

The blue ones are for the boys in your family, and the pink are for the girls.  Each family typically flies one for each child outside their house.  The older your kids get, the bigger Carp flag you fly.  Like I said, it is amazing to see.  Our family would fly two blue and a pink this year, but I cannot help but be overjoyed with the thought that next year will be significantly different.  How awesome would it be for our family to be flying seven flags outside our house next year.  How amazing would it be for our kids to come home in time to celebrate Kodomo no hi in Japan?

May 5th, 2012 marked the end of our time in the Air Force.  God called us to move on from the military and move into full time ministry.  I remember the weeks and months leading up to this date.  We were scared and excited all at the same time.  We were not sure what to expect, since the only thing we really knew as adults was the Air Force.  We were leaving the security of our base, the friends we had made, and the culture we had come to love.  We were doing this because God called us to it.  We didn't know what we were getting in to, but we knew that God was doing something.

Our friends, family, and coworkers thought we were nuts.  The economy was extremely bad and I had no transferable skills outside of the military.  I hadn't graduated with my degree yet.  But, it didn't matter.  We were going to be obedient to God's calling in our life.  He has blessed us beyond measure since that time.  We have an amazing support system here in Okinawa, where we are surrounded with people who love us and take care of us.  We now have people that we considder family all around the world.  People we know we can call when we need them, and people we know are praying for us constantly.

God has called us to adopt, and we are following through with that call.  Through this process He has blessed us every step of the way.  He has shown His grace and mercy in our lives as we work through the hardships of adopting while overseas.  Words cannot describe how amazed I am at His faithfulness.  When He call's you to do something, He blesses you for answering that call.

Cinco de Mayo...well, I'm not even sure why we (Americans) celebrate this day.  It would be like celebrating June 12 (Philippine Independence Day), which makes more sense for our family.  But, at least I get to eat some guacamole today...after I learn how to make it...

We still need people to come alongside us and help us with this adoption.  We are not done yet!  I have an update about what is going on with the process (coming soon), but in the mean time, if you would like to help us raise funds to bring our kids home, please click HERE.

April Update

A little bit of peace in the process of adoption.

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted something on this blog!  There has been so much going on that I don't even know where to start!

A couple weeks ago we had our interviews for the homestudy, and I must say that I talk a lot less than my wife! :)  The social worker came and asked a lot of questions of everyone in the family, to include our youngest (3 years old).  She has to ask all these questions so that when she writes the homestudy she can capture who our family is in just a short document.  That is a hard task and she has a ton of pressure because this is what the government gets to determine whether or not we can adopt.

When we were done with the interviews we had to hand over all the papers that we had been gathering (like a squirrel gathers nuts for winter), which was bittersweet.  This package was what we were holding on to with this adoption.  It allowed us to see and measure our progress, and now it is gone.  Now we only measure our progress by the amount of time we are waiting at each of the next steps.  The long part begins.

Funny story about one of the papers we were waiting on - the guardianship form.  This one document is the form that we have to give to the adoption agency that indicates who we want to take care of our kids (all of them) in the case that we should pass away.  Our will indicates some of our best friends in the world to take care of our children, but that was written when we only had three kids.  Now we are talking about 7, and things are not quite the same.  It is not an easy thing to say: 'Yes, I can take care of all 7 of your kids until they are all grown adults!"  Needless to say, our friends needed some time to pray about it and they decided that they could do it.

Our family 3 years ago on Easter Sunday.
We're praying that next year's family photo
will have 7 kids in it!

Now that all that is done we begin to reflect on this Easter and what it means to us and our family.  We have redemption in Christ because of His substitutional sacrifice on the cross.  We were bought with a price and then given the free gift of His grace.  Our lives are radically changed because of this (if you have known me for more than 10 years, you know that this it completely true!).  With this radical change in mind I cannot help but think about our kids that are not home yet.

We have been redeemed in Christ, but what is it going to look like when they come home and are redeemed from their current situation?  I have peace that they are being taken care of and provided for right now, but how radically different is their life going to be?  I know that these radical difference are going to lead to things that are hard to deal with, since we are ripping them from their culture and the life that they have known.  That is not going to be an easy thing to process, but man, the beauty that is eventually going to come from this.  Redemption is a messy thing, but it is so worth it!

Our family has been so incredibly blessed through this entire process.  People from all over the world have been sending us encouragement and helping us raise the funds for this process.  One of our teens actually started making hair bows and selling them (in complete secrecy) and raised a substantial amount of money that she gave us yesterday.  I was so overwhelmed at the gesture that I had no words.  I was and continue to be amazed at how God is working through all of these things to bring our kids home!  Please continue to pray for us, and if you feel led to help financially, click HERE.  God bless, and thank you to everyone who is helping, even if it is just reading this blog!

Same, Same...but Different

A couple weeks ago we started our 'Adoption Learning' classes.  When we started I was thinking to myself that there were going to be boring and there was no way that I was going to learn anything.  Guess what?!?!  I was right, to a certain degree.  They are boring...like really boring.  But, to their benefit I have learned a thing or two.

While going through these courses I began to think about Henry, who we adopted when he was just under 3 months old.  He is Japanese (as you can probably tell from the picture), but he has never lived in a Japanese home.  He has never lived with a Japanese family, nor lived a Japanese lifestyle.  I think every day he begins to look more and more like the other kids, and he would never guess that he was any different.  It is funny to think about because when we were going through the process of adoption we were asked if we were going to tell Henry that he was adopted.  Both Gretchen and I thought:  "Umm....I think he'll know..."  We may have to reconsider that line of thinking...

There are some things about him that really make me think about what life is going to be like when we have American, Japanese, and Filipino children in our home.  I mean, Henry loves, I mean loves, Japanese food.  He eats rice with everything (which is strange because I don't really care for sticky rice).  I am amazed at how Japanese Henry actually is, since he has never been around that influence.

When our little ones come home they are going to bring with them so much cultural stuff that we cannot even begin to understand.  Henry doesn't speak Japanese (sometimes I think he might be speaking Japaneses because I cannot understand what he is saying), but these kids are going to speak Tagalog.  Not only are they going to speak it, Tagalog is going to be their heart language.  We are going to have to learn to speak it.  They will learn English, but that does not excuse us from learning their language.

It is a good thing that I like Filipino food, because when they finally come home they are not going to want to eat steak.  They are going to want something familiar!  We are going to have to really step up our game when it comes to cooking ethnic food.  While the waiting sucks, I rejoice that we still have a little time to learn some more about their culture.  I want them to come to a home, not just another place to live.  I do not want to separate Henry from his Japanese culture and I do not want these kids to lose theirs either.

Please be praying for us in this.  And, if you are one of the people who will get to meet and spend time with our family after the kids come home, please look into Filipino culture as well.  It will give us a great deal of peace to know that our friends and family around the world are lovingly accepting our kids even now, before them come home to us.

Provision

I have been amazed at how fast time is going by.  I cannot believe that it has been several weeks since my last blog post!  I knew going into this adoption that the two hardest things for me were going to be the waiting and the money.  God has been so faithful to us in both of these things.

Time really has flow by.  I feel like just yesterday I was celebrating a birthday with my little lady, but the reality is that was over three weeks ago.  We have been keeping a busy schedule with events and visitors, which has caused us to lose track of time a little bit.  One huge event was an adoption panel that our church hosted a couple weeks back.  We brought in some professionals, who actually know what they are doing and talking about, to give the church some information on adoption.  This panel was something that I really worried about (I thought nobody would show up on a Friday night to listen to people talk about adoption).  It was a great success though.  There were about 120 people there and we heard some great truths, such as:  not everyone is called to adopt, but we are all called to take care of widows and orphans in their time of distress, and to keep ourselves unstained by the world.  We were challenged to look at what we are doing to help the orphan, which was a great challenge to be given.  You can here more here.

God has put many people in our lives to help us with the money piece of our adoption.  We knew going into this that we could not do this on our own.  We knew that we would need faithful men and women to come along side us and help us out.  This week we were informed that a friend of ours was going to be helping us raise some money.  Her goal is to raise $1,000 this month by taking donations of stuff that people no longer need, and selling it.
She puts a lot of time into this, going through things, pricing them, and meeting with people.  The reality is:  this is not the first time she has done something like this.  She is constantly supporting ministries and missions.  Her heart is made of gold.

Our parents have also raised money for us through friends and Tupperware sales.  Through networking and friends they were able to raise money to help support bringing our kids home.  With all this help we are slowing inching closer to our goal.

Gretchen is also making hand stamped jewelry, which is pretty cool!  Check out what she has made:
Through this business venture she has raised quite a bit of money to help cover many of our costs.

God has provided us these things at just the right time.  All of the things that are needed for this adoption cost money, but God has provided that money through each of you.  You can help support our adoption by clicking HERE.

Just to add an update about our progress:  We have done all of the psychiatric testing (1 billion question test and 1 275 question test) and we are just waiting on our write up.  We have received almost all the documents that we were waiting on and have our first interviews scheduled for tomorrow.  So, Gretchen and I have our individual interviews tomorrow, followed by our family interview and home inspection.  Once that is done, we wait on the homestudy to be written.  One step closer every day!  Thank you for following us through this process and praying all along the way.

Birthdays and Praises

6th birthday celebration.

The other day I had the amazing privilege of spending the morning with my newly six year old daughter.  It was an awesome morning where I took her out for breakfast followed by a walk on the beach to look for sea shells.  Gretchen took her to get her nails done, and then she had to head off to school.  Later that afternoon Gretchen and I went to her class and spent time teaching them how to make rubber band bracelets.  The day was just amazing, but it did get me thinking.

I was not able to be home when Hayden was born.  I was at military training and simply could not make it home in time for his birth.  I remember that day very well.  I was standing in morning formation when I got the phone call telling me that Gretchen was in labor.  It would be 12 hours before I was able to hold Hayden for the first time.  My life changed at that moment almost 10 years ago.

What daddy does best.

When Gretchen was pregnant with Hannah I was gone all the time.  There was not one single month of her pregnancy that that I was able to be home for, but I was able to be there for her birth.  This was a completely different experience for me (there are a lot of funny stories here...for a later date).  It was an amazing thing to hold her for the first time, and again my life changed.

Henry was born a couple years later.  This time, neither Gretchen nor I were there.  He was born some 700 miles away from his family.  From the hospital he went into a foster home, where he would wait until God gave him to us.  After 2-1/2 months in foster care he came home, arriving on my 25th birthday.  Holding him for the first time reminded me of holding Hayden for the first time.  God had gifted our family with another son.

Henry 10 days after he came home.

I also began to think about the children that God has yet to bring home to our family.  Who have already been born and spent many birthdays away from their family.  Maybe they spent them in an orphanage or living on the streets.  Maybe they did not even know that it was their birthday because they did not have someone there to tell them.  I realize that I was not there for their birth, but that does not make me any less their father.  One day, God will bring them home to us, and I will hold them as my children for the first time.  I cannot wait to celebrate that day.

We are moving closer and closer to them coming home.  We have found a place on island where we can have our psych evaluations and testing done, which is a huge answer to prayer.  We have also collected 80% of all the required items, which means we can now schedule our home study with the social worker. Our goal is to be 100% done with our paperwork and interviews by the end of March, God willing.

We continue to raise funds and seek out prayers from our friends and family.  Through these things we have seen God provide for us in every way imaginable, which is a ton of fun. :)

 If you would like to help us adopt, you can find more information and give HERE.

Two Mites

I have been constantly amazed of the past month with how much people have loved us.  Our family has felt love from all around the world.  People we have not talked to in many years, and in some cases, people we have never met, have been encouraging us on this adoption.  It could not have come at a better time.

When we first started putting together our paperwork things seemed like they were going by so quickly.  But, as time went on, things feel like they have slowed down.  Right now, as we wait for things to arrive in the mail and translations to finish, we are still encouraged and looking forward to the weeks/months to come.

In Luke 21 we have an account of a widow who gave two mites as an offering to the temple.  This seemingly insignificant offering Jesus said was more significant than that of the rich men of the time because this women gave all that she had for the glory of God.

I feel like this is how people are giving to help support our adoption.  I feel like there is not an abundance to go around, but some how people are finding a way to help support us.  It amazes me to see how incredibly gracious people and God are toward us.

So, this blog post is dedicated to each of you, who in one way or another have supported this adoption.  We have felt the prayer from all around the world, and we have seen the power of God displayed throughout this entire process thus far.  Thank you for giving, even when there is not much to give.  It really humbles me.  God bless.

P.S. - I look forward to being able to write an update about where we are in the adoption process...as soon as we make some progress... :)