friends have been asking how the bar exam went for jamie. according to him, it was very hard. extremely hard. so we're just waiting for the results, which will come at the end of august. thanks to all of you who prayed for him. i'm not sure there's anything left to pray now, as it doesn't seem right to pray that his answers are actually the right ones. but think about us towards the end of august...
i've been really bad about not taking pictures this summer, and thus letting our blog become a bunch of words with nothing fun to look at. but fear not, those who read blogs only for the pictures. i will be posting pictures of our new house next week! i think we should have internet on tuesday, so look for a new post then. we are in wilson right now with my family since we are essentially homeless until monday. my sister's 22nd birthday is tomorrow, so happy birthday megan!
lastly, a baby update. this is a fun one. i think most of our friends and family know that we are officially requesting 2 kids from ethiopia. not sure if they will be 2 boys or a boy and a girl, but we're pretty sure we'll end up with 2 boys. we've been thinking for awhile about names because it gives us something fun to do while waiting (and i think it helps make the babies seem more real than just abstract ideas). anyway, because i'm a blabbermouth, i'm spilling the beans on our names:
liam "insert given african name here" dean
elijah "insert given african name here" dean
we do have a girl name just in case, but i'll leave it at the boy names because i love them. picking names is hard, especially if you don't have any strong family names that you want to use (and that was true in our case). we've loved the name liam for awhile. it means "strong-willed warrior," but i also found that the hebrew name "liami" means "i have a people." what a great meaning for an adopted child, at least i think so. we decided on elijah out of the blue after sorting through lots of biblical names. it means "the Lord is my God." we feel very strongly about keeping both our children's african names as middle names to honor their culture and their birth mothers. of course, not all children are named by their mothers, especially if they're abandoned. in those cases, orphanage caretakes usually do the naming. no matter what, we want to honor whoever cares for our children until we are able to get to them. alright, it's about to storm. next time i post, we'll be homeowners...
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
called to act
i just stumbled upon an ethiopian adoption blog that contained this link: http://www.drawnfromwater.org/
it's about an organization in rural ethiopia that has opened an orphanage to care for children rescued from a tribe that kills children who are considered cursed-- or "mingi" in the tribal language. go to the website to learn more and watch the video on the homepage about how they got started.
so why am i posting this other than just for general awareness? mainly because i wonder if just "being aware" is really getting us anywhere. don't get me wrong -- being aware that things aren't right in this world certainly has the ability to profoundly affect the decisions we make about how we spend our time and money and what we do with our lives. but i'm starting to wonder if just "being aware" makes us complacent towards action in that we assume the problems of our world are too big for us to actually solve, so we continue on with our lives simply "being aware" that many in our world suffer daily.
if you watched the "gotcha day" video i posted, you might have noticed proverbs 24:12. my own paraphrase of the verse is that once we become aware of a need, we are held responsible to act. now, i'm not going to go as far as saying that everybody should adopt, though i will inch very close to that statement and say that all christians must think seriously about adoption, among other courses of action our world desperately needs for us to take. this is not the world of 50 years ago. 50 years ago, we didn't have millions of orphans, millions infected with HIV, millions starving, millions in poverty...i could go on. and so the way we act must be in line with the needs of our generation.
i say all that to say plan and then act. if you're thinking about starting a family (even if you're not married yet but you want to think through what expectations you have for a spouse and kids), consider adoption. i'm not even convinced that adoption is something you have to "be called" to do, which is why i'm saying you can plan for it in advance and commit to it. but if you're not in that position yet, give. plan not to buy that grande cup of coffee (or, in our case, that delicious sandwich from dioli's italian market). there are a lot of non-profit organizations that do wonderful justice-related things around the world that need more funding. i read on drawn from water's website that just $25 a month pays the electricity bill at their orphanage. there are non-profits that use donations to pay for HIV medicines for people who can't afford them. money can go a long way to keeping many children (and their parents) alive. you can find a list of non-profits that benefit orphans on the there's no me without you website (the link is on the sidebar).
there are plenty of other ways to act in our world, many that i'm probably not even aware of. just today, i was reminded that we need people willing to volunteer their time to counsel and help with the rehabilitation of past prison inmates so they do not become repeat offenders. i learned a lot about this need on a school trip to nyc in march. check out this website for more details. if you're reading and want to share a need you wish more people knew about, please comment. you will be opening my eyes and thus making me responsible to act in whatever capacity i am able.
it's about an organization in rural ethiopia that has opened an orphanage to care for children rescued from a tribe that kills children who are considered cursed-- or "mingi" in the tribal language. go to the website to learn more and watch the video on the homepage about how they got started.
so why am i posting this other than just for general awareness? mainly because i wonder if just "being aware" is really getting us anywhere. don't get me wrong -- being aware that things aren't right in this world certainly has the ability to profoundly affect the decisions we make about how we spend our time and money and what we do with our lives. but i'm starting to wonder if just "being aware" makes us complacent towards action in that we assume the problems of our world are too big for us to actually solve, so we continue on with our lives simply "being aware" that many in our world suffer daily.
if you watched the "gotcha day" video i posted, you might have noticed proverbs 24:12. my own paraphrase of the verse is that once we become aware of a need, we are held responsible to act. now, i'm not going to go as far as saying that everybody should adopt, though i will inch very close to that statement and say that all christians must think seriously about adoption, among other courses of action our world desperately needs for us to take. this is not the world of 50 years ago. 50 years ago, we didn't have millions of orphans, millions infected with HIV, millions starving, millions in poverty...i could go on. and so the way we act must be in line with the needs of our generation.
i say all that to say plan and then act. if you're thinking about starting a family (even if you're not married yet but you want to think through what expectations you have for a spouse and kids), consider adoption. i'm not even convinced that adoption is something you have to "be called" to do, which is why i'm saying you can plan for it in advance and commit to it. but if you're not in that position yet, give. plan not to buy that grande cup of coffee (or, in our case, that delicious sandwich from dioli's italian market). there are a lot of non-profit organizations that do wonderful justice-related things around the world that need more funding. i read on drawn from water's website that just $25 a month pays the electricity bill at their orphanage. there are non-profits that use donations to pay for HIV medicines for people who can't afford them. money can go a long way to keeping many children (and their parents) alive. you can find a list of non-profits that benefit orphans on the there's no me without you website (the link is on the sidebar).
there are plenty of other ways to act in our world, many that i'm probably not even aware of. just today, i was reminded that we need people willing to volunteer their time to counsel and help with the rehabilitation of past prison inmates so they do not become repeat offenders. i learned a lot about this need on a school trip to nyc in march. check out this website for more details. if you're reading and want to share a need you wish more people knew about, please comment. you will be opening my eyes and thus making me responsible to act in whatever capacity i am able.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
more on orphan
jamie wrote this in response to comment #3 on the last post. he then found out the comment was written by someone who didn't know about the movie and didn't intend to be offensive. but we figured we might as well re-state our position, as we have found out more about the movie orphan and continue to be dismayed by its portrayal of adopted children and people with disabilities.
All right, I'll give you a cleverness point for the commentary on G-Force. However, this comment really isn't funny. Lauren has a tendency to get impassioned and over state her position, so let me restate it a little more pragmatically.The truth is, the movie "Orphan" is the proverbial punch in the groin to the person who has already been knocked down and left defenseless.
There are millions, yes literally millions, of children in orphanages and on the streets around the world who will never be adopted because so many "civilized" people fear that any orphaned child above the age of 3 is too broken to be worth saving. The fates of children who are not adopted is the stuff of true horror, not the contrived Hollywood variety. If you want to see some really scary movies with orphans, check out "Invisible Children" or "The Dying Rooms." Both are available free online. They tell the stories of the real terrors of orphanages and abandoned children. Boys become child soldiers, pumped full of drugs and trained to hack one another to death with machetes or to blow themselves up as suicide bombers. Little girls are forced into prostitution before they've hit puberty as street corner prostitutes and sexual slaves in high dollar brothels. Both genders face slavery in many countries, while some are simply left to die of disease and starvation. Most of these children would thrive if brought into loving homes, but they will never have that opportunity, and in its own small way, Orphan is making sure of it.
The long and short of it is that this movie just adds fuel to a fire that already keeps kids from finding families. Orphaned children need every advantage they can get, they do not need their image defamed for the sake of entertainment. Further, how would you have liked sitting in your living room one night with your adopted child, like my friends the Jacks or the Todds who both adopted older children from Eastern Europe, when suddenly the words "Orphan... It must be difficult to love an adopted child as much as your own" scrolled across your TV screen during the commercials. Have fun explaining that one to kids who already struggle with attachment issues and post traumatic stress disorder. By the way, the new, "less offensive" tag line that replaced the aforementioned original tag line was "I don't think mommy likes me very much." That was supposed to be an improvement?
And for anyone who argues, like the movie executives did, that there is a "saving twist" to Orphan that negates any abuse of the image of real orphaned children, I have two points:
1. As a high school teacher of mine used to say, "A little feces ruins a whole cake." In other words, you can't exploit the stereotype of orphans and then throw in a twist at the end that most people will never see and act like everything's ok.
2. According to the blogosphere and movie message boards, the twist only makes the movie sound worse. Evil child Esther is not an orphan at all, she's an adult with acute dwarfism. So, in other words, they've simply shifted from picking on orphans to picking on people with disabilities. That's like saying "Hey, I know I shouldn't pick on the black kid, but it's ok, he also has down's syndrome."
One last point: throughout history people have gotten their kicks by mocking and abusing those weaker and less fortunate than themselves. More often than not, we're all guilty of standing back and watching,whether out of our own sense of morbid humor or just relief that we are not the object of the abuse. However, I see a distinct lack of sarcasm, cynicism, and belittlement in Jesus' tone when dealing with the disadvantaged and needy. The only people He ever spoke harshly to were those who needed to be brought down to earth, not those who needed to be lifted off it. In short, if you want to make a movie called "Movie Executive" or"Celebrity" or "President" and make fun of someone with the resources and confidence to defend himself, that's fine; but I don't think it is the place of Christians to be or aid the tools of oppression. Movies like Orphan deserve our righteous indignation and should not be laughed off. Maybe if the kids you plan on taking to see G-Force were pulled out of an overcrowded, under resourced orphanage, you would think so too.
All right, I'll give you a cleverness point for the commentary on G-Force. However, this comment really isn't funny. Lauren has a tendency to get impassioned and over state her position, so let me restate it a little more pragmatically.The truth is, the movie "Orphan" is the proverbial punch in the groin to the person who has already been knocked down and left defenseless.
There are millions, yes literally millions, of children in orphanages and on the streets around the world who will never be adopted because so many "civilized" people fear that any orphaned child above the age of 3 is too broken to be worth saving. The fates of children who are not adopted is the stuff of true horror, not the contrived Hollywood variety. If you want to see some really scary movies with orphans, check out "Invisible Children" or "The Dying Rooms." Both are available free online. They tell the stories of the real terrors of orphanages and abandoned children. Boys become child soldiers, pumped full of drugs and trained to hack one another to death with machetes or to blow themselves up as suicide bombers. Little girls are forced into prostitution before they've hit puberty as street corner prostitutes and sexual slaves in high dollar brothels. Both genders face slavery in many countries, while some are simply left to die of disease and starvation. Most of these children would thrive if brought into loving homes, but they will never have that opportunity, and in its own small way, Orphan is making sure of it.
The long and short of it is that this movie just adds fuel to a fire that already keeps kids from finding families. Orphaned children need every advantage they can get, they do not need their image defamed for the sake of entertainment. Further, how would you have liked sitting in your living room one night with your adopted child, like my friends the Jacks or the Todds who both adopted older children from Eastern Europe, when suddenly the words "Orphan... It must be difficult to love an adopted child as much as your own" scrolled across your TV screen during the commercials. Have fun explaining that one to kids who already struggle with attachment issues and post traumatic stress disorder. By the way, the new, "less offensive" tag line that replaced the aforementioned original tag line was "I don't think mommy likes me very much." That was supposed to be an improvement?
And for anyone who argues, like the movie executives did, that there is a "saving twist" to Orphan that negates any abuse of the image of real orphaned children, I have two points:
1. As a high school teacher of mine used to say, "A little feces ruins a whole cake." In other words, you can't exploit the stereotype of orphans and then throw in a twist at the end that most people will never see and act like everything's ok.
2. According to the blogosphere and movie message boards, the twist only makes the movie sound worse. Evil child Esther is not an orphan at all, she's an adult with acute dwarfism. So, in other words, they've simply shifted from picking on orphans to picking on people with disabilities. That's like saying "Hey, I know I shouldn't pick on the black kid, but it's ok, he also has down's syndrome."
One last point: throughout history people have gotten their kicks by mocking and abusing those weaker and less fortunate than themselves. More often than not, we're all guilty of standing back and watching,whether out of our own sense of morbid humor or just relief that we are not the object of the abuse. However, I see a distinct lack of sarcasm, cynicism, and belittlement in Jesus' tone when dealing with the disadvantaged and needy. The only people He ever spoke harshly to were those who needed to be brought down to earth, not those who needed to be lifted off it. In short, if you want to make a movie called "Movie Executive" or"Celebrity" or "President" and make fun of someone with the resources and confidence to defend himself, that's fine; but I don't think it is the place of Christians to be or aid the tools of oppression. Movies like Orphan deserve our righteous indignation and should not be laughed off. Maybe if the kids you plan on taking to see G-Force were pulled out of an overcrowded, under resourced orphanage, you would think so too.
Monday, July 20, 2009
orphan: a lesson in stereotypes
we've gotten our medical exam figured out! i found our tax statements! we got our forms notarized! now, we are waiting, waiting, waiting until house closing day...
i feel like maybe i blog more than the average blogger, but then again, i don't think that's true. i probably blog more than most of my friends who have blogs, but i have a lot to say. i tend to get really impassioned about things. and you can ask jamie (or my parents)...when i get really impassioned, i start talking a hundred miles a minute in a very loud voice. jamie calls it my "mean voice."
something that's made me talk in my "mean voice" lately is the new movie coming out called "orphan." seriously, who thought it was a good (let alone, politcally correct) idea to make a movie about a demon-possessed orphan? if you've seen the tag-lines, the movie's premise is based on an older child who is adopted and then brings hell to her adoptive family. apparently, before people rightfully protested the movie, one of the tag-lines seemed to suggest that older children aren't adopted because they are evil, and it would seem the movie functions to warn people what might happen if they adopt one of these supposedly evil older children. i invite everyone to read this wonderful article written by melissa faye greene (who wrote there's no me without you) pointing out the damaging effects of a movie like this: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-15/demon-orphan/
why am i so annoyed? well, i think that's a no-brainer, at least from an adoption perspective. once again, hollywood prevails in making a profit by using stereotypes to its advantage. the reality is, many people are afraid of adopting older children because they fear they're too damaged (i addressed this a bit in my last post), and in there's no me without you, melissa faye greene notes that even children as young as 3 fall into this category. if those misconceptions weren't already preventing so many children from finding forever families, hollywood rolls out this ridiculous movie and further exacerbates this tragedy. the truth that must be proclaimed here is that older children are as much deserving of loving families as babies, and so help me God, jamie and i will fight these misconceptions with whatever power we have, starting first with the willingness and desire to bring home siblings -- one being one of those supposedly "damaged" 3-year-olds.
but here's something else to consider: there are so many other people groups that hollywood uses to its advantage that not enough people take up the cause and fight for. if you know us well at all, you know that jamie is visually-impaired. you also know that jamie is an indepedent, determined, intelligent person with an inordinate amount of talents. he is not weird. he is not incapable. and he is certainly not defined by his blindness. yet, if you look at how people with disabilities are portrayed in hollywood, one might think that jamie is exactly the opposite of everything i just described. you may remember the big stink SNL caused in the blind community when they did several skits "featuring" new york governor david patterson, who is visually-impaired. in all the skits, he was portrayed as incompetent and weird. what's tragic about this is that not only is the disability totally misrepresented, but they didn't focus on anything else about patterson except his disability. certainly, he must have some other qualities that are important to his personhood -- he is the freakin' governor of new york.
people might think it's OK to indulge in hollywood's humor as long as they don't really believe the message hollywood is sending. if you feel that way, it's likely you don't find yourself touched by one of the people groups i've mentioned or even some of the ones i haven't (ie, almost every minority group you can think of). what's actually most ironic (and sad) is that there are plenty of people who would fight for the adopted child, but who would totally drop the ball on a person with a disability. just last week, i observed a girl at church staring at jamie as if he was some kind of circus freak. she then proceeded to get up and make annnouncement petitioning for help to financially support a muslim family in our community. and i wondered how she would feel if the muslim family came to our church, and someone stared at the wife like she was a circus freak because she was wearing the traditional muslim veil. my point isn't to castigate the girl at church because i'm sure she was just processing that jamie was blind, but all i'm trying to get at is that when we seek to love our neighbors and fight for justice on their behalfs, we must do so for everyone, believing that what is at stake is the dignity of all humans. we cannot complain about the prejudice one group faces while perpetrating prejudice against another group. all humans were made in the image of God, and that truth must be at the core of every interaction we have with another human being.
as the mother-to-be of at least one, hopefully 2 adopted children (who will also happen to be black, which is a whole other blog in itself if you want to talk about prejudice and discrimination), i plan to fight on my children's behalf when they are forced to come face to face with the stigma associated with being adopted and being black -- a stigma that has just been exacerbated even more by hollywood and its irresponsible excuse for entertainment. and i hope i teach them to become empowered individuals who know how to defend themselves in the face of injustice. and as the wife of a person with a disability, i will fight forever and ever against people who refuse to see beyond disability. it's no wonder so many parents who have children with disabilities struggle to cope. they have been told over and over again that something is wrong with their child, that their child is weird, that their child isn't normal. and let me say, there is nothing further from the truth. hopefully, i'll get a chance to write some more later about disability-related issues because it's something very close to my heart.
i'll leave you now on 2 positive notes, 2 videos in fact. if you didn't get a chance to watch the video i posted last week of the "gotcha day," i'm re-posting it because it's just that good. the other video is one i've been meaning to post for awhile and just haven't. it was made by a couple who lost their son after 99 days to trisomy 18, a genetic disorder that writes faulty DNA to all the body's cells. many babies die in the womb of this disease, many don't make it must past a day or 2 after birth. but this little boy defied odds and lived 99 days, and the video is about the 99 days of his life. both videos stand boldly in opposition to the evil wisdom of this world, proving that the least of these truly are the greatest among us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duyL9UjLrdM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th6Njr-qkq0
i feel like maybe i blog more than the average blogger, but then again, i don't think that's true. i probably blog more than most of my friends who have blogs, but i have a lot to say. i tend to get really impassioned about things. and you can ask jamie (or my parents)...when i get really impassioned, i start talking a hundred miles a minute in a very loud voice. jamie calls it my "mean voice."
something that's made me talk in my "mean voice" lately is the new movie coming out called "orphan." seriously, who thought it was a good (let alone, politcally correct) idea to make a movie about a demon-possessed orphan? if you've seen the tag-lines, the movie's premise is based on an older child who is adopted and then brings hell to her adoptive family. apparently, before people rightfully protested the movie, one of the tag-lines seemed to suggest that older children aren't adopted because they are evil, and it would seem the movie functions to warn people what might happen if they adopt one of these supposedly evil older children. i invite everyone to read this wonderful article written by melissa faye greene (who wrote there's no me without you) pointing out the damaging effects of a movie like this: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-15/demon-orphan/
why am i so annoyed? well, i think that's a no-brainer, at least from an adoption perspective. once again, hollywood prevails in making a profit by using stereotypes to its advantage. the reality is, many people are afraid of adopting older children because they fear they're too damaged (i addressed this a bit in my last post), and in there's no me without you, melissa faye greene notes that even children as young as 3 fall into this category. if those misconceptions weren't already preventing so many children from finding forever families, hollywood rolls out this ridiculous movie and further exacerbates this tragedy. the truth that must be proclaimed here is that older children are as much deserving of loving families as babies, and so help me God, jamie and i will fight these misconceptions with whatever power we have, starting first with the willingness and desire to bring home siblings -- one being one of those supposedly "damaged" 3-year-olds.
but here's something else to consider: there are so many other people groups that hollywood uses to its advantage that not enough people take up the cause and fight for. if you know us well at all, you know that jamie is visually-impaired. you also know that jamie is an indepedent, determined, intelligent person with an inordinate amount of talents. he is not weird. he is not incapable. and he is certainly not defined by his blindness. yet, if you look at how people with disabilities are portrayed in hollywood, one might think that jamie is exactly the opposite of everything i just described. you may remember the big stink SNL caused in the blind community when they did several skits "featuring" new york governor david patterson, who is visually-impaired. in all the skits, he was portrayed as incompetent and weird. what's tragic about this is that not only is the disability totally misrepresented, but they didn't focus on anything else about patterson except his disability. certainly, he must have some other qualities that are important to his personhood -- he is the freakin' governor of new york.
people might think it's OK to indulge in hollywood's humor as long as they don't really believe the message hollywood is sending. if you feel that way, it's likely you don't find yourself touched by one of the people groups i've mentioned or even some of the ones i haven't (ie, almost every minority group you can think of). what's actually most ironic (and sad) is that there are plenty of people who would fight for the adopted child, but who would totally drop the ball on a person with a disability. just last week, i observed a girl at church staring at jamie as if he was some kind of circus freak. she then proceeded to get up and make annnouncement petitioning for help to financially support a muslim family in our community. and i wondered how she would feel if the muslim family came to our church, and someone stared at the wife like she was a circus freak because she was wearing the traditional muslim veil. my point isn't to castigate the girl at church because i'm sure she was just processing that jamie was blind, but all i'm trying to get at is that when we seek to love our neighbors and fight for justice on their behalfs, we must do so for everyone, believing that what is at stake is the dignity of all humans. we cannot complain about the prejudice one group faces while perpetrating prejudice against another group. all humans were made in the image of God, and that truth must be at the core of every interaction we have with another human being.
as the mother-to-be of at least one, hopefully 2 adopted children (who will also happen to be black, which is a whole other blog in itself if you want to talk about prejudice and discrimination), i plan to fight on my children's behalf when they are forced to come face to face with the stigma associated with being adopted and being black -- a stigma that has just been exacerbated even more by hollywood and its irresponsible excuse for entertainment. and i hope i teach them to become empowered individuals who know how to defend themselves in the face of injustice. and as the wife of a person with a disability, i will fight forever and ever against people who refuse to see beyond disability. it's no wonder so many parents who have children with disabilities struggle to cope. they have been told over and over again that something is wrong with their child, that their child is weird, that their child isn't normal. and let me say, there is nothing further from the truth. hopefully, i'll get a chance to write some more later about disability-related issues because it's something very close to my heart.
i'll leave you now on 2 positive notes, 2 videos in fact. if you didn't get a chance to watch the video i posted last week of the "gotcha day," i'm re-posting it because it's just that good. the other video is one i've been meaning to post for awhile and just haven't. it was made by a couple who lost their son after 99 days to trisomy 18, a genetic disorder that writes faulty DNA to all the body's cells. many babies die in the womb of this disease, many don't make it must past a day or 2 after birth. but this little boy defied odds and lived 99 days, and the video is about the 99 days of his life. both videos stand boldly in opposition to the evil wisdom of this world, proving that the least of these truly are the greatest among us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duyL9UjLrdM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th6Njr-qkq0
Thursday, July 16, 2009
adoption
i continue to hear about more people who are reading this blog. thank you all for following our journey.
i spent most of the afternoon today gathering up adoption papers. they call this stage the "paperchase," and i can see why. i made copies of driver's licenses and health insurance cards; sent a request to topeka, kansas for 2 certified copies of jamie's birth certificate; made copies of our I-600A form so we can send one to our social worker; filled out our homestudy application; and called to insure a notary would be at the bank tomorrow so we can finally get all our forms notarized. yesterday, i ran down to the register of deeds to get certified copies of my birth certificate and our marriage license. and tonight, i'm going track down our tax statements from the previous 2 years. we have 17 days until we close on our house, which as i've been saying, means that we can finally (God-willing) write some checks for the adoption and really get this show on the road.
we've been going back and forth about the maximum age we'd consider if siblings were referred to us. this has to be decided way in advance because the government has to approve you for a certain age range. since we made the decision to say that we would consider adopting 2 children, an infant and an older sibling, we have said we would prefer the older child be no older than 2. however, we decided to up the maximum age to 3. if any of you had the chance to watch the video i posted a couple of days ago, you might have noticed the picture of 3 toddler-age boys sitting on the ground. that picture really pierced my heart because i wondered who would adopt them. i've been having this battle within myself for awhile now about 2 children and the maximum age of the oldest, so it wasn't just the picture that made us change our minds. the reality is, many people want babies, and there's nothing wrong with that because obviously we want a baby. but our hearts are big enough to also take a child who might remember more about his birth mother, who has been more cognizant of the pain he has endured, who might have more language difficulties at first, who might not bond to us as easily. we can do that. we're not responsible for any other human beings right now but ourselves. considering that, it seems like we can and should be willing to open our hearts and home to 2 children rather than just one. this adoption has already taught me so much about giving freely and generously, and so our hearts are open...
i told jamie last night that when i imagine the day we, like the lady in the video, walk through the doors of an orphanage on our "gotcha day," i see 2 children. i imagine someone putting a baby in jamie's arms and then a little toddler waddling up to me, lifting up his hands to be held, perhaps having been told that his mommy has come to take him home. and i will not be disappointed at the end of this journey if there is just one baby boy to welcome into our family. we will rejoice no matter what. but right now, i pray for 2. a lot of people probably think we're crazy, and that's OK. i don't pretend to think this all doesn't sound a bit insane. i mean, we've never had kids before, and suddenly we're talking about a baby and a toddler at the same time. and to confess the obvious, jamie and i aren't the most organized, neatest people around, and that's going to have to change. but we're committed to that because the reality is, once this journey is over, once the anticipation is gone and the child(ren) are home, we are responsible for a life (or 2). we don't take that lightly.
one last confession: jamie and i are still in need of funds to get us over this first monetary hurdle. our goal is to send off our dossier to ethiopia by the end of 2009-beginning of 2010, given that the processing of our government paperwork will take 3-4 months. to send off our dossier, we owe a second $2500 fee to our adoption agency and about $8000 to the ethiopian government. we need to be saving for those fees now, though we are hoping we will qualify for some grant money that will help us cover some of those costs. we still have not paid the first $2500 to our adoption agency, and that's what we really would like to raise and get sent in ASAP. as of last week, we had $200 in our hands from donations, $100 of that which we plan to put towards the $830 we owe the government for our USCIS paperwork. if you can help us or know someone who can, please let us know. you can donate directly to our adoption account through CWA (see the link and info on the sidebar). you can also continue to pray that our stuff on craigslist sells. we were sure last week that we had sold jamie's rowing machine for $900, but we haven't heard from the prospective buyer since then, so now that looks like a disappointment. if there are any of you who have old stuff that you'd be willing to sell and donate the funds to our adoption, we could host a big yard sale if we got enough stuff together. lots of people do this to fundraise, so let us know if you might be able to help us there. please just know that, as corny as this sounds, you are investing in the life of a child by investing financially in our adoption. now, back to the paperchase...
i spent most of the afternoon today gathering up adoption papers. they call this stage the "paperchase," and i can see why. i made copies of driver's licenses and health insurance cards; sent a request to topeka, kansas for 2 certified copies of jamie's birth certificate; made copies of our I-600A form so we can send one to our social worker; filled out our homestudy application; and called to insure a notary would be at the bank tomorrow so we can finally get all our forms notarized. yesterday, i ran down to the register of deeds to get certified copies of my birth certificate and our marriage license. and tonight, i'm going track down our tax statements from the previous 2 years. we have 17 days until we close on our house, which as i've been saying, means that we can finally (God-willing) write some checks for the adoption and really get this show on the road.
we've been going back and forth about the maximum age we'd consider if siblings were referred to us. this has to be decided way in advance because the government has to approve you for a certain age range. since we made the decision to say that we would consider adopting 2 children, an infant and an older sibling, we have said we would prefer the older child be no older than 2. however, we decided to up the maximum age to 3. if any of you had the chance to watch the video i posted a couple of days ago, you might have noticed the picture of 3 toddler-age boys sitting on the ground. that picture really pierced my heart because i wondered who would adopt them. i've been having this battle within myself for awhile now about 2 children and the maximum age of the oldest, so it wasn't just the picture that made us change our minds. the reality is, many people want babies, and there's nothing wrong with that because obviously we want a baby. but our hearts are big enough to also take a child who might remember more about his birth mother, who has been more cognizant of the pain he has endured, who might have more language difficulties at first, who might not bond to us as easily. we can do that. we're not responsible for any other human beings right now but ourselves. considering that, it seems like we can and should be willing to open our hearts and home to 2 children rather than just one. this adoption has already taught me so much about giving freely and generously, and so our hearts are open...
i told jamie last night that when i imagine the day we, like the lady in the video, walk through the doors of an orphanage on our "gotcha day," i see 2 children. i imagine someone putting a baby in jamie's arms and then a little toddler waddling up to me, lifting up his hands to be held, perhaps having been told that his mommy has come to take him home. and i will not be disappointed at the end of this journey if there is just one baby boy to welcome into our family. we will rejoice no matter what. but right now, i pray for 2. a lot of people probably think we're crazy, and that's OK. i don't pretend to think this all doesn't sound a bit insane. i mean, we've never had kids before, and suddenly we're talking about a baby and a toddler at the same time. and to confess the obvious, jamie and i aren't the most organized, neatest people around, and that's going to have to change. but we're committed to that because the reality is, once this journey is over, once the anticipation is gone and the child(ren) are home, we are responsible for a life (or 2). we don't take that lightly.
one last confession: jamie and i are still in need of funds to get us over this first monetary hurdle. our goal is to send off our dossier to ethiopia by the end of 2009-beginning of 2010, given that the processing of our government paperwork will take 3-4 months. to send off our dossier, we owe a second $2500 fee to our adoption agency and about $8000 to the ethiopian government. we need to be saving for those fees now, though we are hoping we will qualify for some grant money that will help us cover some of those costs. we still have not paid the first $2500 to our adoption agency, and that's what we really would like to raise and get sent in ASAP. as of last week, we had $200 in our hands from donations, $100 of that which we plan to put towards the $830 we owe the government for our USCIS paperwork. if you can help us or know someone who can, please let us know. you can donate directly to our adoption account through CWA (see the link and info on the sidebar). you can also continue to pray that our stuff on craigslist sells. we were sure last week that we had sold jamie's rowing machine for $900, but we haven't heard from the prospective buyer since then, so now that looks like a disappointment. if there are any of you who have old stuff that you'd be willing to sell and donate the funds to our adoption, we could host a big yard sale if we got enough stuff together. lots of people do this to fundraise, so let us know if you might be able to help us there. please just know that, as corny as this sounds, you are investing in the life of a child by investing financially in our adoption. now, back to the paperchase...
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
please watch
a few other blog friends of mine have posted this video on their blogs, so i wanted to share it on ours. it is a "gotcha day" video -- "gotcha day" being what many adoptive families refer to as the day they're finally united with their child. i don't know the lady in the video, but i've read her blog a few times, having found it on other bloggers' bloglists (i love reading ethiopian adoption blogs). i loved this video because it represents everything we hope to convey about why we want to adopt. and it makes me long for the day when we can finally hold our child(ren) in our arms. enjoy. and if you tend to get emotional like i do about these kinds of things, be prepared to cry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duyL9UjLrdM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duyL9UjLrdM
Thursday, July 9, 2009
worry vs. hope
i consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. we know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. for in hope we were saved. now hope that is seen is not hope. for who hopes for what is seen? but if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. -- romans 8:18-25
i am a worrier. you can ask jamie, who can attest to the fact that sometimes i'm a little insane. i get this pretty honest from my mother, who refused to go to the state fair after 9/11 because she believed north carolina was next on osama bin laden's hit list. until i was 22, i wouldn't fly on an airplane for fear of dying in a plane crash. i don't worry about everything, but it's the big, existential things that strike at my core -- questions about life and death and God. and i'm pretty sure that these are the questions that everyone has, whether they admit to them or not. i also believe they're at the root of all worrying. rest assured, my life and my being rest firmly on jesus christ -- his life, death, and resurrection. i believe that jesus is the son of God, the one who came to redeem this world from sin and despair. and i believe that those who follow him have great hope for a better life -- a life after death where sin is no more. but i won't pretend i don't have questions about how that all works, nor will i deny that i have questioned whether it's all true.
i'm pretty sure that "worry" was one of the first by-products of what happened in the garden of eden. worrying became wired into human beings as soon as sin entered the world. it became a natural response to the decaying world of despair that we have come to know east of eden. last night, i went to my bible to look up a passage in romans that we translated in greek. i was then reminded of the above verses, which became some of my favorite words of the apostle paul after i wrote a paper in new testament about this passage. when i worry, i feel like it's my body "groaning" -- knowing that i have been made for something greater, yet still struggling to live with hope in this world. and yet paul reminds us that we have something to look forward to -- glory is about to be revealed. we will be redeemed, taken out of this despair, rescued -- we will be adopted.
sometimes, it's easy to get caught up in this world. it's all we, as humans, have ever known. and there is a lot here that is quite beautiful -- family, friends, the ocean, a flower, laughter, music. i think God uses the beauty of these things to point towards what is to come. paul is right when he says that hope that is seen cannot be hope. how can i hope for something that i have already seen, something that has already come to be? a child hopes for the joy of christmas day because he knows of the greatness of it, but he has not yet experienced it. but when it finally comes, it is better than he ever could have imagined. his hope has been realized, and he no longer has to "hope" anymore. what is to come for us is something that we have not yet known, but paul assures us that whatever we experience in this world -- the sufferings, but even those things that are beautiful -- is not even worth comparing to what is to come.
i want to live with purpose and intention in this world, always doing what i can to ease the groaning of creation. let me be clear: i don't agree with theologies that excuse christians from doing justice in this world just because there is hope for another one. but i pray not to get so caught up in this world that i dread leaving it. i want to become better at believing that when we are finally set free from bondage to decay and sin, it will be more glorious than anything we have ever known. and so i cling to these words of paul as i try to respond to this world always with hope rather than worry, even as i struggle (sometimes) to hope for something which i have not yet seen.
i am a worrier. you can ask jamie, who can attest to the fact that sometimes i'm a little insane. i get this pretty honest from my mother, who refused to go to the state fair after 9/11 because she believed north carolina was next on osama bin laden's hit list. until i was 22, i wouldn't fly on an airplane for fear of dying in a plane crash. i don't worry about everything, but it's the big, existential things that strike at my core -- questions about life and death and God. and i'm pretty sure that these are the questions that everyone has, whether they admit to them or not. i also believe they're at the root of all worrying. rest assured, my life and my being rest firmly on jesus christ -- his life, death, and resurrection. i believe that jesus is the son of God, the one who came to redeem this world from sin and despair. and i believe that those who follow him have great hope for a better life -- a life after death where sin is no more. but i won't pretend i don't have questions about how that all works, nor will i deny that i have questioned whether it's all true.
i'm pretty sure that "worry" was one of the first by-products of what happened in the garden of eden. worrying became wired into human beings as soon as sin entered the world. it became a natural response to the decaying world of despair that we have come to know east of eden. last night, i went to my bible to look up a passage in romans that we translated in greek. i was then reminded of the above verses, which became some of my favorite words of the apostle paul after i wrote a paper in new testament about this passage. when i worry, i feel like it's my body "groaning" -- knowing that i have been made for something greater, yet still struggling to live with hope in this world. and yet paul reminds us that we have something to look forward to -- glory is about to be revealed. we will be redeemed, taken out of this despair, rescued -- we will be adopted.
sometimes, it's easy to get caught up in this world. it's all we, as humans, have ever known. and there is a lot here that is quite beautiful -- family, friends, the ocean, a flower, laughter, music. i think God uses the beauty of these things to point towards what is to come. paul is right when he says that hope that is seen cannot be hope. how can i hope for something that i have already seen, something that has already come to be? a child hopes for the joy of christmas day because he knows of the greatness of it, but he has not yet experienced it. but when it finally comes, it is better than he ever could have imagined. his hope has been realized, and he no longer has to "hope" anymore. what is to come for us is something that we have not yet known, but paul assures us that whatever we experience in this world -- the sufferings, but even those things that are beautiful -- is not even worth comparing to what is to come.
i want to live with purpose and intention in this world, always doing what i can to ease the groaning of creation. let me be clear: i don't agree with theologies that excuse christians from doing justice in this world just because there is hope for another one. but i pray not to get so caught up in this world that i dread leaving it. i want to become better at believing that when we are finally set free from bondage to decay and sin, it will be more glorious than anything we have ever known. and so i cling to these words of paul as i try to respond to this world always with hope rather than worry, even as i struggle (sometimes) to hope for something which i have not yet seen.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
little update
while i sit here and wait for somebody to answer the phone at best buy, i thought i'd update the blog and let the few who actually read this thing know what's going on in the dean world. first, my computer is broken, specifically the wireless adapter on my computer. i bought a 3-year service plan when i got my computer, so i'm hoping best buy will either fix it for free or replace it for free...because that's why i bought a service plan. over the weekend, our car wouldn't start, which was really annoying because we were convinced we'd have to spend $500 to fix a car that we're planning to get rid of in a few months. furthermore, we were frustrated because every penny is going to our house and every penny after that is going to the adoption, and well, it really sucks when things break unexpectedly and then cost money to fix. thankfully, my parents were in town, and my dad quickly figured out that the battery was dead. so we only had to spend $70 on a new battery to fix the car, and i didn't have to go to a mechanic and listen to them tell me about every other thing that is supposedly wrong with the car. other than those things, we're doing pretty well. i finished the first session of greek last week with an A (!) and started the second session today. jamie is starting to feel the crunch of studying for the bar exam, which is in 3 weeks. we are less than a month away from closing on our house. thankfully, jamie's law firm is paying all our moving expenses, so if we organize our possessions, the moving service will pack them and move everything to the new house for us. i told jamie that august 4th will be adoption check-writing day. after we close, we will look at our budget and write whatever checks we can for the adoption, which should certainly include the $1900 homestudy and post-adoption fees and $830 to USCIS. that hopefully means we'll finally get a home visit from our social worker and get close to finishing our homestudy since we're pretty much done with all the other paperwork! it also means we'll start the 3-4 month long process of receiving approval from the USCIS. we are still trying to fundraise our $2500 agency fee, so please help us if you can.
so that's a small update. we're housesitting for a professor of jamie's all month, so we've been enjoying a free pool, free cable, and a free backyard for our dogs to run around in. i wish i had a picture of priscilla swimming in the pool, but i don't. she doesn't get in when we're not in, but she jumps in quite willingly when she sees a human go in. hudson, on the other hand, does not like the water and only got in when we put him in to see if he could swim. he can indeed swim, but he's not a fish like priscilla. hopefully, i'll have my computer fixed soon so i can post about something reflective or controversial or challenging.
so that's a small update. we're housesitting for a professor of jamie's all month, so we've been enjoying a free pool, free cable, and a free backyard for our dogs to run around in. i wish i had a picture of priscilla swimming in the pool, but i don't. she doesn't get in when we're not in, but she jumps in quite willingly when she sees a human go in. hudson, on the other hand, does not like the water and only got in when we put him in to see if he could swim. he can indeed swim, but he's not a fish like priscilla. hopefully, i'll have my computer fixed soon so i can post about something reflective or controversial or challenging.
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