a new pair of shoes

i have to put in a shameless plug for toms shoes.

apparently, it was cool and trendy to wear toms like 2 years ago. but i just got on the bandwagon back in the spring, so i'm a little late. when it came time to buy a new pair of shoes for winter (because the new balance tennis shoes i normally wear when it gets cold -- because, when it gets cold, i quit really caring about fashion -- are officially out of commission thanks to some heavy duty yard work), i decided that i really couldn't go wrong with buying a new pair of toms.

boy, did i underestimate how much i really couldn't go wrong with another pair of toms. i own 2 pairs of classic toms. if you have no idea what classic toms are, you basically just slip them on your bare feet and go. i've seen people with a funky (and, in my opinion, enviable) fashion sense wear socks with classic toms, but i didn't think i could pull that look. so i decided to purchase a pair of toms with laces so that i could get the functionality of a tennis shoe (ie, so my whole foot would be covered up in the chilly weather). here's what i got (laces not pictured):





now i'm going to encourage you to buy a pair of toms. any pair. why? well, my assumption is that, like me, it might be time for you to buy a new pair of shoes for winter. and toms has quite possibly the best business model aside from just simply giving stuff away for free to everybody. when you buy a pair of toms, toms will give a pair of shoes to a child in need. i just recently read the first annual toms giving report, and it's incredible how much thought toms has put into how they distribute shoes around the world. they not only work with non-profits (like world vision!) on the ground in places like ethiopia(!) to determine where the most need exists, but they also continue to supply children with shoes knowing that most children outgrow a pair of shoes every 6 months. and because toms serves children in different types of climate and terrain, toms has been intentional about designing particular shoes for particular locations.

since most of us have never lived in a place where shoes are a luxury, it might also be helpful to point out that something as simple as not having a pair of shoes can be a huge barrier to a child's upward mobility. many schools require children to wear shoes, so not having shoes can prevent many children from getting an education. not having shoes can also be fatal. children who walk barefoot in many third world countries are susceptible to parasites and infections that can kill them if not treated. and if these parasites are not fatal, they are often very painful. many children suffer daily from itching and burning caused by jiggers, small mites that dig into the feet.

if you are planning to invest in a pair of shoes this winter, please consider buying a pair of toms. i know of no other company or brand name or designer that has a "one for one" business model. and quite honestly, it just seems silly to invest in any other pair of shoes knowing that you could literally be sparing the life of a child just by being intentional about the shoes you purchase. you can check out the many different varieties of toms shoes here.

orphan sunday

i've had a couple of awkward adoption conversations lately with co-workers. a couple of weeks ago, someone asked me if i have kids.

"no," i said, "not yet. but my husband and i are adopting, so we hopefully will soon."
"adopting?" he said. "so you mean, you can't have kids."
"well, we have never tried to have biological children. we have always wanted to adopt."
"you haven't even tried the old-fashioned way??" he chuckled. "you know, you're going to pay a lot to adopt a kid when you could've just had one yourself."
"um, actually there are are a lot of children around the world who don't have moms and dads."

at that point, i wanted to ask him what he hoped would happen if one day he and his wife died and there was no one in their family to care for their two children. maybe he wouldn't have laughed off adoption so quickly if he actually had pictured his kids desperately in need of a family. but i didn't. instead, i nicely fielded a few more questions about adoption and let him have the last word when he ended our conversation by saying: "well, i'm going to keep having kids the old-fashioned way. it's much more fun."

then, yesterday, one of my co-workers was telling a story about going on lunch outings when there were just 4 employees on our team. they used to joke around about how people must have thought they were a family with one biological child and one adopted child (since one guy on the team is african american). but the guy who they said was the adopted child always complained and asked why he had to be the "adopted child"...and, of course, the tone used to say "adopted child" was extremely negative. my heart pinged. i wanted to shout that there is nothing wrong with being adopted. i wanted to demand that someone tell me why being adopted is such an insult. but i didn't. i just stood there being sad.

i hope and pray that churches across the country are breaking down these stereotypes today. there are still so many believers who think adoption is a last resort or a second choice to have biological children. and because of this, most people think being adopted is undesirable. the truth is, adoption was in the heart of God before the beginning of time. it was not a second choice or last resort idea for our salvation. it was the way he planned it all along. God wanted so much to be our mom and dad (because God isn't male or female) that he was willing to make a costly sacrifice for that to happen. if any believer thinks it is undesirable to be adopted or that the only children who are really "your own" are kids who look like you and share your DNA or that adoption is the option left when all other options are exhausted, let them reconsider the gospel in light of ephesians 1 and romans 8 and hear that adoption is all of our stories.

this is why adoption is more than just charity, humanitarian work, or philanthropy. it is the gospel being fleshed out in a very practical way. and the thing is, we serve a God who delights in justice for the orphan. scripture is so clear about God's relationship to orphans, not only in light of how he saves us but also in how he is grieved by the plight of orphans in this world. he commands his followers to care for orphans, to provide monetarily for them, to give them justice. scripture says God sets the lonely in families, he comforts them, he defends them. while our adoption into the family of God informs our decision to adopt, so also does the reality that as christians, we are called to be like God. if i'm to be like God, then i must be actively participating in justice for orphans because that's what he does.

what i don't want people to hear today is that adoption is the only way or the best way or the most important way to care for orphans. there are many ways to participate in orphan care...adoption is just one of them. as an adoption advocate, i believe that adoption is still very much needed in this world. there are 15 million children who have lost both parents. there is nothing preventative we can do for them. they need families now. i would tell any family on the precipice of starting a family or expanding their family to sincerely have an open heart to God about how he wants to add a child to their family. i truly believe God is calling more people to adoption.

on the flip side of being an adoption advocate, i'm also a birth family advocate. i want children who can stay with their birth families to be able to. that's where things like child sponsorship, volunteering in your community, and even foster care come in. if you can commit $30 a month to a child, you can provide food and medical resources that prevent birth parents from having to place their child for adoption because of poverty or illness. by volunteering as a guardian ad litem, you can be a child's voice in court to ensure they don't go back to an abusive or neglectful family situation. by volunteering with non-profits that seek to prevent child abuse and neglect, you can mentor a troubled parent and help them learn how to responsibly parent their child. by doing foster care, you can ensure a child has a safe and loving home until their birth parents are able to resume caring for them (or until they are placed for adoption).

and, in general, we all should be praying and being generous with our resources. the thing is, everyone will be called in different ways to do orphan care. but i do think everyone is called in some way (and if scripture isn't compelling about this, john piper will back me up). no one should feel inferior if their calling is prayer and another's calling is adoption. if you are doing what God has called you to, then you are doing enough.

provision & practicality

God provides. i believe this.

i believe that when God calls you to do something -- when he asks you to obey him -- he will give you what you need to accomplish the task.

but somewhere in our little brains, i think we often assume this means that God provides all that we think we need. and all that we think we need is really a nice way of saying what we want.

throughout our adoption, i have wished that God would provide a generous donor who would magically write a check for our expenses. i still hold out hope for this because we're looking at spending another $12-15,000 before this is over and done. in my mind, what we need is a huge fundraiser or a really nice rich person. we need God to compel people to pity us.

and then it hit me last night. all this waiting we are doing, the waiting i complain a lot about because it is hard...well, what if that is God providing us with money through the waiting? if the process speeds up a lot (which, certainly would be awesome and we would be fine because our credit cards are a last resort), i have to quit working. and the moment i quit working, we are down to one income. and none of that income is budgeted to go towards our adoption. you get the picture.

when i started thinking about waiting from this perspective, i felt more at peace. i didn't have a huge knot in my stomach at work today. i didn't compulsively check blogs to see if any referrals had gone out. i could rest in knowing that even in the waiting -- something i would rather not be doing -- God is providing for us. it is not the way i would've done things, nor is it the way i want (or think i need) things to be done. nonetheless, it is his provision, and he is being faithful to us as he promised.

i wanted to mention for practical purposes the next few steps of the adoption process. we've had several people ask us what the future will hold, so here's a summary:

1. get a referral. this is where we are matched with our kids and receive pictures and medical information. it is possible that we could be matched with one child first and then a few weeks later be matched with our second child, but i haven't seen that happen before.
2. after we accept the referral (and there are few if any reasons why we wouldn't accept), our children will undergo a second round of medical testing that can take several weeks. i know a family recently got theirs back in 3 weeks, so we would hope for quickness like that.
3. after the medical tests are completed and all the documents are in place, our cases would be submitted to court (i say cases because we will likely get unrelated kids and they are considered separate cases as opposed to siblings being considered one case).
4. receive a court date. ethiopia just made some significant (and very positive changes) to the court dates. i won't go into those changes, but the court date will involve a biological relative (or other witness) appearing in court in the morning to consent to the adoption, and us appearing in the afternoon. if everything goes well, we would be granted legal custody of our children at this hearing.
5. after a successful court date, most families come back home and wait for an embassy date (where our children will get passports and visas). the wait for an embassay date is about 4-8 weeks right now. since i'm not planning to work after our kids come home, my current plan is to remain in ethiopia during the time between passing court and appearing at the embassy. we have friends who did this recently, and it is actually cheaper to stay than to fly back and forth twice.
6. embassy appointment. once our kids have their visas (they will also get birth certificates with "dean" as their last name!), we will be able to come home.

timeline for all of this? i have no clue. but i'm really, really hoping our kids are home by my sister's wedding on july 2. keep praying, people!

a lot

i've sat down to blog several times in the last week and couldn't actually finish a post. so here are bits and pieces of what i've been wanting to say about various subjects:

- adoption. it's hard. last week, i sat at my desk everyday at work with a knot in my stomach for no apparent reason other than that the waiting is starting to wear on me. literally, we are in this phase where we've been waiting almost 9 months, and it's possible that my phone could ring any minute with our referral. on the flip side, it's also possible that my phone might not ring for another 2-3 months (or longer). i think what has exacerbated the uncertainty of the whole situation is that our case manager doesn't give us any information. we don't know much more about our case now than we did back in february when we first got on the waitlist. it's frustrating in a lot of ways because (a) we feel like, after 9 months, we deserve to know a little more (b) we pay our adoption agency a nice sum of money to advocate for us and keep us informed and (c) we aren't dumb enough to think that everything they say to us is written in stone. in fact, we understand that adoption is a rollercoaster as my friend, leigh, said on her blog today (if you want to read a story about perseverence through a difficult adoption, you need to go to leigh's blog now). it can change at any minute and really isn't set in stone until your children are home with you. honestly, we just want to see our kids' faces, know how old they are, know what genders they are. we want to be able to buy them clothes, paint their rooms, and call them by name. we realize the waiting will intensify after we actually have faces, but we are just ready to know them.

-being in debt. so this sounds random, i know. i just hate hearing people imply that all people who are in debt must be irresponsible and frivolous. jamie and i have debt. we have a load of student debt from graduate school. we also have a bit of credit card debt from when we were living solely on student loans and small work study salaries. honestly, both of us felt God call us to our respective degrees, so we don't spend a lot of time regretting the debt. sure, we need to make responsible decisions to manage our debt, but it's not something we should be made to feel ashamed of. i also don't feel like debt is always a good excuse to not do something radical you feel like God is asking you to do. on paper, we look like the last people on earth who should spend $30,000+ on an adoption. it would've been great to put all the money we paid out in adoption fees towards our student debt. that probably would have been the responsible thing to do. but it wasn't what we were being asked to do. i'm not trying to pat us on the back, i just feel a little passionate about speaking against the popular ideology among christians today that says you shouldn't do anything really radical until you've got all your debt paid off and your savings account fully loaded. where is our reliance on the son of man who didn't even have a place to lay his head?? oh, and one more thing. we would love to be free of our debt. there is no doubt that being in debt sucks. it is constraining. but i don't think God encourages us to be free of debt for our own pleasures. rather, i think he wants us to be free of debt so we can help others. we crave to be in a place where we can freely give to anyone we know who is in need without thinking how that money could've have been "better" spent on reducing debt.

--materialism. can i just say that i struggle with materialism? whenever i think i've got it under control, it rears its ugly head in the form of a $30 carolina tshirt that i "just had to have." honestly, i just really care what other people think about me when it comes to stuff. i often think other women will accept me and want to be friends with me if i look a certain way or wear certain clothes. or i feel self-conscious when people walk in my house and see that i literally have nothing on the walls in my living room. all of that self-consciousness typically drives me to materialism. there's nothing wrong with buying stuff. i've purchased new clothes recently because a lot of my old fall/winter clothes were too small or had yucky pit stains because i've worn them the last 3-5 (even 8) years. but when my buying is driven more by what other people think about me than what i think of other people (ie, the poor, who i believe need my money more than i do), then i'm falling into materialism. and, in general, i fall into materialism every time i think stuff and others' approval is more important than God. i often think that it would be easier to escape materialism if i just picked up and moved to africa. i should say that moving to africa is not some far-off fantasy that i've dreamed up. we'd like to someday if the doors were to open. and when i think about it, i feel relieved that if i can get over my fear of bugs and rodents, i'd do OK over there because i'd be free of social pressures and materialism. forget that i am romanticizing africa in a big way and underestimating the difficulty of living there long-term...i am also forgetting that part of being radical is making a decision that is counter to the consesus. sure, moving to africa would be radical but once i got there, it wouldn't be radical for me to live simply because nobody there has much of anything so everyone has to live simply. wouldn't it actually be more radical to live simply in a culture where everyone has everything they need plus a lot more? wouldn't it be more radical to say no to social pressures in a culture where those pressures are so pervasive and strong? jesus, empower me with your spirit...

-glee. i still stand by what i wrote in my last post about glee. but i was extremely disappointed to have given the show so much credit only to have the following week's episode (2 weeks ago) deal very irresponsibly with sex issues. i was even more disappointed at the GQ photo shoot 3 actors from the show appeared in. i'm beginning to question whether people who care about women's issues (seriously, if you didn't see the GQ photo shoot, google it and be disturbed if you are a woman), teenage sex issues, and even gay issues (i say this even though the show tries to deal thoughtfully with kurt's sexuality. i take issue with how the show consistently portrays britney and santana using each other for sexual gratification. i think it's offensive to anyone who may actually struggle with homosexuality to see it portrayed so flippantly) can continue to watch the show in good conscious. i don't mean to offend anyone or seem judgmental. i'm honestly just starting to feel genuninely concerned. thoughts?

what christians can learn from glee

OK, so i admit it. i watch glee.




most weeks, i'm horrified at the show's glorification of sexuality and am basically scared to ever raise teenagers. but i like the songs and think the show actually has some musical talent and artistry going for it. suffice it to say, though, i never would have coined the show to do an episode that was even remotely thoughtful about religion.

and then, last week's episode surprised me.

were there some sacreligious parts? sure. when you have a teenager praying to a grilled cheese sandwich that resembles jesus, it's bound to offend any great number of religious folk, including catholics who are infamous for spotting images of the virgin mary in all sorts of weird places.

but when you put religious questions -- hard religious questions -- at the front and center of a show, and you have the characters deal with those questions in real and honest ways, i have to applaud you. surprisingly, the show did an excellent job of balancing the religious characters with the non-religious characters, especially considering that our culture has increasingly portrayed religious people in a negative light.

now, some of you may have seen this episode and be wondering why i say christians can learn from this show. i think there is value in paying attention to the media -- to "secular" television, music, art, etc. because it helps us know what our culture thinks about things, including religion. last week's glee focused overwhelmingly on questions concerning prayer -- why God doesn't answer prayers, especially when the prayer seems to be in line with something God would want -- and also on whether we can have a personal relationship with God -- a "direct line" as one character called it.

i wept as one character had to deal with her doubts about God's existence after facing years of unanswered prayers that people would stop teasing her sister with down syndrome. i wept as another character rejected God even in the face of terrible tragedy because he couldn't understand why God had allowed his followers to hate him [the character] for being gay.

honestly, i wept because i saw myself in those characters. i struggle all the time with questions about my faith. i don't understand a lot about God. and i really hate that so many christians are dismissive of people with faith struggles. so many times in my life, i have feared being honest about my thoughts or feelings about God because i thought someone wouldn't like me anymore or wouldn't think i was a good christian if they knew just how deep my struggles run or how many questions i ask.

i've been in a presbyterian church long enough to be convinced that belief has little to do with man's will or choice and more to do with God's pursuit of man. i think God infuses us with the holy spirit and empowers us to believe. it is only by his grace that any of us believe at all, which is certainly the crux of the often-quoted ephesians 2:8-9. so that no man can boast. certainly, this brings up a whole host of questions about God that i will probably deal with the rest of my life (like why God can't just empower everyone to believe), but i prefer this way of thinking because it should humble those of us who are believers and call us to prayer and action of behalf of others.

i'm hopeful that christians can take a lesson from this [often ridiculous] television show and realize that there are real human beings with hearts and souls that struggle every day of their lives with questions about God. and what they don't need from us is an attitude of "well, can't you just get it together and believe?" because for, many people, believing just isn't that easy. what they do need from us is compassion, love, and the gospel (and please note, this is where i differ from the show because the show's answer is tolerance which, in my opinion, still leaves people hopeless). they need people who will sincerely bear the burdens of their questions with them [without judgment] and not just give them pat answers simply because they sound like the right thing to say. they need people who will tell them that the gospel will not answer every, single question...but who will assure them that it is enough.

a day in chapel hill

jamie and i spent saturday in chapel hill with our friends, the littletons.

(for those out-of-staters, chapel hill is the town where i went to college.)

chapel hill is such a magical place for me. i've written before that going back always challenges me to think about who i am and who i used to be. and honestly, i just love the sensation of nostalgia. i love how it feels to be in a place and remember something special that happened there. i also love getting to share chapel hill with jamie because we get to make new memories there, which is exactly what we did yesterday.

we had lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, elmo's diner, with my friend (and old college housemate), april, and her new boyfriend. every time i go to elmo's, i order the same thing: a greek grilled cheese -- chicken, a slice of american cheese, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and feta cheese on a pita with that delicious greek sauce (that starts with a t) for dipping. after that, we met back up with the littletons and walked around carrboro (which is chapel hill's sister town and literally the hippiest place on earth). i was pumped to get a cs lewis biography, a book of poetry by shel silverstein, and 2 other kids book at the used book store. i used to have this weird objection to used books, but now i'm a used bookstore fiend.

unfortunately, we chose a game day to make our chapel hill trip. so we spent the next hour searching for a parking space. if you know nothing about chapel hill, i should tell you that parking there is one of the most hellish experiences because the campus was never designed with traffic in mind. when it's a game day, they reserve every.single.lot.on.campus. and shut down every.single.meter. so that it is basically impossible to park. luckily, one of the pay lots on franklin street opened up, and we got a spot in there.

at that point, we decided we'd better go ahead and eat so we could beat the football crowd. so we headed to the carolina brewery for pizza and brats. when we finished eating, we had lost most of our daylight, so even though we couldn't take pictures on campus like we had planned, we still decided to walk up on campus to see the sights. honestly, one of my favorite parts of the day was just sitting in the pit (for those non-unc people, the pit is a large sunken area in the heart of campus where students gather. it's bordered by the dining hall, student union, library, and student store) and watching the kids play.

i was pretty bummed that we couldn't buy our kids any unc clothes, but i'm hopeful that they'll be home when we take this trip again next year. seriously, can't you picture 2 more kids with this crowd of goobs?

8 months

yesterday marked 8 months that we've been waiting for a referral.

in many ways, time seems to be flying. jamie said the other day that it didn't feel like 8 months had passed. in other ways, though, things seem to be slow. painfully slow. i think it's because we don't know how close we have gotten to our referral in these last 8 months. based on the families i have been following, i don't know of anyone who has waited for a referral (for one child or two) longer than 12 months. so, in my mind, i think that if we can just hold out for half the time that we've already waited, we may finally know who our children are.

i must confess that i sometimes feel a little defensive when i tell people we've been waiting 8 months. i'm always afraid they won't understand the gravity of this situation because, you know, women carry babies in their wombs for 9 months, so who am i to act like 8 months is a long time? the truth is, it took us 9 months just to get on the waitlist, so we've been in the process of adopting for almost 18 months. certainly, if we had been planning for this, it wouldn't have taken us that long to raise money and do paperwork. but we had no idea God would call us to adoption first, so planning and saving weren't on our radar.

i say all of that to say that if you feel like God is moving in your heart about adoption, plan now and start saving. and seriously, don't let the money or waiting discourage you even if you've done no planning or saving and you feel like God is calling you now. i guess i just want to be up front about how difficult this process really is, but also to encourage people in knowing that there are many families just like us who are a testimony of God's grace and sustenance even in the midst of a lengthy and uncertain adoption process.

on a related note, i've been wanting to write a little feature about foster care. and it seems like this is an appropriate time because maybe someone out there is wondering how they can be involved in caring for orphans even when they know adoption is not for them.

i recently became more aware of all the ins and outs of foster care because our friends, brian and sarah, just became foster parents for the first time to a 9-year-old girl. after walking with them through their process, i have realized that on society's hierarchy of "real" parents, foster parents fall even below adoptive parents. society so often discounts adoptive parents because we have no biological connection to our children. but we at least get some credibility back because, once an adoption is finalized, it is permanent.

but foster care is often not a permanent situation (though, it can lead to adoption in some cases). a child is placed in foster care by the department of social services when the child has been neglected and/or abused by his/her birth parent(s) (or other guardian). the purpose of foster care is to ensure a child has a safe and stable home where his/her needs (both physical and emotional) are being met in appropriate ways by foster parents until a permanent home is established for the child. often, the assumption in foster care is that the birth parent(s) might be able to get themselves together enough to actually parent their child.

so because foster care isn't typically viewed as a permanent situation, most foster parents get the shaft when it comes to receiving the recognition of being a parent. but the truth is, they are parents in every sense of the word. about a week after their foster daughter came to live with them, sarah told us that she overheard her tell a friend that she needed to go show her mom whatever it was they were playing with. and it hit sarah that yes, she was as close to a mom as this little 9-year-old girl had.

and while they have no clue how this situation will play out, brian and sarah will keep taking her to school each day, encouraging her burgeoning interest in karate, teaching her good manners, providing her with nutritious meals, loving her unconditionally, and giving her a safe home because that's what parents do. love. empower. provide. correct. teach.

if you are interested in foster care, i'd encourage you to contact your local DSS for more information. or you can leave a comment, and i can put you in contact with brian and sarah if you have questions about what day-to-day life as a foster parent looks like.