2007 Rewind

Yesterday (Sunday for those wondering) our church did a sermon titled Rewind, which is a tradition of sorts. What is is loosely based on is a review of the year for our community, our church and a small selection of individuals from our church who have had the unmistakable fingerprints of God in their lives.

Our church started hosting ShareFest in our small three city community in 2005, so that is always a highlight and this year The United Way listed it as an asset in our area. In 2005 our church also started Royal Family Kids Camp for Foster Kids between the ages of 7 to 11 years old, which introduced my husband and I to the whole concept of foster children for the first time as a couple.

Yesterday our church highlighted two individual stories from 2007 to rewind and our story, out of a church body of 1500 was one of the the two stories told. Our little family of seven told its' story from the alter in a three minute seq way at the 9 am and 11 am services.


Here is the long version:

Those who have "known" me for more than awhile realize that multiple sclerosis is not my only obstacle in life, I have been blessed with others, like a brain tumor in 1997 and infertility issues which makes typical adoption process not likely. Nowadays, when couples want to adopt a child they have to do a little marketing blitz that sells themselves to to a young pregnant girl like a product and says; see what a lovely, stable home we will provide. This marketing campaign does not usually highlight a brain tumor, a chronic illness and other less attractive things like being "older." Young and pregnant chicks can be somewhat shallow and often pick the young, healthy, wealthy doctors and lawyers to parent their unwanted babies.

When we heard about this camp God tugged at our hearts individually to go...GO! So we both did go to camp, as counselors and discovered God's plan for our lives. He knew it all along and was just waiting for us to catch up. Not only were we to become foster parents (WE thought that we were just going to foster little kids, like ages zero to five years old) but we were to open our homes up to kids from ages zero to seventeen years old. My husband's 2005 Valentines day gift to me had been the paperwork to foster with the state....and our original plan had been to find BABIES to adopt. Can I get an AMEN?

Man, God has a sense of humor.

After camp we both knew we had to listen to the small still voice in our separate hearts saying we could parent older children, that we both had love to offer any child. So we set about doing it and quickly as possible having never been involved in government offices before. Innocently, we told the truth on the seemingly five hundred pages of paperwork they have you fill out, to make sure you are fit to parent the kids that have been removed from the most horrible of circumstances one can imagine. Even talented and creative writers fail to imagine the stuff of the lives of the children, trust me, I have heard stories from kids at camp that made me physically ill.

One question, on the forms is, have you ever been sexually abused?

And I told the truth on the form, which brought us so close to children, but then those children were denied by the state. The great state was not sure that I had been healed of the evil that had been done to TO ME and after teasing me with a glimpse of kids I might have and filling my dreams with their giggles in the room across the house, the state yanked away the dream. We were close enough to see pictures of the children we so wanted; but yet, those children were not the ones hand picked for us by God.

November 2005 entries reveal such pain and yet such hope in my blog.

My heart still remembers the pain of that storm and the warmth of those tears shed may always linger on my cheeks as a reminder that IF those little tow headed boys had come into our home we would not have had the full blessings that we know today. When the storm rages around us it is so easy to forget what a sunny day feels like...and to trust that the sun is still out there, somewhere.

In November 2005 the children my husband and I now have were not even in the foster care system and God knew that...now, some people may just chalk it up to mere circumstance.

Not me. Not my husband. Not our house.

For I know the plans I have for you, declare the Lord, plans not for disaster and for a hope and a future. Jer 29:11

It took us until March 2006 to become licensed Foster Parents, though a faith based organization, that actually recognizes the healing power of counseling and the Great Counselor. One that allows both of us to mention the name of our Lord, fancy that.

I am not a Polly-Anna type of woman but I am a glass is half full kind of gal. And my glass has God's finger prints all over it, the kind of prints that are etched into the glass from frequent use...

We became a long term, foster adopt home, which means we wanted placements that were potentially going to be available to adopt. On November 30, 2007 we were able to preserve our testimony for three children but we were awaiting our notorious fingerprints from the good old FBI because oh my gosh, they were rejected twice this time too. (I hinted but no one guessed..)

And the reason we were on our church alter telling our story, picked out of hundreds of GREAT stories? The only other story is one that trumps our because a woman in our church is getting a kidney from another woman to save her life and they are not realtives.

TODAY, December 31, 2007 the Commissioner of the State of Washington signed off on our adoption of three of our children!!!!!!!!!

Our first three children placed in our home, not by the state but by God's hands to be sure, became forever ours.

Did you know that when you adopt children that you get a birth certificate saying that they were born to you?

We did not...until November.

Meet Our children and now also know that the great dark ban of my words is done, at least on these children. I will write now more like I use to, more like I want too....And I know at least two out of town grandparents who will be happy. They use to come here to read about their grandkids.

Zachary, David and Tamara

May God hold you and yours in the palm of His hand in 2008 and know that you are loved for God gave.

Now that I am truly a mom I know that He gave more than I am capable of giving.

And He would have gave for only YOU.

Happy New Year!


(PS: the sermon link actually has us talking in it...at the end which is why I included it...you get to hear both my husband & I talk. If you ever wondered what I sound like.....)