Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Missional Homemaking – Listen Now!

Missional Homemaking – Listen Now!

If you don't read Lindsey Edmonds blog - Passionate Homemaking - then you are missing a huge blessing. Her life exemplifies a young woman who is living out her passions as a wife and mom. Take a moment to listen to the podcast from Lindsey's presentation on Missional Homemaking with your daughters. Enjoy!

Monday, September 27, 2010

LifeSong for Orphans

     

Alvin was born in a Liberian refugee camp in The Republic of Ghana, Africa.  His mother fled there during the civil war in Liberia.  Sadly, while she was in Ghana her family was killed in Liberia.  Alvin’s father died in the refugee camp before he was born.

In 2007, When Alvin was 4 years-old, he and his mother returned to Liberia.  There she began attending church and quit drinking.  Two years later, a few days before Christmas, she began vomiting and was admitted to a hospital with malaria.  Soon after, she died.

Alvin now lives at Lifesong Liberia's Master's Home of Champions.

You can help a child like Alvin. You can feed a child like Alvin.

Our goal is 70 people. $28 a month. One year commitment.

We have 44. 26 to go!

Will you join us in bringing joy and purpose to orphans?

Contact us at info@lifesongfororphans.org to make your commitment! 

Gifts of Gold Campaign

Hi Bloggy Readers -

Many of you know that we do Gold Parties and have been tremendously blessed by the income they have produced.  Our sweet Baby Lori has a birthday in October - we can't be there to celebrate with her  - but we can certainly celebrate from afar!  That's why we are sponsoring the Gifts of Gold campaign in October.  We have designed a super easy fundraiser to help raise funds for adopting families and those who want to help with the financial process of adoption.  By asking friends and family to donate their old and unwanted Gold and Silver - adopting families everywhere can reap the benefits of the generosity of others.  To learn more about the Gifts of Gold fundraisers - simply leave a comment and we will gladly contact you with all the info. 

Friday, September 17, 2010

I must confess

This is a tough blog post to write.....but necessary.  I have something to confess and it's best done out in the open - this helps hold me accountable.  We announced the Gold Parties several weeks ago and our plan to use 50% of the profits towards the Adotion Fund.  Well, thanks to everyone's generosity and willingness to host parties in August - we were able to put close to $1500 in Lori's Adoption Fund.   I wish we could say that the Adoption Fund is the only place we need to be putting money these days - but with braces, food, housing, clothing, bills, student loans, and an array of bad decisions in the past which has left us with some debt to pay for - we always seem to have more "month than money".  So - we decided that the Gold Party money in Sept would not go to the Adoption Fund - but would instead help pay down some debt.  Although that still sounds like an acceptable way to use our income - it apparently wasn't in line with God's plan.  Because, you see, in August - with very little effort on our part - we were blessed with 12 parties.  People were calling us out of the blue to schedule one.  We thought this was going to be a piece of cake.  Sept came and even with tons of phone calls, emails, prodding, begging - you get the picture - we've only got 6 parties on the book.  So - we feel like God  has told us that it's ok if we don't want to give any money this month to the adoption fund - but that means we will have only half as many parties.  Do the math - last month we had 12 parties - and 1/2 of the income went to the adoption fund and 1/2 went to our family.  This month, we thought we'd be "smart" and use all the income for the family - and yet we still only made 1/2 of what we made in August.  So - back to Plan A.  From now on - until such a time as God leads us otherwise - 50% of the profits from the Gold Parties will go to the Adoption Fund.  So......wanna have a Party????

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Shame on Us! More Ramblings...

(From Jay)

First, let me clear and say that it is sad how infrequent our posts have gotten on our family's blog.  We went from quite a regular amount of updating, to quite a stand still.  To those that follow our family through this blog, we sincerely apologize.

As I tend to ramble on my blog posts, let me stay true to form and just unload some random things on my mind this evening.

(1) Our Adoption
As most of you know, we began our journey to adopting Lori in February of this year.  God had an interesting way of planting just the right friends, preachers, and books in our path.  After finishing Crazy Love, we were approached with a proposition from an orphange we support in China,