Merry Christmas Joleigh!

We are not sure how old you are or where you are but we are hoping you are home with us this time next year. Know that you are prayed for daily and talked about in this house oh so often by your brothers and sister. We love you! God loves you and He will bring you home to us soon!

Story of obedience...

You MUST take 5 minutes and read this post written by Katie!! Katie is a young lady who picked up her life at the age of 19 and moved to Uganda to open an orphanage and become a mother of 13. God used Katie to solidify adoption in my heart. I struggled a LOT with the practical excuses of why NOT to adopt. Funny thing is, those excuses were only there when I looked with "my eyes" not HIS. Please take a few minutes and allow Katie's words to inspire you today.

Dumpster Diving

Oh no.. surely you didn't. Oh yes, we did!! My cousin Amy and her husband were in town last weekend and we went on a can scavenger hunt. We had the best time driving down alleys and looking through trash cans for those little shiny aluminum cans! Someone sent me a message that night saying they knew someone who had a pit full of beer cans. I mean, seriously, how could we pass that up?? SO last Sunday morning we woke up at 7:30 to go dumpster diving before church. It was an experience I'm sure we will NEVER forget. My face hurt from laughing so much and my legs hurt from squatting.


It's funny because just yesterday I had four different people tell me things like: they pulled a can out of the trash, stopped on the road to pick up a can, considered dumpster diving to get some cans.. this can movement is growing and growing. We currently have over 300 folks collecting cans. I've decided to put together a video and use pics of people who are collecting soooo if you're collecting for us, would you please send me a pic of you/your family with a can/cans? I'm also going to put together a book for Joleigh so she knows how many people were helping to bring her home.

Spanish really paid off..

Tonight was Andrew's Christmas Program at school. It was SO sweet! The Kindergarten classes sang a few songs and then out of nowhere Andrew hops off the top riser and marches over to the mic... he had a SOLO.. well, actually he sang a song all by himself. Who knew? I guess I should've figured b/c he told me he had sang it to all the other Kindergarten classes and then today he sang it at the nursing home but I had no idea he was singing it tonight SO we didn't really get a good video. I hurried and snap a video with my iPhone. He did a great job and we were very proud:) The song he sang he learned in his Spanish classes. He took Spanish this semester at a local university two days a week.
Santa was also at the program which was a treat for all the kiddos! Piper was in awe! It was so sweet. She kept saying, "SANTA... SANTA" then when she gets in his lap she was a little on the shy side;0).

Getting to know your neighbors... a lost art.

Today we walked the neighborhood for Joleigh. We went door to door asking our neighbors to collect their cans for us. It was such a rewarding experience. It was COLD so many of them invited us in and we sat and talked for quite a while with several of them. We've chatted with a few of them here and there and tried to be intentional in talking when we have the opportunity but we've never just walked up to their house, rang the bell and started a conversation. They were all very excited about collecting cans for us. We gave them a little magnet to put on the fridge to remember to pray for Joleigh and save their cans for the adoption process.
Here's my challenge for you:
Get out with the family. Get to know your neighbors. Heck, while you're at it, ask them to save their cans for Joleigh. What a wonderful way to open up the communication about our purpose here. What a great opportunity to share with them that there are 147,000,000 orphans and they can help lessen that number by one. I've learned over the years that most people would DO something if they are given a practical opportunity. You don't live in Central Arkansas?? No problem! We have people collecting cans for us all over the place. You can just collect enough, take them to a scrap metal place, put the change/money in a can and send it to us to add to our collection. I've told Cameron the coolest thing about this can collection is the passion behind it. We have people who have never recycled who are passionate about collecting every aluminum can they come across. Which really means they are invested in our adoption process... they are invested in bringing Joleigh home. For that, we are forever grateful and HE is glorified!!!

Random Acts of "Can"ness

God has been so good to help me through the roller coasters of adoption. I've been a little sad this week, mostly about students in my class who are facing tough home situations but also about where Joleigh is. Is she being cared for? Are we in WAY over our heads, etc?? This morning when I got to work, there was a Wal-Mart bag with an empty coke can in it. I smiled:) I took Andrew out to catch his bus over to the next campus and when I returned there was an empty Dr. Pepper can. I smiled and giggled:). When I got back from my Teaming class, there was an empty Dr. Thunder can on my desk. It literally brought tears to my eyes. My students are SO good to me. They really do love me.... oh and HOW I love them!
Yesterday Cameron was at home and heard someone drive off. He looked out and saw a Wal-Mart bag hanging from our door with cans in it. Random goodness! I LOVE it and am so appreciative of it! One of my co-workers told me she has 5 bags of cans to give me. She said, "I've never collected cans and had no idea what I was collecting these for". I told her, "God knew!"
I got an email today from a lady who said her daughter had been saving cans all summer for some pocket change and when she heard about our adoption, she decided she wanted to give us her cans. AMAZING! God has been in the details!