Constantly humbled

I am constantly in awe of how He's writing our family's story!! He literally is using people from ALL walks of our lives to help bring our sweet girl home.

Tonight we had conferences at our school until 7:00 and as I was packing up my CAPs folders, I heard my phone beep. I looked down and had a donation from a friend. It was so weird all of the emotions that came with that beep. Amy was a girl I went to elementary school with at a VERY small school. There were 18 kids in our class and we were definitely family. When she moved off during our middle school years, I always wondered about her. YEARS went by and I still always wondered about Amy. You see.. people didn't move off from our small town so she was like a missing piece to our puzzle. A couple of years ago I found Amy on Face Book and was SO thankful! She lives in another state but we were able to get a lot of our old classmates together and she came for the weekend. It was so surreal being together again! A void had been filled for me in our class, our family. So tonight when I saw that my childhood, now lifelong, friend became a piece to our family's PUZZLE.. I was overwhelmed with how He continues to amaze me. God has used SO many in our journey and we are so thankful for each one!

Just ONE more week and we head across the world to hold our baby!

Oh I wish you would...

help out my friends!!!!! They are bringing home an adorable little girl who just so happens to have down syndrome. Rochelle's heart is pure as gold and I love her!! She was actually one of my Assistant Principals at my first teaching position. She and her family are having an iPad GIVE AWAY!!! They actually have several nice prizes but of course the iPad is my personal fav:) If you've got $10 to donate, it would help out a LOT and you might just win ya something special!!!

Check out their post right HERE!

Perspective

Sometimes I daydream about having a couple of nice pieces of jewelry. Something I could leave as an heirloom to my daughters. A nice bracelet, a nice necklace, etc. One year I even really wanted some small diamond earrings. I hadn't really mentioned it but Cam knew I had wanted some so years back he bought me a pair of pretty, small diamond earrings for Christmas. Crazy thing is after I got them, I just couldn't get comfortable with the idea of him spending $200-$300 on a pair of earrings. Literally by that night, I told him I LOVED them but just couldn't keep them, especially when I could get a pair for a few dollars that you literally couldn't tell the difference between the real ones and the fake ones.
Sometimes I still fall into that lie. Now don't get me wrong, I'd still love to have something sweet and special to pass down to my girls... but you know what I'd rather pass down to them... character, grace, mercy, love, etc. I want them to understand that we could have really nice things and we do have some nice things but really... that is NOT what is important. I want to pass onto them that we're not here to constantly shower ourselves with blessings with the resources He has given us to steward. My girls may not ever have a pearl necklace or earrings but oh I hope they get IT!
Funny thing is the only real, nice piece of jewelry I've ever owned, besides my wedding ring, I sold to help raise money for our adoption:) and I don't regret it at all! I do have two beautiful quilts made from my wedding gown. I am trying hard to teach myself to sew some fun quilts so I can continue to make some special heirlooms for all the kids but Lord help me to never lose perspective about what I'm REALLY here to leave them with!

Celebrating Parker

This week my little ball of passion turned SIX! Oh... be still my soul. He was SO excited! His actual B-Day was on Thursday so daddy took all the kids to McDonalds for some breakfast. I went and checked him out for lunch and we went and had some more McDonalds:) We had a brunch birthday party for him yesterday with fam and a couple of friends. Oh he was SO excited!! He got a lot of fun toys that he has just played with over and over!! Good toys that I can see them getting a lot of use out of:)

We bought him a fun marble maze type of game. Cameron played this when he was a little boy and just knew Parker would love to have one. I just couldn't resist buying him his FAV cereal and juice, too:) He loved it!!! Since I started couponing a couple of years ago, I just refuse to pay over $1.50 for cereal and Parker's FAV cereal is about $3.50 so we don't ever get it anymore. He ask for it every once in a while... same thing with his Plum Smart. He LOVES Plum Smart!! But it's over $3.00, too. SO... for his birthday we wrapped up a box of Cracklin Oat Bran Squares and some Plum Smart and he was SUPER excited to have these all for himself. Last night we ended the celebration with a family trip to the bowling alley. It was a good, good day!!

Happy Birthday Parker Isaac! You bring joy to every room you enter. You are a wonderful boy and have such a sweet spirit. We love you and have loved watching God shape and mold you into who you are today.. can't wait to see what He has in store for you!

He gets it...

I am reading a book to the boys entitled Caleb's Lamb. It's good! A friend read it to his kids and I pretty much copy cat anything he does:) hehe. Thanks Aaron! Anyway... it's about a boy who took his eyes off of a lamb that was about to have a baby. His dad made him stay out all night to find this lamb but when he got there, the momma lamb had been attacked and her baby lamb had fallen in a hole surrounded by thorns. The boy rescued the lamb and ached for it to get better. The baby lamb was resistant against the boy at first but then kind of took to him like he was his momma. So that's how far we've gotten in the book.. just chapter 3. The boys LOVE it! After we finished tonight's chapter I told them it reminded me of Joleigh and how Caleb is now the lamb's "momma".. we will become Joleigh's "momma". How Caleb's heart ached with love for this baby lamb... how my heart aches for Joleigh. It was really a neat conversation. It was like a lightbulb came on for Andrew. I could see his eyes fill with tears and he just laid his head down. His heart literally welled up and ached not only for Joleigh, but for her momma. We talked about how sick Joleigh was when she entered the orphanage and how her mom knew that she could not provide for her. Andrew was heart broken for what the mom must feel after giving up her child. We then talked about how Joleigh might be scared, like the lamb was at first with Caleb and then how God will fill her heart with a love for us as if we were her "momma". It was so sweet to listen to Andrew's prayer for his sister and her family in Ethiopia. We talked about how HE sets the lonely into families and how we are so thrilled that HE chose our family. My heart is full!

Piece by Piece

Twenty-FOUR days until we board a plane to meet sweet Joleigh. WOW... what a journey! There have been ups and downs along the way. Definitely more UPS than downs. Satan seriously was constantly attacking in the beginning but God gave us a peace early on that He was totally in control. He has used YOU to encourage us along the way. Money has obviously been an issue in this journey. Two weeks after we sent our application in, Cameron was laid off and didn't find a job for 8 months. God gave us peace all along the way. We have had people sacrificially give that I've NEVER even met. Literally blows me away.

So... we're nearing the end of our journey and are doing one final fundraiser. We are not sure how much our tickets will be for our second trip but we had a lot of the money UNTIL we spent $1000 on vaccinations:( Everything we've done so far to raise money has been a lot of work and the reason is because we HATE asking for money. We chose to collect cans... folks it doesn't get any nastier than that. I felt SO much better about asking for people's trash instead of asking for their money. We've had parties to raise funds. I've taken pictures to raise funds, even at a WEDDING.. talk about stress! Scary stuff! I've become a Coupon Teacher... who would've thought?! We had a yard sale. We sold t-shirts. All of those fundraisers have been time consuming and some of them were just down right tiring BUT none of them are harder than just flat out asking folks for money. SO... here we are... humbly asking you to give, if you feel led. ANY dollar amount will get your name on a puzzle piece. We are writing EVERY name of EVERY person who has helped us bring our sweet baby home. What a treasure this puzzle will be for her as she gets older and reads the names of all of YOU!

Please know that we are thankful to Him for constantly bringing people along like you who have encouraged us. My heart is full of gratitude. This journey isn't about us. It isn't about Joleigh. It's about Him being glorified!
If you would like to give, you donate via the PayPal button on the top, left side of the blog OR email me @ jennyglover0302@yahoo.com and I will send you our address.