District Summit

We just got home from our District Summit and it was a great experience. We got to connect with a lot of pastors and others that we’ve met during our itineration. We also met other missionaries, pastors we will be visiting with soon and many other people. It was encouraging to spend time with such an amazing group!

I had the opportunity to speak to 140+ women about adoption. I could talk to a brick wall about adoption, but this was a lot more fun.

Chris at our booth–not the greatest picture since it was taken with my phone.

Purging was great until…

I found a sweater. We have lots of sweaters in our house, but this sweater belonged to Dera. He wore it for his school picture. I bought it for him and paid full price (which is crazy if you know how I shop) because it was so cute and perfect for him. When I see it, I remember it on him and his cute little toothless smile and his wonderful hugs. Gavin wore it when he was big enough and so did Reily. Every time I put it on one of them I thought about Dera. Now, there is no one left in our family to wear it. It is too small.

I LOVE getting rid of stuff. It feels good to sell it, throw it away, pass it off to someone else or whatever. I’m probably getting rid of too much, but I’m loving it. Or, I was loving it until I pulled this sweater out of the closet. I didn’t know what to do with it. Do I sell it? For $1, $5, $1,000? What is the worth of this sweater? How will I react when someone tries to buy it from my garage sale? Do I take it to the consignment store? Do I drop it off at Goodwill? Do I save it? For what?

I am not sentimental about hardly anything. I am getting rid of old toys, my childhood Easter basket, clothes that I still wear and like and it doesn’t bother me at all. But this stupid sweater. There isn’t much of Dera left in my home. I miss him. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know if he’s okay. I don’t know if he remembers how much I loved him and I’m certain he has no idea how much I still love him. Roth knows. We still see Roth. I have some of his old things and they just make me smile. But Dera is lost. I know I should have gotten rid of this sweater a long time ago, but I had the excuse that it would fit the boys someday. Not any more. I have no excuse to hang on to it. It breaks my heart to let it go, but then I know the heartache from this item will be done. I won’t accidentally find the sweater ever again. It’s time to let it go. I am giving it to someone with a little boy who will wear it while I’m on the other side of the world. I will not have to rediscover it when I unpack boxes if we ever come back. That is a good thing.

This is a post I will regret writing in the morning. I hate being vulnerable, but writing is good for my soul. It helps me get past things. I know how stupid all of this sounds. It’s just a sweater! But it’s not. Not to me. Tomorrow I will get back to purging, but tonight I’m going to mourn the loss of a sweater. Well, not really a sweater, but you know.

March update!

I just went through my camera and realized a couple of things:

1. I took one photo the entire month of February.

2. I never posted any pictures from March here. So, here is our March update…

Gavin loves penguins. He has a couple of stuffed ones and we took him to the MN Zoo so he could experience the live ones. They have a great penguin exhibit there that he really enjoyed. Eventually, we explored the rest of the zoo.

Newsletter 4

Here is our latest newsletter update for those following our journey to Ethiopia.

Ethiopia Newsletter 4

Failure to Thrive Update

I think it’s time to update what’s going on with Kayla. We are still having ups and downs, but more up than down! I am seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, but I don’t know how long the tunnel is yet. She is experimenting with more foods. She is taking about 6 bites/meal happily (used to be three). She isn’t gagging or throwing up anymore. She does still pocket food sometimes, but I have learned tricks to get her to swallow it or we allow her to spit it out if necessary.

I think she is gaining weight, but until I know for sure I won’t know how long the tunnel is. If she has gained another .5 – 1 lb over the last month, the tunnel is SHORT. If she hasn’t gained anything, the light at the end will completely disappear. If she’s gained something but less than .5 lb, we’ll have to explore some other options. But, I think she’s gained at least .5 lb and I am encouraged by many things she is doing now–including at least one full meal/day, eating things she wouldn’t even look at before and asking for food randomly.

If you have been praying for Kayla, and us, through this…THANK YOU!!! Please keep praying. We’re not in the clear yet, but we are encouraged and headed in the right direction.

Worth It

Well, the embarrassment and hard work was worth it. We pulled in a little over $1400 in our garage sale this weekend. Our neighbor’s daughter wanted to help out, too, so she had her mom bake a bunch of stuff (my friend’s daughter also helped) and the kids put on a bake sale to raise money for kids in Ethiopia to receive some shoes–if they don’t have any, they don’t get to go to school. They made $55 just this morning selling baked goods. We have such great neighbors and friends. This weekend has been a blessing in many ways…my eyes were opened to the amount of stuff we’ve needlessly collected, many friends came to shop and help us out and others donated items and helped set up and/or sell, one made us a fantastic dinner, we unloaded lots of stuff we don’t need early and we made some money–the whole weekend was just a great success! I think we’ll do it all again (but, not because we want to, we just have some more stuff to get rid of).

Embarrassed

I am so embarrassed! We had a garage sale today. I couldn’t stand all the clutter in our house. You know, the stuff you have and then you buy new stuff so you put the old stuff in a closet or down in the basement–we’ll call it organized clutter. I didn’t think we had a lot. Our house is always picked up and looks clean. I was wrong. There are closets EVERYWHERE in this house. There is unfinished space in the basement (at least 1000 sq feet) that wasn’t nearly full, but it was too full. The closets were full. I just couldn’t take it anymore. We started cleaning out closets, going through books, sorting out toys and purging clothes we haven’t worn in over a year. We started making piles and filling boxes. We are moving into about 1000 sq feet over the summer and are only taking 10 suitcases total to Ethiopia, so we need to get rid of stuff. Tons of stuff. Too much STUFF. So, we had a garage sale. We’re having another in May because there are some areas I didn’t get to and some things we need for the next month in this house (like dishes and a few pots and pans and things like that), but there was so much in my garage that I was embarrassed. This was just the excess–what we don’t “need” to live comfortably for the summer in our tiny cottage, what we don’t “need” to survive in Ethiopia. It was so much excess that we made $1300. For real! That’s ridiculous. What’s even more ridiculous is the amount of money I’m sure I spent on all this stuff. We may have been able to fund a good chunk of our journey to Ethiopia ourselves if we had started living like this a couple of years ago instead of a few months ago. Sheesh. I like the $, especially since a few expenses have come up with the house sale that we weren’t anticipating, but I’m still embarrassed by the amount of extra stuff. Ugh. I hope I have learned a lesson here. Sincerely.