The more we go through together, the more we are cemented as a family. Right now, there are children here whose memories in our family are only two years old and there are those whose memories are 13 years old. As we tell and re-tell family stories, everyone’s memories sort of melt together.

Thirteen years ago our first precious Haitian blessings came home and life has never been the same. As they have entered their teen years, my role as parent is changing and it is SO exciting!! They are AMAZING young people with lots of great ideas and plans and they make me laugh every day with their unique perspective on life. I am so glad that we decided to grow our family through adoption.

Happy Gotcha Day Luc and Elizabeth

I remember the day they came home like it was yesterday. They were just 7 and 9 months old and weighed 12 and 15 pounds!! God has been so good to us to allow us to raise more children for His kingdom and I am looking forward to many more family memories together.

Steve – Adopting sons and daughters – just what my Lord does in the world that we live in today.  It’s a great honor to share this with the woman that I love, and such a privilege.  It’s my wish for all my children, and especially on this day for Luc & Elizabeth, that they live a life that honors our God as well as Mom & Papa.

Hello Everyone!!! Did you know that even Christians can find themselves overwhelmed at times? Look at Peter, who was walking on water in the middle of a storm, and took his eyes off of Jesus and looked at the storm around him. He began to sink!!! Christians can start sinking too when they look at everything around them instead of looking to Jesus to hold them up.

Since this weekend, our family has a renewed vision of where the Lord is taking us and how we are to get there. It was just a matter of re-focusing and seeing everything through God’s eyes. I am so very thankful to Him for the family He has given me and overwhelmed that He would allow me to have all these beautiful children.

This week we have been spring cleaning the kitchen. I had no idea my kitchen was so big! Thankfully I have many hands that willingly help me. As we cleaned away the cobwebs and got rid of the things we no longer had need of, I was reminded of how much this is like sin. We get comfortable and let things pile up in the corners and pretty soon we don’t even notice the dirt and junk we have in our lives. We need God’s Holy Spirit to help us “spring clean” our hearts and lives just like we spring clean our homes. If we don’t take time to get back on track, we will soon be off the track and in the mire and mud of sin. After that, it is easier and easier to let more and more sin into our lives. If we took the time to look back once in a while we might be able to see how far off course we have drifted into sin. Believe me, others can see it even if we can’t. The things that used to prick our conscience no longer bother us. We over look something so we can “enjoy” ourselves and have a bit of fun. Pretty soon, we are rolling in the mud with the pigs.

Thirteen years ago today, my life changed forever and I am SO grateful to the Lord for allowing me to begin our adoption journey. Our first two babies came home from Haiti and life has never been the same. What a blessing from the Lord these children are! I can’t imagine my life without each and every one of them.

We are SO excited about the things the Lord has shown us this weekend!! There are many good things coming our way, which we should be able to blog about in the next couple of weeks or so. All I can say is that it will take our family to a whole new level…uncharted waters…a place we have never dreamed possible before. It isn’t because of anything we have done…it is only God!

Also, since we have picked up a few more followers lately, I thought a recap of who is in our family would be great for the newbies who have recently jointed us.

We have 12 children at home right now and have already raised 6 for a total of 18!! The children at home range in age from 13 down to 7. We have 5 children we adopted from Haiti as infants. One child adopted as a toddler/pre-schooler from Sierra Leone, Africa. Two children from Liberia, 2 children from Ghana and 2 children from Ohio. Six of our children have come through disrupted adoptions where for one reason or another their first adoptions didn’t work out. Several of our children have RAD, but we are working on it and they are doing great!

We homeschool using a variety of curriculum. For math we use Math-U-See, for language we use Abeka until 9th grade, then we use Switched on Schoolhouse on the computer. The younger set of children use Konos, which is a unit study approach, and the older children use Sonlight AND Switched on Schoolhouse.

We live on 18 acres in rural Idaho where the sunsets are beautiful and the neighbors still look out for one another. I love being home with my children, although the training can get intense sometimes.

More later….