Family of Ninjas

Roland and the kids decided to dress up as Ninjas and do a little trick or treating last night. A while ago, Roland found instructions on the internet for turning a black t-shirt into a Ninja mask, so what better day to try it out than Halloween!
(You'll notice Roland has some nunchucks in his hand. He made those in the garage a couple months ago because we all doubted his 'skills'. He just had to prove himself! Julien, our exchange student, summed it up well, with his strong German accent, "A pastor who break dances and does nunchucks?! 'Dis is very crazy!") haha.

Spelling Bee Champions!

Kailyn, her cousin Annsley, and her friend Rachel competed in a city wide spelling bee for 5th and 6th graders on Saturday and WON!
It was a team spelling bee. There were 30 teams in all representing different area schools. The girls studied hard for weeks (all 100 pages) and it paid off. It was a very exciting and intense afternoon. Some of the words they spelled right were "lieutenant", "nineties", and "quandary". The words they finally won with were "perpendicularly" and "relinquished". (I hope I spelled those right.)

Adoption update

Here's the latest with our adoption endeavors....
Last week, we received a DVD of the twin girls that we have been considering. We had asked for a DVD of them so we could see where they were at in their physical development. It was very fun to see them-they were just playing outside of the orphanage and inside their room. They looked like typical 2 year olds. It made us want to bring them home soon!

Our other exciting news is that we were able to mail in our dossier today. This is the packet of paperwork and pictures that will represent us to the Filipino government. We worked on it for about 3 months. We had to order original birth certificates, marriage certificate, get state background checks, get letters of recommendation from our pastor, employer, etc., get a psychological evaluation, get medical exams (all 5 of us), tax records, take pictures of each room in our house,... Some papers needed to get notarized, others did not. Needless to say, it was a great feeling to mail it in today. We were supposed to send in $3300 with it, but don't have that money yet, so they said they would hold it til we got it.

We have applied for several grants and are in the process of applying for several more. (Which means....you guessed it...more paperwork. Financial statements, statements of faith, personal testimonies, doctrinal questions, different letters of recommendation, etc.)But we are confident that the Lord will provide in His time through various ways.
One answer to prayer was our request for a financial subsidy through our agency here in the states. They granted us a $5000 subsidy if we adopt the twins. Praise God for that. Another agency called and interviewed me and said that they would recommend that we get the largest grant possible. We are still waiting to have that confirmed. So, in the meantime God is stretching us, humbling us and causing us to grow more dependent on Him and less dependent on ourselves and our bank accounts. Praise God for the lesson that He teaches us through trials.

Kite flying on the Oregon coast

Who knew kite flying could be so much fun? We didn't. We got this kite from Danny and Mindy for Christmas and tried it out while we were living in Calif. but never got the hang of it...til this week! It's a stunt kite, the kind with two handles. It takes a lot of effort to keep it up, but once we figured that out, we have had a lot of fun dive bombing each other. : )
Claire is using one that we borrowed-just a basic kite. It was perfect for her. She thought she was quite the kite flying expert since it was so easy for her and daddy was having such a hard time figuring out his. What's the problem, dad? Just hold the handle.

Trip to Oregon

This week we are in Oregon. We were given a week at a house in Manzanita. (Part of a timeshare deal.) We left early Sun. morning and spent the afternoon at OMSI, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. We don't have big plans-just relaxing, reading, watching movies and playing at the beach. Here are some of the pictures from our trip.

God is good!

We knew it was coming... Sooner or later we knew that our own resources would be exhausted as we paid for various adoption expenses. I guess I didn't expect it to happen so early in the process though.

This weekend we got a bill for $2000 for our home study. I checked our savings account, thinking we could squeak out one more big payment, but then realized that if we paid it, we would not be able to pay our property tax next month. I was devastated. I spent a good part of Saturday and Sunday crying and praying. What should we do? Pay this bill? Pay our property tax?

Roland decided that we just needed to wait on the payment til the money somehow came in, thus delaying our receiving of the homestudy. This, in turn, would delay our applying for grants, submission of immigration paperwork and completion of our dossier. I didn't disagree with him, but still my heart sank.

Fast forward to Monday (the very next day)...
I was doing school with the kids when there was a knock on the door. A friend was just "in the area" and wanted to drop by a note of encouragement. He said it should be read as a family, so since Roland was home we all squished together on the couch and I began to read the note aloud. Eventually, I had to stop reading because of my tears, so Roland continued where I left off. This friend has been through the adoption process and was well acquainted with its emotional highs and lows. He wanted to remind us about the good work that the Lord was going to do in our hearts through it all. And tucked in the envelope was a check...for $2000.

We cried as a family when we saw it and then spent time thanking and praising the Lord for his goodness and faithfulness.

I am so thankful to be part of the body of Christ.
God is so good. May He receive the glory.

Peaches!

It's that time of year again...It seems to always be the week before school starts. Peach season! Mindy, mom, and I get together each year to can. (Kailyn and Annsley have now joined us. They faithfully peeled peaches for two days.)Though it's a lot of work, I look forward to it every year. I froze about 30 quarts and canned about 30 jars for myself. Altogether we did about 100 quarts + a couple of batches of peach jam. Mmmmm...
It's such a great feeling to have all those jars in the pantry ready for winter. Feels so pioneerish. : )