Happy Anniversary to Us

Today is our 20th anniversary. Happy anniversary to us! Who-da-thunk that we'd be adopting at this point in our relationship? I guess God knew...

Food, Clothing & Shelter

I was facilitating a class for a couple of our teachers that are earning their masters degrees in education over the last few weeks. In a discussion that touched upon Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, I asked a series of questions. What is our spiritual food? What is our spiritual clothing? What is spiritual shelter? We agreed that the answers were... the Word is our food... Christ is our clothing... and the Church is our shelter. Are your basic spiritual needs being met?

We are blessed, that God would choose us to provide for the physical AND spiritual needs of our children.

Continued Blessings

We found out a few days after the race that there was a group of people in Sisters that had done a fund-raising event that was to go toward either an African adoption or an African orphanage. The event was going on the same time our run was taking place. These folks heard about us and are sending our adoption agency $1400 on our behalf. GOD ROCKS!!! Add that to the $10,000 that the Run to Ethiopia raised and we're well on our way. When we started this process, Ben Schuldheisz assured us that the Lord would provide. Ben was right. :)

More Pictures

Joseph wasn't even breathing hard after he won the race. I had heard that he had been sick. He also had been working hard at football practice the week before the race. With bruises all over, he told me that he was going to walk. He totally had me tricked into thinking he wasn't going to win.

Run to Ethiopia Pictures

We experienced God's love & provision during the Run to Ethiopia. I used to say, "It's not what you know, it's who you know." Now, thanks to Pastor Carnahan's wisdom, I say, "It's not what you know, it's who knows you." The slight change in wording puts the emphasis on God's love and care for us.

We are blessed as you can see in these pictures. We were ecstatic that Joseph Schuldheisz won the race. An adopted Ethiopian comes to America and races for a cause. Our continued prayer is that others will see what the Lord is doing through international adoptions and get on board. Could the Lord be challenging you to adopt a child (or two, or three) from Ethiopia?

Documents Completed

Tonja and I received our official "you're okay to adopt in Oregon" papers today! Praise the LORD!

The Run to Ethiopia

Our wonderful church/school family is sponsoring a fundraising effort aptly called, "The Run to Ethiopia" in two days. It is odd to be the recipients of such a blessing. I'll have to admit that pride kicks in a bit. We're usually on the other side of fund raisers. The truth we cling to is that it's really not about us; it's about saving two children from a life of poverty in a third world country. That sentiment gets us through the weird feeling of asking for money. It's like, "How can I spend money on this new t-shirt when we're asking for donations?" I just pray that readers of this blog "get it." Life doesn't stop just cause you're adopting. We'll update the blog soon after the run to share the huge blessing with you. Also, to those of you who have given so much, THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!!!

Counting the Blessings

We recently were given an invite to peruse a garage sale the night before it "opened." The Steinbrecher's were so generous. We garnered many "boy" things. The best part for me (Greg) is that I've never really been able to buy stuff for boys. It was fun grabbing Hot Wheels, Sock 'em Rock 'em Robots, and Lincoln Logs. We were also blessed with one of those (how do you describe them?) play tables that have the little wooden trains on them. You know what I'm talking about? They're connected by magnets and have the wooden tracks. We got a bunch of Dr. Suess books and, get this, two sets of Hooked on Phonics. They will prove to be great tools as we will be home schooling the boys IN ADDITION to life at Trinity.

The next purchase was a dresser from Amber Dermody. Thanks Amber! Items and clothing are starting to pile up in anticipation of our boys. Praise the Lord!