Pushing Forward

This week was a struggle in perseverance. I'm fortunate to have begun a Bible study on James a few weeks ago, so the material is fresh. The problem with this kind of struggle is that it's all relative. I'm battling my own selfishness and lack of self-discipline made evident through my irritability, lack of patience, and little progress. But then I realize these battles are only against myself and fail to compare to the true test of perseverance experienced outside of the world's wealthiest few. Did you know:

26,000 children will die of starvation or preventable disease TODAY?

Close to 2 billion others live on less than $2 a day???

I pray the inconvenience of guilt plagues you every time you waste your money on useless crap. I pray the burden of this world cries out to you every single time you swipe that card for more shoes, coffee, blonde highlights, and Chick-fil-A.

I can wish this on you friend, because it almost paralyzes me. I can't spend a penny without considering these statistics and yet, we're still working through ten years of bad financial decisions and have to resist therapeutic shopping at Target each week. I'm not above or beyond this sin or this burden, so I can wish it on you too.

Harsh? Consider this:

North American Christians give 5 cents of every $100 earned to overseas missions.

Did you catch that? 5 cents!!!

Do you want to know what's wrong with the world today, folks?

It ain't Obama, Romney, MTV, McDonald's or video games.

It's that we don't care about anyone other than the big M-E.

The average American income is $42,409 making us the world's richest 2.5%.

Don't ya feel rich? Don't ya feel blessed? No? Could it be that mortgage, credit card payments, or new car your paying on? (That's what it is in the Watson household. I'm preaching at myself through personal conviction, y'all :)

We got a letter last week from a family in Ethiopia describing their life and home. They live in a wood and corrugated metal room. Room, friend. Mom, Dad, 6 year old Demie, and her 3 siblings live in this room. I hope you can imagine how reading that letter rocked my world as I sit in my comfy, cozy home paying my credit card bills.

Some of you are thinking "No way! My great-grandparents busted their tails and so did everyone else in my family to get us where we are today! I'll be danged if I'm gonna just give it away!" Friend, nothing that you or anyone else achieved was possible aside from the grace of God. It isn't yours! He can take it a whole lot quicker than you can make it, that's for sure. You'll cling to it all the way to the grave where you'll ROLL OVER when you see who it goes to after that last nail's put it.

All of my ranting and raging comes down to this: we blame the teachers for poor grades, technology for mislead youth, the church for a loss of morals, doctors forbad health choices, and the government for everything else. But what would happen if we actually modeled the behavior we want to see? What if we sat our kids down at the kitchen table to do their homework and limited their gadget time (and our own!)? What if we live out the morals the preacher teaches? What if we put down that fried goodness and diet coke and became active in the community? Well, that would require some major effort, wouldn't it? We might have to make some tough sacrifices, huh? Oh man, that might even require you to live a bit less selfishly!

So how does this relate to the 6,000 who die in Africa from AIDS each day? What does this have to do with the 1room hut and world poverty? It all comes down to who you want to be a slave to. Will you continue to see only yourself in this overwhelming sea of need or will you sacrifice more than 5 cents?

Celebrate!!!

We’re so excited to celebrate great news with you! Our home study is paid in full! We sold about 175 bracelets ($1,800) and were given donations from some amazingly generous people. Isn’t that crazy??? God is faithfully providing and YOU are generously praying, encouraging, supporting, sharing, and giving. THANK YOU! We are so blessed by your willingness to actively participate in changing our child’s life forever. Doesn’t it feel good to be part of this journey? Doesn’t it feel good to know you obeyed when the Holy Spirit nudged you to get involved? And this is only the beginning! I can’t wait until the day we get the referral call. I can’t wait to tell you that the agency called about a (girl/boy), __ years old. I can’t wait to receive the email with his/her picture and to be able to describe the perfect eyes, nose, and cheeks, of our newest addition.

That phone call is still a year or two away. Before that, you’ll join us in celebrating the passing of the fire inspection, safety inspection, and the home study approval. Of course, there are some major financial milestones to reach too. We’re facing the largest fees in the whole process: Agency Fees. Our agency fee is $6,000 and the foreign agency fee is another $6,000. $12,000 in agency fees due upfront before we can move on in the process.
Ouch. That’s a serious ouch! 800 bracelets, folks. 800! I think this is when we would do best to start praying. What’s $12,000 to God? Nothing. A drop in the bucket to the creator of the universe. He commands us to care for orphans and I trust that He’ll provide. Will you join us in this petition? Will you pray that He moves in hearts this giving season? Will you lift your voice to Him on our behalf?

Georgia Maeve Evanson Lass

Welcome, Little Miss Georgia and congrats to Monte and Erin! Aisley named her Curly many months ago, so I'm sure she will be beautiful with perfectly straight hair. :) We love you and can't wait to meet you, Georgia!

See for yourself

Aren't these kids precious? :)

Pot Roast

I'd been feeling pretty crappy about my lack of cooking lately and was reminded by some friends to stick to the basics. Crock pot roast and stew are 2 super easy meals that require little prep and get me out of the kitchen ASAP! I cheated and bought a bag of frozen veggies, a package of seasoning, and the roast. Knowing dinner is around 6:00, I found myself dumping everything in the pot around 2:30 and hoping that would be enough time. Carey came home from work and immediately complimented the yummy smell of dinner. I felt pretty good about my semi-homemade meal until after I had already served Carey and the kids their plates. They were happily lapping up ketchup with their roast when I went to dish out my plate. I noticed bits of white stuff floating and didn't think much of it. After all, there's sometimes fat that floats up, right? But then I pulled up a big, stringy piece on my fork and what little confidence I had gained from this cooking success was shattered. In my rush to get everything in the pot on time, I failed to remove that stretch of plastic that sticks to the meat and separates it from the styrofoam. Then the dilemma: do I dare interrupt a meal that my children are actually eating without complaint? They've even managed to smother their veggies in ketchup and stuff them down! Surely whatever BPAs and other chemicals broken down in the cooking process, won't be any worse than the fast food junk we'd have to go pick up, right? So I did the unthinkable and tossed a few pieces of that delicious pot roast onto my plate, lathered on the ketchup, and enjoyed a nice meal with my family.

Don't ever eat my cooking, folks. Just trust me on this one. ;)

I had two sweet ladies comment on my facebook page asking for more on our adoption process and funny things our kids say. So Trish and Tara, this is for you!

Funny things my kids say:

Anytime someone prays, Hayes clasps his hands, bows his head, closes his eyes, and cuts them off mid-sentence with "AMENT". Then again at the end of the sentence, "AMENT". Then again mid-sentence...

Aisley says "meow" all the time. No really, all the time. But it's not in place of NOW, as in Supertroopers. Think of Mr. Rodger's Neighborhood...

Hayes calls cowboy hats "hee-haws"

AGW calls sandwiches "swaniches" for Hayes they are "mamwhiches"

Sadly, that's all I can remember for now. I'll do better at writing it down.


The adoption process:

Still going well. This week we'll get FBI and state fingerprints, a local criminal report, and finish up our profiles. We're gathering all needed medical information on the 4 of us and making sure all pets are up to date with vaccinations. We're currently completing our 60 page individual profiles that ask how each life experience/relative/previous job/whatever influenced us and will affect how we parent our adopted child. We also have a 180 page workbook to complete that takes us through various hypothetical adoption situations so that we might have a small idea of some of the issues to come. It's a lot to take in and is very time consuming, but I'm grateful for the information. I've been surprised at many things I've learned and I'm realizing the need to begin praying over specific issues now. Things like a healthy attachment and normal sleep behavior. Most people think that we're adopting a young child, so she shouldn't have many issues because she's not old enough to remember them. I'm learning that this is completely false. Abandonment as an infant is still traumatic for the child. They're born with instinctual needs and they recognize when that need is lost. Even at a few months old, they learn not to trust others and refuse to bond. There are varying degrees of attachment issues obviously, and we can only pray that the attachment process isn't a lengthy one.

Soon we'll conquer the much dreaded fire and safety inspections. There's some MAJOR need work to be done before these are tackled. Like hiding the live electrical wire hanging from our ceiling and locking up all guns, ammo, cleaning products, and medicine. I've got to place fire detectors in every bedroom and put the extinguisher within easy reach. I also need to dispose of about 12 cans of paint the previous owners left us and probably demolish the garden shed that is crumbling in the backyard. I'm afraid to do this when Carey's gone though, because we've seen opossum, raccoons, and mice run under that thing.

Once all of the paperwork and projects around the house are done, a social worker will meet with us about 4 times to discuss and educate us more on adoption. He'll talk with Aisley and Hayes about what they know and how they feel about a new sibling.

After all of this, he will write it all up, look over the big picture and determine whether or not we are stable enough to continue the adoption process. A yes means we move on in the adoption process. No means God has something else planned for us right now. Things that could provoke a no: not financially stable, mentally stable, or physically able. We'll see how it goes!

10-11-12 SHOP!!!

Hello to all of our friends in Plainview, Tx at 10-11-12 SHOP! Thank you for allowing us to join your shopping party. We hope you have tons of fun together today! :)

God's inspired Word and... the Spice Girls?

The other night Aisley taught a Bible study to our family. It went something like this:

"The Bible is inspired by God so... tell me what ya want, what ya really, really want. I wanna, I wanna, I wanna zigahzig ah."

Sitting beside her was Hayes singing repeatedly:

"zigahzig ah... zigahzig ah... zigahzig ah"

There are no words to follow something as awesome as this.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, take a look at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PArTdhNda7k

Never-ending Survival wheel follow up

I spoke too soon. Apparently a key to staying off the survival wheel involves getting up early and planning ahead. This will take some time to master....like years. :)

Never-ending Survival Wheel

Confession: I’m feeling guilty over the fact that it’s 2:00 in the afternoon and I’m in bed under an electric blanket “working”. My kids are napping (aka in-and-out of bed time) and Carey is at work watching mice exhaust themselves on the never ending exercise wheel. This makes me laugh to think of and I can imagine God and His angels watch me doing the same thing every day. I run in circles all day going nowhere and getting nothing done. But God is working on me. Those of you who know me, won’t at all be surprised by confession #2: I’m a slob. Lazy, unorganized, careless, and quite frankly filthy, slob. Now, God is at work in this area and by His grace I soon will be off the never-ending survival wheel. That’s what it’s called around here because things are so crazy-busy that all you can do is hope to survive until things stop spinning. I don’t know what that looks like in your life, but in my life it looks like this: the house is a wreck! Shove everything in a drawer, any drawer, so that it’s out of sight but not gone forever. Because you know, it takes a whole 10 seconds to look at the object and decide whether it’s worth keeping or trashing. Or: No clean clothes! Stuff as much into the washer as possible, do 10 loads of laundry in one day, and then never put them away. Let them stay in 10 laundry baskets in my bedroom for 2 weeks until we’ve worn all of the wrinkled clothes and have to start all over again. The same techniques apply to cooking, cleaning, and crafting. This lifestyle used to work when I was single. Never was it practical or effective, but it worked. Surviving then and surviving as a medical spouse with 2 toddlers, 2 dogs, a cat, and a pending international adoption? Umm, yeah. Not working out so well. There’ve been a few breakdowns in the last 2 weeks. I’ve thrown more temper tantrums than my toddlers combined and fortunately, God is full of patience and mercy. It’s clear to me that this isn’t a coincidence. God is putting all of my avoidances in my face and making me deal with them. Self-discipline. Rebellion. Submission. Pride. I’m on a crash course in life lessons and these are the curriculum. Did you know cleaning out dresser drawers could be so meaningful? It’s ridiculous really, but necessary. How can God give me other responsibilities if I can’t handle running my own home? I’m learning self-discipline by realizing that I’ve worked too dang hard to put this house in order, by-golly, so those dishes will NOT sit in the sink taunting me. And I’ve wrestled 36 tubs of infant clothes, toys, and random crap I stuffed into boxes, so that load of laundry is going where it belongs. I’m even learning that my children can wait 20 seconds longer while I properly put things back where they belong instead of leaving piles on the kitchen counter. These are things that maybe came naturally to you, but where not enforced with me. I naturally resist routine and schedule. For 10 years it’s been because of my ADHD. While I still have that chemical imbalance, I’m recognizing that the majority of my issue is due to a lack of self-discipline and rebellion against submission. Submission to anything that requires me to do anything I don’t feel like doing at the time, such as following through with tasks. This is pretty deep, huh? No kidding, even I’m confused by it!

Here’s what I know: God is using the home study process to help me organize my life, develop self-discipline, and learn to suck it up and submit to doing what I don’t want to do. This goes against 30 years of habits- wait a minute! I thought I had avoided habits, routines, and schedule? My rebellion only led me to a false sense of being a free-spirit. I was actually a slave to destructive habits and routines that kept me on that never-ending survival wheel. I’m getting off the survival wheel now. Goodbye irritability and wasted time. So-long selfishness. Things will stop spinning soon and look a bit more clear. Still busy of course, but not as blurry. Being a slave to the survival wheel meant that I could only see what was right infront of ME. I’m glad to be freed from me and able to see you. We weren’t created as God’s pets running on never-ending survival wheels. He created us to have relationship with Him and His people. You are His people. So…Hello!

Home Study Checklist

I just thought some of you might be curious about our progress. We're working through the 55 item checklist, 7 online courses, and 50 page personal profiles. We also have FBI background checks, state background checks, local criminal record checks, Ohio and Texas child abuse checks, and the dreaded fire inspection and home safety inspection. We're kinda busy ! :)