How Can He Be Five.

A few days ago we said Happy Birthday to The Dinosaur. I find it so hard to believe he's that old. While his personality and body are developing and changing every day, I still see him as the tiny, shy baby we brought home three years ago.

I remember the night years ago that The Dinosaur fell asleep in the car coming home from dinner out. I opened the door and was trying to cradle him in my arms without waking him when The Hero asked if I wanted him to take over. I told him no, because there would come a day when I would be unable to carry him myself. Unfortunately, that time is almost upon me. A few nights ago, The Dino fell asleep on the couch downstairs. He was so heavy, I struggled to make it up the stairs with him because his feet were kicking me in the knees!

Happy belated birthday Dinosaur. You may never really know all that you have taught and brought into my life.






Such a character!






May all your dreams await you, with the passion you possess.

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3 Years

This week marked three years of us being together as a family. Three years seems like a long time. But looking at these pictures tonight, the time has flown by.

His chubby baby cheeks.





So Sweet. SOOOOO Tiny.





How did I ever become lucky enough to have these two in my home every day?





The laughs.




The antics.




The love. My goodness the love.
Happy Three years babies. It's all gone by too fast.


- Hugs n Love,

Lindsey

When You Can't Pray

Last Monday afternoon, I got the call that every child dreads. My dad was admitted to the hospital and was in intensive care. Every thing in my life disappeared. I no longer became the Type-A, time scheduled oriented person I've developed into over the last thirty-four years. I left the office with enough work to keep my mind busy, called The Hero and headed to the hospital. Most of last week is a complete blur. Between the hospital, the office and home, our lives have taken some what of a slower pace.
Dad is stable but still in the hospital with a blood clot. But I've discovered something about myself when approached with tragedy; I find it very hard to pray. I don't make grand promises to God, argue my case with Him or bemoan the current circumstances. I try to approach the throne and nothing comes out.

This at first was very alarming. I wondered if I was missing something in my theology. Until yesterday morning. My legal assistant walked in my office before I headed to the hospital and closed the door.
She asked me if I had any idea how many people were praying for my family. And as we approached the throne room together, she prayed over me while I sobbed through her requests on my behalf.
And then it all became quite clear to me. While these past days have felt extremely lonely, we have in fact been surrounded. The texts, phone calls, hugs, sincere emails and encouraging thoughts have engulfed my family with reminders that I don't need to be concerned with my inability to pray these days; so many of you are doing it for us. It is such an example of the Church at her best and I am honored to be a part of it.

From the bottom of my heart, from the entirety of my family, THANK YOU for loving us through this period of our lives.


- Hugs n Love,

Lindsey

My Rules

I think The Hero has acclimated nicely to being married to a justice junkie, spontaneously thinking crazy woman such as myself. He has very few rules that I must follow when developing a project, a plan or an idea. And while the rules are few, I still have a hard time following them from time to time. It's not because I am intending to break the rules, but most often it is because I forget.

Here are the rules:

1.) I cannot be led solely from emotion.
Allegedly, the rule doesn't allow for a reactionary response based upon my ability to be moved at a moment's notice. Like when I asked if we could become home base for all the animals and children displaced from Hurricane Katrina. He simply smiled and said "Rule #1".

2.) The decision I make cannot force us to move more than 50 miles outside our current location without prior notice. This rule was developed upon our first trip from Ethiopia wherein I announced on the airplane we were selling our home, cashing in his retirement plan with the fire department and opening an orphanage in Ethiopia for needy children.

3.) If The Hero is expected to be exert money, time or energy on one of my projects, I have to successfully implement and maintain such enthusiasm for a defined length of time. This defined length of time is also determined by The Hero, not me. This rule developed after reading Jen Hatmaker's 7 last year and advising The Hero I had hired a bulldozer to demolish our back yard and till up a garden plot that if successful would mean our kids' swing set must be demolished to make way for potatoes.

As I previously indicated in my last post, I love this time of year. As dominated the kitchen table a few weeks ago with growth charts, almanacs, seed catalogs and soil tests, The Hero tried to slink into his Lazyboy undetected. No dice.
"Hey did you rent the tiller for the garden space this year?" I batted my eyes his direction for effect.

"Uh...you're doing that again this year?" He was already looking for an escape route from the living room.

I stared out the kitchen window and daydreamed. "I grew tomatoes, herbs, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, cucumbers, leafy greens and peppers last year. This year I think we need to move the kids swing set to make room for a cut flower garden, garlic, strawberries, okra, black-eyed peas, onions and carrots. What do you think?"

I turned around to discover he was headed out of the living room mumbling something about Rule #3.


- Hugs n Love,

Lindsey

This Time of Year

Oklahoma this time of year is one of my favorites of all. The weather is temperamental no matter the season, but from end of January until middle of March, every day is a total surprise. Three weeks ago, my family spent the most amazing Sunday outdoors enjoying a 70 degree day.

Less than seven days ago, we were under a blizzard watch. Living on the plains always keeps us guessing.

But my favorite thing about this season is the anticipation. The seed and gardening catalogs start arriving the first part of January and I devour the contents like an addict needing a fix. Peppers, onions, tomatoes, carrots, flowers, seedlings, berry bushes and the like can keep me curled on the couch for an entire Saturday.

I make our list. Chart out rows and check my gardening notes from the season before. I double check the online almanac and place our first seed order.




And then I start daydreaming...

onions.



carrots.




Gardening even became a family affair last year. The kids and I would hit the door from school and work, drop everything and head to the back yard. They would search for new growth and water, while I pulled weeds and marveled at how amazing is God's handiwork.

Jen Hatmaker posted on facebook last week that she learned more about God from an hour gardening than from most Bible studies. I couldn't agree more. So many metaphors about growing, life, depth, pruning and removing what's dead are found in a garden.

So as the wind howls outside today, I checked our pepper and tomato seedlings tucked away in the windowsill and am preparing for a summer of what might be.


- Hugs n Love,

Lindsey

You Guys Did It Again

LoPa Art was a project started by three adoption-orphan care-justice crazed women who were looking for a way to serve the least, the last and the lost of Ethiopia. The three of us were broken at different times, but all in the same way-we desired to use our talents to see restoration and grace permeate the people and the hearts of people we had grown to call family.




The basis for our business was simple. Buy fair-trade, handcrafted art work and leather goods, sell them to you beautiful people and fund a non-profit education and feeding center on a trash dump in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The three of us receive no salary, no percentage of the profits. We wanted transparency to be a clear as our passion.
Three years ago, we had over 100 kids in our program. We partnered with Children's HopeChest to find individual sponsors for our kids so that LoPa could focus more on funding projects to make this community sustainable.




This year we had over 210 kids accepted into our program and LoPa was able to re-focus on not sustaining the kids daily needs, but praying and funding their futures. Together with HopeChest we derived an amazing plan and a really lofty goal: Raise $60,000 to put our older aging-out boys to work in the construction business. We called it the Korah Brick Making projects.
HopeChest did the logistics of a website and we three LoPa girls hit the streets. And the boutiques. And the craft fair venues. And then we hit our knees.




We blogged, facebooked, tweeted, and held shows all over the country. We networked our social circles and brought you all beautiful jewelry and art work from our favorite artists and artisans.




And YOU all responded. By leaps and bounds you all have helped us spread our mission of love and justice for yet another year. We couldn't be more grateful. And today we are humbled and honored to announce that the LoPa Brick Project is 100% fully funded! We are over the moon and over joyed that God has used three women's lives to bring His glory and His justice. We simply cannot thank you enough.




We are in full swing preparing our 2013 calendar and praying over our next project. Please join us in praying His will over our mission and asking how you can further be involved. If you are interested in hosting a home show, please hurry and email us so that we can make arrangements. Our calendar is almost full. You can reach us at lopa3moms at gmail dot com





- Hugs n Love,

Lindsey

I'm With You

The Hero and I didn't know much about soccer until the arrival of our two Ethiopian angels. Oh, we had heard the sport referred to as "football", but never really gave it much more thought. Since having the The Angel and The Dinosaur introduced into our lives, soccer has become part of our routine. While The Hero and I are doing our best, we're American football fans first and some times soccer doesn't compute to our language.

Based upon comments and stares we receive at the soccer field, The Angel and The Dinosaur appear to be some sort of soccer phenoms. While I think this is an amazing gift that my kids have been given, I am not a parent who believes that the future of my children solely rests in their athletic ability. If my babies want to love Jesus and play professional soccer or love Jesus and becoming starving artists, the only part that matters to mama is that they love Jesus and use their gifts to honor him.

The Angel asked me a few days ago if she could quit soccer and just play basketball. We talked about finishing some thing once you start it and being a person who is honorable to their word. At the end she asked me if I cared whether or not she played soccer.

I've been reading the kids a book by Bob Goff called Love Does. The first chapter of the book is entitled "I'm With You." The premises is based on an experience Bob had in high school with a friend who during an adventure told Bob he didn't care what choices Bob made because "I'm With You." This stuck with me. I think it makes a great parenting principle. And that's what I told The Angel. I told her that as long as she was true to herself and that she didn't go back on her word, whatever she chose to do, I would be there screaming on the side lines because I'm with her.




- Hugs n Love,
Lindsey