God doesn't want me in Africa

I feel I need to write this.

For a while now I have felt a slow down or a stop in my ministry outside the family. It isn't for lack of passion it is just the attention in my life is focused on my kids. Training Mason and Abby to continue in their walk with the Lord, and teaching Nettie and Judah what it is to be in our family and to love God. But mainly the training of my own spirit to walk closer to God in wisdom, to be the mom and wife I need to be here in my home.

For so long I craved leaving, I thought leaving here, moving to Africa would be the best thing for my family. I dreamed about it, and even secretly planned for it and prayed for it. But God doesn't want me in Africa. God doesn't want me anywhere, he can't use the "me" in Kim, the "Me" is the soul, who I am. I am compassionate, occasionally funny, out going Kim. But God doesn't need those things, hurting people don't need those things. Nobody needs my knowledge or human compassion. I am sure those things are nice and I have gotten by with them for so long but God needs the Me in Me to shrink. If I can step back and trust in God who made me then I should be able to give Me over to him and when that happens then it is no longer my compassion, which is nothing more than dry leaves. It is God's and it is that compassion that heals the broken hearted and binds up wounds that my human understanding could never touch. God's hand reaches further than ME and God's love, starts at home with ME. It starts with the most difficult challenge, family life. Especially after adopting the challenge lies to understand how God loves my kids and Gary. If I can't wrap my arms around Nettie and Judah and love them like God than how am I going to wrap my arms around orphans in Africa and really minister to them with the true power of God. It is not and illusion or some far off idea, the power of God is real and it heals. To go to a remote and hurting place in Africa is actually more easily done for me than to wake up and deal with Judah's tantrums and behaviors that I cannot fix. But is that real for me? What if the orphan I was loving with my human compassion turned around and hurt me? Would I still love? I think that is why God has told me he doesn't need me in Africa. He needs me to let go of me and let him move in me and have his being.

Hope has arrived!!

Author Tom Davis and his team visited our organization today. They were moved and very touched with the whole project. Please check out his blog to hear what he has to say about Hope for the Hopeless.

The privilege had tonight was calling Pastor Surafel and reading him Tom's letter over the phone. He was so excited and moved to tears and he simple kept saying "Amen! Amen!" Jen and I cried as we read the letter together just few hours earlier and I know everyone is just hopping with excitement as to what this means for our kids. They are so wonderful and for someone to really take note of that and want to jump in is a miracle. God is good and this is His work, we just sit back and enjoy his movement. Thanks to Marc and Julie for their connections to the organization Children's Hope Chest. It was all God's timing and He opened the right door at the right time. Thanks to Jen, Brooke, Aimee, all the prayers and work of the Saints it is for God's glory. I am really seeing the power of God move in a way of unity. Please check out Tom's blog post on the matter of Hope for the Hopeless!!!

Tom Davis, President of Childrens Hope Chest

Hope on the Horizon

We have had some exciting things happen on the home front.

Nettie turned five a few weeks ago, her birthday was a blow out extraordinaire. She got the most ridiculous girly bike ever! I am not a girly girl so it is hard for me to watch her toddling along on her overly made up Tinkerbell bike. It is cute though because it is her personality.

She is doing well and we have started homeschool with her, taking it slow I feel now that after almost a year she knows enough English to start phonics. She can write her name and seems eager to learn more. Nettie and Judah are like having twins, they are full of energy and pep, they bounce not walk. They don't sleep in and they fight taking naps, although Judah still really needs to sleep. His behaviors have gotten so much better in the last three years. He is a loyal little boy who needs a lot of attention. We are still working with Nettie, the other night Gary found her standing over me just looking at me. He asked her if she was just checking to see if I was there, she said yes. He reassured her and she went back to bed. I still see her looking to anyone to get attention but she is much better and much more appropriate with strangers now than she was before.

On the ministry side of things there has been a lot that has happened with Hope for the Hopeless. Children's Hope Chest is visiting the orphanage and this could mean a huge step in our sponsorship program if they can get behind us. Calvary Chapel in Phoenix is interested in helping us as well and I am thrilled to know such a big church would be backing us. I have a dear friend and she is running the Iron man and she chose to run it for us. It seems like there are connections being made and things are moving. Our next meeting is 5th of May I look forward to hearing all the great news, especially concerning our website. I have a dear friend and she is leaving for Ethiopia soon to do a medical mission trip and establish a clinic in Hope for the Hopeless. There are good things happening on the home front, and hopefully I will be able to get there on the field in October.

Love

I didn't write this but I have been trying to find a way to understand it in words. I think this is it.



Because God loved, he did. Because God loved the World, he sent Jesus. Love produces actions, love produces mission, love produces miracles. ‘I am willing’ said Jesus filled with compassion, and He stretched out his hand to heal.
If we’re close to the heart of Jesus, we will say, “Here I am. Send me,” as He did. If we have the love of God within us, we will send, and we will go, as Christ’s love ‘compels us.’ If we love enough we will be filled with compassion so that we MUST stretch out our hands to heal the sick or our hearts are broken.
Could it be the church does not do because it does not really care? Because it does not really love? Could it be that as well as the unbelief and lack of expectation blocking the miracles breaking forth in this generation, the other key factor for the lack of release of signs and wonders is the lack of love?
Christ warned that the end-time church would be ‘neither hot nor cold’. He warned there would be a lack of love and much sin on the earth. The church of this generation is not just lukewarm to Christ but lukewarm to its brothers and sisters and lukewarm to the dying world around it. May God forgive us and may God release us and give us true and not counterfeit love - love for our brothers and sisters, and for our world - true and not counterfeit fire that enflames our hearts, souls, minds and bodies for Jesus, compels us to love, and compels us to MOVE, compels us to DO - so that we become true ministers of flames of fire for the true gospel.
God make it so in the name of Jesus!

Funding has dried up

I guess I knew this day would come as financial support in the case of international adoption was too good to be true.

There was a grant given to an agency which allowed them to help anyone who had adopted with behavior issues. With this grant I qualified to have a behaviorist come to my house and work with myself and Gary regarding specific behaviors of our adopted children.

Funding has been cut back in a lot of places regarding adoption. Parents of foster children are not receiving the same support they once were. Programs are being reduced and cut. I guess it is all a trickle down affect in this economy.

I was thrilled to find these services since with international adoption community there are not many of these types of resources. I am left to feel "out there" again on my own. I know other families that would feel the same. I think just having those services in place made me feel better. In the end it takes us parents back to the level of an advocate. Not that I can change this new wave of cutbacks, it is that I have to find another way. If it means more books, more research, more phone calls, then I have to be willing to do that.

One way I have always been able to learn is to share what I am going through with other families in hope of finding a connection and a solution. Unfortunately sometimes in "sharing" there seems to be a dose of "judging" so I would ask everyone in the adoption community to be open and honest with the solutions to behavior issues and refrain from passing judgment on those parents who are seeking any kind of help as we find ourselves more "out there" on our own.

My family blog

www.desertbrains.blogspot.com

Friends with Like Minds

You know I was sitting back the other day, drifting in and out of thought and it occurred to me, what a blessed girl I am. I am blessed because of my friends. I have the privilege of getting to know and meet and call some of the most dynamic, charismatic ladies on this planet! , my friends. (I will collect your money later to be used at a charity of my choosing, probably my own.)

Throughout my life, growing up a bit of a "strange bird" there was an ever present sense that "I didn't belong" by thought or belief, I somehow just never fit in.

Over the years I have accomplished a lot, motherhood being on the forefront of my list. I have learned a lot and have met some great people who have supported me through the process of finding my motherhood MOJO. But as one of my closest friends says "Kim has found her peeps". There is a different element in the finding of your peeps. Your peeps are like you but way better!! Your peeps will inspire, encourage, support, pray but mostly understand on the most deepest level possible your deep concerns and passions. Because they are like minded.

What a beautiful thing to find friends that don't just "put up" with your crazy ideas or look you quizzically in the face when you shed a tear for a child you have never seen. Your peeps will cry with you and help you think of a better idea and then roll up their sleeves to help you in the cause you are attacking. They will stand by you until the end and give you the honor and they will stand behind you when you fall. This is love among friends, among the group of passionate like minded people I have the honor to know. So this is a shout out to all the people who "get" me and love me anyway!!!

Gary
Jen
Tara
Brooke
Stephanie
Juile
Aimee
Stacie
Surafel
Glenn
Janet
Lori


Thanks you guys. You mean the world to me and I know God has brought you in my life for a season and a reason.