Yesterday was so peaceful. I came home from swimming to the sweetest sight on the front porch. Tux, the duck, was swimming in his pool while Slurpee the cat and the two last kittens napped by the pool. It was the first time the kittens got brave enough to come all the way to the house from the barn.

It appears that the last two kittens will be permanent Foringers. Ben claimed and named the boy Kayden and Moriah claimed and named the little girl Tally. I have no idea where either name came from, but they are cute. (Ben's other name ideas were Shark and Firefoot, so we may have acted a bit more enthused for Kaden!) I'm not sure Tally has recovered from all her Julia bonding time yesterday,

We then took a quick trip to the Berry Farm to pick blackberries. They were pretty tart but we enjoyed some smoothies and the atmosphere.

This is how I view Elijah - he often looks like this accompanied with "Momma, Momma."

Today has been a rat race. I left early this morning with eight of my nine children and didn't arrive back home until dinner other than a quick stop to grab sandwiches at lunch. My favorite part was shopping with the youngest seven while Alei was at a church function all afternoon. Obviously the worst time to drag children from store to store is when they should be napping! I would have to say the highlight of the shopping trip would be tied between the lady at Goodwill making an announcement to keep children right by your side (I had the only children in the store and they were behaving fine, but I only have two sides and had seven children) and when Ben convinced Tori and Julia to lick some horse product at Tractor Supply.

It's 8:30 and I need to go to bed just as soon as I eat my dinner, clean the kitchen, fold a few loads of laundry and braid Julia's hair.

On a happy closing note, here's the pictures of Elijah watching the fireworks that I had previously mentioned.

They are all blessings; they just feel like bigger blessings some days more than others!

We enjoyed our simple 4th of July celebration. Early in the day, friends came by for a while to donate some baby chicks that they hatched and couldn't keep. They stayed long enough for the kids to play and swim with their friends. We were planning on going berry picking, but delayed that plan so that JD could work on the broken tractor. Debra continued sanding her dresser and the kids and I attended to the animals. In the late afternoon, we had a cook out and then prepared to drive for fireworks. Our county cut fireworks out of the budget last year, so we had to drive almost an hour, but it was worth it. While they still made Julia slightly nervous, Elijah loved them. He sat on our laps, pointed and jabbered about them. It was precious and I will download those picture from my sister's camera later today.

Here's our traditional red, white and blue kid picture that Moriah has coordinated the last few years. Although Julia's shirt is pink, it has sparklers on it and says, "little sparkler." That suits her quite well.

Here's Tori's hair with extensions, put up in a pigtails. I love it like this but question how I'll ever have time to do it again. (My visiting friend did it this time.)

We took about 20 pictures of Elijah with his first ear of corn, here is my favorite. He spent a long time working it over.

We are continuing our celebration by having apple pie for breakfast since we were too full and too busy last night.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence.

You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

Abraham Lincoln

We were blessed to have scheduled Elijah's dedication at church for Sunday when we had Grandma, cousin Jason and Aunt Deb all there with us. We have the most awesome quilt ministry that makes each baby their own quilt and presents it to them when they are dedicated. Here's a shot of us on stage when they presented the quilt to Elijah. I'm looking forward to hanging it in Elijah's bedroom whenever he has a one instead of bunking in with us! 

This morning, poor, poor Ben went in for his tooth pullings. While they had him under, they pulled two permanent teeth, did two fillings and a sealant. He is actually feeling better than I thought he would, but isn't appreciating his soft food only diet. I'm cooking a ham that I had thawed for the weekend, but never cooked, and I feel bad torturing with the smell. As a Liberian that lived only on rice for the first six years of his life, he LOVES meat! I may give him some tiny bites.

Even before I saw these clips on youtube, I have been contemplating the verse that says pure and undefiled religion is taking care of widows and orphans. (James 1:27)  We have all heard it many times, but really think about those words - pure and undefiled. I have really wondered if there is any other act that we can perform that God calls pure and undefiled. I have not found another example, but please let me know if I'm missing something. It seems that all that we do as humans have an element of impurity, but God chose the care of widows and orphans to proclaim His view of purity. If it really ranks that high in God's eyes, why aren't we flocking to perform the very service that God sees as true religion. This is the real deal, the thing that clearly proclaims that we are God's hands and feet.

On a side note, I received feedback from a friend a few weeks ago that basically said that I didn't need to focus on starving kids in other countries, that it was their parents responsibility. She went on to tell me that God would care for them and I didn't need to burden myself with them. And, here's my favorite that I hear often - I can't save them all anyway! So, if I'm understanding this correctly,  a 14 year old girl that was born HIV positive gets raped and becomes pregnant in Uganda. She is sick and starving and dies giving birth. The extended family are unable to even feed their own children and protect them from the LRA that roams the villages kidnapping children to train as terrorists, so they bring the baby into an orphanage that can barely feed the 100 children that already live there. Now, who's responsibility is that baby? I can't see that in Scripture where it's the mother's. I see to whom much is given, much is required. (Luke 12:48) When you evaluate the world, we are that group! I read whatever you do to the LEAST of these, you do to me! (Matt 25:45) God is going to measure our love of Him by our care of the least - widows and orphans! Pastor appreciation days, Bible studies, etc, are all great, but we are missing the mark when we aren't meeting the needs of widows and orphans. We all need to find a cause that is working for orphans and help them; be their American liaison, support a child, send a sea-container or adopt an orphan. If we are too busy, we need to dump some inferior activities in order to make time for pure religion!

Here's the happy conclusion of Sam and Esther, made possible by only a couple of individuals being the hands and feet of Jesus.

We had our first swim meet of the year last night. James and Ben did really well for their first competition. We all went to the meet, even JD's mother, sister and brother-in-law. It's really great that they were there, because JD was timing the second half when out of the blue there was a huge clap of thunder and it started pouring. We scrambled to gather our stuff and get the kids to the van. We were all pretty soaked, but it would have been far worse without the extra adult hands! I thought I'd share a humorous conversation while we were there. A friend's son that is eight like my boys was sitting near us. He was eating fun-dip (with evil food coloring in it) and his face was half green. He sees Ben every day but not Tori and Julia, so he pointed at them and said, "So, you adopted two more, huh?" I explained that they had been here just as long as Ben. He then replied, "I can tell they are adopted. You know how? I know that white people can't have black kids. White people don't have chloroform in their skin that black people have. So, white people can't have black kids. What I don't know is if black people can have white kids. That I don't know!" After his speel, I looked at Ben and said, "What do you think, Ben?" Ben said a bit sarcastically, "Well, he's real smart!"

I have to play catch up today. Catch up on the laundry, shopping and cooking. Fun!

We were blessed to have a family that we adopted with come to visit for a few days. We traveled with Alissa to Liberia when she adopted her Liberian cuties, Bo and Mattie. They made the long trip down from Michigan so that we could meet her husband, Scott, and their other three children, Caleb, Ethan and Aryn and Alissa's sister, Aliya. We crammed a whole lot of fun into their Monday through Friday visit and realized last night that it was two years ago to the day that we all landed home from Africa with our new children! The first morning that they were here we swam and played outside. Here is a sample of the slip and slide fun.

Ben -

Mattie -

Later in the day we went berry picking; blueberries and raspberries were ready at the farm. Here's Julia cramming them in as fast as she could fill her little hands.

Elijah refused to even try them, but he always enjoys being outside.

On Wednesday, we spent a long day in DC with another family that adopted at the same time. They adopted their tenth child, named Gabriel; so between the three families we had 25 children! Here are just the kids, except for my Gabriel who had to work.

Here are the three Mommies with just our Liberian adoptees; (we had to be in the picture as two of them wouldn't stand on their own!) As we walked away from taking this picture, I observed a lot of staring faces.

Here's our crew at the food court between Smithsonians. Again, we attracted a bit of attention.

Elijah was thrilled with the lit up Exit sign at the Smithsonian. He's still easy to make happy.

Lastly, I snapped this picture of Caleb and Ben as we were walking along the National Mall. I just think it's cute.

I'll continue tomorrow. By the way, my Dad comes into town tomorrow and JD's Mom, sister and brother-in-law show up on Sunday. We are in the midst of our company run and thankful that people are willing to come to our sometimes crazy house!

We returned from the state homeschooling convention last night. It was by far the most meaningful convention I've ever been to. The featured speaker was Voddie Baucham and he was unbelievably good! I not only respect his views and teaching on world-views and homeschooling, but he is an adoptive father of three and that always impresses me! I so recommend his books and teachings; he has a website and blog that you can search for by his name. I'm sure you'll hear more as I read his books!

We have spent much of today outside with our first real grass mowing. I don't just mean of the year, it's been four years of living here and this is the first decent grass we've grown. (I'm afraid it has a little to do with the fact that we paid Mr. Walt to grow it this time!) Anyway, it's very exciting to all of us to have grass; it's not something that I'll ever take for granted again! Here's a few shots of the big event. The back -

And the front -

I've agonized over covering my next topic, or actually the next three topics, on my blog at all until now. Now I am excited and hopeful at the outcome of our dilemna. The first is dealing with our home. The reality is that we still have not closed on the house that we built and have lived in for a full year. The details are long and arduous, but the abridged version is that the state of the economy and the housing market in our area has affected us far beyond anything we could have imagined. When we took out our building loan over two years ago, the home's projected value was supposed to be considerably larger than the loan that we took out to build. We reduced it $87K further by having JD contract it over paying a builder. Since the housing market in our area has plummeted in the time since we took out the loan, the reality is that our home is worth considerably less than we have invested in it. That is not a huge issue for us since we plan to live here forever, but it is a problem since banks don't lend home loans for larger than the appraised value. So, the only way to close is to have a large sum of cash to bring to closing that will pay the difference in what we owe on our building loan and the appraised value of the house. The quick update on that is, we don't have it - we have nine children and four adoptions! Now, in the meantime, we are making a normal house payment and have a nice low interest rate, but it is at the mercy of the market and we are concerned that interest rates could skyrocket and then we wouldn't even be able to afford the home that we built. So, our latest hope lies in that the appraiser appraised our $105K Geothermal system at $7K, but since JD built the Geothermal HVAC system himself we only spent $45K in materials. The underwriters are able, if they so feel inclined, to boost our appraisal by part or all of our material costs. If they will do that, we are able to close with a reasonable amount of money. This has been brewing since long before Christmas and is a bit unsettling.

Our second issue was the boat that we bought, and shouldn't have, several years ago. This isn't a little fishing boat, this is a big, big boat with beds and all. When we bought it, we had five children and fit in it; now we don't fit or have time for the beast. We have been trying to sell it for well over a year and it isn't the kind of thing that people are snatching up when it requires 100 gallons of gas (no exaggeration required) to even put in the water. We finally resorted to putting it on ebay and were willing to take a sizeable loss just to be rid of the monthly payment that we've been making on it. So, week after week, the boat hasn't sold and I hit relist on my add; paying and praying for a miracle.

I now jump forward to Ethiopia. Over and over, I feel like we are supposed to do another adoption and Ethiopia keeps presenting itself. As much as I'd love to jump on that bandwagon, the reality of our home loan and current Liberian adoption loan is overwhelming. On top of the reality that we have two children ready to start college classes this year, the most unreasonable thing in the world that I could fathom was the idea to do another international adoption. The weight of feeling like I was supposed to research adoptions in Ethiopia, etc, was really present this last week while JD was away in San Diego. I stayed up late several nights reading. On Tuesday night I prayed before bed that I didn't want to continue looking into adoptions if we are not supposed to adopt again and it was all just me. I told the Lord that I needed a CLEAR sign from him if Ethiopia was in our future. I decided to lay out the fleece and prayed, "Lord, unless that boat sells from this ebay listing, I'm done looking into Ethiopia; I'm resuming my normal life." I believe at that point, there was only two or three days left on the listing. The very next day, JD called me from San Diego and told me that there was a guy who was interested in the boat and that they were emailing back and forth. I found that intriguing, but that's happened before. When JD and I drove up to the homeschool convention on Friday morning, he told me that they guy was pretty interested and might want to come up and see the boat on Sunday. I asked JD if he wanted to know my prayer at that point or wait; of course he wanted to hear, so I told him. I told him that my deal with the Lord was that it would sell from that listing, without relisting it. Well, the man came today. He and his wife and baby made a five hour drive from SC; they spent a bit of time here and negotiated a bit, but didn't leave today until he wrote us a check for the boat. The boat sold! The boat that we've advertised for 18 months sold the week that I asked the Lord for a clear sign!!!

So, we both firmly believe that Ethiopia is in our future. I still don't see how, but I have faith that God will make a way where there seems to be no way! I also believe that our home loan is going to work out without devastating us financially. We see this house as far more than just a home, but that's another post for another day. So, we are just sitting here today, amazed that God cares enough about us, our current children and our future child/children that He sold a boat to show us!

Since my trip to California, Julia frequently asks me to take her on an airplane. Her last request, however, was more specific. "Mom, can you please take me on an airplane to San Diego, so that I can see Africa and wear my baby like this."

Oh, she's entertaining!

I struggle to find balance; the balance somewhere between eating out and knowing that many, many children in Africa don't have rice. The balance between buying my little girls dress shoes when the kids at their old orphanage don't have flip flops and get bit by ants because of it. I struggle to find the balance between taking my children to the movies when there are countless children selling fruit on the streets for 12 hours a day in hopes of eating that night. The problem with America is that because we don't see it on our way to church, it isn't present in our day to day mind. The issue I have is that the two times I was in Africa forever sketched images in my mind. I pray for balance; the balance to give my children a happy childhood, but remembering and helping the children that I know are living in extreme desperation.

The Bible clearly states From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Luke 12:48b 

Trust me, friends, if you are reading this on a computer that you own - you have been given much!

So, last night I was attempting to clean the kitchen, pick up, vacuum, put away laundry, get the kids ready for bed, etc, etc, and Elijah was whining. Aunt Deb offered to walk Elijah down the driveway to distract him from his tiredness and gum pain. We stared at the sky for a bit because it had been raining, but it seemed to have taken a break for long enough to take a tiny walk, so Deb set out with Elijah in the Ergo on her back. About 10 minutes later, Deb came back and said, "you know how you were just saying that you were down to four cats? You really have about eight." I said, "What are you talking about, all mine are spayed!" She told me that there were several kittens in the driveway. At that, we all ran outside and headed down the driveway. Sure enough, there were five tiny kittens meowing and walking around in the tall wet grass almost half way down my driveway. There was no Momma cat and the kittens are completely tame. I then remembered hearing the driveway alarm chime but no car came down the driveway a bit before dinner.  Now I realize that someone drove them up the driveway enough to set off the alarm and dumped them. So, the question is: did that person really know that I pick up every stray I see or was it just pure luck that they picked our house? Either way, I have five darling kittens that need homes (or at least three of them. )

Here are the babies.

Two are darker black and grey striped and three are lighter grey striped.

Of course, the kids were thrilled. Ben, James and Tori have spent a lot of time today loving on them.

Ben does get to keep one for his own pet; he chose the biggest one. Bigger is obviously better for hamburgers, ice-cream and kittens!

Anyone live near me that has a big heart? They are adorable!