Like everything?

By this time next month:

• the church will be in a new location.
• the ministry office will be in a new location.
• the orphanage will have a new rental house.
• the Washington’s will have a new rental house.

By the mid-year the bowling alley will be in a new location.

The only thing not moving? The school. We are fighting tooth and nail (whatever that means) for the land where the school is so it can stay put.

Moving our family excites me most. Perks:

• Three stories
• A bit of an outdoors with a little grass
• A half a block from a HUGE park
• A block and a half from a main street

A rough sketch of the floor plan:

Oh, yes, and to finish this post I wanted to share with you a verse from the New Living Translation version of the Bible found in Isaiah 54:2 which applies to our situation.

“Enlarge your house; build an addition.
      Spread out your home, and spare no expense!”

Isn’t that a refreshing look at the old verse about lengthening cords and strengthening stakes? Yes!

Sunday’s a day of hope. It’s the day we remember the very first resurrection Sunday when Christ conquered death, hell and the grave opening a way of salvation to all who would believe on Him. What better day to look ahead at the coming years and bear my soul of some of the hopes I have?

I hope…

10. …we can get the Dreamers into a permanent home with a big yard they can call their own for years to come.

9. …we can get a home with a big yard and guest quarters for the Washington family that we can call our own.

8. …we can help the church purchase or build an excellent facility.

7. …I can get a book published, in English. (more than one would be great too…)

6. …we can help our two youngest kids become bilingual in speaking, reading and writing.

5. …we can do some big time traveling with our kids.

4. …we can solidify and grow the mechanisms we have began to provide for us when we get old.

3. … we can get our kids started out well on their adult lives.

2. … we can establish and implement a working plan for helping launch the Lifetime Dreamers into adulthood.

1. … we can stay focused, strong, and impassioned about knowing God and doing His work.

*** Next and final list in this 10 Lists series: 10 Scariest Things About Missions  [Because it is Halloween... scary... get it?] ***

When DaRonn was a teenager he became passionate for the things of God. He began a group at his high school dedicated to studying the bible and doing outreach projects. He signed up to teach a Sunday School class and got paired with me to lead the 3rd and 4th graders. He was in church every time the doors were open for morning services, evening services, youth group and every other special meeting. He even hung out with the pastor in his free time.

Our friendship began in those hallowed halls of a mall turned church. We were a part of a group of young people from that church who hung out together. There was a couple at church who invited us to come over one night a week to hang out and talk about the things of God. We filled their home with energetic teenagers hungry to learn and grow spiritually. God was at the center of everything we did.

It must be clarified, though, that DaRonn was not a saint all the time. I had to laugh when his mother had no other recourse but to ground the boy from church. She forbade him from going to church for some kind of misbehavior. She knew that would get the message across to her son. At the time I just found it funny.

Now I can have a double laugh because I did a similar thing.

My Gabrielle is great friends with a girl in The House of Dreams. We are closer than neighbors with our orphanage seeing as it is located on our property just down the steps from our apartment and across the yard and paved soccer court. Every day Gabrielle asks me if she can go play at the orphanage. My answer is usually yes.

So most afternoons she can be found mixing it up with the 18 kids who live a stones throw away. They jump rope, do Barbies hair, make believe, swing, slide, run, and even get a smidgen of homework and chores around the orphanage done together every once in a while. Can you imagine? How clever it will be for her to tell people when she is older that she grew up in an orphanage.

The other day Gabrielle made some choices that crossed the line we had clearly drawn. She is naturally a limit pusher so this sort of thing has happened before and will most likely happen again. The infraction committed involved behavior at the orphanage. So it occurred to me that the only consequence that would have any impact on her would be to restrict her from the most favorite thing in her life. I grounded her from going to the orphanage for a certain number of days.

Trust me, I do realize that most parents would be thrilled if their nine year old daughter preferred to spend most of her time at an outreach center. It makes me so proud to see her caring for the younger ones, folding clothes, helping the kids with their homework or serving plates of food. I know this will have positive benefits in her life long term. I just didn’t feel as though I had any other recourse at the moment because of the choices she made.

That only lasted a few days. She is back to having a ton of fun. She learned that it is important to make better choices. I learned something too. I now understand my mother-in-law’s action when she grounded her son from church. We mothers are a funny bunch of folk.

Now on with the crunchy, munchy, mixed-up life I lead…

• Pomegranate season has begun! For the the next four to six weeks my fingers will be tainted purple. Yum!
• Third week of the 2011 school year started yesterday.
• Due to strikes in the city two days of school were canceled last week.
• The city is also gearing up for the yearly week long festival called ‘Carnaval’.
• After Carnaval comes the birthday of my eldest. We will be parents of a teenager!
• After that momentous occasion our interns will have their baby.
• I’ve got babies and birthdays on the brain since the 27th of this month marks 9 months since we brought Kaitlynn home. Need to journal my thoughts about the significance of that date.
• Do you read the blog we do for the orphanage? Three times a week we have stories going up about The House of Dreams. Here’s the link: http://houseofdreamsorphanage.wordpress.com/
• Last night I taught a group of people how to eat sushi.
• I keep replaying in my mind a sentence that my husband said to me yesterday that made me feel so very loved.

A mysterious bundle under her arms the woman boards a bus close to the border. The Altiplano region of Bolivia, marked by bleak poverty, makes an easy escape route for those of the underworld to sell flesh. This night they would be foiled.

The transaction had already taken place. The sellers made their get away. In the emotion of the moment this new “mommy” with her prize had not covered her tracks well enough. Caught by authorities precious minutes before the two crossed over to another jurisdiction the woman cried for her loss. She remains in custody to this day.

She had already pierced the baby’s ears and wrapped her in the finest blankets. She found nothing wrong in buying a human and making her family. That little girl now lives at our orphanage The House of Dreams. Human trafficking is an every day reality for us. This is one of the central themes of the novel I wrote in November.

Today in the United States various groups have held events to observe the National Human Trafficking Awareness day. I applaud every effort to help stop the massive atrocities occurring around the world. If you are feeling a tug in this direction I urge you to get involved.

A friend of mine and her husband will be traveling to Asia in just a short time. They will be spending a few weeks learning about people who are helping to put an end to human trafficking and slavery. They will be able to determine the best way to become more of a  part of the solution. If nothing else please pray for the success of their trip. You can read more on their blog. Here are some specific articles to get you started:

• Not Mutually Exclusive
• Scriptures to Pray
• Asia Questions Answered
• Blogsite home: A World of Opportunity

“Somebody should do something about the orphans in our city,” says Someone persistent, insistent.

“We may not be able to help them all, but we can help some,” the reply is not so quick this time. Stare for a moment with eyes wide open into the eyes of dejection. Eyes of flickering hope.

These were the beginning whispers of a dream come true: The House of Dreams Orphanage.

Today I am so very honored to be a guest on the Heart to Heart with Holley blog site speaking about the House of Dreams in her series God Sized Dreams. To read the whole post follow this link:

Heart to Heart with Holley – God Sized Dreams

As a special thanks to the readers there is also a give away of an authentic Bolivian item over there that you won’t want to miss!

Ages ago in the United States children were shipped long distances on trains in order to be adopted. Many of them grew up as little more than servants in the homes of their patrons. This was a dark time for the States. As the economy improved these methods were ratified and the changes were positive.

Currently adoption in the United States is viewed as a viable and loving way to make a family. Great strides have been made in the culture of adoption.

Now we can turn our eyes to the adoption culture of Bolivia.

——————————————————————————–

Want to read more? Come on over to the Latina Lista site today… “The Adoption Culture — One of hope and frustration”

Seeing people do what they were born to do is one of the most beautiful things in the universe. Watching Tim Treadwell in action is one of those occurrences. His generosity and down-to-earth friendliness is poetry in motion, er, puns in motion to be more accurate. His quick comments on facebook are only the surface. He is also a blogger (handle: Stumbler), a master of delicacies in the kitchen, a teacher at a boarding school and (sssshhhh) a secret agent.

Let me back up just a bit and tell you how we met. If memory serves …

So there is this guy in England. He knows how to google. He is looking for info to teach his students about different countries and missionaries around the world. So he punches in “ex-pat Bolivia” and my dear friends the Holmans (Joe and Denise) pop up. So they strike up an online friendship based solely on a candy vs. sweets rivalry. He is sending them chocolates, sour bombs and biscuits. They are so kind to allow us to taste his treats and voice our opinion on the battle between American candy and sweets from the UK. Comments and convos start on facebook. Links are exchanged. I become a co-conspirator in secret agent hi-jinx. We are now friends.

That is the short story. There are other things I could tell you, but, as they say… then I’d have to kill you. (muahh ha ha!) Suffice it to say that Tim is a great guy and I am very thankful to know him. I am glad we stumbled upon eachother.

To watch a video of our most recent not-so-secret op together click this link to the House of Dreams blog and revel in the absolute cuteness of our Dreamers:

Connecting Continents

This picture leaves me speechless every time I see it. I snapped the shot when I was coming in to church on Sunday. These lovely ladies are Dreamers at the House of Dreams. They all got new hair pretties and were happy to show me. You can click on it to see the original sized version.