overexposed in public, underdeveloped in private

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.

{Matthew 23:27}

In ministry, we can look great on the outside. Sometimes we have the faith inside to back that up.

Sometimes? Well, we don't.

That's why this blog has been quiet. 

In our family, we've had a lot of change in the past year and a half (which, not coincidentally, is the same period of time that the blog has been neglected): the start of an unexpected adoption of a baby girl with cerebral palsy, the sale of one house, the purchase of another house, the move to the new house, the trip to Taiwan to bring Zoe home, her celebrated arrival, the start of kindergarten for our oldest, the surprise seizure the night before Thanksgiving and subsequent diagnosis of epilepsy for our middle child, my own struggles with depression, and now?

Yes, we're adopting again, this time a sibling group of three from Uganda, one of whom is HIV+.

Through all of our lives' recent transitions, we've been blessed to continue leading our church's special needs ministry. 

In order to keep myself accountable to the commitments I have in our family and home church, something had to give in the midst of it all. 

Thus, the quiet here.

I needed to decrease my exposure publicly to allow God to develop places in my heart privately.

I needed bones and uncleanliness swept away by Him, lest this blog be nothing more than the beautiful whitewashed tomb appearances put on by the Pharisees and called out by Christ in Matthew 23.

I've missed it, though. As I've been immersed in the Christian adoption community, I've become more and more convicted that churches can do a better job including people with disabilities, both those who arrive via adoption and those who make their entrance in other ways.

So regular posts begin again today, my friends. 

Oh, I forgot to mention... the other kids are coming to Uganda too.

As in, the kids we already have.

Uganda’s courts move at their own pace. Court dates get scheduled, travel booked, plane taken… and then court dates might be postponed or rescheduled. We’ll have an estimate of how long our in-country trip will be, but it may change.

In fact, some families opt to buy a one-way ticket to get to Uganda and wait until everything is final to buy their one-way tickets back.

Leaving Jocelyn, Robbie, and Zoe for an indefinite amount of time? That would be hard on us, hard on them, and hard on the friends or family who would care for them while we’re gone.

Because of that, we’re all going.

(Side note: We're footing the bill for the current kids' travel, because we don't feel comfortable including that in our fundraising... a.k.a. asking others to pay for that optional portion of our expenses.)

After all, it's not just me and Lee adopting our Ugandan three. The entire family will be affected.

So the entire family will go.

In addition to the logistics of care for our current three if they stay here, we have other reasons for wanting to bring them. For starters, Jocelyn and Robbie will be able to understand their siblings better after seeing the context they've come from. Right now, they think their Ugandan siblings are living in a house just like ours in another part of the world. In order to wrap their minds around the challenges their new siblings are facing as they adjust to life in the US, Jocelyn and Robbie need to experience life in Africa.

Generally speaking, kids tend to connect with other kids more readily than they bond with adults, so Patience and Jocelyn might become fast friends before Patience trusts me or Lee. (We’re okay with that.)  They also might not get along so well, with any of the new three bonding to us first. (We’re okay with that too.)  Finally, we’ll get time to live as a family in Uganda before we all move back to our home in the US together.

We do have a friend who will be traveling with us, so we’ll have three adults to our six children, at least for part of the trip.

It'll be hard, like so many other aspects of adoption.

It will also be worth it, like so many other aspects of adoption.

the faces of children

Yesterday Jocelyn brought home a black-and-white xeroxed page with all her classmates' school pictures.

As I looked at the squinty eyes and uninhibited grins of her fellow six- and seven-year olds - Liam, Kaleb, Maddy, Dixon, Ebie, Columba, and more - something made me think of other pictures I've seen this year...

Similar school pictures of young ones from Sandy Hook who never made it to the end of the year.

Unsmiling pictures of orphans who watch friends leave the orphanage with new mommies and daddies but who don't have anyone coming for them yet.

Faces peering out from behind hajibs, which cover the girls' heads but not their courage as they pursue education despite the physical and cultural ramifications.

Dirt-smudged faces of girls who have been freed after being bought and sold and trafficked by people with plenty of resources but little integrity.

Pictures I've seen of the 10 youngsters who died in the recent Moore tornado, including some whose lives ended when the storm hit their school.

Pictures I haven't seen but can almost imagine of another 10 schoolchildren who died recently, these children at the hands of a suicide bomber in Afghanistan earlier this week.

I don't know what it was about the black-and-white pictures of Jocelyn's classmates, but they stirred in me a mix of despair and hope for the children who aren't able to go to such an excellent school. Are they worth less than my daughter and her friends?

Certainly not.

So why do I have hope too and not just despair? Because I know three of those orphans I mentioned earlier. They will go to Jocelyn's school, but they won't be orphans anymore; they'll simply be following in their big sister's footsteps (along with another former orphan and a silly little man who has never been without parents).

Because I see other glimmers of God's promises, spurring me to consider beauty in the midst of brokenness.

I weep for the broken places and people. I cry out, "Come, Lord Jesus." I ache for the parents who don't have their children to hold and the children who don't have parents to love them.

And I persevere, knowing I can't mend all the torn places (nor am I called to do so), but I can be faithful to obey where God leads. In doing so, I accept His invitation to join in the sort of fast described in Isaiah 58:

Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of wickedness,

to undo the straps of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry

and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover him,

and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,

and your healing shall spring up speedily;

your righteousness shall go before you;

the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;

you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’

If you take away the yoke from your midst,

the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

if you pour yourself out for the hungry

and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,

then shall your light rise in the darkness

and your gloom be as the noonday.

And the Lord will guide you continually

and satisfy your desire in scorched places

and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

like a spring of water,

whose waters do not fail.

And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;

you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach,

the restorer of streets to dwell in.

six under seven

Yes, with the addition of our precious children in Uganda, we’ll have six children under the age of seven.

When that first occurred to me, it made my brain hurt.

Now? We’re good.

you see this bench? we're going to fill it up!

All six will be in car seats or booster seats.

At least two of the six will be in diapers.

All six will be pre-readers or emergent readers, so I’m prepared for a whole lot of read alouds.

Depending on when each child is developmentally ready for kindergarten, we may have two or three kids in the same grade.

Assuming all our kiddos go to college, we’ll have kids 1, 2, 3, and 4 in at the same time. Once our oldest graduates, we’ll have 2, 3, 4, and 5 there together. After kiddo 2 dons the cap and gown, it’ll be 3, 4, 5 and 6 in school.

For those of you familiar with the layout of our church’s children’s ministry, we’ll cover the A, B, and C halls with little Dingles. (It’s a good thing Laurie and I are buds!)

Speaking of church, I’m expecting to have to wake up an hour earlier to get everyone dressed and out the door. (As is, I sleep in a bit while Lee gets up the earliest.)

We’re thankful we live five minutes from the pediatrician’s office, because we’ll be there often.

I don’t expect it to be easy peasy to foster sweetness in all the sibling relationships, but we are committed to praying for just that and doing what we can to make it happen. (Would you join us in praying?)

Some days, it will be wonderful to have kids so close in age.

Other days, it will be hard.

Six under seven. It’s gonna be fun, y’all.

we just call him napoleon.

His mama was a basset hound.

His daddy was a lab mix.

The rescue group, from which we got him 2.5 years ago, called him a Bassador.

Another friend calls him a Labrodwarf.

My dad calls him "a mistake of nature."

We just call him Napoleon.