our front-row seats
/
In the midst of all the fundraising, I didn't get around to posting about our anniversary on the 18th.
In hindsight, a carnival wedding reception was the most fitting way to start our lives together. We certainly haven't followed other norms since then.
I guess we just don't do "conventional" too well.
Wild. Unexpected. Passionate. Unorthodox. Occasionally frenetic. All with a dash of crazy.
We're good at all that, dadgum it!
In eight years, our marriage has been nothing like we expected or planned.
It's been so much more wonderful than that.
Through every startling deviation from our own plans, God has shown up in surprising ways. Through the circumstances we never would have chosen on our own, He has offered front-row seats to amazing demonstrations of His glory and goodness in our lives.
Like the front row seats we've gotten in the past week.
Friends and strangers ate waffle fries and fried chicken and milkshakes with us at Chick-fil-A. They bought raffle tickets or paid to spin the wheel o' CFA prizes. More friends and strangers bid on items throughout the week. Some gave donations directly. Others helped spread the word about our auction. A few prayed with us over the grants we're waiting to hear about.
And have you noticed it yet?
The fundraising thermometer on the right?
Yep, it read $14,850 yesterday.
Today? After $550 in funds raised through meals and raffles at Chick-fil-A and the $3279.50 raised in the auction (if you won a bid, I'll be in touch today or tomorrow) and another $3000 we were able to contribute ourselves through recent sacrifices we've made, the total is higher. Much higher.
We've passed the halfway mark for our fundraising to bring Patience, Philip, and Patreesa out of their orphanage and into our family.
We have $21,650.
And we have front-row seats to yet another of God's amazing demonstrations of His glory and goodness in our lives.
Thank you to each of you to joined us in person, through prayer, or by bids or donations.
Welcome to the front row with us. We don't know yet where the remaining $18,000 will come from, but we can guarantee that we're all in for an awesome show!
Why do we adopt?
/
As our auction closed today, I realized I still haven't answered a fundamental question here.
Why adopt?
Or, more specifically, why have we chosen to adopt?
Many families come to adoption after a long road of infertility. That wasn't us. We got pregnant quickly and easily with Jocelyn and Robbie, as we cried with and prayed for friends who waited and waited (and some who still wait). I can't say I loved being pregnant, but I didn't face the sorts of complications experienced by several dear friends. I blogged at one point about my health making future pregnancies unwise, but now I've been freakishly healthy - for me, at least - for 18 months, and none of my docs would have any problem with my carrying another child.
In other words, for us, adoption isn't primarily about wanting more kids.
Insurance covers pregnancy and childbirth. Adoption requires a lot more money, including - for us - fundraising. Given our relative ease with Jocelyn and Robbie, we'd try that route first before adoption if we simply wanted more kids. It would be a heck of a lot cheaper.
Some people have assumed that we aim to rescue children from poverty or disease or hunger. That's not it either. If our main concern was about poverty, then more systemic helps would be more effective on a larger population than a single adoption. Same goes for disease and hunger.
We talked about adoption before we got married, but these faces made it more real to us.
As we cuddled and fed and rocked and soothed and loved those two, it broke our hearts to know that others like them didn't have a mommy or daddy to do the same. At best, they were in a loving children's home or foster setting, but both the Bible and modern research agree that a stable family is the ideal place for a child to live and grow.
This girl not having a dad to proudly hold her an hour after she was born? Unfathomable.
Or this boy not having a mom to poorly attempt a "cute baby in a basket" picture?
Or having that mom or dad but then losing them to AIDS or some other issue that kids don't understand?
It's not okay.
Picture your child's room, or the room of a child you love.
Does it look like this?
Probably not. This is a picture of the sleeping quarters in a Ugandan orphanage.
This is why I struggle to find the words when neighbors look at our four-bedroom home and ask, "Where will you fit everyone?"
We don't adopt to add children to our family. We adopt because families need to be added to children who don't have one.
I'll bust out the verses that have been meaningful to us in adoption at the end of this post, but I can sum it up pretty easily: They need a family. We're a family.
Consider a child you love. Try to imagine no one answering her cries, no one snuggling with him when he's sick, no one fighting for the best medical care for her, no one reading him Bible stories and bedtime books, and no one kissing her boo-boos.
It's not a pleasant thing to imagine, is it?
We adopt - and we seek out cases in which other families have said no and adoption chances are looking slim to none - because we would want the same for Jocelyn or Robbie if they were those kids.
Jocelyn matters. Robbie matters.
So does Zoe. And Patience, Philip, and Patricia.
And millions of other orphans who are waiting, passed over because they are too old or sick or disabled... they matter too.
That is why we adopt.
Proverbs 3:27
Micah 6:8
Isaiah 58:10
Isaiah 1:17
Paraphrase of Amos 5:21-24 by Eugene Peterson
Why adopt?
Or, more specifically, why have we chosen to adopt?
Many families come to adoption after a long road of infertility. That wasn't us. We got pregnant quickly and easily with Jocelyn and Robbie, as we cried with and prayed for friends who waited and waited (and some who still wait). I can't say I loved being pregnant, but I didn't face the sorts of complications experienced by several dear friends. I blogged at one point about my health making future pregnancies unwise, but now I've been freakishly healthy - for me, at least - for 18 months, and none of my docs would have any problem with my carrying another child.
In other words, for us, adoption isn't primarily about wanting more kids.
Insurance covers pregnancy and childbirth. Adoption requires a lot more money, including - for us - fundraising. Given our relative ease with Jocelyn and Robbie, we'd try that route first before adoption if we simply wanted more kids. It would be a heck of a lot cheaper.
Some people have assumed that we aim to rescue children from poverty or disease or hunger. That's not it either. If our main concern was about poverty, then more systemic helps would be more effective on a larger population than a single adoption. Same goes for disease and hunger.
We talked about adoption before we got married, but these faces made it more real to us.
 |
| Jocelyn and Robbie, shortly after Christmas 2009 |
As we cuddled and fed and rocked and soothed and loved those two, it broke our hearts to know that others like them didn't have a mommy or daddy to do the same. At best, they were in a loving children's home or foster setting, but both the Bible and modern research agree that a stable family is the ideal place for a child to live and grow.
This girl not having a dad to proudly hold her an hour after she was born? Unfathomable.
Or this boy not having a mom to poorly attempt a "cute baby in a basket" picture?
 |
| Robbie, circa April 2009 {aka I was failing at Pinterest before Pinterest existed} |
Or having that mom or dad but then losing them to AIDS or some other issue that kids don't understand?
It's not okay.
Picture your child's room, or the room of a child you love.
Does it look like this?
Probably not. This is a picture of the sleeping quarters in a Ugandan orphanage.
This is why I struggle to find the words when neighbors look at our four-bedroom home and ask, "Where will you fit everyone?"
We don't adopt to add children to our family. We adopt because families need to be added to children who don't have one.
I'll bust out the verses that have been meaningful to us in adoption at the end of this post, but I can sum it up pretty easily: They need a family. We're a family.
Consider a child you love. Try to imagine no one answering her cries, no one snuggling with him when he's sick, no one fighting for the best medical care for her, no one reading him Bible stories and bedtime books, and no one kissing her boo-boos.
It's not a pleasant thing to imagine, is it?
We adopt - and we seek out cases in which other families have said no and adoption chances are looking slim to none - because we would want the same for Jocelyn or Robbie if they were those kids.
Jocelyn matters. Robbie matters.
So does Zoe. And Patience, Philip, and Patricia.
And millions of other orphans who are waiting, passed over because they are too old or sick or disabled... they matter too.
That is why we adopt.
~+~
Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,
when it is in your power to do it.Proverbs 3:27
~+~
He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?Micah 6:8
~+~
...if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.Isaiah 58:10
~+~
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.Isaiah 1:17
~+~
“I can’t stand your religious meetings.
I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religion projects,
your pretentious slogans and goals.
I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes,
your public relations and image making.
I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.
When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
That’s what I want.Paraphrase of Amos 5:21-24 by Eugene Peterson
~+~
waiting.
/
Waiting hurts.
Waiting helps.
It's a frustrating paradox.
God refines me in the wait,
but the pain is still there.
God is telling me to wait.
And while I'd love to close this post with some encouraging conclusion, this is all I've got: Waiting is hard.
Waiting helps.
It's a frustrating paradox.
God refines me in the wait,
but the pain is still there.
Today, Elisabeth Elliot's words are encouraging me, especially these two quotes:
I realized that the deepest spiritual lessons are not learned by His letting us have our way in the end, but by His making us wait, bearing with us in love and patience until we are able to honestly to pray what He taught His disciples to pray: Thy will be done.
Waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one's thoughts.My will would be to have us there in Uganda with our newest three children or, at least, having the proper HIV treatment available for and administered to our dear one with the virus.
God is telling me to wait.
And while I'd love to close this post with some encouraging conclusion, this is all I've got: Waiting is hard.
the story of God in us
/
Dinglefest began with God. He brought together this guy and this girl who were doing the church thing well but who didn't treasure Him, and they fell in love. The guy and the girl fell in love with each other, and both of them fell in love with that God who had loved them from the beginning.
As they grew in relationship with Jesus, these two committed their lives to serve Him together as two made into one through marriage.
(The name of this blog comes from their wedding reception, which was a carnival to celebrate their devotion to God and to each other. Dinglefest was complete with a dunk tank, rock climbing wall, moon jump, bungee run, jousting ring, foosball and air hockey and pool tables, video game systems, Dippin' Dots, and t-shirts ... and lots of love.)
Their first blessing wrapped in flesh from God arrived about a year and a half after the first Dinglefest celebration.
Then, exactly twenty-six months after their sweet girl was born, her brother joined them.
After being a family of four - two big Dingles and two little ones - for nearly three years...
...a friend contacted them about a baby girl in Taiwan who needed a family. On January 30, 2012, they accepted the referral to be her family, and they began a wild ride to bring their fifth family member home from the other side of the world.
After Zoe had been home for about nine months, they began looking into adoption again, expecting to adopt from a country with a historically long court process (such as Haiti or India). As they prepared the paperwork to update their home study, they found out about a sibling group of three in need of a family in Uganda. Sometime in late 2013, they'll bring them home, doubling their number of kiddos to become Dingle, party of 8.
Their hearts are full with love for each other as they live out their daily Dinglefestival of life. And, more important than that, their hearts are full with Christ.
In the midst of this full life, the Momma Bear here likes to blog about our family, faith, adoption, books, life with special needs (including Zoe's cerebral palsy, Robbie's epilepsy, her own rheumatoid arthritis, and one of the Ugandan siblings' HIV+ status), education, and whatever else strikes her fancy.
Enjoy!
As they grew in relationship with Jesus, these two committed their lives to serve Him together as two made into one through marriage.
(The name of this blog comes from their wedding reception, which was a carnival to celebrate their devotion to God and to each other. Dinglefest was complete with a dunk tank, rock climbing wall, moon jump, bungee run, jousting ring, foosball and air hockey and pool tables, video game systems, Dippin' Dots, and t-shirts ... and lots of love.)
Their first blessing wrapped in flesh from God arrived about a year and a half after the first Dinglefest celebration.
Then, exactly twenty-six months after their sweet girl was born, her brother joined them.
After being a family of four - two big Dingles and two little ones - for nearly three years...
...a friend contacted them about a baby girl in Taiwan who needed a family. On January 30, 2012, they accepted the referral to be her family, and they began a wild ride to bring their fifth family member home from the other side of the world.
 |
| thanks to The Archibald Project for documenting this moment and the rest of our adoption journey! |
After Zoe had been home for about nine months, they began looking into adoption again, expecting to adopt from a country with a historically long court process (such as Haiti or India). As they prepared the paperwork to update their home study, they found out about a sibling group of three in need of a family in Uganda. Sometime in late 2013, they'll bring them home, doubling their number of kiddos to become Dingle, party of 8.
Their hearts are full with love for each other as they live out their daily Dinglefestival of life. And, more important than that, their hearts are full with Christ.
In the midst of this full life, the Momma Bear here likes to blog about our family, faith, adoption, books, life with special needs (including Zoe's cerebral palsy, Robbie's epilepsy, her own rheumatoid arthritis, and one of the Ugandan siblings' HIV+ status), education, and whatever else strikes her fancy.
Enjoy!