Progress...

Our family needs to raise $9,600 by October 15, 2012 to send three Mains to Uganda this winter.  We have saved $3,200 and this week $850 has been donated by generous friends and family.  We are at 42% of the funds needed to travel! Please rejoice with us!  

Our friends at Amazing Grace Children's Home have been working hard on the first of four family-style homes on their land in Adjumani, Uganda.  Look! The walls are already up! If you'd like to read more, please click here.

"A" is for...

JoyAnna is an "A" in our Family Uganda Picture.  She stars in this 1.5 minute video sharing a little bit about Uganda and life as a red "A"!

(If you're receiving this in your email, please click on the link and come to our blog to watch the video)

Why We Go...

This weekend JoyAnna (5) was wondering how it is that God can hold all the children in Heaven in His lap at one time. Do they have to take turns?  Josiah (8) surmised that it wouldn't be that hard because there probably aren't that many children in Heaven since most people die when they're older.

It grieved me to inform him that thousands of children die every day around the world.  According to UNICEF's progress of nations report, 21,000 children die daily.  And they're dying from poverty, hunger and easily preventable diseases and illnesses.

And that's when Bryan spoke up and reminded us why we are planning a trip to Uganda.  Our primary goal in visiting Amazing Grace Children's Home  is to share life and faith with our friends for a couple of weeks and learn more about how the local Christians are confronting the devastation caused by war and disease.  Our secondary goal is to plan a kids' camp for the children of Amazing Grace (a man on our team is a Christian camp director in Texas). A third goal is to raise funds for the construction of new buildings at Amazing Grace Children's Home.

Do you have a minute to meet some of the faces of poverty...and hope?  Here's a lovely video that a compassionate Lahash traveller created of our friends in Adjumani, Uganda:

Going to Uganda!

We are excited to share that our family is planning a trip to Uganda with our friends at Lahash International in December of this year!  Lahash partners with grassroots organizations in East Africa to care and advocate for vulnerable children.

SEBUR

Six years ago we met Sebur Emmanuel through Lahash sponsorship.  Sebur is our 12-year old friend who fled from his homeland Sudan during his country's horrific civil war.  He joins 29 other orphans cared for by compassionate, godly men and women at Amazing Grace Children's Home in Adjumani, Uganda.

TRAVEL
This winter we plan to send three Mains to live life with our friends in East Africa for a couple of weeks.  It will cost about $3,200 per person and we have saved enough to send one.

HOUSING
We are also eager to help our friends build new housing on land of their own. We are helping to raise $4,000 toward these buildings. The Main kids have been putting their abilities to work and hope to share some of their creative fundraising ideas with you starting in September!  The family has created a picture poetry book, Daniel is training for "Hoops for Homes" and Josiah is brainstorming a Uganda Travel board game. It's gonna be great! 

THANKS!
Thank you for coming on this journey with us.  We are excited to get to taste and see God's goodness through the genuine love of His people around the globe.  Please keep checking in with us for updates, photos and all kinds of extras. 

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Love that covers

Ah! It's the close of a glorious, adventure-filled summer and the beginning of a different journey.

This week the kids start school. After five and a half years of home educating, we now have four kids starting out a school year in two of our local, public schools.  It's busy.  It's scattered. And it reminds me of my wedding day.  There was anticipation, excitement, longing, fear, joy, exhaustion.  It was a whirlwind- spinning, running, dancing, falling, collapsing...and even vomiting.  

But this terror?  Why this suffocating, crushing feeling? I think it's the nakedness that I feel.  I'm inviting another group of strangers into our story. A group of people passionate about their work. Visionaries even. Beautiful, broken people like me.  I'm inviting this team into my home. They are coming into my family to influence us.  All those people that I've never met will spend countless hours with the children I hold dearer than my own life.

It's really a trust thing. I'm having to yield- to let go- to trust.  And I don't.  I don't trust them.  I don't trust "the system" or the individuals.  I don't know them.  Isn't trust built?   And so I weep.  No, I sob.  I cry until I feel as though my skull will split because this nakedness seems more vulnerable than I can bear. This giving up- this letting go feels like more than I bargained for.

I know that I need these people.  I need these enthusiastic educators. I need their investment.  I need their vision and passion and varied skills and abilities pouring into our lives...our home. I need this community.  Oh! how desperately I need...and yet.  I fear.  I fear the unknowns, the knowns, the journey ahead.

I am wooed to He who I do trust. The God who carries and covers and defends.  My God.  The God of my children.  The God who set worlds in motion.  Yes, I trust Him- the God of love. Love that quiets.  Love that settles. The love that casts away fear.  Yes, and love that clothes my nakedness.  

Cheerful Fasting

Welcome to April!  We were blessed to participate in Rice & Beans month again this year and equally blessed to get to enjoy the delights of food variety.


Rice & Beans Month is a choice we make to limit our diet for a bigger purpose.  It's a form of fasting.  And fasting is a tricky thing.  In the Bible there are so many different kinds of fasts- group, individual, vocal, silent, planned, spontaneous.  And yet all are done for a purpose beyond the tangible.  


Rice & Beans Month is a planed, group fast which many choose to be vocal about as we invite people in and encourage one another on the journey.  Our family discusses, we blog, we joined a Facebook community, we email and it's usually a huge blessing across the board.  But this year was a little different for me.  It got hard and I wasn't very happy about any of it.  Actually, I got downright mad.  One of the many times Jesus taught on fasting, he said not to look somber like the hypocrites (Matthew 6:16).  I felt deeply somber and I was certain that it couldn't help but show through, so I shut my mouth and prayed for the grace to endure without poisoning anyone with my sour attitude. 


And life is just like that sometimes, isn't it?  We keep on because it's a good thing even when we stop feeling like it's a good thing. I thank God for daily grace.  Our family has grown through another Rice & Beans Month and I'm deeply thankful for the journey, albeit painfully difficult and exposing at times.  We were able to save $471 to send to our friends in East Africa... to people we call friends.  This blesses us deeply.

And, believe it or not, we're still enjoying weekly bean & rice meals. We even received a package of fancy beans from a beloved friend.  Who knew beans could be this yummy?

When Simplicity meets Extravagance

Day 21:

I love my neighbors.  Over the years, God has been kind to give us neighbors who have became life-long friends.  This weekend, my beloved Illinois neighbors, Heidi and Sarah came for a visit. The kids were super excited to get to host their friend (Sarah's son) for the weekend too!

We're ending week three of Rice & Beans month over here, so food choices have been limited and meals simple.  Oh, but how I longed to present something fabulous and lovely for my friends. You know,  "kill the fatted calf" and declare my overflowing joy and love for them?  Food can be fun like that!  God used Sarah & her beloved to fill us to overflowing with celebratory pizza last year. We were SO blessed.  I deeply wanted to share that same extravagant, food-love with them.

So, I began to ask God how I could bless them within our current means.  Oh! And God is SO kind.  Our friends at Lahash have shared so many good recipes and we came across one that was clearly the "Fatted Calf" of the bunch- Roasted Vegetable Biriyani

This is our amazing roasted vegetable medley packed under a layer of rice, studded with spices and ready to head into the oven.  

Then we made the side garnishes, added some chili sauce and began salivating.

Oh, friends!  This was a truly AMAZING meal...and I'm so blessed to have gotten to share it with my fabulous family and friends!