All'asta

So, as a stay at home mom I sometimes get the urge to work but want to work from home. I think I found something to do. Yes, It's a party type company but the parties have a twist to them. There is a silent auction during each party and guests are encouraged to bring items to sell. Wow, even the guests can earn some money! I'm hosting a party this Saturday at 10 AM--message me if you want to attend and haven't told me already. Here's the catalog. I'm considering becoming a consultant for them so if you can't make this party please let me know if you want to host a party. An additional note, the consultant for my party has decided to donate her commission to our adoption fundraiser. She read my facebook posts and asked if she could do that. So awesome.

ebates--I love rebates and here you can get money back for whatever you buy

I love saving money and just tried this site out. I bought a gift online at walmart (clicked walmart link from ebates.com page) and to get free shipping I added some grocery items. The groceries came the next day and I got an email saying ebates.com has some money for me. It's not much but every cent counts.

Please visit our fundraising page at You Caring

We've set up a fundraising page at you caring.  Soon to follow incentives for giving....  Adoption costs money.  We need help for this one. The route we took with Livie was expensive.  We used a traditional agency.  The plan this time is to meet with an adoption attorney who works with local crisis pregnancy centers in Illinois.  There will be attorney fees and home study fees.  After we find a match there will be medical and possibly some living expenses for the birth mom.  We are really excited about this opportunity.  We will be meeting the attorney in January.  So we also ask for your prayers on this journey. 

http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/help-grow-our-family-through-adoption-/112992

And so it begins...

We are starting the adoption process again.  We need to raise some funds for a home study.  This one sounds fun.  Thred Up takes clothing donations and sells them online and will give us a portion for those sales.  So check your closets for some gently used clothes that you no longer wear and help us out.  Thanks

http://www.thredup.com/groups/913

Lil missy has her style on

Liv insisted on the shiny black shoes yesterday morning.  Liv and I sleep later than most people but we had to get out of the house by 8:30 yesterday.  Bob was helping me get her around.  I told him to put the tan dress with a sweater on (cool summer morning).  Just before he had it on, I found a different outfit for her but let him put it on anyway.  When we grabbed her shoes, Bob tried putting brown ones on that match that dress but she kept pointing to the shiny black ones.  Long story short--after our long drive to Watseka.  I found Liv had soaked the tan dress and had to put her alternate outfit on.  Black pants and purple top with a doggie on it.  The shiny black shoes looked great. LOL

Blog shout outs

Will was the first one to comment about our blog.

Thanks Will! ;-)

I'll take this opportunity to mention a few other blogs we read.

My real life by Yvonne
myreallifebyyvonne.blogspot.com/

When we were in the adoption process for Liv, we took interest in a girl in an orphanage overseas who had the code name "Genesis". She has since been adopted by the Clanton family in Florida (they have named her Sarah). They have another daughter they adopted the same time as Sarah named Selah. Almost a year ago Selah was involved in an accident where she nearly drowned, and today she is in a vegetative state. Their mom, Yvonne blogs about the process of taking care of Selah, the rest of her family and being the wife of a pastor.

Adventures In Texas Scavenging
texasscavenger.blogspot.com/

My friend Andrew and his son comb the Texas countryside in search for old vinyl records, 8-tracks and the like.

The Stitch That Makes The Sweater Perfect
http://www.thestitchthatmakesthesweaterperfect.com/

The Twietmeyer family blog about things going on in their family and their upcoming missions trip to Guatemala. Carolyn is the head of Project Hopeful which I mentioned in my previous blog. Project Hopeful's web page can be found at projecthopeful.org

In other news, I'm going on my first experience in a kayak today. Should be a fun yet chilly (with high temperatures only in the 60's today) experience.

-- Bob

Kill the sarx - my thoughts

The title of this post comes from the title of an old Scaterd Few song. 'Sarx' is a greek word for flesh.

Part 1 - From a Facebook post on July 5th.

The phrase "dying to self" for me used to conjure up an image not unlike a person who straps himself into an electric chair and then gives a nod to the executioner to throw the switch.

I'm beginning to realize it's not that at all. It's a laying aside of doing things in your inferior man-made way of doing things, and picking up God's superior grace filled way of doing it. (Which goes in line with what Jesus said about taking His yoke which is easy and light).

Part 2 - today 

"From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.22Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.”23But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”
 24Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.25“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.26“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?27“For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS." -- Matthew 16:21-27 (NASB)

This scripture was part of what I read this morning.  While I was cruising through The Whosoevers Facebook page this morning. I came across a slogan they had. "Murder Your Flesh". It got me thinking to look up what Jesus actually said about the subject. Too often in in church life we throw around slogans and sermon points that sound good, but probably don't translate very well into real world application.

Truth be told, 'murder' and 'killing the flesh' usually brings up dread to the average Christian, causing them to try to muster up some piousness. Out of that comes statements like "I'll spend an hour in prayer", or "I'll fast and pray" that sound good, but truth be told they are usually actions based out of behavior modification, which means they are doomed to failure.

So what did Jesus mean when he said this? Well, consider what he said to Peter in verse 23. "You are a stumbling block to Me, for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's."  Ouch! We do this sort of thing all the time.  Yet, Jesus labels this sort of thing as downright Satanic.  

Of course, in the context of scripture, Peter was attempting to sidetrack Jesus' mission, which is something from Satan's bag of tricks. However, moving the verse into today, how many times do we sidetrack God's agenda by our actions?  Cut off that guy in traffic? Rude to the salesperson on the phone?  We've all done it. Yet, how many times has God been blocked from moving because of our selfish actions? It sort of comes natural to us to act this way.

Thing is, that's the problem. Doing what comes natural should not be the modus operandi of the Christian. Yet too often that's exactly what we do. What we should be doing is taking up our cross -- taking up God's way of doing things -- on a daily basis.

I can't pretend that I've mastered this. Far from it. After almost 25 years of being a Christian, I feel like I'm barely comprehending the everyday application of these verses.

The folks over at Project Hopeful (a great ministry which deals with adoption of HIV+ and other special needs orphans) have a t-shirt slogan "It's not about me".  I'm starting to understand what that statement means.

-- Bob

So we both thought about starting a Blog on the same day---hum

It's funny how Bob and I think alike.  Really it is God leading us.  So we both had it on our hearts to start a blog.  He likes to put thought provoking stuff on FB and I like to share pictures.  So we have a combo page.  Also, we want to share adoption stuff on here.

We want to encourage everyone to share this blog with friends and family.  Soon we will be starting to fundraise for adoption.  Yes that's right we are heading down that path again.  So exciting, Liv will make a great sister.