What this old lady does for fun

 So, when your Grandma decides, for her birthday, to give each of her grandchildren a generous monetary gift (so she can have the fun of reading the various thank you notes!), what do you decide to do with it? Well, I can tell you what *I* did! "Hey, Matt - do you think we could hire Korey and Kelley to sheetrock the entry and mudroom??" Oh yeah. But, really, I couldn't think of anything more fun than a pile of sheetrock in the driveway...

...that slowly (well, not that slowly!) turns into sheetrock on the walls and ceilings! We told them the budget we had to work with, and they were able to not only do the mudroom and entry, but also the entire ramp and garage. Matt will still need to do the taping, but they got an incredible amount of work done in a very short amount of time!

Up on stilts to easily get the ceiling over Thunder's stall

Working down the sloping ceiling over the small stall and onto the walls at the back. Notice that the BIG beam (the installation of which is still my favorite moment of the entire construction process!) is still visible. Sadly, it needs to be covered up for fireproofing reasons.

The little access hatch into the storage space above the big garage stall

The ramp (and bike storage on the other side of the half-wall)

And the interior spaces - now have walls! Not just insulation with vapor barrier/plastic stapled over it! That means that even if Matt doesn't have time to tape and mud and paint, we can still put up hooks for coats for the winter! Amazing!

And the view from the kitchen into the front entry. Still definitely under construction, but MUCH more inviting than it was (and I'll be able to get coat hooks up for guests, too, before coat season is in full swing!)

This was such a beautiful gift - thank you to Grandma, and thank you to the God who knows how to bring these little smiles to his children at just the right time.

God's provision

 So, every February our church has a retreat at our church camp in Iowa. It's a very well-attended event, with often roughly a hundred people from our church attending! Getting half of the congregation together for 48 straight hours is quite a feat!

We've been so grateful to the camp for letting us use the staff dining room as our bedroom. The dining hall itself is the central gathering place for the weekend, obviously for meals three times a day, but all of our worship and teaching sessions are also held there, as well as various board games, a silent auction, the Saturday night variety show, and the constant coming and going of people. So, for us to be able to set up "camp" in this central location makes a trip like this possible (whereas having to hike across gravel drives in February cold weather with Grandma, Mira (whose temperature tanks any time you take her outside), Krassimir, Bobbi, AND Reuben would be enough to keep us home!) Even Owen joins us for the weekend (though he stays with the single guys, and Leah and the girls stay in their own room in the main sleeping lodge as well.)

We really enjoy these concentrated times to spend with our favorite people, both in conversation *and* in playing together. Problem was Saturday morning *this* year, while playing "Awesome Ball" in the gym...Matt twisted his foot, and a visit to the tiny ER half an hour away revealed that he broke his foot!!

Yikes!!

(Note that last year one of the other dads ruptured his Achilles playing Awesome Ball. Fun.)

But Matt was in good company this year, as it wasn't just the old guys breaking stuff; Gavin (who helped on the garage last fall), broke* his foot, too, playing volleyball later in the day! *turns out it may not have been a break, but he also left the weekend on crutches.

My favorite photo from the weekend

ANYWAY, what does this have to do with God's provision? Well, I can tell you that as we were driving home (after many of the other men helping us to load all of our things and people into Thunder) Leah and I were both very grateful that, after the snow, we were driving up into a covered garage and that there was a ramp we could use to push people up into the house and that there was a flush entry to get from the new addition into the rest of the house! The timing of the completion of the functional part of the garage and of Matt's injury could not have coordinated at a better time. 

more about the Bobbette

 Four and a half years ago we took our little family on a trip up north to the North Shore of Lake Superior.

In the background is Split Rock lighthouse. In the foreground is our means for hiking with a non-mobile child.

Perched on a rock

At Gooseberry Falls (which is wheelchair accessible until you get right down by the falls themselves)

...at which point Dad can carry down the rest of the way.

Another method for carrying someone who is not yet mobile!

All of us outside of the hotel we stayed at, which is made from converted railcars!

 

We've been talking seriously for the last year about doing it again, but this time around, it's a little more complex. First of all, Krassi is bigger than he was four and a half years ago, and though we still do the "sack of potatoes" carry with him a lot, it's a little tougher now than it was...and Bobbi doesn't work as well that way! Tsvetomira can stay with Crescent Cove, but we wanted some way to have both Bobbi and Krassi be able to be involved with the active parts of our days if we made the effort to take a family trip!

So, we researched, and found this, which is pretty much amazing in pretty much every way: the Joelette.

But the price tag was a little (significantly!) steep for us, particularly because although we have three kids who could potentially use it (Bobbi, Krassi, and likely Reuben some day, too), it's not like we go hiking every weekend!! So, we thought, can we rent it from someone? Nope - closest we could find is in Colorado, and just wasn't feasible.

So, we researched some more and found this, which is not as amazing: (link here). But it has a much more accessible price tag. But would it be worth it for the cost? No foot rest, and, more significantly, would really require ALL carrying, and not have the benefit of the wheel to roll along and support weight during easier/smoother stretches of the hike.

Months passed, and then we remembered that we knew someone (distantly) who makes custom bicycles!!! So we thought, why not? We sent him an email asking if he thought he could rig something up with the more important features of the really nice vehicle with a price tag more reminiscent of the not so nice vehicle, and he said...yes!!!

His family passed through the Cities on their way to Wisconsin last week and left the in-process "Bobbette" as they've named it, with us to try out so he can make any last adjustments before powder coating it (in Bobbi's color of choice - espresso - like her beloved coffee!!)

It works SO WELL. It's so well balanced that when you're just running it along on the ground, both the front and the back person feel like the other must be doing all of the work because it's so easy to work with. He's got a great cushion incorporated in as well as a nice secure harness. The footrest needs a bit of adjustment, but otherwise, we can't really think of anything that needs to change! It's so perfect! (And he managed to figure out a way to get it to fold down small, which was a feature we said we didn't need to have, but because it DOES fold, we can take it in the back of Big Blue without needing to hook up the trailer or take Owen's pick up truck!)

It's so easy to use that even Rinnah is sufficient to be the front "sherpa" when we're going on fairly straightforward terrain.

Here we are this past weekend down by the Mississippi River at a hiking spot (Pike Island) we've enjoyed in the past...but not ever with Bobbi! We paused a bit to throw rocks, so Matt's just holding it on his own. There's an option to flip the wheel back so it can sit stable on four legs when we're stopping for any length of time, but it wasn't worth doing for this short pause.

Set up and take down is pretty quick.

We managed to do a lift over some driftwood at the shore, and even to go up a rough cut flight of stairs. There are two mini-handles on either side of the chair, too, so if we needed to we could easily have four (or up to six, if each person took one handle) people to lift and move if/when the terrain requires.

North Shore, here we come! We have reservations at the same hotel for the first week of June, and we're really looking forward to an adventure. We're bringing Rose and her husband along, as well as our adult niece (and her two-year-old) to stay with Grandma who can't really be left alone anymore, and the girls' best friend, Hope, who we consider to be our seventh daughter. And probably our nephew (Owen and Krassi's age), because even though he's not really into hiking, he and Owen will enjoy the time together, and we've got the rest of the family anyway! (The two of them are our kids' only cousins on Matt's side.)

Go ahead and check out Randy's web page (click on his logo below for the link) - he's the one creating and fashioning the Bobbette for us!

Excess and Comfort

I'm trying to clean the house up a bit (a lot?) before school starts next month. Partly that's because I always like to have things more in order before school, partly it's because I'm really going to need things in order before school starts because I'm guaranteed to have a lot more going on this fall than I'm used to during the school year and that leads into the last part which is that since we don't know what our public school district is going to be doing in five weeks when they start (later than usual start date), I don't quite know how to plan what my home schooled kids' schedules are going to be like! But that's all kind of beside the point. The point is, I'm cleaning.

See?

Oh. That doesn't look clean to you? (Hi, Mira!) Well, I'm only half-way there - give me another week. It looked worse last week! Let's try the kitchen island. Matt and I worked together and got that done over the weekend:

Wait. That doesn't look clean to you, either? Well, let's just say it does to me! Because I only see things that are EASY to put away or that will be gone by the end of the day (fresh sour dough bread doesn't last long around here!)

And while I was cleaning, I found a birthday card from my grandparents with my birthday check still inside of it.

Once again, the incredible degree of abundance that so many of us live with struck me. Here's a check for $100 and we're so provided for that I can forget it's there!! Sitting there in my hand was a piece of paper worth more than a month's worth of living expenses for at least one-fourth of the population of the world, and its temporary absence in our household wasn't even noticed!! That's coming from a large family that lives only a moderate percentage above what is considered "poverty" in the United States (as per the federal guidelines.) We try regularly to talk with our children about the incredible abundance that we have, and that God has not given us this abundance to make ourselves comfortable.

Someday we will all have to stand before God and give an account for what we have done with what we had during our lifetime. I think often of his injunction to us to love him with all of our heart and all of our mind and all of our soul and all of our strength. Bobbi and I in particular will regularly talk about how we could put the emphasis in a different place as well. We are to love him with all of our strength, with all of our heart. I'm not to love with your strength or your mind, and you are not to love with my heart or my soul. We are only accountable for what we do with what we do have.

So today I just want to encourage you to look at what you DO have and think about how you are using it. Part of the reason that I have so much house-cleaning/sorting/tidying to do is because of the abundance of possessions that we have in our family. Really - look at all of the food sitting just on that island counter!

We have a command from Jesus - a simple command, really:

Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. (Luke 6:30, and again in Matthew 5)

Lili has asked all of us for help, and we (Matt and I) are being her voice through the venue of this blog because on her own, she has no way to ask you. And we are so grateful to those of you who have already shared (and I know there are still some of you who have told me that you will be mailing a check, so I know that number on the right is not done going up - but it does include something that showed up in the mail today as well as my birthday present!), but I also want to recognize that the needs in this world are so immense that helping Lili is just a drop in the bucket. SO many needs. A family that our church helps to support as they have given up everything they had here to invest in unreached people in India was back in town a few weeks ago because they, as "tourists" instead of "missionaries" were not allowed to stay when everything closed down. They gathered with some of us for Sunday lunch (outside!) to share about what they'd been seeing and doing, and one thing they mentioned has been chillingly in my head ever since. A few weeks after they left, they received an email from a man they'd been working closely with during their time there, and he included a picture that he'd taken of the street where day laborers were hanging outside their homes after committing suicide because they were faced with the choice of that or starvation. If you're a day laborer and you're told to "Shelter at Home," every day that you do that is a day you (and your family) don't eat. The current crisis in this world is so incredibly huge that not a single one of us can be more than just a drop in the bucket. In some ways, that's freeing, though, isn't it? Because (in line with his command to love him with all of our strength and not all of someone else's), Jesus' command in Luke is not "solve the problem of world hunger" or "eliminate poverty" (both of which are impossible for any of us - worthy goals, yes, but possible for me to do? No) but rather "give to everyone who asks of you." Not one of us can, even if we're trying, hear all of them, but the ones that we CAN hear, those are the ones we're responsible for what we choose to do.

So that's where I want to leave you (and me!) Are you (am I?) using the resources that you (I!) do have to obey Jesus for the people that you (we) can hear asking for help. Because that's all that we're asked to do.

[Two links I want to include here: first is for a short article about the verse above that I really appreciate. Second is a link for an organization that our friends who were in India recommended as an organization that is able to effectively get funds into India to be used to buy food for families who are struggling to an even greater degree than normal. Because I know Lili is only one of many, many people who are begging for help right now. *You* know where God is telling you to give. Go ahead and do it!]

Thank you!

It has been so encouraging to us to see those of you sharing with Lili! We had no idea what to expect when we started this. So far we've had six people with a whole range of dollar amounts, totaling up to the $4565.56 that you see in the side bar! (Side comment from a number nerd - what a fun number to type! All those repeating digits...)

As I was talking a bit about Lili tonight with Evania (6) and Gloria (4.5) before going to sleep, Evania commented that it reminded her of Jesus' commentary on the widow and the rich man giving in the temple. I agreed with her. The dollar amount isn't so much what matters as the heart behind the giving. As we prayed, Gloria asked God to give Lili the money she needs so she can have a place to live. (So some of the details are missing, but explaining debt is complicated, so that's what she pulled out of it!) Then she asked me where God gets his money! I love talking about this stuff with them. I told her that one way he moves his money around is by talking to his people - when we love him, we love and care about the things/people that he loves and cares about, and because we love him more than our money, we are happy to give where he wants us to give.

The amount that Lili needs to be completely debt free is significant. I don't know that we're going to get there, even with what has been given so far, but that again is God's deal. As any of you are praying over this, would you please pray with us and for us that we would be able to communicate clearly with Lili about what is going on here. Yes, we want her to have her needs met here by the closest thing she may have to a family surrounding her, but as I was thinking today, there are so many places where Paul especially talks about our relationship with God as one of adoption. It is too late for Lili to be adopted by an earthly family, but there is a Father for whom it is NOT too late for her to be adopted. Your giving is giving us a very practical opportunity through which to share with Lili the hope that is offered, not only for this life, but for eternity.

Lifetime orphan

When we adopted Bobbi, she was at the very end of the window of eligibility for adoption. Every country's limits are different. Some make the cut-off as early as 14 years. Some, like Bulgaria, allow the commitment documents that begin the adoption process to be submitted up until the day they are sixteen years old. When we first met Bobbi a few months before she turned sixteen one of the things we told her is that our adopting her meant that she would be our daughter for life - "family" isn't just something she would have until she was a legal adult at age eighteen. We told her that she would be provided for and cared for, and that for any child that was born to us, we intended to spend at least eighteen years ensuring they had a safe place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear, and that she was no exception.

Hard to believe this was almost four years ago!

Being adopted means that you are not just no longer a child with no parents, you are no longer a person with no family. Because, for better or for worse, a family is something that you have for life! And children don't stop needing their parents just because they're 18 (or 30 or 40!) and parents don't stop caring for their kids when their children reach legal adulthood.

On the flip side, though, NOT being adopted means that you are not only a child with no parents, but are destined to be a person without a family...for life. Once these kids hit fourteen or sixteen, or whatever the cut off is, they are, for the rest of their lives, orphans. Orphans aren't just cute (or not-so-cute!) little kids. Orphans come in all shapes and sizes and ages and races.

I remember having a phone call with Toni, our adoption lawyer, a few months after Bobbi came home. There were a couple things we wanted to chat about, but one thing that was heavy on my mind was the other young adults living in Bobbi's home. I knew that in the past at age 18 they were either sent off to make their own way in the world, or, in the case of a more significant handicap (either mental or physical), they would be transferred to an adult mental institution. We learned from her that with some of the reforms happening in the system that included the new smaller scale group homes that Bobbi had been living in, some of the children would have the ability to stay there for a few more years of transition into young-adulthood. But the reality of the statistics was sobering: of the young women who "graduated" from state care, 70% end up living a life of prostitution. Of the young men, a slightly higher percentage end up in jail. It's not a pretty picture.

And really, how could it be? For those of you who have kids or have parents who cared at all for you, think about how much time and effort parents put into preparing their kids for life? They encourage them in their education, they help them think about and plan for the future, they help them get their first jobs, learn how to manage money and manage a household. Your family is where you first learn to trust and what it is to love and be loved. Yes, some parents/families do a better job than others, but as a general rule, this is a big part of what parents do. And after you move out at eighteen (or later!) your parents are still there for you.

Born six months after we brought Krassimir home, every interaction we had with Evania carried with it a depth of importance that I hadn't really thought about with my other birth-kids. There's serious life-preparation going on here! (Besides that photo being a serious old-timer! I think Owen's only nine years old there!)

To put it bluntly, the post-communist type orphanage system is NOT one that excels at raising kids in a way that prepares them for adulthood, and there's nothing like putting an unprepared eighteen year old kid out on the streets with a small chunk of cash to make a recipe for hopelessness!!! Suddenly they're out there, with no experience, no support system, no one to turn to if things are rough. If you add to that the additional complications of attachment disorders, institutional delays, institutional behaviors, it's pretty much guaranteed to be a disaster.

We have a friend named Lili who I introduced briefly a few days ago. She is roughly my age. She was abandoned by her parents to a Bulgarian institution at birth. She has limb differences (she wears a prosthetic leg and has abnormal digits on her hands), but is able to get around independently despite her odd gait. She always has a smile on her face. She loves animals - dogs, pigeons, cats - you name it! She is Roma, which, if you know anything about Bulgarian culture, is in itself a tremendous disadvantage. (Here's a current article outlining a bit of the discrimination the Roma people experience - you can find many more if you're interested.) She was, and still is, and always will be, an orphan.

After growing up in the same orphanage that Bobbi spent most of her years in, Lili hit that magic age of eighteen, but by some stroke of luck was allowed to stay as one of the staff at the orphanage helping to care for the younger children. Bobbi has quite early memories of Lili working with her and the other kids. Lili is the one that Bobbi credits with teaching her how to read.

At some point along the way, Lili's time at the orphanage came to an end, and she made her way to Sofia where she found a job working as a preschool teacher for Roma children. However, she also found "friends" who got her into situations where she made foolish mistakes that ended her up in a huge pile of debt. They used her, and then they left her. So now she's alone, friendless, and with substantial debt looming over her that she doesn't know how she will ever escape. She's got so many counts against her, and nobody to turn to!

She is one of the caregivers that Bobbi connected with on facebook after coming home, and about a year and a half ago, she kind of poured out her heart and her troubles to Bobbi (which I would agree, yes, is not the appropriate channel to do so, but what were her options?) and through an interesting turn of events, we arranged to start sending her a small chunk of money each month so she could rent a tiny apartment. She had been homeless for some time, living at the school where she'd been teaching, and living in constant fear that she would be found out and kicked out. Because she's got these loans against her, the bank skims off most of what she gets from her small paycheck, leaving her in a truly hopeless situation.

When this first came to our attention, we weren't sure what to do. It sounded like a classic take-advantage-of-the-rich-Americans kind of scheme, and yet...the plight of orphans is one that has long captured our attention - a calling that God has put on our lives because HE is a God who cares about widows and orphans, and he is also the one who has told us to give to those who ask (Matthew 5:24). She told us roughly how much she thought she would need for rent each month; we told her we would find a way to get that to her each month. She did some more looking, and guess what - rent was actually going to be about a third again as much as she'd originally told us AND she needed a chunk extra for a signing fee. And, oh yes, a bit more for a hot water heater for the bathroom. Boy did we feel like we were just maybe being taken! But you know what, we decided that was God's deal, and we were going to continue moving forward with it. Would you believe that very week we got a letter from our health insurance company telling us that our premiums for the upcoming year were going to be about the amount Lili needed less than the current year? Have you EVER heard of such a thing from an insurance company??? Nope. Me neither. And so onward we went, knowing that the next year's premiums would probably more than make up for this decrease, but not missing the timing of these two events right now.

Last summer when we made our trip to Bulgaria, Lili offered to let us stay in her apartment for the days that we were in Sofia. We agreed to do so for some of our stay, knowing that she would want us to, and also enjoying the experience of NOT being in a hotel. (We've had a few travel opportunities when we've gotten to do that in the past - a classmate's uncle let six of us crash at his house during a three-day field trip to Chicago when we were in graduate school, or a visit to my sister's when she and her husband lived in Amsterdam.) We enjoyed our time with Lili so much. She was so proud to show us around her tiny apartment, and she made a point of showing us the hot water unit in the bathroom!

She joined us on some of our exploring excursions, showing us some of her favorite places to spend her days and just chatting happily with Bobbi (because her English is about as limited as our Bulgarian!) She wouldn't let us do *anything* for her - not even treat her to a snacky breakfast sandwich at the little outdoor vendor across the street. (A sausage/bread concoction was the equivalent of about $0.75. She wouldn't take it. But she DID happily take Bobbi's leftovers later to feed to the local pigeons in her favorite park area!) We told her we wanted to have her join us for dinner on our last night, and had a time and place all set...and then she messaged Bobbi a few hours before and told her that she wasn't feeling well with an upset stomach and had to cancel. I'm sure it was just too hard for her to accept anything else from us, and that she had no concept of how little it would cost to treat her to something special.

I love this dear woman. I admire her so much. The way she toughs through her disability with a constant smile on her face, the gentleness and concern she shows for the animals living in her city, the delight with which she talks about the children she works with. But she is heavily burdened by the weight of the debt she's under, and even though through us she's provided with the basic necessity of a place to live, she longs to live free. A few weeks ago she unburdened her worries onto Bobbi again and asked her to ask us if we knew of any way to help her. I've been messaging directly with her via facebook (and the infamous google translate) and gotten details on her loans - she's got three different loans against her, two to two different banks, and one to an individual. Our hope was that we could perhaps use the money we've been saving up for the garage next summer to help her get back to ground zero and push our project out another year, but honestly, what we have saved is not enough. In some ways I'm glad, because it means that we, too, are left leaning on God to solve this problem, if he so chooses.

So I'm going to do something on this blog that we have not been comfortable doing for ourselves. I'm going to ask you who are reading if helping this woman is something God would have you do. I really don't think I've currently got enough readers that even with your help we're going to erase her debt entirely, but wouldn't it be amazing if she could get a small sense of what it is to be part of a family and know what it is to have a group of people rally around her to help her out?

She shared something with me this morning [well, the morning I started this post!] that I'm going to (via the aforementioned infamous google translate, so bear with some of the awkwardness) share with you:

"Hello, dear dear family! I want to THANK you again for everything you do for me and for my existence in the big city of Sofia. I grew up in an institution without parents since I was a child and I had not prepared myself for the real reality of life, despite my advanced age and long years of loneliness and only loneliness. I made mistakes in my life that I want to correct and be filled again with a smile on my face...I haven't received a clean salary for a very long time because I have a loan...I want to be independent and not have any loans and credits. To pay rent and everything - electricity, water, food..."

She continued, sharing her dreams of someday being a wife and mother, and living a responsible life. But she feels trapped by the despair of the weight of this debt that is over her and she has no way of paying it back. On her meager salary (and I don't believe she's able to be working at all now with the pandemic, which I'm guessing is why this is coming to a head again with her), her debt is slowly growing as she just does not have the means to pay it back, so she sees no way out. So much in her note from this morning grabs me. First of all, her "I had not prepared myself for the real reality of life." I read that and I think, first of all, I admire the way she takes full responsibility for where she's at. She's not blaming those who took advantage of her. And second of all I think, we humans weren't designed to have to prepare ourselves for the reality of life - we were designed to have families to help us with that! And communist-era Eastern European institutions have never been known for their great skills in preparing handicapped, ethnically persecuted children with the tools they need to be successful in life! And the loneliness - I have blogged only tangentially and superficially about the ugliness of what abandonment and neglect does to a baby, toddler, young child, teenager because I don't want to dump all of Bobbi's junk out on the internet for everyone to see, but let me tell you it is UGLY what it does to a human being to grow up without someone to love them!!! It damages so many fundamental things about what it is to relate to those around you - who to trust and how to trust and even the ability to trust, and then, as in Lili's case, she tried to trust - wanted to trust, wanted to love, but with no skills whatsoever, got burned, and everything nasty that you've ever believed about your own unworthiness and unloveableness gets thrown back in your face. Lili amazes me with her ability to keep on, to NOT be afraid to dream, and that's why I'm going to use this connection that I have with those of you who read this blog to ask: would you be willing to share some of what you have been given to make a difference in the life of this orphan for whom it's too late to have a "real" family, but to whom we have been given the opportunity to be a family to her?

Matt and Bobbi with Lili last summer as we were leaving Lili's apartment for the last time. Yes, this is the apartment on the seventh floor with the elevator that sometimes works...and sometimes doesn't. YOU try walking up seven flights of stairs with a prosthetic leg! Lili is amazing.

Walking through Lili's favorite Dog Park by the European Union building.

As we've mulled this over for the last few weeks, we've decided to not go with a formal fund-raising platform. In the spirit of being family I'd rather go about it in a more personal way and through that avoid the fees associated with using internet fund raisers. Please see her, and ask if this is something you are supposed to be doing. If you want to help her out and have our address, you can send a check, or drop something off at our house. You can use paypal (glewwes at gmail dot com). If you don't have our address, but would prefer that method, send me an email. Matt and I were able to send enough extra with our last transfer to her to pay off the smallest of the three loans and part of what she owes the individual. Whatever we collect between now and the end of August I will send to her at that point when we send her rent.

The pain and loneliness of being an orphan doesn't stop when you turn eighteen. We have a chance to do something about it for this one! Will you help us be Lili's "family"?

Whirlwind

It's been a crazy few days with all sorts of things happening, not necessarily in the most sensible order, but kind of all in a jumble all at once!

Thought you might be interested in seeing what's been going on:

First, Bobbi was on the local news Tuesday night.

That prompted a GoFundMe page as a quick way to handle all of the interest the story generated - which is nuts to me - we still don't know if insurance will cover the chair or not - it very well might! But we don't know, and even with that "maybe we won't need any help at all" built into it, we still had a seriously overwhelming response.

And, though I'm not posting this here asking for donations (which is why I didn't post it when we first put it up! That's not what I intend my blog to be for!) I thought that all of you who care about what's going on in our family ought to know what's been going on!!

More later, hopefully, but didn't want to wait too long.

Wheelchair thief (?)

Well, we don't know if it was malicious or innocent, but someone stole Bobbi's wheelchair from where it was waiting at the bottom of the driveway while she was walking with Rose on the path yesterday!!!

It's like having your legs stolen! Now that she doesn't crawl since her surgery, the chair is how she gets around. We still have her old chair from Bulgaria, but it's very limiting for her mobility, particularly in the fact that it doesn't fit into her bedroom!!!

Besides the fact that her little bag that hangs on the front is kind of like her purse - all of her favorite chapstick are in there, a few other personal items, and her wallet...with her state ID in it. This is part of why we're thinking it's increasingly unlikely that whoever took it did so thinking it was "free" at the side of the road. You'd think that once they got it home and saw that it had bag(s) with personal items in it that it wasn't intended to be taken. It also wasn't by the curb, but was on our driveway on our side of the walking trail. And, seriously - not that far away was a young woman walking with a walker with her PCA next to her!! Ummmmm.

She's handling it quite well. We'll see how that continues once the novelty wears off.

In the meantime, we've contacted the police, so they've got their eyes open, and we're checking craigslist, and, the most exciting part is that the local new station came out this morning to interview Bobbi and Matt, and she'll be on television this afternoon!!
 

Down at the "scene of the crime", Dad and Bobbi talking into the camera with the reporter.

So, if any of you see this chair, let us know!!!

In the meantime, we're already in process to see if our insurance will cover a replacement chair. Not sure how or when all that will pan out. We sure would just like to find HER chair! And her chapstick.

What is the greatest need?

Leah, Bobbi, Rinnah, and I (oh, and Eben, too!) got to go to Joyful Noise, a local Christian music festival. We only had tickets for one of the two days, but that was plenty. Bobbi got in free as a "graduating senior" and Eben did, too. (Well, got in free, that is. NOT as a graduating senior!) We got another free ticket through Hope Kids, and that made the day as a whole a relatively cost-effective "girls' day out" excursion.

Bobbi has noticed that being in a wheelchair makes you stick out, and as a result, we sometimes get to meet a variety of new people at events like this!

In particular, Bobbi had two different people ask to pray for her over the course of the day. Their dramatically different perspectives got me thinking. But first, I think, I want to share this from Mark 2:1-12.

And when [Jesus] returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home.  And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them.  And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.  And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay.  And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”  Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts,  “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”  And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts?  Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’?  But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic—  “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.”  And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

Here's what always gets me about this encounter: Jesus looks at that man and sees that this man has a big problem - and it's one that he can fix. What is the problem he sees?? Well, this man has sin in his life that, left unforgiven, is going to have seriously negative and long lasting (eternal!) consequences! And there's not a single thing that poor man, or anyone else, for that matter, can do about it! Jesus looks at that man lying before him, does a triage of the situation, and heads straight for the main deal. Son, your sins are forgiven.

Now right off hand, I'm guessing that isn't what his friends were thinking about when they brought their friend to Jesus for help. We know it wasn't what those standing around were anticipating, either. But it IS what Jesus saw as this man's greatest need, and the one that he addressed first. The healing of his paralysis? That wasn't so much for the man himself (though he certainly was glad for it, I would guess!) as it was for those standing around watching. Jesus tells us that the reason that man was healed physically was so that we may know that Jesus really does have the authority to take care of our real problem.

So, then, let's circle back to our day at the concert. We chatted with a variety of people over the course of the day. Two of those encounters involved someone asking if they could pray for Bobbi. What happened in each of those encounters provided a striking contrast, and, I think, one that could inform the way we pray for the people around us.

The first went like this: With the motley crew of concert goers in our little party...

Newboys United cardboard cutouts!

...a graduating senior, a fledgling almost-teenager, a solid elementary schooler, and an under-one. Oh yes, and a 40-year-old mother, too, so we had a variety of different concert-enjoying preferences. We started out the day up in the bleachers, but as the day moved on and the concerts became more engaging to our older two, moving closer in to the action was an engaging option. We used the 30-40 minutes between concert when people were moving around to get Bobbi a spot RIGHT up next to the fence in the "standing only" section, and that's where she stayed for the rest of the night! Rinnah, Eben, and I went back up to the bleachers, and Leah alternated back and forth. Between sets we'd all congregate together by Bobbi, and that's where we had our first conversation.

A man, maybe in his early 50s, meandered over, introduced himself, and we started chatting a bit. He was there with his family, and enjoying the down time to meet new people. He'd recently quit his job to go back to school to become a pastor. A few minutes in, he asked Bobbi if he could pray for her specifically, and for us as her family in general. And I loved this: so simple, but he asked her what he could pray for. Her answer? Right on - she was nervous about starting her new job (nine days until her first day) - her first job ever!! She asked him to pray about her tendency toward anger, and a few other things. We prayed together, chatted a few minutes, and then he rejoined his wife and daughter as we got settled in to prepare for the next concert.

The second encounter happened as we were making our way out to the van after the concert. Eben finally fell asleep about an hour into the Newboys' concert and was completely, totally zonked out in the baby carrier. Rinnah and I found Bobbi and Leah, and began the arduous task of pushing the wheelchair across the astroturf. If you've never tried this, you don't know what you're missing! We were joined by another family, and the dad muscled her across the field for me. Right after we made it onto the dirt and started getting close to the gate, we were approached by another person. This man came to me, asked if he could pray for Bobbi, and I gestured her way - she can answer for herself! Without any more conversation, he asked her why she was in the wheelchair, she answered "cerebral palsy" and he begins praying that her cerebral palsy would go away. She gave me a patient, slightly amused smile (how that girl has matured!), then he gave her a pat on the shoulder and he was gone into the crowd.

I can't help but think of these two well-meaning men in the context of the Man, Jesus. What is Bobbi's greatest need? Where does SHE know that she needs the most help? She knows: it's not her legs. Yes, it would be great to be able to walk, and to use her arms, but when someone took the time to ask her, she knows that her greatest need is not outward, but inward.

So I write this as a reminder to me, and also to anyone listening: let us not presume to know more than we do. Let us not get so distracted by the outward appearance of things that we miss the true heart of the matter. Let's not forget that we serve a God who does heal the sick and the broken in spirit and in body, but let us also remember that when he was here on this earth, he did not leave the whole region of Galilee free of all disease, blindness, lameness, you-name-your-disability, but he did leave the whole region and the whole world both then and now with a way out of the biggest problem any one of us faces, and that, I hope, ought to help us appropriately triage the situations that face us every day. Don't neglect the small problems, but don't confuse them with the Big one.

Oh, and I should mention, too, that one of the perks of being right up front is you can share your bag of kettle corn with Matthew West!

What seizures?

You know what the very scariest part about Mira's diagnosis was for us when we first thought we were hearing God directing us toward pursuing adopting her as our daughter?

Epilepsy.

Yes, we had experience with epilepsy with Reuben, and that was enough to know that the thought of having two children with uncontrolled seizure disorders was more than a little daunting. Even before the girls came home, we had a busy household - six children with one on the way, and of those, two (Reuben and Krassi) with various significant medical needs. We were already caring for Matt's diabetic mother, helping her manage her medications four times a day, and we always said that having the variety of different needs made it manageable. Grandma's meds were regular, Reuben's seizures were high-need when they happened, but in between posed no extras. Little people needed all sorts of diapers, but none of those were (usually!) immediate crisis situations.

But the thought of TWO children with epilepsy? That was scary. Could we handle it?

Tonight as I was filling Mira's meds for the next 24 hours, I was reflecting on her seizures. Wait a minute - what seizures??? In all the time that she's been with us, she has not had a single seizure. Not a single one. When we picked her up from her orphanage she was on two pretty heavy seizure meds. One of them we eliminated that week in Bulgaria because one of its side effects was hyponatremia (low sodium levels), which in itself can cause seizures even in people without epilepsy. When we got to the States and she was hospitalized, they added in a new second anti-seizure medication - one with very minimal side effects (keppra). Over the course of time, we weaned her off the other one she'd been on in Bulgaria (coincidentally one of the ones that Reuben takes), and having STILL seen no seizures after a year, we began four months ago weaning her off the remaining drug. She currently takes only 1 ml twice a day.

To anyone reading who may be considering adoption, what are you afraid of? Seizures? Scary medical diagnoses?? Do not be afraid. Much of what you are afraid of is going to end up being non-issues. Much of the challenge of raising and loving the child that will become your own may come from things that you never even imagined (and if you had, might have even been scarier than the things you knew about!) Be prepared for the expected, for the unexpected, but mostly, be prepared by building up your dependence on the one who says,

Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. - Isaiah 41:10

 Because seizures are scary.

And so very worth it. This boy is so incredibly precious to us. Without any hesitation, I would take a life with him and his seizures than the other way around.

Even without seizures, Mira's got plenty of other challenges, but I am every day grateful that we didn't let our fear of seizures keep us from making her ours. Here's Eben demonstrating once again that touching her does not cause seizures!

If you think God is telling you to do something that's scary, there's really only one thing to be concerned about: know that it is His voice that you are hearing, and then DO IT!! He has never promised an easy road (in fact, quite the opposite), but he has promised to be with us, that he will never leave us, and in that case, the only really foolish thing to do is refuse to believe him, and let my fear trump his promises.

Two Years

Tonight we celebrated, at Bobbi's request, with barbeque potato chips, Coca-cola, and Brookside's dark chocolate pomegranate candy. I know some adoptive families make "Gotcha-Day" a big deal, but I guess for us those days in Sofia between Gotcha-Day and Homecoming Day for both of our adoption trips are such a surreal sort of twilight zone, that it's the actual coming home that makes it really seem real.

I'm hoping to put together some sort of update on how both of the girls are doing, but since I don't want to miss the actual day, will instead just share this: *only* two years later than I had hoped, I have completed Bobbi's quilt! I was able to have it ready and waiting on her bed when she and Daddy got back from this afternoon's physical therapy session. This is what I'd hoped to have waiting for her when she arrived home two years ago:

Though, as I look at this photo now, it's all the little bits and pieces that she has added to the room that really make the picture smile - the shelf in the upper right corner is full of Bobbi's stuffed animals, both from Bulgaria and ones she's acquired since. On the lower left is the Superman backing of the quilt that she and I made together that she showed at the Fair last year. On the walls are the picture of Aslan we gave her last Christmas, and some of the coloring pictures she's done that we've framed. On the bed is the flannel Batman pillowcase Owen sewed for her, in the windows the Superman toy she picked out for herself during her first visit to Target, and a Santa face she brought from Bulgaria that lives in the window year-round. The walls! Vivid blue! In two tones (the north and south walls are darker than the east and west walls) that she picked out on her own. It's a room that's well-lived-in, and has taken on the personality of the young woman that it belongs to. We're so glad she's here.

Mira's quilt is still pending. :) Once I finally got the backing picked out for Bobbi's, I put Mira's completely on hold. All in good time.

These last two years have been the longest-sustained period of challenging times that either Matt or I have lived through. With every other life change that we've gone through - the birth or adoption of children, the death of Matt's Dad, projects like the big addition, major medical diagnosis (Reuben's epilepsy), even things like going through graduate school together, or starting our business(es) together - things have been difficult for a period of time, and then kind of settle in to a new normal where there's regular breathing room. We're still waiting for that reprieve here: that time to stop and catch our breath, but are beginning to wonder if it's going to come. We end most of our days together (when we get the luxury of ending the day in the same bed, which has not been nearly as frequent as we would hope over the last four months in particular!) reflecting on how crazy this life is, but simultaneously, how good it is. It's not at all what either one of us pictured, but it is without a doubt the one that God has prepared for us, and knowing that, we have the strength to keep walking.

For those who pray

I know we've got a wide range of people reading this blog. Without any details, this post is for those of you who believe and are praying us through these days.

There is some good stuff going on, and if you would pray tonight for God's protective hand to guard a certain situation through the night and the remainder of this stay, we would be grateful.

...so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. - Ephesians 3:10-12

Rehab: Day 5 (though it was only a half day...)

Last night our (very small) small group met for supper and Bible study like we've done on Friday nights for as long as Matt and I can remember. The group has shifted and changed over the years, but it seems like that Friday night slot has always been the best time - nothing going the next day means that we have the luxury of the time that we need.

We're going through Ephesians right now. We did a quick blitz through it at the end of the summer right before our dear friends, the Martins, moved three hours north of here, wanting to share with them what we knew we were going to be studying at a slower pace in the fall. I mention that because even after years of reading that Book, it never ceases to be fresh and new. We've gone through Ephesians many times over the past years, even reading part of this chapter (3) at our wedding, but last night I saw something that I've never seen before. Paul's been talking about the amazing mystery of how the Jews (his chosen people) and the Gentiles (everybody else) have been made into one new "man" through Jesus Christ. I'm not going to take the time tonight to go through everything we discussed last night because I need to get to bed, but am waiting for my phone to charge before I head up, but here's this, which I have honestly never seen before:

...so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. - Ephesians 3:10

A few things. First, this it is through the church that this thing is going to be displayed (and what thing? Well, the manifold wisdom of God!) and this church is one body made up of each one of God's people, Jew, Gentile - all of us. And to whom is his wisdom made known? This is the part I'd never noticed - it's made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places! The cosmic scale of this is mind-boggling to me. Through us, the church, acting as the church, through that God is showing not just other humans, but the invisible powers of the spiritual world, how very wise he is. This is big stuff, and he's doing it through his Church.

It makes the next few verses when he's talking about his suffering, and the boldness with which we can approach God in prayer make a bit more sense. It's also another reminder to me that every mundane piece of my every-day life is feeding into something beyond what I can even begin to imagine.

So, for anyone still reading, because I'm really shorting this, what in the world does this have to do with the title of this post?

Well, Bobbi had a good night, and it was great having Faith stay with her to give us a bit of reprieve. Faith left this morning after Bobbi went to her first therapy session, and my plan was to go down before she finished her sessions for the morning. I had to be back at the house no later than 2:00. As I was working out the day in my mind, waiting for Eben to wake up and nurse so I could leave, and wondering how Bobbi was going to tolerate the times she would have to be alone today, Rose (Krassi and Reuben's Rose) texted to see if sometime after 2 would be a good time for her to go visit Bobbi.

Um, yes!!! That leaves Bobbi with about an hour to herself. Perfect.

So Gloria and Eben and I got down there in time to spend about half an hour with Bobbi. She was having a tougher time - the things they're wanting her to do hurt, and it doesn't feel like she's making much progress. The session ended on a good note, though. Her therapist finally convinced her to do one minute of standing at the parallel bars. She managed to get her up to standing, and at the end of the minute asked if she could do more or if she was done. "I don't know," was her response. I smiled with pride at the internal battle I saw. "I don't know," is NOT, "No." It's more like, "I don't know if I can, but I want to, but don't know if I've got it in me." By that point, we'd made it another 30 seconds, and she decided on her own to go for three minutes. By the time we were done, she'd made it for SIXTEEN minutes!!!

Victory. On many counts.

Our friends, the Dunmires, told me earlier this week they wanted to bring some of Bobbi's favorite food to the hospital tonight. He stopped through our house to drop some (tons!) off for the rest of us before heading down to see Bobbi. Good. Someone to break up that part of her day, and do supper with her. Even there I was not missing the fact that through the simple actions of his Church, our daughter was being cared for.

Imagine my surprise when Matt finally called me a bit ago to touch in before bed, and he told me that Rose stayed until Doug got to the hospital, and Doug was still there when Matt got down to the hospital. All day long, and with Faith, Rose, and Doug, Bobbi had to spend less than an hour alone. They didn't plan that out together - each of them was just doing their own little part in their own weekends, but behold! the manifold wisdom of God.

And it's not just us who are witnessing it. Beautiful.

Rehab: Day 4...updated

Well, as they say, "All good things must come to an end."

I'm not going to say that we're really at the end, but today (starting last night) was a rough day for Bobbi. She's working crazy hard, with a very full schedule of things that are hard physically, don't always feel good physically, and are wrapped up with many emotional things that make it hard mentally as well. It also happens to be the day that Grandma had to go back to Wisconsin, which means that on her roughest day going into it, Bobbi also had to spend the most time alone that she's had to do all week.

Daddy got to go back down to spend the evening with her - he left about an hour ago. Hoping that puts a nice end to a long week. Tomorrow she has a half day of therapy, and then Saturday afternoon and Sunday off before starting up again on Monday.

Phew!

~~~

UPDATE:

Matt just emailed saying that Bobbi was in better spirits when he got there this evening. He found her chatting in her rolling stander at the desk of the Ronald McDonald house. My first thought is that she was there scoping for potato chips. [grin]

But the best news is that our friend, Faith, is going to be able to spend the night with Bobbi, so she doesn't have to be alone AND I don't have to be alone, here, either. So very good on so many counts.

Pure joy [Trials of various kinds]

 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5)

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith* produces steadfastness (James 1:2-3)

 *And what is faith? This faith that is spoken of is so far beyond the "I know that Jesus died for my sins" kind of thing, but is rather something much more foundational. See what it says in Hebrews:

...Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ... And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. ...For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one... (Hebrews 11:1, 6, 10:34)

Look at that part in the middle - without faith it's impossible to please him. And there are two facets of that called out in the words following: first, that you've got to believe that God is actually real - that he exists, as it says above, and then secondly, that he's got good things in store for those who are looking for him. (And we know from Jeremiah 29:13 and Deuteronomy 4:29, etc, that whole-hearted seeking results in finding him! So it doesn't just end with the looking/seeking...)

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18)

There's the reward again - something glorious is coming.

And I think, too, that on an even more basic level, faith means simply believing what he says. Okay, so that sounds kind of trivial and redundant when I type it, but if you really think about it, it's necessary, isn't it? You can't really believe that God is (God) if you don't really believe what he says. And look at what he says to us here through Paul.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.(Romans 8:28)

Do you believe that? "All things" either really means all things, or it doesn't. Either we believe him, or we don't. And if we believe him, then it really means that all things are for our good! All things! Easy things, hard things, boring things, exciting things, "bad" things, "good" things - everything!!

And then this is where it's really been hitting me lately. Check these out, if you are one who believes what he says to you:

...give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.(1 Thessalonians 5:18)

Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving...[and later in the chapter] ... giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father ... (Ephesians 5:4, 20a)

Giving thanks for what? For everything, and in all circumstances.

We've had some circumstances lately, I can tell you. Well, I won't actually tell you because some of these things do not fall under the purview of this blog, but the actual details don't matter as much as what our response to them ought to be. I can tell you this - they are included in the everything and all that are listed above. It's not easy. I'm finding, as God has made this more evident to me, that I am aware of how often, "Oh, bummer," or the likes finds its way across my lips. Does that sound like thanks-giving to you? Nope. Not to me, either. And in those words, I'm hearing from inside of me a lack of faith! On some instinctual level, I am NOT believing that all things are working out for my good, because if I believe that to the core, then Not A Single Thing in my life can be described as a bummer.

So I've been practicing this for the last few days, and man is it hard, and on the flip side, wow is it powerful. I'm in the basement switching laundry, and find there's a load already dry in the dryer, and I have no empty basket to carry it upstairs because there are already four baskets full of laundry waiting to be folded in the middle of the living room.  

Blog posts are better with pictures, right? Well, enjoy.

And what was my immediate response? Oh bummer. Oh. Wait. NO. This, too, is for my good. How? I don't have a clue. But if I choose to stand firm with the shield of faith protecting me and truth surrounding me, I have found that those moments are turned into awe and worship. Really, God? This, too - even this simple laundry basket situation - is something you are working out for my good?? Well, I can't wait to hear how that one plays out. You're pretty incredible.

Two more days until surgery. Bobbi has said that she's not nervous at all about the surgery...but she is nervous about the six weeks in a cast. I tend to agree with her. We are fully expecting the whole range of teenage emotions to come into play over the next six weeks, and are bracing ourselves for the impact. I have no doubt that there's a reason the last two weeks or so have been ones where God has brought these things from his word to my mind, through my own reading, through our small Bible study group. That, too, is no accident.

I don't have any guarantee that I will succeed, and certainly not at all times (as the laundry incident and countless others from even just the last few days will attest), but these are the marching orders from my Lord/commanding officer, and I have the chance to choose to count it all joy in the days ahead when my faith is going to be tested in this way. And what to do if (when!) I fall? Well, here's a snippet from the first music album I ever owned:

Lately I've been winning battles left and right
But even winners can get wounded in the fight
People say that I'm amazing
Strong beyond my years
But they don't see inside of me
I'm hiding all the tears

They don't know that I go running home when I fall down
They don't know who picks me up when no one is around
I drop my sword and cry for just a while
'Cause deep inside this armor
The warrior is a child (Twila Paris - The Warrior is a Child)

When I fall, I have Someone to pick me up and put me back on the path. I'm all over the place tonight. Look at this line from Psalm 23: He guides me in paths of righteousness. I don't have to find them myself. He puts me there, and I just have to walk in it.

Onward.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39)

[For those of you readers who are praying for us, this is how we are asking you to direct your prayers in the weeks ahead. Thank you!]