Summit VI and Happenings

I have several blog posts in the works right now but haven't been able to get any of them finished. I have been knee-deep in writing - and rewriting - a grant proposal for the orphan care ministry we started here in our community last year. I submitted it today and we are praying that if it is God's will that we will receive funding that will allow us to do even more to advocate for orphans and provide support to local adoptive families. I've been wanting to write an entire blog post on what we are doing - or rather, what God is doing - in our ministry. We've had some great events recently and have had over 70 people join our group on Facebook. We have some really great things in the works in the months ahead to raise orphan awarness, provide adoption information and help raise money to support orphaned children. I've been knee-deep in these upcoming projects too and am excited about what the future holds. More to come on that when I can find some time to explain what we've been up to! We are also excited to be heading out to Minneapolis in just about a month for the Christian Alliance for Orphans national summit. If you will be there, let us know! We'd love to meet some of our cyber friends in person.

It's strange to be "excited" about going to this event given that the only reason this conference is going on is because there is a global orphan crisis right now - one that has evolved as a result of injustice, poverty and disease, none of which are cause for celebration. Given that, it almost seems wrong to feel excited about going but I can't say I'm not thrilled about the chance to learn so much and be empowered in our ministry. Hopefully, if all of us do our part, there won't be conferences like this several decades from now because our work will be done. As we say in our ministry, we must keep on working "until there are no more orphans".

So as you can see, we've been busy around here. But what else is new? Lately, we've enjoyed...

spending time with Grammie and Papa who flew in from out of town to celebrate the girls' dedication with us;

taking a trip to a local farm where we got to hold baby chicks, milk a goat and try homemade goat milk ice cream (AMAZING!);



learning to fly a kite with Daddy;


hanging out with friends on sunny days;


getting a first pedicure - thanks to Gammy's friend who painted those sweet little toes for free (the Big Bear picked the brightest shade of orange you can imagine!);


and getting cool new shirts in the mail.


Have you seen these? If not, check out Lobsters in the Rough. The girls there are so nice and have such fun products that support orphan care. I know I'm going to do my best to raise a global poverty slayer!