So you want to hear something REALLY crazy?

It appears that I will be leaving for Ghana in just two weeks. An opportunity for our ministry presented itself that we all agreed was one that God had obviously provided. I will be working with several local pastors serving in an orphanage of 25 kids, all orphaned as result of AIDS. We have been looking to develop a long-range collaborative relationship where we can support believers on the ground as they care for orphans in Africa. The connection we have made for this trip may allow us to do just that. We are also hoping that our ministry may be able to play a role in helping find forever families for these particular children. It is going to be a CRAZY push to make everything happen that needs to happen before I leave. Super Dad is going to hold down the fort in my absence along with help from Gammy and Poppa. Our family would so appreciate your prayers as we take what feels like a HUGE step of faith. Our team has been asked by the pastor we will be working with to bring vitamins for the children. I will be traveling with three amazing girls from another church in town. We are going to cram as many vitamins as we can into our suitcases. We will also be providing monetary support to help feed the kids as the orphanage is very poor. If you have a heart for African orphans, or perhaps Ghana in particular, and would like to send financial support along with me, you are welcome to do so. We will actually be purchasing the food when we get there and driving it TEN HOURS (ouch.) to the village, along with a medical team who will provide the children with deworming, medical care, etc. If you feel moved to donate, feel free to email me at the address here on the blog. I will happily post pictures upon my return to show how your money was a blessing.

Thanks in advance for your prayer support. It is much needed. I am not the most spontaneous person around (it take me 2 hours to pack for a weekend away - at my parents' house!) so just jumping on a plane to Africa is a stretch, but it is a door that we feel God has opened so we are stepping through it.

Still not sure how I'm going to manage not seeing these faces for a week...

"Camping" Part Deux: The Promised Slideshow

So I actually did it. Here is the promised slideshow for those of you who may find this remotely interesting. Please excuse the repeated clothing, bad hair and general disarray in these photos. Remember we are "camping". The girls got to see real snow (not the shave ice stuff that was delivered to the preschool for a California version of "snow day" last winter) along with A LOT of marmots at the top of one of the mountains we climbed (and I do mean "climbed" - up hill, with many -- many --switchbacks and a 34 pound kid needing to be carrying a good chunk of the way...made for a killer workout...next time your spouse asks if you really need two hiking backpacks, the answer is yes). Inspite of a grueling climb, the snowball fight at the top was very worth it. We also spent the best $14 of our lives on a rope swing that we tied up to a rafter on the deck (they are on sale at Target now for $10 - go get one!). The little ladies LOVED this and when they weren't rolling around in the dirt (and I do mean this literally where Little Bear is concerned), torturing the critters in their bug boxes, or smearing sticky marshmellow mush on Mommy's sweatshirt, they were often to be found recreating scenes from Tarzan on their swing. The girls also got to dip their Barbie fishing poles into the water for the first time. I can't really see Barbie fishing but apparently she does that too these days now that she has quasi-normal feet. All in all, good times were had by all. Thanks to Uncle Ray who was kind enough to entertain Junia on mornings she got up WAY TOO EARLY. We somehow managed not to hear her (see previous post about exhaustion) and he was good enough to take Big Bear on a brisk morning walk around the camp in the wee hours in her striped jammies, bright orange crocs and poofy pink down jacket. He also put his fine motor skills to work coloring Dora the Explorer. Pays to have a doctor in tow who is used to early morning rounds, especially one who excels in both orthopedic surgery and coloring.

"Camping"

We set off on a grand family adventure over long holiday weekend taking the girls up to the mountains for our second annual 4th of July family "camping" trip with some dear family friends. (Ok, so we were in a cabin with a flush toilet but still...) We had a wonderful relaxing time. It's hard to believe we are starting to have "second annual" events with our little ladies. How time flies when you are having fun (or really exhausted all the time - sometimes we are not sure which is operating in our case). I had grand visions of catching up on my blogging given that we were supposed to have wifi on the deck at our "camp site". Sadly, the wifi was down last weekend so I continue to find myself further and further behind in my blogging life, having had numerous funny, serious, silly and sad posts rattling around in my head for weeks. I am realizing that you have to choose your platform to advocate for orphans. There are those who have amazing influential voices here in the blog world and there are others who are working outside of the virtual domain on so many orphan projects that we find our blogging personas becoming more and more ephemeral. There are also those Incredibles who somehow manage to do both. For my part, I just can't seem to effectively straddle the demands of the virtual and the "real" these days. I miss you, Sweet Blog. Maybe someday I will come back here and stay awhile. For now, here are just a few pics from our trip. Slideshow to follow...




(How stoked is my entire family - Grizzley Adams included - about the $1.00 poppers purchased on a last-minute whim from CVS?)

Congratulations, Big Blog Giveaway Winner!

Thanks to friends near and far who entered our Big Blog Giveaway. We wish we had goodies to send to all of you who entered. Congratulations to Shannon Rapp who was our big winner. She will be getting her autographed copy of Priceless in the mail along with the sweet sari bag from Raven and Lily. We hope you enjoy them, Shannon. So exciting to hear that you will also have a pair of little Ethiopians coming your way soon! Please email me at the address on the blog with your address and I'll send you your goodies.

We are off to the mountains this weekend. I am REALLY hoping not to get barfed on on this trip. Junia has barfed on me TWICE on road trips of this nature -- once all over the back of my head when we still had several hours to go. Yum-o. Crossing my fingers in my sleep tonight.

Happy 4th of July to all!

The Big Blog Giveaway Is On - Enter Here and Now!

And so commences the BIG BLOG GIVEAWAY. The lucky winner of this giveaway will win an autographed copy of Tom Davis' new book Priceless. Because I think great things -- like my girls -- come in pairs, I am throwing in something else that I am loving right now, one of Raven and Lily's recycled sari bags. The bags are stylish and functional and have sold really well at our We Heart Orphans parties. This bag will be great for taking your sunblock and your new copy of Priceless to the beach this summer! So here's the lowdown on how to join the party:

1. To enter, all you have to do is comment on this post saying you want this cool stuff and telling me how long you have been reading this blog (I'm curious!). Simple.

2. You can get an additional entry in the contest if you post about the contest on your blog. Make sure to tell me in your comment that you've done that so you get your additional entry!

3. If you don't have a blog, you are still welcome to enter, you will just have to come to my house and babysit my kids - for free. (Seriously, if you aren't a blogger, you are still welcome to enter. Just post a comment saying why you'd like to win and how long you've been reading this blog.)

The winner will be announced next Wednesday, July 1st, here on the blog so make sure to check back to see if you've won! If you win, please email me your address and I'll send your goodies your way!



Want to hear more about Priceless? Here's my review.

Priceless tells the story of one man being thrust into the dark world of sex trafficking where he becomes an unlikely hero who puts his life on the line to rescue girls from sexual slavery. Priceless is based on the reality that Tom has seen in his work with orphans worldwide and his passion for fighting for justice for vulnerable children is palpable in his writing. While I prefer non-fiction accounts of current issues like human trafficking (Tom Davis' non-fiction work Red Letters was hugely significant in our decision to pursue an African adoption and is one of my favorite books) and don't generally gravitate toward Christian fiction, I found Priceless to be engaging and a good choice for more of a casual Christian reader who might not find a gritty non-fiction title on this issue appealing but who would pick up a related fiction book. As a work of fiction, Priceless serves as a entry point to make a difficult and uncomfortable topic accessible. It would work well in a Christian book club setting as it serves as a conversation starter about a deplorable, and yet incredibly important, issue in our world today. Our orphan ministry will be hosting an end-of-the-summer book club event featuring Priceless that will cap off with a Skype conversation with Tom Davis. He will take questions from readers and share more about how we can fight to bring justice to victims of sexual slavery - many of them orphans -worldwide. In short, Priceless attempts to tell a story that needs to be told again and again and again until we abolish the heinous practice of enslaving and exploiting human beings. As Christians, we need to be on the front lines of the abolitionist fight against human trafficking as were our brave predecessors like William Wilberforce 200 years ago. I applaud Tom Davis for trying to rally the troops toward this fight with Priceless.

Blog Giveaway!

This week, I will be offering a fabulous BLOG GIVEAWAY in honor of Davis' birthday! I will be reviewing Tom Davis' new book Priceless and giving away a free autographed copy to one lucky blog reader. In addition, I am throwing in one of our hottest sellers at our We Heart Orphans parties, a nifty catch-all bag made from recycled saris by our much-loved Raven and Lily.

These special people will be helping me choose the lucky winner.




Make sure you check back tomorrow and if you've never posted a comment before, this is your chance! No more lurking! Stand up and be counted...and win a great prize. Details to follow!

A Good Man

On a day that calls for the celebration of dads everywhere, we girls in our little corner of the world send all our love and gratitude out to a man who gives of himself every single day to make sure that we are healthy, happy and safe. He is a man with endless patience, an introvert who somehow ended inhabiting a world with three very talkative women. And yet even when two of the little women in his world have used up his word allotment for the entire day before breakfast, he still finds the grace to keep on smiling and engaging with them about their misadventures. His grace also extends to obliging one overly-enthusiastic Mommy with Big Plans who seems to recruit him for endless projects related to our orphan ministry or our Little Ladies, often at a cost to his already-depleted reserves of time for other loves like fishing and surfing. And he has a sense of humor that brightens our days and allows him to laugh when his eldest looks at the gorilla at the zoo and says "He's hairy - like my dad."

He loves his girls and his heart breaks because of injustice - not unlike His Father. There is nothing more attractive than that in a man. When I collapse next to him in bed each night, I often tell him what a good man he is. As the cliche goes, those are hard to find. We three girls are blessed to know him and to be loved by him each and every day. Happy Father's Day, Davis! We love you!