Change of Plans

We have babies!!! We received information last Thursday about 2 little babies that need a family and we have been praying and seeking wise counsel since then. And two days ago, Thursday, July 19 at 10:30pm we decided to take them! So, here comes the change of plans part...they are Ugandan babies, not Honduran babies. They are siblings. The little girl is 22 months old and the little boy is 11 months old. And they need a mommy and daddy (and four older siblings!!)
We never thought we would veer off the Honduran path, but our ways aren't always the same as God's ways. We believe He got us to the crossroads just how He wanted to, so that we would be ready when this information surfaced. After praying and seeking God for a week, we feel at peace with this new path and are thrilled!
We don't know all the details of the change yet, but we have an estimated travel month: December. I am hoping and praying that our trip to Africa will come sooner, though.
But this news definitely brings a new urgency to life. We have rooms to prepare, cultures to learn about, and money to raise. In order to get the ball rolling on Monday we need to write our new agency (Adoptions Plus in Albuquerque) a check for $11,250. Will you prayfully consider making a donation so we can accomplish this goal? I don't want these beauties to stay in the orphanage a day longer than they have to. And if we can send our agency a check on Monday, then the workers in Uganda can start on our paperwork this week! Help us bring our babies home.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, 

"plans to prosper you and not to harm you, 

plans to give you a hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11 

Fundraising Dinner/Silent Auction

I have wanted to write a blog post at least every other day for several weeks but life is flying by.
I have no news from our agency or Honduras. But our family coordinator has said that no news is usually good news. So, let the wait continue.
We have been working hard on the fundraiser we are having. And I realized recently that I haven't blogged about the event and that I need to so that we can get more prayer coverage.
We are having a Honduran Dinner/Silent Auction on Sunday, August 12 at 6pm at our church. We have a local chef that is donating his time to prepare the meal. We have a gal that is working on getting all the food donated. We have musicians that are working on songs for the evening. We have great friends that have volunteered to be the auction manager. And we have an amazing list of donations for the silent auction. All the money we receive for these items goes to our adoption. Here is a sneak peak! (If you are interested in making a bid on any of the items or want more information about them, leave a comment or email me.)

• Dallas Cowboys tickets (vs. Saints) on Dec. 23 which comes with 2 nights of hotel accommodations and 1 restaurant gift certificate
• $1,000 gift certificate to Santa Fe Web Programming for website development or redesign
• Angel Fire vacation accommodations for 3 nights from Kokopelli
• Paintings by Glen Strock, George Stumpf, Laura Herndon, and Jim Gensheer
• Jewelry by Roark Griffin
• Moroccan furniture 
• Homemade crochet blanket, jewelry, pottery, and soap
• Scarves
• Bird feeding basket from The Feed Bin
• Personal tax return
• Cookbooks by Pam Anderson
• Fashion items
• MapCap fresh roasted coffee kit
• $200 Santa Fe Baby gift certificate
• Pink Ugg Boots (size 7)
• Photo by Joe Fammartino
• Southern Living at Home decor
• Black Ferragamo Purse
• and more!

So, we have a big task in front of us. And we would love for you to pray for the food prep, the donations to come in, that all the details would come together, and that people would come!

We are doing this dinner/silent auction for two reasons. First, because we lack about $27,000 to be able to pay for this adoption and we need our community's help. And second, because we believe in adoption deeply and want to share that vision with those around us. Pray that both of these will happen.

Out of the Overflow of the Heart...

Art and Poem by Emma Grassmick

Your Hands

On Sunday Jonathan and I received the final copy of our adoption video. It was suggested by some close friends that a video might be a good way to reach lots of people with our need for financial support so we recruited the best videographers we knew. Two teenage boys. Trevor and Austin Ban...or the Ban Bros. They came to our house and filmed us before I left for my East Coast excursion and have been working on it for weeks.
During these last few weeks, I also received permission to use a song that has been playing in my head since March 18 of this year. March 18 was the day before one of my good friend's birthday. She had had knee surgery the month before but had been suffering from terrible staph infections for weeks at this point. She thought she might die. And one day in the midst of all of this, our Pastor's wife sent her a youtube link to JJ Heller's Your Hands. (iTunes sells her songs. Your Hands is on the album Painted Red.) This song gave her hope. So, on March 18, when life was hard, my friend Laura and I gave our in-the-valley friend a surprise pajama birthday party...in her bed. It was a wonderful night...holy almost. And right when we were about to leave she made me sit down and watch this video. I bought JJ's album that night and have played it everyday since. My kids sing Your Hands daily. I l.o.v.e. this song. Besides the hope it gave my friend, it gives me a glimpse of what my Honduran children's prayers might sound like. They have unanswered prayers, they have troubles they wish weren't there. And they have probably asked a thousand ways for the God of the universe to take their pain away, their deep pain. But even through the toughest life circumstances, we are in His Hands. The hands that shaped the world. His hands are holding them and one day He will set all things right. I can't believe God has chosen me to be a vehicle for His love for these children.
So, as I was saying, I GOT PERMISSION FROM JJ HELLER TO USE HER SONG!!!!! I was stunned when I got the email. Amazed. God keeps setting this story up so beautifully.
So, back to the first line of this post...we received the video. I set it live today and I thought I'd share it with you guys, my faithful followers. My prayer for this video is that it will spread online for two reasons. The first I think is obvious: we need lots of money. :) Sorry to be so blunt.
But the other reason is that I want hundreds or thousands of people to be encouraged that they could do this adoption thing too. We want adoption to be way more normal than it is right now. We want more of the 147,000,000 orphans of the world to find families to commune with. And I think this video shows that we are just normal people doing what God asked us to do. Even though it seems a little wacky, or a lot wacky, we are going to step forward in faith because we are in Your Hands, Lord.

PS. Please share this video with anyone and everyone! (Here is the youtube link.)
And thank you again to JJ Heller for the use of Your Hands
And thank you a million times to Trevor and Austin (Ban Bros.)! You guys are really amazing. I l.o.v.e. that my boys get to watch you and learn from you. God is using you mightily.

5414

My kids and I have been on our annual trek to the east coast for the past couple of weeks. And since we were coming by Dallas and since my mom and step-dad are moving soon we decided to end our trip here. It is our farewell to the house. And no one seems to get it except me and my sweet daughter, Emma. She basically had a 2 hour melt down this afternoon. She wasn't "acting up," she was sad. She started by being a little mopey. Which after a bit turned into a full out wail. Change is hard. Memories are made and us emotional people like to hold them close. My sister, Val, asked Emma what her favorite memories are at the house and what she will remember. I held her while she cried. I'm not sure why I feel so attached to this house. My parents moved here the summer after I graduated high school. So, I've never really lived here for long periods of time. I came back the summer after my freshman year but that was it except for holidays. I married my man the summer after I graduated so I lived here a couple of months before the wedding. And then right before we moved to New Mexico we lived here about 5 months. We sold our house quickly and decided to be roomies with them until we moved. So, it has been the family house since 1996. 16 years. I didn't learn to ride my bike here, or learn about boys living here. I've never had a birthday bash here and I didn't come here after high school football games. And maybe that is it. I didn't become a christian until I went away to college. My life was filled with lots of drama and bad decisions before then. But ever since the day I gave my life to Jesus (April 10, 1997) I have "come home" to this house. And the most beautiful times in my life have roots here. The first time I came home after I became a child of God was to this house. I told my mom what had happened to me. My first Christmas with Jonathan as my boyfriend happened here. He gave me a red Bible cover and some perfume...Eternity. His mom wrapped the presents for him. The day Jonathan asked me to marry him started and ended at this house. The day I married him started at this house. I cried in the shower before anyone else was awake. Not a sad cry, but a gosh,-it's-here! cry. A You-God-are-really-going-to-bless-me-in-this-way cry. We spent the evening before my firstborn came into the world in the living room. I could really keep going but I think I've made my point. And I think Emma thinks and feels like I do. She remembers crazy details about life. Always linked to people. She will remember a store we ran in 4 years ago...if someone was with us. So, her deep attachment to this house is all about the people she knew here. And this was party central so almost everyone she knows has a spot in her memory at this house. So, leaving it is sad.
Another reason it is sad to me right now is because my new kids won't have a clue about this house. No memory will be able to take them back here. Everyone in our current family will be able to think back to this house in some way. But the new kids will just have to smile and nod when we talk about the back patio, which by the way is Emma's favorite part of the house. And mine too.
So, I just have to keep reminding myself of the bigger picture and not get bogged down in only emotion. It is okay to be sad, but gosh, good things are ahead. My mom and step dad are going to live 8 hours closer to us AT A SNOWBOARDING RESORT! A life time of memories are going to be built. And my new kids are going to think back to the new house for lots of firsts. But more important than the house is the family that they are going to get to make those memories with. The house is going to be amazing. But the family is one of those "He will bless you beyond what you can imagine" things. They are going to grow up in a family that loves them and would die for them. We will laugh with them and tickle them and cry with them and wipe their tears away. House or no house, we will have each other. I can't wait.

En Espanol

I got good news from our agency. Our dossier has been translated and it is going to be submitted to the IHNFA this week. I've been praying a lot lately for the Instituto Hondureno de la Ninez la Familia.  They have the huge task of being Honduras' adoption authority. They read through every dossier put before them and in the end match Honduran children with forever families. That is a long, weighty process. Pray with me that God is with them and that He will bless their efforts. And pray for those Grassmick beauties that don't know their new last name yet.

Yielding

Motherhood, I'm learning, is similar if you are human or a goat, at least in a few ways. The other morning I was leaving the goat pasture, walking with the mama goats and the baby goats when I noticed it. Snow White (one of our baby goats) was walking with her mama, Super Trooper. And over and over and over, Snow White would get right in front of Super Trooper and slow to a crawl. And Super Trooper taught me something. She didn't place her hoof on her little girls head and steer her out of her path, or butt her with her head. She just slowed down. She yielded. Webster has lots of definitions for yielding. Here are two of them:

To give up or surrender (oneself)

To give up or over; relinquish or resign

I have to admit that yielding is not my natural tendency. Score one for Super Trooper. I have one child in particular that seems to always step right out in front of me and slow to her snail's pace.  And I can't say that I yield to her. My hand usually comes up, not aggressively or rudely, and touches her head and steers her only one foot to the left or right so that I can pass. I've never given it much thought until I witnessed my mama goat in action. When she surrendered her "right" to getting where she was going, my first instinct is to think that she was giving up the choice food that awaited her. But as I watched her, she looked gentle and patient, not worried about what she was losing. Then I wondered what I look like in that same situation. Then it hit me. That was one of those backward commands that Jesus gave us.

The first shall be last and the last shall be first. Matthew 20:16

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.      Phil 2:3-4 

Jesus asks us to put others before ourselves, not to devalue ourselves but to build others up. It is what He did, right? And it slows us down. If we try to forget about what we are busy with and consider others, it will go well with us. That is one way we serve our Master. He showed us how to do this over, and over, and over. Probably not because He was trying to formulate it in his head...which is why I tend to say the same thing in many different ways, but because He knew we would need to hear it again, and again, and again. He did it for us. And my job is to show Jesus to my kids. And when they cut me off when I am walking to the not-so-important things in my life, I should yield to them. Not worry that I will get to my cooking 10 seconds later, or that the wash can't wait a minute longer. I should slow down and learn to follow them. I should be thankful in the moment that I have a child to follow and learn from. I want to yield to my children and relinquish my rights for theirs. I want to teach them how to fall in behind the leader of a line. A real line or a figurative one in life.

Lord, help me be more like Super Trooper who loves her little girl well and yields to her.