November in Review!

Really, November is almost over with?!?! This month has flown by at record speed to me. I am totally good with that. That just means we are getting oh so close for our road trip to Washington for Christmas.

November, was a busy month for us. We finished up Jaycee's first soccer season by the 2nd weekend. We had an end of the season pizza party. It was a fun first season of soccer. The girls and the parents were fabulous! Jaycee also experienced her first friend sleepover. Jaycee's best friend from church, Chloe, also played soccer with us. Chloe asked to have Jaycee stay over at her house after their last soccer game. The girls had a fantastic time. Jaycee did great and loved it! She can't wait to have Chloe come stay with us now! I woke up several times during the night to check my phone and to pray, but I did survive her being gone. She was in great care with the Robbins' family, its just hard for a momma's heart to know that we are at this stage of life already with Jaycee. The bonus is that I think I will have a longer wait with Jackson!

Thanksgiving week was lots of fun. My sister and her girls came home Tuesday afternoon. Jaycee and Jackson were pretty much at my parents the whole week. Jaycee stayed the night Tuesday night, but Jackson wanted to come home. (Now you know why I think I will have him home a little longer). Wednesday we had lunch at my parents. Michael, my new brother-in-law, arrived that afternoon. The kids were thrilled when he showed up b/c his dog, Betto, had puppies. The puppies were 2 weeks old. 5 cute chubby black and white pups to love on! They got lots of love I tell ya. Wednesday night Kiley and Keely came to our house to stay the night with us. I have the best nieces in the world. They are so sweet. They help out and they are just fun to be with. Thursday we spent all day at my grandparents' house. Thursday night the kids stayed the night at my parents. Byron, my sis, and I went to Wal-Mart at Midnight! It was quite crazy! We go for the great deals on winter coats and pjs every year. We also were able to pick up a bike for Jackson at a great price, too. Wal-Mart was packed! The electronics section was impossible to get through. So many people we in line for the 5:00 AM madness. I applaud Wal-Mart,though. They had every checkout counter open. They had associates directing you to those check outs. We got to Wal-Mart just a bit after Midnight and were back at home by 1:30 AM. Friday, we had the Sutton Family Reunion. Saturday, we cleaned the house and had friends over for the Bedlam game. (OU vs.OSU) It was a fantastic game and a great evening with friends. Yesterday, we had church and then crashed for afternoon naps.

For the next few weeks we will be preparing for our road trip. As of right now we plan on taking the route through Colorado and Utah. We are praying that the weather will be good. At first we thought we were going to take the California route. We still possibly could. Hopefully the Colorado route will work. It will save us 6-7 hours of driving which will be HUGE!!!! Either way we are looking forward to our trip. The kids are excited even though they have no clue how long we will be in the van. Looking forward to all the memories made on our first family roadtrip as well as all the memories we will make in Washington with family and friends for Christmas 2010!!!!

Abba's Hands

I am sorry that I wasn't able to find time to post everyday last week about the upcoming event, Orphan Sunday. But, I have incredible news to share. All the praise and glory goes to God the Father. I can't even begin to put into words how amazing He is. He is so faithful, good, just, loving, gracious, forgiving, and merciful. He is relentless in His pursuit of His children. I stand amazed by that.

Byron and I over the past couple of years have been seeking God. Seeking God to truly know Him and to know His heart. Its not been an easy road by any means, but I can look back really over my entire life and see God's mighty hand at work. I can't even begin to say how amazing His grace really is. Through this process God has placed a passionate desire, His desire, in our hearts. That passion is to care for the orphans. At times I think, was I really that foolish to not see that this has been God's heart from the very beginning of time?! It absolutely has been His plan from the beginning. Adoption is God's plan A! He knew when He made the world He was going to need a rescue plan, and that plan was to send His only Son, Jesus, to this earth to live a sinless life and take up on Him the sins of this world, to die on a cross, and to raise Him up to life again so we could be adopted into God's family forever!!! WOW!!! Once you get even the smallest glimpse into this picture your life changes. You immediately see how incredible the picture of adoption truly is.

For the past 4 or 5 months Byron and I along with our adult and family minister Chris and his wife Kristin, we have been working on an adoption and orphan care ministry for our church, Immanuel Baptist. This past Sunday we launched this ministry to our church. God went way beyond our expectations. We had an information meeting Sunday evening. We were planning for maybe 25-30 people. We had 65 show up. We had a sign up sheet for anyone who would like to be a part of the core group for this ministry. We had thought if we had about 8-10 that would be really good, we had 30 sign up for that. We also had about 10-12 application packets to become Foster Parents and they were all gone. AMAZING!!!

Abba's Hands ministry is a resource ministry. We are here to help in any area of adoption and orphan care. Our first step is to help in our local community with orphan care. We are currently putting together "Bags of Hope" for children who come into the foster care system. If its not hard enough to be pulled out of everything you know its to be pulled away with a trash bag to hold your belongings. No way is this okay. So we will give these "Bags of Hope" with essential items each child in need. Through our Missions ministry (which is one of the best I have ever seen) they have a great foundation already built with the youth shelter in Duncan. We hope to help there any way we can. Also, we do already have several families in our church who are foster families. We are coming along side of them to help in whatever capacity they made need. We also want to help gather information and support any families who are looking to become foster parents or want to adopt domestically and internationally. Our last area we are looking into is partnering with a church/orphanage in another country. We want to come along side of them in prayer, financial support, and also make it available for our church to actually go on mission trips to this church/orphanage and help in any way possible.

Its the beginning of something amazing, because its God's heart and His mission. We are just graciously blessed to be invited to be a part of it. We know that it is not a sprint and its a marathon, but we have the God of the impossible with us, leading us, and supplying all that we need. We will continue to be obedient and God will provide the results: lives changed for His glory!!!

(If you are on Facebook you can look for the group Abba's Hands and join. Hopefully, after the first of the year we will have a website up as well.)

Orphan Sunday-November 7th

Orphan Sunday is only 6 days away. Hopefully, this week I can post daily on what this means and what it means for Christians all around the world. I am looking forward to this Sunday. Our church will be having our 1st ever Orphan Sunday. I am so excited to see what God does in our hearts. I can't wait to see how He will lead individuals, families, and our church to care for orphans all across the world. To gain more knowledge of what takes place go to www.orphansunday.org. I will leave you today with some statistics.

*The newest and most accurate number of orphans in the world, 163 million orphans.

*40 million of these orphans are among the top 100 unreached people groups in the world. (They have no access to a Bible, or for that matter have never heard the goods news of Jesus Christ!)

*15 million orphans have lost one or both parents to AIDS.

*There are 500,000 children currently in the US foster care system. 120,000 of those children are orphans. They are available for adoption right now.

* 60 percent of the girls that age out of the US foster care system will become pregnant within 4 years.

These are only a few statistics. They also can be overwhelming. At times, we can become numb to statistics. Each number represents a child. A precious child created by God. A precious child that needs the love of a family. I do not believe that every Christian is called to adopt, but I do believe that every Christian is called to do something. I hope that this week through these posts, through Orphan Sunday, through reading Scriptures that God will convict us of our lack of responding to what His Word says in regard to the orphans. I pray that we will repent of our disobedience and ask God to do a work in our hearts and lead us to accept the invitation that He is offering us as individuals, families, and churches to be Christ's hands and feet to the 163 million orphans around the world!!!!

James 1:27- Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.