These are a few of my favorite things - of 2010!

As I thought back on this year - I wanted to share just a few of my favorite things with you.  Enjoy!

1. Chai tea - I discovered Chai tea this summer like a pirate discovers a lost treasure.  Wow - I once described it as liquid pumpkin pie in a cup.  Since that first amazing sip - I have tried many - and not a one has disappointed.  Yum!

2.  Harmony House - Although we have known of Harmony Outreach and their work through Harmony House for a few years - our lives were forever changed in January 2010 through their orphan ministry.  By introducing us to Lori and asking us to be her forever family - they have been such an instrumental part of this beautiful journey called Adoption that we have trekked on this year.  Thank you - from the very, very bottom of our hearts!

3. Tom Davis - I had the privilege of reading 3 books by Tom Davis this year.  If you need a good read - I highly recommend his works.  Priceless, Scared, and Fields of the Fatherless.  Amazing, gut-wrenching stories.  Excellent work written straight from his heart. 

4. A house that doesn't make me sick - Most of you know that we moved to a bit smaller house in July.  I had horrible allergy issues at our other house - and even though we didn't know that the house itself was causing it - since moving here - I can tell an amazing difference.  What a blessing to wake up and be able to breathe through my nose!  Wow - mouth breathing is for the birds!!!

5. Jesus - we continue to trust in the Lord to provide for this adoption, to give us wisdom as we make decisions for our family, to give us unending grace and mercy each day that we screw up, to open His words to us in new ways and shed light on His Will for our crazy lives, for the promise of salvation and the hope of being made more like Him through, and for the love he shares with others through us.  Thank you, Jesus, for letting us be vessels.  Let our lives bring you Glory and point others to the Cross!

May 2011 continue to bring us closer together as a family and May God use us as He pleases.  I look forward to seeing all the little ones come home to their forever families and to seeing more and more people get involved in ways to help the orphans, widows, poor, helpless, hurting, hungry.  May 2011 be a turning point in each of our families as we turn more and more toward the One that desires (and deserves) our undivided attention.  To God be the Glory  - Great things He has done!!

Do all roads lead to Ethiopia??

Ethiopia.  All images of Ethiopia from my childhood bring up ideads of starving children with bloated bellies and flies swarming their hollow faces.  Ugly, grotesque, cruel - those are words that I might have used to describe this forbidden nation that plagued the news of the 1980's.  However, for some reason, this country continues to make headlines in my life even now.  Does God have some invisible thread connecting us to Ethiopia - who knows - only HE does and I have to remember that His ways are not our own.  In the last few months and in the weeks to come - we have 1 family we know who is taking a mission trip to Ethiopia in Feb, one man we know traveling in a few days to scope out the orphan situation and discover ways to help, another family we are acquainted with has adopted a baby from there, our pastor and his wife announced this week that they are adopting a baby from Ethipia, another dear family from Cape announced their Ethiopian adoption, I was sent a link to a wonderful (yet, heartbreaking) documentary made by a young man traveling to the city of Addis Ababa and showcasing the village of Korah, and I'm reading a book right now which gives a wealth of information on the plight of the orphan in Africa.  It makes us wander what the future holds.........................all I do know is that there is a lost and dying world out there.  As we approach 2011 - I encourage all of us to find ways to pray, give, help, serve, love.