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Father/Daughter Dance flyers out today

Our fundraiser flyers are going out to all K-8 girls in Lincoln this week!  We are excited that all the schools said yes!  And we are excited to offer the Father/Daughter Dance in Mt. Pulaski on Nov. 14!  We will have dancing, professional photos, a “Cinderella Song” performance, short swing dance lessons, refreshments, and a lot of fun!  Hope you can join us!  (See the flyer below.)

Father Daughter Dance 2009

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Thanks to the Lincoln Christian Church folks

A couple of things to get this site started with a real post.

First:

As I mentioned late yesterday (when I created the site), Suzanne and I spoke about our adoption journey at Lincoln Christian Church this morning. Suzanne met with Ron Otto, our preaching minister, several weeks ago to ask if we could have a few minutes to tell the church about our adoption decision and to enlist their support.  Ron was enthused about the idea, especially since it coincided with the church’s annual Harvest of Talents weekend.  Harvest of Talents was begun in 1983 by Pat Snyder, a faithful woman in our congregation who wanted to see if we could do something to help hungry and hurting people around the world. On the fourth Saturday of October, people from within and without the congregation fashion crafts, offer their services, and make food available for sale.  Since the beginning, every penny raised is given to IDES to help those in need.  This year’s Harvest raised over $82,000, bringing the 26-year total over $1.4 million. Pretty good.

So Suzanne and I were given some time to talk in this morning’s service about how we believe God has been leading us in this decision and how we foresee the church being involved with adoption ministry.  We were moved by numerous conversations after the services, well-wishes and offers of support from this community. We’re truly looking forward to seeing how God uses this church in Lincoln, Illinois, to continue to help those in need around the world.  Thank you, friends.

Second:

I mentioned in part of my comments this morning that I believed God used a couple of experiences last fall to help turn my heart toward adoption.  The first of those was a series of photographs I’d seen on The Big Picture, a photoblog published by Boston.com. A post entitled “Congo’s crisis worsens” captured my attention in a way that surprised me.  Background: I was in high school during the 80’s, at the height of the famine in Ethiopia. Since then I have seen thousands of pictures of the people of Africa whose lives have been altered by war, poverty, and famine. At some point, a lot of this simply became noise which I’d learned to ignore over time. When I saw the photos that day on The Big Picture, however, I was moved and couldn’t really explain why. These photographs weren’t all that different from others I’d seen but something was different inside me.

The other experience was a chance(?) viewing of a two-minute video called “The Girl Effect.”  Go ahead and watch it.

This too had a powerful effect on me that I wasn’t prepared for. Although neither of these were related to adoption, they are related to Africa and caring for some of the world’s neediest people. In conjunction with the prayer and reflection I’d been doing last fall, these seemingly random bits of media shook me. I’m convinced that God used them to help me better see his vision for our family.