The Miracle of Adoption

This is a video about a family's journey to get their two adopted children from Ethiopia. Hope you enjoy as much as Vince and I did. Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

December 25, 2007

The following was a post someone wrote following a Journal World article. Thought it was cute.

PS: To All My Democrat Friends:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race,&n! bsp; creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.


To My Republican Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

So, how was your Christmas? Ours was great, the best part being the Christmas Eve Service. It is amazing to be surrounded by over 500 people praising God for sending His Son and then to think God is looking down at His creation (all over the world) praising Him for providing Jesus. He is worthy of our praise! So Haley got her remote control puppy from Santa that she had been praying for for the past month! We got a Wii!!!! Woo-Hoo! We are having lots of fun with that. It has been a beautiful Christmas, but we yearn to get Titus home and are praying diligently that God will take care of him, wherever and whoever he is, until he is home. Here are some pics and I hope you had a great Christmas and that you KNOW why the Baby Jesus had to come into the world and die upon a cross and that this fills your heart with great love and thankfulness and humility. The pics are of Luke and Maeflower. Aren't they precious!

Graduation

December 18, 2007

Vince graduated with his MBA from Baker on Sat. We are so glad to have that done and it was a great celebration. Afterwards, our parents took us all to KOKORO's for some Japanese food! It was wonderful. Don't have pics of that (as usual) but I just got some Christmas pics from our time at Crown Center. Last Friday, we had a baking day with our friends Jenny and Isaiah and made fudge, sugar cookies, and peanut butter balls. The parents did most of the work, but Lila and Haley helped me mix and add the ingredients and they all got to ice the cookies. We celebrated Christmas with the Avila's since they will be leaving for the Valley this Friday. Alex got a Lego Star Wars ship, Haley got a Barbie trike and Lila got a fire truck full of Mega-Blocks. They got other stuff too, but those were their favorites. Alex has been emailing Chris Tharp, a friend of ours who is serving America in Kosovo. She loves it and "asked" him if she could be pen pals with him. He sent her a pic of a cool Army snow truck and she thought it was awesome. We need to remember those protecting us and pray for them and their families this Christmas. What an amazing sacrifice to give and serve the US. They do so much for the people in the country they are serving too. I know Tharp has taken it upon himself to ask for donations for the local school in Kosovo, which he said was 'bare and literally had nothing'. The covenant group and I don't know who else contributed school supplies. Just another thing the military folks do for people!

Groceries Galore!

December 13, 2007

In November, a guy from Vince's work gave him a sack with a list of foods needed for the Leo Center. His church got donations last month and wanted to see if this could happen at Grace. In December, Vince got 200 bags from local grocery stores and stapled lists on them. The church did an AWESOME job, as they should have. This was a picture from last week. It filled Chad's truck up (two deep) and our SUV. Vince had to make another drop off today, filling up our truck again! Now the Leo Center is stacked full! They were amazed and we were too. It's great to see how much of an impact everyone can have if we all contribute. On another note, I found the website (I wrote it up top... http://www.jumbogerber.myadventures.org/ .) I think that's right, use the one on the side. You've got to see the pics of these kids celebrating Christmas in Swaziland. Beautiful children, amazing stories, and the one of the girl "Silent Tears" is incredible. Again, it's amazing what people can accomplish. They didn't cure AIDS or end poverty, but what they did in those childrens' lives is priceless and will be forever memories to these children. Check it out!

So we've been reading RED LETTERS and it gets my mind going about the AIDS crisis and where has the church been?! I got on http://www.one.org/ and checked out all the ministries that they support and I see some great things happening. It's also a good idea to read about the Presidential candidates and their views on these subjects which you can find out on ONE also. I thought about the amount of money it would take to get everyone in Africa the ARV's they needed, and if this amount was divided monthly by the amount of churches in America....what would that amount be? Could you imagine how much that would resemble Jesus. When you think about it, Jesus is with the poor, sick, dying, lonely, and sinner. How much does my life look like Jesus'? Just things I am thinking about. On a lighter note....every....EVERY prayer time, Haley prays that God will make sure she gets the remote control puppy at Target for Christmas. I am glad she goes straight to God and not to Santa, but come on...every time! Now Lila has started to pray for God to bring her the Pet Shop Monkey thing she wants. I don't know what she is talking about so she might be in trouble this year!

Dinner Conversation

December 9, 2007

Tonight we treated ourselves to some Vermont Street BBQ. (Kids eat free on Sunday). While we were eating, Alex "found" a hair in her macaroni bites, which was probably hers, but it grossed her out. Haley, said nonchalontly, "One time a found a hair in my found and I just kept eating it anyways." Nasty! She didn't think anything of it.

Over the weekend we went to St. Joseph and celebrated Grandma K's life. It was a beautiful funeral and know she would have been pleased. She was a great grandma and will be greatly missed. Here are some older Christmas pictures since I don't have any new ones yet.

Grandma K

December 5, 2007



Last night, Grandma Ketchum passed away. She lived a great life well into her 80's and will be greatly missed. Prayers for her kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids will be appreciated. Her funeral is this Sat. in St. Joseph. It has been a long time since I have posted, because I want to put pictures with the experiences, but we don't have a good digital camera so I am using other people's pictures. Lots more to come when the pics come in. This past weekend Vince and I went to Lodge of the Four Seasons for a little getaway. Papa and Nana K had purchased 2 nights there for us with babysitting for last years Christmas and we finally got to use it. It was PRICELESS!!! I could actually hear myself talk at a low decibel!!! I read to Vince all the way down there and back. 2 Books: Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover and Red Letters: Living a Faith That Bleeds. Dave's is very good and this is are first month of going to cash on everything. We'll see how it goes. It is amazing how much you hate to hand over cash for something, but it is so easy to swipe the card. Red Letters is AMAZING!! It talks about Jesus' words in the Bible, Jesus' passions which were for the poor, sick, sinner, orphan, widow... He speaks in depth about the AIDS crisis in Africa and the church's lack of empathy and help towards AIDS and its orphans. Again, check out his website at http://www.tomdavis.typepad.com/. You can find ways to help and bless others. Also, Saint's Coffee makes great Christmas gifts!!! I bought 6 lbs. worth, which will feed 6 orphans for a month!!! Check out their site http://www.saintscoffee.com/. This week I had the opportunity to pray for a 3 year old girl, Mary Claire, who is fighting a medullablastoma.

I am strong. I am happy. I am exuberant. I am courageous. If I know what to expect I am not afraid. Fear doesn't come from God. God is near me, I can feel Him. I do not feel afraid. I know I am sick. I know that makes God sad. My dad too. They each gather me into their arms and I know I will be comforted. I feel joyful.You should feel joyful, too. We are celebrating advent. A long time ago when the world was in darkness, the God who loves us sent His son, a light, to be a baby and grow among us. To grow up, share stories and give His life for us. It is hard for a Daddy to know His child will die. We all die. But thanks to God we live everlasting life with Him who knew the number of hairs on our heads before we were born. We will live with Him outside space and time. Like an eternity but different. He numbered our years to 120. He said that was long enough for man to decide whether or not to choose Him.All the visible reminders are around us at the holidays, the reminders to choose Him, the reminders of His vast love. Take a minute to be a child and climb into His arms and hug Him right back. He loves you so much.

I have corresponded with her mother and I would ask you to pray for her and for Caden White also. Also, pray for Brandon's dad, Drew, who is recovering from a heart surgery.
I hope you all are doing well and will post pics as they come in!

The Avila's