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. James 1:27
I've had maybe five and half hours of sleep in my own bed. But I was compelled to get up and go see all the faces in all the beds in the house. Because all OUR KIDS are where they belong.
As I opened each bedroom door to tiptoe in and gaze at each precious face I was also compelled to find that verse, "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You..." and read that passage. Which I found amusing because in all our exhaustion from our travels, we did feel joy at reuniting with our home folks (and beds) but we didn't exactly feel peace or "stayed on You." We felt pretty irritated.
I made coffee, fed the critters, and settled into my comfy chair (wow is american furniture comfortable!) and found the verse (I had to look it up) (emphasis added):
Isaiah 26:3
You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on You,
because he trust in You.
Then I got to Isaiah 26:12 and it jumped off the page and hit me in the heart.
O Lord, You will ordain peace for us,
for You have indeed done for us all our works.
If you've followed along you may remember that a verse that keeps coming back to me (for years) is 1 Thessalonians 5:24 - but lets back up to verse 23
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (24) He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it.
Look what God has done - now to have a day (or weekend) of peace and rest!
And what confirmation of how trustworthy and faithful He is! Even in the hard and crazy.
And the story isn't over...
I'll work soon on updating this little blog on all the happenings that brought us home - and there will be pictures! Stay tuned.
This means that in Ukraine we are "registered as candidates for adoptive parents" - WOOHOO! This is a HUGE step in the right directions! Travel between our two nations is aaaaahhhhh.... possibly opening back up soon.... perhaps VERY soon.... In other news: We parents had a wonderful anniversary - ALONE!
Love Birds
And then celebrated our Familversay with a cookout with our brood and some grand-folks.
this is a BAD recreation of my favorite picture - I still love my little weirdos -
A majority of us went to visit the Alabama relations and celebrate Baby Erin's First Birthday! She is the sweetest! And a total ham for a camera...
Baby Erin & Aunt Erin
My minions with their GREAT Uncle John
me w/my Aunt Carolyn and my Mama
Continue to pray for Andrii. He was supposed to be done with his radiation treatment but didn't pass all his blood test and had to put off several treatments. Hopefully he will finish soon and get a break. He seems to be in good spirits and messages us often.
Anastasia seems to be doing well and having fun hanging out with her friends. We don't get as many messages from her. Makes them all the more precious!
And I'm wearing myself out doing my own little happy dance over our approval!
So here's a Happy Dance song so you can celebrate this adoption milestone with us.
Last week was busy in our adoption journey. But WOW! How God moved the processes along!!!
Monday we parents had our medical exam for the dossier. We are healthy and free of certain diseases. Donations took care of this expense. The doctors office was a delight to work with even though we need those forms in triplicate. It’s not uncommon to have to have these papers re-done - and that’s what we’ll be doing this week. Big THANKS to Dr. Raber and his staff at Lighthouse Family Practice.
We also have to have another paper re-done. Thanks to our sweet realtor Theresa Jordan for her help.
We’re very thankful for sweet people who exhibit God’s long-suffering patience with this paperwork.
Near the end of the week we commented about waiting on several things/papers that are totally out of
our control, like immigration approval and FBI clearance. On Friday, Dan the agency man voiced concern that the way we submitted for our FBI clearance could take forever to get back (well, he said 14 weeks - but right now that’s forever). But it only took 2 weeks!!! When we checked the mail after lunch our FBI clearance was there!!!
I was able to get those in the mail him that afternoon.
Then Saturday, while relaxing with some of the children, what should come (that could have taken 75 days but came after only one month)? Our USCIS (immigration) approval!!!! We have approval from the United States to “adopt 2 child/ren from Ukrine."
And that's when I may have cried.
Ava was over, she caught it all on film (or whatever you call snatching up your phone and clicking).
We were so worried about how to get the USCIS to expidite. We fretted. We made calls. We worried other people. But all our effort was for nothing. God had better plans.
Somehow, all 9 of the "already here" children were home Saturday night. So we had pizza and celebrated and watched a movie.
No now we continue to work with our agency to finish up our parts of dossier and keep fundraising and hoping for grants and look forward expectantly to how God will continue to work in this process.
Our next big goal - the biggest goal yet! - is to raise $12,000!!!* This will cover the Ukrainian fees. For next 12 days (Jan 28-Feb 8), in honor of 🌍 World Cancer Day (Feb. 4), to help raise funds to bring home a new son, who is now a brain cancer patient, and his sweet sister through adoption we will send you a very cool gold and gray #becoming12 silicone bracelet for every $12 or more donated. 💖
Wouldn’t it be awesome if we actually did raise that much in 12 days!?!?! #highhopes
💛 Gold represents childhood cancer
🤍 Gray represents brain cancer
#becoming12 - that’s us (blog, intstagram, Facebook)
Better picture coming soon! The bracelets have been ordered and are being created.**
To give via the Abba Fund click HERE be sure to comment “for the HE Brown Family”
Or via PayPal click HERE comment “adoption fund” and include your mailing address
Help us help them! 🇺🇦👩🏻🤝👨🏼🇺🇸
$12,000
12 days
$12 at a time
#becoming12
Please share! 🥰
Math dork moment: If 1000 people each gave $12... If 500 people each gave $24... If 250 people each gave $48... If 125 people each gave $96...
If 100 people each gave $120...
If 50 people each gave $240...
If 25 people each gave $480...
If 12 people each gave $1000... well that would totally blow my mind!
*funds raised will be used for any adoption expenses ** yes $12 is a lot for a silicone bracelet- but the point is not the bracelet. The point is to make 2 less orphans! 🥰
Another sweet cousin is trying to plan an adoption fundraiser for us and asked for information and a breakdown of the cost of the adoption to present to her church and local businesses.
The total funds needed is an overwhelming amount.
But we determined at the beginning, with God's help, to eat this big elephant one little bite at a time. And thus far, God has been faithful to supply. He is always faithful.
The first week of December we needed to send the agency $1300, we were a little short, so we sent what we could. And we were pretty spent, totally out of ideas for quickly raising more. Then the phone rang. By the weekend we had two more small fundraisers to do. The difference was made up. The $1300 was covered, with change left for the ongoing fundraisers (headbands, wreaths, and such).
Cow painting by Mary Beadles - given to Jorja last week at a fundraiser
Earlier this year, driving to some adoption/trauma training, I passed some peaceful rolling farmland. Hills full cows to my right, a multitude of sheep to my left. And I was reminded of how God could keep the lights on. It reassured me to keep moving forward and pursuing these kids.
This week, I passed a pasture with just a few cows and immediately thought, "Oh look, He sold some cows."
I woke up Friday, to the official diagnosis for Andrii, "stage four malignant brain tumor with metastasis in the spinal cord." (Talk about adding wood to the fire!)
We had about $200 in the Abba Fund and $136 in the bag (my fancy way of keeping adoption funds separate is a big ziplock bag - don't be jealous of my organizational skills). And I shared publically about Andrii.
Within hours we were overwhelmed with love and support and the way people who don't know him or us are being God's hands and feet.
Enabling our desire to bring them home.
Helping the orphans.
Being used to set the lonely in family.
Gathering those cow auction profits.
Oh how He loves us! All of us. All 12.
(And Stephen too - which makes 13, but I'm not changing the name of the blog).
I'll stop typing now.
*curtsy*
*** This is NOT a plug for the prosperity gospel. It is our little finite minds and hearts attempt to remember to trust a totally trustworthy, infinite, eternal, creative, doer of the impossible, God and Kimg of the entire universe to care for us. We are but sinful dust. We are totally undeserving of any good. Yet He cares for us. He carries us. He loves lavishly. All glory and praise and honor belong to Him.
When we are waiting on something good it seems to take forever!
But when we have something to do (or that we should be doing) the time flies by!
Blogging will be an easy way to keep everyone up to date. (If you actually do it).
I'll be good at blogging. (Nope - sorry).
Here's the possibly lengthy catch-you-up post. (not totally in chronological order).
Since my last post was about a patriotic quilt (seriously thought I'd updated LOTS since then), I'll start with:
The quilt sold via eBay. But not for as much as we had hoped. We are very grateful to Aunt Carolyn for her donation of the beautiful quilt and to the eBay-er who was delighted to use it in redecorating.
We have since been posting lots of little things on eBay (member erbr_2337) to help raise funds and in the process have gotten to know our sweet postal worker better. They are the most helpful people for shipping anything as cheaply inexpensively as possible. And they are just super sweet.
Photos and college by Jacob
We did have one more yard sale that had shoppers waiting on us when we arrived at the crack of dawn. The unsold treasures lived in the basement until I couldn't stand it anymore and "organized." Some things went on Facebook Marketplace, some on eBay, some to the thrift store. (And, for the sake of total honesty, a few treasures we are using).
Currently, there's a box in the dining room and two in the basement of posted and waiting to be posted items. I got my house back and an extra job.
A sweet friend, Elena, did a Tupperware fundraiser. It was delicious.
Tomorrow we are having a Krispy Kreme sale before (and possible after) church.
100 dozen doughnuts = 1200 doughnuts
Pray for hungry folks with $7 and a sweet tooth to drive by.
We did this last year to help raise funds for hosting fees and more than doubled our investment. So all those eBay sales have been invested in doughnuts.
Of course we still take donations any time in person, snail mail (message us for the address), via PayPal, or for tax deductible gifts through the Abba Fund.
Fundraising is FUN. But exhausting. And I'm running out of creative ideas. Matter of fact, I'm not feeling very creative at all. In any area.
But we have been encouraged this month. We can finally see the light at the end of this homestudy tunnel. We had been waiting (for over 6 months) for one piece of paper, a certain background check, to be sent to our homestudy agency. They had requested it several times. Finally, after several phone calls it arrived. So now we make sure all our boxes are checked and get our original documents together and wait again.
Fall Birthday People
Next steps (hopefully), apostillizing the documents (they get stamped as "fo'real" legal papers), USA approval, and extreme grant writing. (Plus holidays).
In more personal news:
Over half the family had birthdays - Jorja, Autumn, Gene, Erin, Jacob, and Elijah.
And the biggest news (drum roll) after a blur of preparations and bridal showers,
Ava and Stephen tied the knot!
It was beautiful. They are beautiful.
The only thing we wish was different (okay, they only big thing) was that the two new children could have already been here.
Here is a video of just a few of the pictures from the wedding events:
So that's the short version of the last some-odd months.
Today it has been one year, one month and ten days since we first opened out hearts and homes to two wonderful, beautiful, smart, sweet, funny, energetic young teens. Orphans who want a family.
Pray things hurry along from here and provision is made for all expenses with the least amount of stress.
Pray for Gene and I. God is refining us, our household, our finances, and our marriage.
And pray for our two "heart children" who are also waiting - they are ready to come home! Pray God would protect them and redeem this time and place people in their lives to shine His love to them.
So much can happen so quickly. Thankfully, it’s all good. We
could use some good news.
The text photo that this was a thing! Maybe my current favorite picture of my favorite oldest daughter.
Stephen & Ava
First, the biggest news!!! We are adding a son-in-love to
our tribe!
That oldest tall child got a wedding proposal Sunday and she giggled happily and kept the ring, so the young suitor took that for a “yes!”
So, now we are planning
a wedding. They have yet to set a date. She’d love a Fall wedding but with the
uncertainty of when we might travel to Ukraine (hopefully in the fall), we
asked them to speed things up or wait longer. They see benefits to both.
But
why wait?
In other news, the Knee Baby (that’s what we call the next
to youngest), with help for the almost oldest, cooked chicken enchiladas for a
Fiesta supper earlier this week as part of his math assignment. He even
decorated the porch and had the Daddy put on some fiesta music. It was fun!
During the course of dinner conversation the younger set
were discussing brothers and sisters and very naturally said they “have 9
brothers and sisters” (for those slow on the math – that’s 2 more than
currently reside here full time – that a wonderful precious big deal). They may
be half a world away but they are close in our hearts. And have already been counted
as part of this crazy clan.
We are thankful for our good health, and remember how the Lord has lead, guarded, provided for, and loved us all these years. Please join us in praying for the following details.
First, as part of our home study we must have a letter that
our septic system is in good working order. It has been examined and found
lacking. According to our very nice fella from the health department, a family
half our size shouldn’t be able to flush the toilet. Yet here we are… a year
and a half of flushing and showers and laundry and dishes… but he can’t give us
that letter. But he wants to help us resolve this easily.
He asked that we first check for leaks.
Did you know that your toilets could be slowly leaking from
the tank into the bowl without you knowing it? And that that slow leak adds constant
pressure to your septic? And you can test it with red kool-aid?
New information for us too. Turns out all our toilets needed
new flappers.
Worse case now is we will need to add some more drain field.
Messy costly job.
Next, this weekend our big giant van, that is the Mama’s
main vehicle, started making really weird whiny noises and being a jerk. (It
jerks, especially in reverse). We’ve got a couple of theories about what could
be wrong.
Lastly, (which seems minor compared with those first two) that
oldest tall child, is the only one who hasn’t gotten her medical exam done.
Medical reports are also needed for everyone in the family. The older two girls
aged out of the pediatrician’s office and just hadn’t gotten a new doctor yet. They
both visited a local office to get their records transferred and become new
patients. One got in, one’s records never showed up. The office has resent the
request (over a week ago) and we continue to wait.
We praise the Lord that all of our medical exams were
covered by our insurance as our yearly check-ups.
We are at peace as we trust God has all things in His control
and will provide for each need. Pray we see soon how those first two request
will be provided for and that any oversight on that last one is cleared up.
We’d love to hear from you. Please feel free to comment on any
of our post. We know most of this blog now is the nitty-gritting, somewhat
boring details. But hang on the really exciting stuff will come as we continue to
press forward.
Gene and I celebrated our twelfth anniversary this past weekend.
We started with a Famliversary Brunch with all the children – ‘cause really it’s
the day we became a family (not just married folks).
We were gifted with some money with instructions to get
outta town.
So we did.
We romantics found a cute little cabin on Airbnb built in
the mid-1850’s down in Thomson, GA and spent two quiet nights ALONE!!! Totally
alone. Even the host left town for the holiday and we had the invitation to
roam and use their pool and enjoy ourselves. Nearby there were some historic
sites (even pre-revolutionary stuff) and antique stores nearby and we are dorks
and love that stuff.
So we did.
We sure needed it. Then it was time to come back to reality.
Reluctantly.
So we did.
But we’d love to go back.
We were very happy with our Airbnb reservation and with
every part of the process and stay.
And we learned 3 helpful things:
1.There are Airbnb places in Kiev. And hopefully
soon we’ll get to go there.
2. If we share our Airbnb link with people they can
get a nice discount
3. If those people make a reservation we get Airbnb
credit that we can save up and use on those several trips to Kiev. That would be super helpful!
So if you’re looking for a nice place to park yourself for
vacation or business or just cause sometimes you gotta get outta
town, here’s a link to save you money!
