Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea.
A great High Priest whose name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in heaven He stands.
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.

Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God, the Just, is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there the Risen Lamb,
My perfect spotless Righteousness,
The great unchangeable I am,
The King of Glory and of grace.

One in Himself, I cannot die.
My soul is purchased by His blood,
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ my Savior and my God.

I hope you are rejoicing in His love and celebrating His victory over the grave wherever you are today.  And I hope you know that He loves you and that living for Him is SO worth it!  Happy Easter!

                          

Since we meet in a restaurant/bar, we have to get creative with baptisms.  The Little Harpeth River was the perfect spot (although pretty cold)!

It was a good time to hang out and catch up and EAT (of course!) . . .

We had barbecue all the way from Memphis, and what would a GHC picnic be without an amazing cake from the talented Charity Rochford (See how cute it is?  We’re studying the book of Exodus at church, hence the theme) . . .

While the food and time for fellowship were great, the most fun was seeing people publicly identify with Christ through baptism.  That morning we sang THIS SONG in the service, and it was so encouraging to look around the room and recall stories of God’s power being stronger than sin and death.  REAL, LIVING stories of hope and redemption and grace.  It just doesn’t get better!

{For another baptism/picnic post (when our Cole was baptized), go HERE.}

                          

February: Riley celebrated his 9th birthday, we met with our social worker several times to get our homestudy done & we had the Show Love Benefit Concert to help with adoption expenses.

March: Brad spent a week in Haiti & I worked on {more} adoption paperwork.

April:  We went camping, Cole lost his top two front teeth, I started teaching ESL classes, and we went to Atlanta where Brad performed Barry & Leslie’s wedding.

May: We survived the Flood of the Century in Nashville & helped with cleanup, the long-awaited FBI fingerprint results finally arrived, Cole was baptized, we submitted our dossier (for the first of many times . . . ugh!), and Brad and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary.

June:  We went to the beach with family for a much needed vacation (and brokenhearted because our dossier didn’t get approved AGAIN).  Four days after we got back home, our dossier was approved AND we got a surprise referral call!  What a month!

July: Brad and I prepared to travel to Ethiopia & left on the 30th to fly across the ocean to meet Yohannes.  Riley and Cole had LOTS of fun with their neighbor friends & even made a little money!

August: Brad and I spent the first week in Ethiopia getting to know Yohannes and attending court, Riley and Cole started back to school, and I celebrated my 32nd birthday.

September: We brought Yohannes home, Green Hills Church started a 2nd Sunday service, and Brad celebrated his 34th birthday.

October: We enjoyed the great Autumn weather together, Brad ran his sixth half marathon, and the boys dressed up for Halloween.

November: Yohannes celebrated his 4th birthday & we traveled to Alabama for Thanksgiving.

December: We spent our first Christmas with Yohannes, and he saw snow for the first time.

WOW!  What a year 2010 was for our family!  It definitely went by much faster than any other year I can remember.  HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of our blog friends!

                          

First up is Noonday Collection.  If you visit their site, you can read all about the founder, Jessica Honegger, as well as the artisans who receive a fair, living wage for their beautiful work.  Items can be purchased online, or you can inquire about hosting a trunk show, which sounds like lots of fun!

fashionABLE scarves are the rage here in Nashville this season.  You can purchase them online, at Posh in Green Hills, or at Nashville Clothing Company in both the Gulch & Cool Springs locations.  I bought a couple at Posh and a few online, and they’re great!  They’re soft and stylish AND they enable women in Ethiopia to leave a life of prostitution and instead have a safe job they can be proud of.  I love it!

Come Together Trading Company offers a wide variety of handmade clothing, gifts & crafts made by artisans from developing countries around the world including Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Ghana, South Africa, Peru, Guatemala, El Salvador, Ecuador, Indonesia, The Philippines, India and many more.  I saw this shirt that I really like while perusing through their site.  They also have great baskets and even Christmas ornaments and nativity sets.

The folks over at Raven + Lily are committed to empowering marginalized women through design partnerships and micro-enterprise opportunities.  They literally help women from India to Burundi to Los Angeles.  Their items can be ordered online, and they also offer trunk shows.  I did notice that Christmas orders must be placed by 5 pm TODAY!

Our friends at Global Support Mission have started a direct trade organization called Red Earth Trading Company.  I really like the video on their website, and you can see some of the goods they provide on their Facebook page.  They will actually be at our church Sunday, December 12, so if you’re local, come on out and do some Christmas shopping!  They have some great items from East Africa and Nepal like these . . .

According to their website, the mission of International Sanctuary is to advocate for exploited people of the world, to educate the public about human trafficking and its prevention, and to be instrumental in providing survivors the means to be reintegrated as valued members of a community. Proceeds from their online boutique offer rescued girls vocational training, education, and monetary savings upon their transition from the aftercare home.  Their website contains some great information as well as some beautiful products.  I especially like their earrings and necklaces, and they’re very affordable, too.

NightLight’s vision is to offer intervention to sexually exploited women and children, to enable them to discover their dignity, and to provide a program of holistic transformation, empowering them to live and work in their community. They operate in Bangkok, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, and their jewelry is beautiful (as you can see below).

If you’re looking for something other than jewelry, scarves and such, THIS COOKBOOK would make a great Christmas gift, and the proceeds go to support widows & orphans in Zambia.  Wiphan is a wonderful ministry that provides biblical teaching, skills training and education to widows and orphans in Zambia, Africa who have been devastated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  They have set up two school campuses that serve 400 orphans and vulnerable children as well as 100 widows.  The schools also double as churches on Sundays.  My friend, Andrea, and her husband are on their American Support Board, and I’m confident that God is using this ministry to impact struggling, hurting, amazing women and children.  There are great recipes in the cookbook, as well as personal stories from Zambia – and it’s such a great looking book that you’ll want to proudly display it in your kitchen!

There are MANY more great organizations that I could feature, but these are some of my favorites.  Feel free to leave others that you know of in the comments section of this post, and together we can really make a difference this Christmas season!

                          

We’ve also been singing this one.  I really like it, too.  This version isn’t the best quality, so . . .

. . . you can watch this one if you want to see the words.  Some of the images just seemed kind of weird to me – especially the close-up of the eagle.  Maybe it’s just me – but it kinda freaked me out a little bit???

Anyway, they’re great songs, and singing them with my church family refuels my soul.  I’ve started slipping into the back of the room during the first service with Yohannes.  We just stay for the music and then jet out (since he turns into a chatterbox as soon as the message begins), but it’s so good for me.  He seems to enjoy it, too, and apparently he’s been listening to me sing in his ear (bless his heart!) because he’s picking up on the songs.  We sang “My heart will sing no other name, Jesus, Jesus” and he broke out in “Jesus Loves Me!”

                          

Guess who went to sleep last night without crying one single bit?!  Yep, Mr. Yohannes did!  He played SO hard yesterday and fell asleep about 30 seconds after I started rocking him and singing to him.  He slept from 7:30 last night until 7:00 this morning and woke up happy!  Brad is at church, so I’m home with the boys by myself.  I was a little nervous about it because Brad and I really worked as a team yesterday, but it has gone very well.  We even went for a ride in the “makina” (car) and somehow ended up in the Starbucks drive-thru???  I don’t know how that happened, but I’m enjoying some good coffee on the back porch while the boys play.  The weather here today is SO nice, and I’m more thankful than ever for our screened-in porch.  I think it really is my favorite room in our house!

To say that the trip home was hard seems kind of like an understatement (more on that soon when I get around to posting about our trip), but being home has been really, really good.  Yohannes is doing so much better than I ever imagined, and he’s learning so much.  I am truly enjoying every minute with him (and Riley and Cole, too, of course), and I couldn’t be more thankful for how far we’ve come even in the past two days.  We’re bonding well, and so far the transition has been so much smoother than I expected.  I know there are people praying for us, and I can feel the prayers.

I’m going to try to blog a little bit about each day of our trip this week, so stay tuned! . . .

On a side note, Green Hills Church now has two services (as of today)!  If you live in the Nashville area and don’t have a church home, come visit us sometime!  We meet at Cabana Restaurant (right behind the Pancake Pantry) in Hillsboro Village.  The new service times are 9:00 & 11:00.  I’m so thankful for our church family and how they continuously love and support us.

                          

I knew Jenny when we all lived in Memphis and went to church together.  (Brad actually performed Blake and Jenny’s wedding ceremony.)  They moved to Nashville shortly after we did (or before – I can’t remember?), and we reconnected when they started coming to Green Hills Church.  I met Elissa about three years ago when she started coming to church as well.  Somewhere along the way, we started a Bible study together.  We called it our Monday Morning Mocha group, and meeting up with them was a great start to my week.  We did Beth Moore’s Esther study together, and then we read Jen Hatmaker’s “Ms. Understood” together.  During our study of that book and the discussions that ensued, God really began to burden my heart for orphans.  These girls (and one other friend, Mandy) were a part of my journey to adoption from the very beginning.  They would listen to my passionate rants and were supportive of what God was stirring up in my heart.

Fast forward to today, and Elissa has spent all week in the same city that our son lives in now – Addis Ababa.  Yep, she’s there right now with Visiting Orphans, and they’re getting ready to head to Uganda for a week.  Before she left, the three of us got together to make some bracelets for her to pass out to the kids (along with a bunch of other goodies).  It’s been fun to watch Elissa get ready for this trip, and I know she will come back with a changed heart and perspective.

I’m thankful to have friends who are passionate about caring for “the least of these.”  I’m thankful for friendships that sharpen me and push me to be more like Jesus.  Elissa, we miss you & can’t wait to hear all about your trip when you get back!  (Oh, and to top it off . . . Jenny’s husband Blake will be traveling to Addis Ababa in a few weeks with Visiting Orphans and Ordinary Hero to host soccer camps for orphans and street children!).  What is it with all these people going to Ethiopia?!  I love it and can’t wait until it’s our turn!

                          

We had planned to have a big picnic Sunday, May 2nd at Percy Priest Lake to celebrate 10 people being baptized.  Well, in case you haven’t heard, the weather didn’t quite cooperate – we got a flood instead.  So, the picnic was rescheduled for last Sunday, and we had to change venues because the lake was still closed due to flood-related issues.  We met up at Tap Root Farm in Franklin instead. It was a GREAT day with beautiful weather – what a difference a week makes!

These are my girls Jenny & Elissa.  We like to talk and drink coffee together.  And of course, I had to get a picture of my boys . . .

Our friend Charity makes fabulous cakes, and she designed and created this masterpiece for our big day.  Everyone loved it, and it tasted so yummy, too.  If you ever need a cake, give me a call and I’ll put you in touch with Charity.  She does a great job!  (I’m pretty sure you all get the cake, but in case you don’t . . . remember we had a flood the previous week!).

If the day wasn’t special and fun enough already . . . Cole was baptized!  Here he is with his baptism buddy, Chris.

Talk about a memorable Mother’s Day . . . I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Everyone gathered around the pool to watch and celebrate together.  I love these people, and this is a day I will never forget.

It has always been our prayer that our children would come to know and love Jesus personally and that their lives would glorify God.  It is the most important thing to me as a mother.  I care so much about their hearts, and I hope and pray that they will always trust God and follow him without hesitation.  I can’t wait to see what God does in and through them, and I’m so grateful to be their mom!

I’ll leave you with a quote I heard a while back from Bonnie Jensen:

The greatest impression a mother can leave on her children is the message of her living faith, unwavering hope, and steady trust in God that will be engraved on their hearts forever.

                          

We helped Mary, who was evacuated from her home by boat.  She’s lived in the house less than a year.  The guys cut about 4 feet of sheet rock out of the bottom of the entire house. The hardwood floors were ruined, so the tedious work began of tearing it out. And I’ll just say that it didn’t really “tear” out. It was glued down reeeaaalllyy well, and it had to be chipped away one little plank at a time. The guys worked SO hard and got (maybe) half of it done. Some of the girls hauled debris out to one of the piles outside and took down a bunch of wallpaper (on the upper portion of the walls that remained). Meanwhile the homeowner and her her daughters cleaned out cabinets and sorted through what was left. They spent a lot of time trying to salvage old photographs as well. It was so good to get out and help. I’m just sorry their loss was so great.

[Photos compliments of Mike & Tabitha Harder]

                          

1)  We traveled to Atlanta last weekend for Barry & Leslie’s wedding!  Barry is Brad’s brother, and we are so happy that Leslie is now an official part of the family!  Their wedding was beautiful (Brad performed the ceremony), and the reception was fun with lots of delicious food!  They get the award for best wedding cakes ever!!

2)  I’ve taught ESL two days at the Nashville International Center for Empowerment (NICE).  My first day was Monday, and I went back Wednesday.  I’ll be teaching every Monday and Wednesday morning.  Both days I’ve had five students, and they are from Somalia, Sudan & Burma.  They already know some English, and we’ve been working on things ranging from basic grammar to how to write a check.  I feel right at home with them, and I’m thankful to have the opportunity to help them in whatever way I can!

3)  I’m reading a couple of books right now: So Long Insecurity by Beth Moore & One Million Arrows by Julie Ferwerda.  They’re both good.  I’m especially enjoying One Million Arrows.  It just goes along perfectly with what God’s been doing in my heart and in our family. I’ll be discussing my thoughts on both books in later posts.

4)  Green Hills Church will have our 2nd Annual Picnic/Baptism at Percy Priest Lake this Sunday.  Last year it rained, and the water was COLD . . . but we still had a great time!  It looks like rain will be joining us again this year, but I’m still praying that it won’t.  Either way, it will be an especially sweet day for our family because Cole will be baptized!  I’ll try to post a few pictures of the celebration next week.

5) No new information on the adoption front, but I check the mailbox in anticipation everyday.  Our social worker said that she thinks we should receive FBI fingerprint results in the next couple of weeks, so we’re hopeful.

6)  We met our neighbors (three houses down the street) last Sunday afternoon.  Their oldest son goes to school with the boys, and I’ve been wondering for months if their family was from Ethiopia.  I found out that they are from Eritrea, which borders Ethiopia.  They’re very nice, and we plan to have them over for dinner sometime and let the kids play.  Their kids (2 boys) are SO handsome!  Almost every day I look out the window to see Riley, Cole and their son walking down the street from the bus stop after school.  It just melts my heart every time because it gives me a picture of what our family might look like soon.  I seriously almost tear up every. single. day.  It’s sweet and ridiculous at the same time!  I know being a multi-cultural family will have its fair share of challenges, but I’m honestly so excited about it!

7)  The boys have field day at school today, and I’m heading over there soon.  I can’t believe tomorrow is MAY, and summer break will be here soon.  I’m trying to think of some fun, new things to do with the boys while they’re out of school.  I think we’ll be doing some art projects, but I’ll post more about that later.

I hope all of you in blogland are doing well.  I’ll try to post again soon!  Have a GREAT weekend!