Choosing how to invest our money - charitable giving as a large family.

(Strange post topic? Sort of - but it is in response to comments I have had lately about large families being 'excused' from tithing and missions support because they don't have much disposable income....I don't agree - we may not be able to give large chunks but we are able to share what we have.)

In this season of our life predictable paychecks arrive in our account on alternate Fridays. Much of the tension that hourly jobs produced with unpaid sick days and fluctuating hours is gone, and the methods that worked then for designated or charitable giving doesn't apply now. It isn't a matter of paying all the bills and then seeing what is left over to invest in charitable ways, now we can plan ahead of time.

Currently, I am largely in charge of the bills and daily money management in our home so I have a pretty good handle on what is due when, how much is owed and where the balancing points are in our budget. (Got to use my MBA on something!) We run as debt free as the Lord allows with low to no consumer debt and though we currently have a loan on the big van we are quick to pay it off. Knowing what it takes to keep the family basically clothed, fed and housed it's my job to take the excess and invest it in ways that are God-honoring and help us to achieve our family purpose or mission. Some goes into savings (to pay off that next homestudy) some goes to homeschool costs, some to our home church as our tithe, monthly amounts go to medical missions in Asia, educational missions in Africa, and Muslim outreach in the US. We are also committed to an orphanage in South America, a Family ministry here in the US, and a Crisis Pregnancy Center here in MN. And always we are working to help meet our neighbors needs as well as the requests for support as short term crisis or relief teams that go out from our church in response to situations around the world.

But how do we choose? Who ever needs it most? If that were the standard I am sure that we would never be able to discern where our money was to be invested and probably be inconsistent with our giving. Rather than trying to figure out who has the greatest need, we look to determine if this is a ministry, crisis or situation that we particularly want to be involved with. It's always a matter of prayer and something we take seriously - our family could easily spend every penny Robert makes plus much more, but that isn't the life we want to live.

It's such a blessing to me when I run the taxes in January (that MBA again....OH I love tax season!) and each year God has provided for our family in such a way, that the amount of giving to needs outside our own family has exceeded the year before. I love those reverse numbers, they help me to stay focused on the reality that we have been given much (as a family in America) and therefore there is a huge opportunity for us to be involved through our money in so many places where good is being done and truth is being spoken.

It's so much better to feed a child in Guatemala or Africa for two months than to buy one pair of new Gap jeans for myself. I know I can eventually find those jeans at the Goodwill, but where will that child's meal come from if I am not involved? NOT that I am doing it out of guilt (as those who know me can attest) guilt is not how I function. It's done in joy - because we have the freedom to. Because we have the choice to love these people we will most likely never meet but who we can bless and whose lives we can impact in a positive way.

Fourth of July fallout - or - more life in the city.

The fifth of July we got up to the unusual sight of a car jack shoved through the windshield of a car that was parked across the alley. Strange and a little unsettling.

Then this morning we got up to discover that someone had stolen the handicapped parking signs from the curb next to us. One they had rocked until they got it out of the ground, post and all and it was totally gone, the second they had actually gone to the trouble of unbolting and taking just the top section with the sign. Strange, but not as worrying to me as the jack through the window. It does explain the strange sounds we heard last night - who's thinking ratchet at 2:00am?! All I could think was "odd sound, but it doesn't sound life threatening" and I rolled over and went back to sleep.
Another good reminder to pray for the neigborhood boys.

4th of July - berry picking and neighbors

For the Fourth of July this year we had a busy but relaxed day as a family + neighbors. John got us in the mood by making toast with the number 4 on it - he had read about Paddington doing it with letters and used the same idea with foil cutouts for our breakfast.






We then had a long discussion about how to spend the morning....museums, state parks, and various strenuous hikes. Thankfully we unanimously settled on strawberry picking as the perfect activity - and it was still early enough to get to the fields before it got too hot. Grandpa John came to help with Joe and Lily, though she snuck past him and did the happy dance in a half flat of berries and did make a lot of juice. 24 powdered strawberry doughnuts (smart farm to sell treats for hungry pickers!) and 30lbs of berries later we were ready to head home and take naps.
































In the evening we had a great barbecue dinner and the big kids prepared a whole bunch of fruit and vegetables for us to enjoy - love those kitchen helpers! Afterwards we got our piece of plywood and trooped through the neighbors yards to put on our fireworks display for neighbors who are not able to do go to or light off fireworks any more. Joyce just got home from what feels like a month in the hospital and Jan (in the wheelchair) thought we were about the funniest. We also gathered our neighbor Haily (who's 8) into our crew, she was wandering lonely on the block and she fit in perfectly.

And my favorite part came this morning - left over strawberries and cream garnished our waffles and there were even paper plates to serve it on!

(Revised )Transracial adoption - domestic vs overseas and the question of culture.

(I edited this today to make it a little clearer.)
For several years I have been chewing over and trying to understand the differences between international transracial adoption and domestic transracial. At first I thought that there was no difference –that no matter who we adopted they would be adding an extra culture or ethnicity to our family blend and that their birth culture would be special, unique but not overwhelming to the rest of the family. Over time I have had enough confused discussions with friends as well as strangers that I realize there is more to the discussion than I saw in the beginning.

Spending a week in Korea this spring helped clarify for me a few of the realities. While we were in Korea, Carrie and I visited historic landmarks, shopped for souvenirs and enjoyed all things Korean. Then we had the joy-filled blessing of returning to the United States with her new daughter. I now have a travelers appreciation of the country as well as the culture that this tiny girl was born into. But there is no on-going expectation that Carrie will provide the same level of immersion into Korean culture that her child would experience had she stayed in Korea. It would be unreasonable and impractical so options such as Korean food, Art, Culture Camp, Korean Adoptee play groups, and perhaps later in life a ‘homeland adoption’ tour could be a part of meeting that need.

Contrast this with a potential transracial (as in Black being adopted by White)domestic adoption. As the adoptive mom I might fly into Florida with as little as a week notice, meet the social worker and maybe birthparents, sign the appropriate paperwork and within a few hours I could catch the next flight back to my home state. What do I teach him about his birth culture? He’s American from birth, but he is a Black American. His family history is dramatically different from ours and he yet has never left his home country so there is no clean break. How do I meet the cultural need in a child who's culture is still potentially all around us? It seems like it should be easier, but I think it's harder because often the societal expectations are higher and less clearly defined by statements like 'teaching him to be black.'

Whoa! You might say at this point – that’s comparing apples to oranges and does not really relevent to what we are talking about with racial identity. And here is where I run into trouble now. I believe that there is a terrific difference between a child being adopted transracially from a foreign country and one that is born in the USA, but we keep trying to use the same vocabulary and expectations in both situations when we talk about adoption. Many people I know consider transracial needs to be all the same, but I am learning that they are very different realities and discussions, and that there is no easy answer to them all. In my opinion, (as the mom to Black kids) being Black in America has a very different series of realities than being Hispanic, Korean, or Ukrainian and as adoptive parents we need to think through what that means for our own families as well as the ones around us.

Why we don't adopt from foster care - it's free isn't it?

Why don't you adopt through foster care? A big question that many people ask when they find out how much our adoptions cost and then realize what our annual income is.

There are several basic reasons we don't adopt through foster care. Two of the big ones are that we are no longer 'eligible' because of the number of children in our home (9 of school age or under) and the reality that we are not willing to allow the state as a large entity manage our children's care and education. We don't feel comfortable giving up some of our parental rights (in the months between placement and finalization) in order to have a free adoption. NOT that adopting through the foster care system means that for all families!

Please don't yell at me for writing that - it's just that the way our family works is not the way that makes most DSHS social worker comfortable. I know several families who have successfully adopted through the state and love the fact that God is doing it for his Glory.

A bigger reason that we are adopting through a private agency is that I hate the way US foster care works from the child's perspective. I have watched children from our neighborhood being removed from their homes, the long process toward reunification or relinquishment and the trauma that the whole process brings into their childhood. I know that they are doing the best that they can with a standardized process, but it is so painful to witness and often times unsuccessful.

I can't tell you how many of my adopted children would have ended up living that story, but I can say that several of them were headed that way and others may have ended up there. By being proactively open and available to pregnant women who may know that they are not able to parent, I feel that we may be sparing these children the future disruption and chaos of the foster care system.

In general, state foster care (from my experience) doesn't work with many newborns who are needing adoptive placements - the children who are there are those who have been abused and or neglected through their parents inability to function in a healthy way. Most newborns who are not critically ill are redirected to private agencies for adoption because the agencies can do it quickly (weeks vs many months.) Which is how several of our kids came to join our family.

Maybe when our kids are older we will end up adopting through the state. But for now we are willing to be on the first line of options for women in crisis pregnancies rather than a hoped for family somewhere after their children have been taken into state care. So for today we are sticking to agency adoption and are perfectly willing to invest our funds in the lives of these children.

The door knob between us........

Nice doorknob - about 100 years old with a substantial weight and clarity of glass that the replicas just don't have. That's the romantic view. It's also a chronic 'tighten' item on my list because the screws work their way out over six months or so and one day you are left standing their with the knob in your hand hoping desperately you can find that little special screw that just rolled away from you across the floor. In the same vein there are the bath faucets, cupboard hinges, light bulbs, and hundred other tiny living distractions that keep me from writing in my spare time and downloading all of the things I have lined up to write in my head.

Very rarely (only a few times in my life) have I been at a loss for words - rather I am at a loss for time. So if there is nothing new here it's not that I have writers block, I have a new mommy problem, what ever it can be called ......adjustophobia? 'Maintence block' or ? Either way - tomorrow is a new day and I already replaced the light bulb and tightened the knob so I should be free to write again- until I look around and see the five new things that have broken or shifted over night..........then I am back to the crisis of weighing the value of writing over the reality of my house coming apart piece by piece.

Question of the day -

It's a late night kitchen cleaning, 11:00pm with at least an hour of ignored chores to do before I start again in the AM. I was just wiping up the mousie droppings from behind my stove and the monarch caterpillar ones from the table where the boys were playing with them and I came to an amazing realization. The monarch ones are larger....how can that be? They are maybe 1/10th of the size of a small mouse? I admit to being a little confused on this one. Any explanations out there?

That last one was too much fun - more laundry to air!

Here are a few more things that show my true nature...vs. my cleaned up blogger one!


6. I don't clean my bathrooms unless someone pees on my floor or company is coming. (good news is that both occur fairly often so it does get done!)

7. My kids sometimes eat animal crackers with milk for breakfast - because I just can't think of what else to serve them.

8. Sometimes I fall asleep without without brushing my teeth ( or maybe it's more like passing out from exhaustion while waiting for my turn in the bathroom.)

9. I have been known to borrow my kids toothbrushes when mine is found on the floor under 'suspicious' circumstances.

10. In a crisis (like a gang fight brewing over my back fence) I have been known to use the colorful British superlatives that my father taught us. Sorry mom - they are planted like seeds in my mind....I can even remember the circumstances that he used each one under. Like the time he was behind the green couch and hit his hand with a hammer.....treasures for me now that he is gone.

11. I feed my kids fresh fruit and water as a snack and then go in and sneak a handful of chocolate chips and a cup of thick re-heated coffee for myself. And I hide in the pantry to do it! Naughty!

Tagged but Deanna - but never one to play by the rules I wrote my own questions

So if the purpose of tagging is getting to know more about someone here are five things I things many people don't know about me. (this type of tagging is so much more beneficial than the type our neighbors do with spray paint!) Deanna started this so I might just send it back at her for fair play........



1. Given a choice I would pick dark chocolate, spicy food, raw onions, red wine and colored stones over diamonds any day. But I have learned not to be picky so I am just happy with about anything that I don't' have to cook or purchase!



2. I am not 'from' Minnesota. I grew up and spent my first 27 years happily near the ocean on the West Coast. I moved here against my human will (tears and tantrums - but that is another story) 13 years ago and can now say it was a good decision.



3. I became a believer at 25 and am amazed at the difference relinquishing control of my life has made. I wasn't a bad person before, but my life was pretty hollow and self serving. All I can say it wow it's full now!



4. I'm divorced. (Only a surprise to those who didn't read my blog when I wrote about that part of my life.)



5. I have never really liked babies. But after having 9 of them live with me I am getting better at enjoying them. Give me a defiant, hands on hips toddler any day over an inconsolable newborn.





Now I get to tag two friends (or so the story goes) - Ok Patty and Brady tell me five things about yourself that you wish your readers knew - I love you both!

Family prayer request - better today

Would all of you who are inclined please pray over my husband and his work situation. He is facing much this week and is fighting to stay centered and keep it all in focus. I covet your prayers.