Ready for Christmas

So we didn't get the prize for "2012 getting ready for Christmas award."

Let's see:
Send friends and family Christmas cards  - no check, sorry everyone, oh and P.S. Merry Christmas!
Take memorable family portrait  - no check, it's the thought that counts, worth more than a 1,000 words
Make delicious Christmas baking - no check, Costco took care of that for me
Hang stockings with care - no check, where did I leave them anyway?! Oh well.
...You get the point.

Life is like that. Probably was for Mary and Joseph as well, new parents of a baby.
New Arrival cards - no check, the Angels and shepherds took care of that
Take memorable family portrait - no check, after all, they were refugees escaping a death threat
Make delicious food for the big day - no check, no hotel with studio kitchen, stable food only
Decorate their home for their New Arrival - no check, census time, on a road trip in third trimester and delivery

If getting ready for Christmas means putting up our feet, taking time to centre ourselves on God, and spending time with family and friends, we are SO ready :) In fact, we are quite enjoying it.

Some family highlights of 2012:
- Family road trip this summer to visit family & friends (Vancouver, Edmonton, Lloydminster, Hague)

- New facility completed at Wendi's workplace, Grand Opening
- Harold plays in a MB golf tournament
- Kehlen and Mikhala spend some holidays at their cousin's houses
- Our family decides to expand, planning to adopt a brother and sister for Kehlen & Mikhala
- Wendi submits her resignation from much loved position for February 1. 2013 to focus on being co-CEO and Director of Park Investors Group: a not-for-profit investment partnership of our next generation (aka "Mom"). Needless to say, our "investments" are estatic and appreciating to "have family day everyday".
- Go Christmas carolling in our neighbourhood with community friends
- Volunteer at Christmas kettles as a family, Kehlen and Mikhala pushing candy canes on distracted passerby's and netting a good donation total. Who could resist a cute kid's Merry Christmas? Yes, we believe in child volunteer labour :)

So here's an update on our family:

co-CEO 1 (aka Harold): continues to pastor at Southlands Community Church, focusing on counselling, coordinating Community Groups, and leading a new ministry located at my workplace called "Celebrate Recovery." In his spare time you will find him golfing or working out at the gym. He has completed his academic portion of his doctorate in marriage & family therapy, and we (yes, and I say, WE) are anticipating to complete the research and final thesis work in 2013.

co-CEO 2 (aka Wendi): is completing her position as Director at The Salvation Army - Barbara Mitchell Family Resource Centre, a much loved employment. In her spare time... wait, workaholics and moms don't have spare time. Anyways, I enjoy working, momming, spending time with Harold, and living in community.

Investment 1 (aka Kehlen): is our 4 year old little professor. He loves to read Geronimo Stilton books, play chess, Angry Birds, Mario Kart Wii, and with his Lego. He has many friends from daycare and church that he likes to play with. His favorite foods are pancakes, veranika and schmont-fatt (atta boy!), as well as sushi and pasta.

Investment 2 (aka Mikhala): is our 2 year old little princess/director jr. She loves to go shopping, play house, do puzzles, dress up pretty, and colour. She has the making of being a future director, with an assertive voice, an even more determined mind, and enthusiasm to make everyone follow her command. Yikes, not sure where she gets it from, ahem. She loves all things food, first to sit at the table, and the last to leave.

Investments 3 & 4 - We don't know who they are yet, but we are coming for you in the next year or so. At this point, it looks like we are DRC (Congo) bound. Kehlen can't wait for a bunk bed, prays for them almost everyday, and Mikhala, well she just adopted a new black Cabbage Patch for Christmas today and has affectionately called her Isinino, after our other daughter who has become like part of our family and is with us for the holidays. She is 20 and from Ethiopia.

We are so grateful for all of God's blessings, too numerous to count, but life changing nonetheless. We continue to experience Emmanuel - God with us. Our prayer this Christmas is that Emmanuel would be experienced by all those we are in community with.


Merry Christmas!    ... and yes, we are ready for Christ to come!

Not on My Clock

Tick-tock.
Every minute, hour, day is precisely predictable in its timing.

But I am finding that my watch is not predictable of God's timing. What should go fast ends up slower than anticipated, what is to be a slow process speeds by me like the speed of light.
Tick-tock. The time on my watch is still accurate, but the timing of God is on a pace of its own.

Take our adoption process, for example. We applied in October and instead of waiting many months to take the compulsory adoption parenting course, we already have that checked off our to do list. One month after applying we quickly found ourselves sitting in a room with other prospective parents, many of whom had applied much earlier in Spring. Now we have thrust ourselves into completing a mountain of documents required to complete our dossier, months ahead of what we anticipated. It's like God was simply waiting for us to apply already, so that he could get the ball rolling.

Then we wait... Not on our watch, but on God's. We wait for our homestudy to be complete, we wait for the dossier to be prepared and sent to the country yet to be determined. And we wait some more... for a match to be made with our family so we can be united with our new children.

We anticipate a predictably slow adoption process, but who knows, we are already further ahead than we anticipated to be by Spring 2013. God-speed can mean both miraculously fast, tryingly slow, or simply unknown... and that's OK. Timing is everything, especially God's.
 

Who Am I?

If you listed your name in the dictionary, how would you define yourself?

It probably wouldn't be too difficult for those around you to come up with all kinds of sarcastic and humourous definitions of you, mainly because they hold various degrees of poignant truth. "Who am I?" may seem to many a some-what pointless question to ponder, a stupid question like "why is the sky blue?" or "why is the house messy?" when I have two preschoolers in the home. For others it throws them into great imagination and philosophical rumination. For me "who am I?" is generating an expansive freedom.

For the past seven years I have been fortunate to be in a position of leadership within The Salvation Army, within my community of leaders and residents, and within my team of staff. Some might say I am a Director, because my business card says so, my proposals say so, the people I bring leadership to say so.

For the past seven and a half years I have been fortunate to be married to Harold, and become a mother to Kehlen (4) and Mikhala (2). Some might say I am a wife and mother, because of my relationship and role in their lives.

While there is more to describe me, none of this defines me unless I reduce my existance to a function. For me, expansive freedom is the notion of total abandonment to the One who created me. Since I reckon that the Creator made me for a reason and isn't confined to my attempts to live on my own terms of reference I get pretty excited when God whispers some pretty audacious considerations like the one I'm about to share with you now: "I dare you to resign from your job and be a stay-at-home mom."

Ha! Anyone who knows me acknowledges I love my family super much, but visions of aprons, canning, and playing tea party all day with my kids are the last things floating through my head. I don't do homemaking. I'd sooner gut and renovate our entire basement and bathroom (which I did during mat leave #2) than pour over pinterest and attend Pampered Chef parties with uber-moms. (Sorry ladies.)

Well, like Abraham taking his son Isaac up the mountain to be sacrificed, I obediently trekked up my own so-called mountain to press into God about this notion of giving up "my baby" - a job that I absolutely love (OK minus some beaurocratic road blocks we driven ENTP's are not fond of). Over the past five months I have retreated to my holy ground, which for me happens to be Tim Horton's down my street with my prayer journal. I have talked extensively with Harold, who internally may have diagnosed me as dillusional, but I jokingly remind him I am not his client here but a covenanted life partner. I have consulted with mentors who I consider spiritual giants in their own lives who have asked me the probing questions in order to discern my response to this challenge before me.

So you want me to lay this baby down? Why now? The centre is now at its healthiest, as far as team dynamics, program growth and outcomes, financial stability (for a non-profit that is), as far as being on the cusp of much more to come. Talk about coming through the trenches! We just moved into our brand new fully-funded $6M facility, which I say is like moving from a refugee camp into the Hilton of community centres. No more waterfalls down my office walls, no more sewer leaks or condemned cooking facility. We are at home now in our workplace and the future is bright. I always claimed that I was not in my position for the money, but to willingly give up a secure salary for the family is a test of faith. Perhaps God is testing me, I considered. Perhaps I am misunderstanding God's intentions with this. Unlike Abraham, no ram was found caught in my bushes. It wasn't just a test of my obedience to follow God, it was a request for obedience I needed follow through on. God has continued to dare me to do the unthinkable in resigning in my leadership role. So I did.

Ha! Who woulda thunk? February 1, 2013 officially marks the end of an era and the start of a new career which I quip as "non-profit investor of the next generation." Peace beyond reason, freedom beyond compare. I wrote the resignation letter and handed it in to my supervisor at headquarters. Jaws dropped a little, a few claimed to nearly fall from their chairs, but my heart oddly skipped a beat in excitement for the unknown future. That feeling of silly adrenaline when about to bungee jump. The hardest was informing my staff, who I love like they are my own family. But even there I am left with a deep peace that God will continue to do a good work in them and His Kingdom will continue to show up in amazing ways. The community will continue to be my neighbours, and honestly I don't think they care if I own a title or business card to begin with. We are community.

And for now I am looking forward to investing in our 2 children, preparing for the adoption of our other children, my husband's thesis work, and just possibly getting 8 hours of sleep again. And the ENTP in me tells me more is around the corner.

I am a child of God on an adventure of an eternal lifetime.

Who are you?

From 4 to More

You know that conversation couple's have about family; that "the factory is closed," "how about one more?" "don't even think about it!" conversation?

Well just over 12 months ago Harold and I had one of those, which God also piped in and added his two cents. I (Wendi) was done with being a human hotel and restaurant for 52 months. I love my beautiful children, don't get me wrong. But loving your children and becoming an industrialized baby factory are two seperate things. Harold on the other hand was open to having more kids. Men. With all the many orphaned children I had been exposed to in my pre-tie-the-knot, globetrotting days I light-heartedly rebutted that adoption would be the way to go then. Convinced that adoption was not his calling (and more kids was not mine), we concluded the conversation and went about our normal day.

Well normal soon met up with God and our lives will forever be impacted when He piped into the conversation a few days later; a conversation we had thought was long over. We were visiting family in Seoul, South Korea when we attended an English church service at Onuri. It so happened to be international Orphan Sunday and we were touched by the message and testimony of how God has adopted us into His Kingdom family and we are all called to care for others in the same way he demonstrated his love for us. Was it simply a heart-stirring message or were we sensing God's prompting to the outragious notion that WE should actually consider adoption? After all, think of all the costs, the risks, the added responsibility.

"Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you." James 1:27 (NLT)

Inspired, but not convinced, we carried on with our day - enjoying visits with family and tasty Korean cuisine. We awoke the next day and began to tell each other about the dreams we both just had... about how we were to adopt. How could we go back to our "normal" when our hearts had been exposed to the invitation of adopting orphaned children into our family? We were ruined for the ordinary.

Are we doing this out of charity? duty? or self-gratification? How will this affect our children? our finances? and our lifestyle? Is this faith? or is it feeling? These past 12 months we have asked ourselves many questions of our motivation and faith before taking the first outward steps this Fall in the adoption process. There will continue to be many unknowns, although what is faith without the mysteries of following the One who ultimately knows what is best for these chosen children?

Yes, you read correctly... these chosen children (pl). Harold and I are not the only ones on this journey. Our two biological children have been in this conversation too; well, particularly our articulate four-year-old son Kehlen, who has long been praying for children without families, even before we were considering adoption. When we talked to him about the idea of adoption, it was a no-brainer to him. Of course he thought we should be adopting, duh. He also was convinced we should be adopting more than one, because the child likely has a sibling too you know. Thus our adoption application has a big checkmark beside the option 'sibling groups.'

So we invite you to come on this journey with us; be part of this ongoing conversation, both with us and in prayer with God. Together let us all be ruined for the ordinary.

But wait there's more... and that we'll tell you next time :)