Give Me Your Eyes

Brandon Heath wrote a great song titled “Give Me Your Eyes”… the chorus of the song goes like this:

“Give me Your eyes for just one second… Give me Your eyes so I can see… Everything that I keep missing…Give me Your love for humanity.

Give me Your arms for the broken hearted… The ones that are far beyond my reach... Give me Your heart for the ones forgotten… Give me Your eyes so I can see”

Here are a few things that I was not seeing until God opened my eyes:

•     1 billion people are starving to death on our planet—half are children

•     Another billion do not have clean, safe water to drink (my dog and my lawn drink better water than these precious people)

•     There are twice as many slaves in the world today than all the slaves brought to America before the Civil War—and many of them are children.

•     There are ~145 million orphaned children in the world

•     More than a third of the entire world’s people live on less than $2 a day.

•     And here’s one that’s got a strangle hold on my heart… 24,000 children, under age of 5, die every single day from preventable causes..infections, fevers, diarrhea .  That’s one child every 3.5 seconds.  171 kids have died since I started writing this post.  I’ve got three kids 5 and younger, and each of them has had at least one of these maladies in the past six months.  For us, it’s an inconvenience.  For so many others, it’s life-threatening.  Why?  Pretty much because they are poor…they simply can’t afford access to basic, life-saving medical care and supplies.  I’m not talking about MRIs here, I’m talking about $5 antibiotics, clean water to wash out a wound, or medicine to treat malaria.

Source for Statistics: The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns

It seems like a lot of things are broken in our world, but I’ve come to realize that I am broken, too.  God commands us to love one another, but I am indifferent and apathetic toward the issues people listed above.  I read stories and see videos about people in these situations…situations that are not consequences of their choices, actions, or attitudes, but the result of their being up against forces much too powerful for them to overcome on their own (ie-political, cultural, economic, natural).  My heart is moved, and I care… temporarily… but then life moves on, the moment passes, and I do nothing.

I am convinced that God’s solution for this type of suffering and injustice is the free will generosity of His people.  Everyone does something because no one can do everything.  We are Christ’s body on this earth… we are His hands, His feet, and His heart.  He works through His body… if we’re not doing it, no one is.  God chose us.  We are THE plan…there is no backup plan.  If we do small things with great love, we can change things, one person at a time.

So, it turns out that I am the one that needs fixed… I am the one that needs to see what Jesus sees and feel what He feels.  The great news is that if I open my eyes and my heart… Jesus uses me. There are solutions to address our world’s challenges and God can nudge me to do small things… from helping fund water wells to welcoming a baby into our home.

Ryan

Mamby Pamby Land

So a quick refresher on my background…

·   I was raised in a loving, Christian family

·   I have followed Jesus for most of my life

·   I am fully aware I am a sinner and I’ve been rescued by Jesus Christ

·   I’ve been incredibly blessed and life has been relatively, very, embarrassingly easy and comfortable

My prayer life primarily consisted of praying thankfulness for all my blessings… the best marriage and awesome kids… a supportive and loving extended family… an incredible community of fun friends… good health, a comfortable home, working vehicles, a job, etc, etc.

Then about 4 or 5 years ago I began to wonder if all the work God had been doing in my life was NOT the end game.  I came to a point in my life where I was starting to ask the question… now what?  My life was great, but this couldn’t be it.  I had a sense that something big was missing in my life.  Did God bless me just because He wanted me to be happy and fulfilled?  Or was there something bigger He had planned?  I found myself thinking about questions like:  What do I want my legacy to be?  Have I made a real difference in someone else’s life?  Who and what have I fought for?  These couple verses from Luke kept rattling around in my heart:

Luke 9:23-24 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.

Basically, we all have a choice… to live a self-centered life or to live a Christ-centered life.  That’s it… just the two options.  Those verses in Luke sound like a Christ-centered life requires radical obedience… and there was not much radical going on in my life.  I began to realize that I had taken what was radical about faith in Jesus and replaced it with a comfortable Christianity that revolved around and catered to me.  While the central message of Jesus is about self denial and serving others, my faith had been about self fulfillment.

It was at this point that my journey hit a fork in the road.  God changed my heart and my focus.  I felt that by God’s grace and with His help, maybe I could make a difference in other people’s lives. 

Looking back, this is the time when this “rescued” guy entered into a role of making the Great Rescuer known to others.  My rescue was not just for myself… my rescue was a teeny, tiny piece of God’s plan for rescuing the world that he loves. 

Ryan

The BlogMaster

Hi all,

It’s the technophobe wife, here…sitting down to write my very first blog (to be completely honest with you, I’m writing a nice, clean, manageable Word document, and I’ll have “my people” put it on the blog site when I’m done.  I’ll learn how to upload a blog post soon…right after I learn how to operate the DVR and manage the thermostat in our house).

First, let’s dive into this technophobe label because I believe that it is inaccurate.  It’s not that I am afraid of technology.  I just don’t like it.  From my point of view, most things were better in about the 1950s.  Now don’t get me wrong…I’m not offering to give up my automatic washing machine, but you can keep your television, your iPod, your Wii, and that high-tech book reading machine that you’re getting for Christmas.  And if my husband slides his finger across that zippy phone of his to check fantasy football scores one more time….(readers—please continue to purchase those zippy phones, from Sprint of course, as these adoptions don’t pay for themselves).

Anyway, back to the blog.  Let me tell you why I don’t like blogs:

·         The word- blog.  Don’t like it…not a pleasant word.  Who came up with this ugly little word?  Web-log schmeb-log…it is clearly a mix of the words blob and gunk.

·         I don’t have time to write a blog (and you don’t have time to read a blog).  Seriously…on a good day, I’m up at 5:00am and go to bed at 10:30pm and I barely have enough time to get through my responsibilities as it is.

·         I’d rather talk to you face to face, back and forth…like a human being, than sit here and look at this nice, clean, manageable Word document.

·         Security and privacy.  I’m not keen on having pictures of our little family or intimate details of our lives on the internet…my hypervigilance is but one of several leftover job hazards from my previous profession.  If you are a predator or perpetrator, please stop reading now.  Speaking of security and privacy…a couple of you have left “comments” on the blog already.  Please be assured that we are receiving and treasuring them.  Thank you!  We’ll keep that comment button active, and the comments will continue to come to us (rather than be posted on the blog itself). 

All joking aside, what started as a quiet, little bud in our hearts about a year-and-a-half ago has grown into something significant and sacred.  And we like you, most of you, and want to invite you to share this with us.  And just maybe, you will be blessed by being a part of this journey, or maybe it will ignite or fan something significant and sacred in your heart. 

So that’s why we are writing this blog (that and because Ryan said so).

More soon…must sign off now…baby crying, child standing on the kitchen counter to reach the maple syrup, and dog appears to be eating something out of the trashcan.  I’m not making this up.  I don’t have time to write a blog.

Sarah (the Blogmaster)

Family and Friends - Welcome to Our Blog

Thank you for taking time to get more details on our news.  For those of you new to blogs (and I’m primarily talking to my wife and her 82 year-old grandmother), the newest posts will be located right here under the picture of my beautiful family.  I’ve entered a few posts below.  Scroll to the bottom of the page and work your way up, if you want to read the posts in chronological order. 

I don't know yet how often we will post, but I'd guess every week or two (unless Sarah becomes a blog junkie).    

Ryan

Why Ethiopia?

When we first started discussing adoption, Sarah was open to domestic or international adoption.  For some reason, I felt drawn to international adoption.  It wasn’t that I had any issues with domestic adoption… I’m 100% positive that the end result from either domestic or international adoption is absolutely priceless and a blessing.  But over time, Sarah and I both began to lean toward international adoption as the path for our family.

Each country that is “open” to US families for adoption has their own set of “criteria” for adoptive families.  We were eliminated from adopting from several countries because of our age and because we have three biological kids.  Our only criterion was that we wanted to adopt a baby/infant (in order to preserve the current birth order of our kids)…that eliminated a few countries from the running, as well.  So we had a short list of countries, and one question that we asked each of the adoption agencies was, “Where is the greatest need?”  Each one of the agencies answered--- Ethiopia.

·        In sub-Saharan Africa alone, there are over 50 million orphans.

·        There are ~5 million orphans in Ethiopia (which is one in every nine children) and ~800,000 children have lost one or both of their parents to HIV/AIDS

·        Ethiopia is one of the four poorest countries in the world… 80% of the people live on less than $2/day

·        Because of the extreme poverty (and the resulting disease and malnutrition), 1 in 10 children die before their first birthday… and 1 in 6 children die before age 5

The need is staggering and we feel powerless to make a difference, but we are committed to use what we’ve been given to help where we can. 

Ryan

Why Adopt?

Sarah has had a heart for adoption for a long time…since working in an orphanage in Merida, Mexico while studying abroad for a semester in college.  I never gave adoption any thought until I read The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns in early 2009.  Come to find out, I’d been oblivious to so much going on in the world around me.  I learned, among other startling facts, that there are ~145 million orphaned children in the world.  145 MILLION.  That is a lot.  Quite simply, the world we live in is under siege, and God has been working on my heart over the last couple years to get me on His side of the battle by fighting on behalf of these little ones.

Based on Scripture, it seems very clear that God has a special heart towards orphans… and that they are a priority to Him.  

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

Every single one of these kids is created in God’s image and is deeply and relentlessly loved by Him.  God calls all of His followers to care for these children, and that can take many different forms.  For Sarah and me, it means adding a child to our family.  Starting about 18 months ago, we clearly felt God calling us to adoption.  After much prayer and seeking His will, research, education, discussions with adoptive families we know, and meetings with adoption agencies, we are confident that now is the time for us to start this journey. 

Ryan

Our Exciting News

Over the past few years, God has been teaching us about giving ourselves away…to His purposes, to our kids, to our friends, to hurting people in our city and around the world.  We realize, now, that those lessons were in preparation for His call on our family to adopt.  So, we’re starting a journey that will lead us to the other side of the world (twice!) and culminate in another precious addition to our family. 

In January, we will submit an application to Children’s Hope International (CHI) to adopt a baby from Ethiopia.  We believe we have room in our home and hearts for another child, and we are feeling called to expand our family via adoption.  This will be life-changing, both for the child and for us…and we appreciate your support and prayers as we navigate this exciting, challenging, and unknown road ahead.

Currently, the adoption agency tells us that the timeline for an adoption from Ethiopia is about two years (from the time we submit our application to the day we bring our child home).  We’ve decided (well, I’ve decided and I’m dragging my technophobe wife along with me) to create this blog, so you can stay up to date with our progress. Our estimated timeline and current status can be found on the right hand side of the blog home page. 

Ryan