WayfaringStrangers

This post brought to you by this Friday Miracle: Our host fee for Victoria- and then some- have been funded. It was funded by family. And friends. And Behn's co-workers. And complete strangers. It was funded by people who shared our story and/or who gave a little or a lot. We also were given clothes, a mattress, gift cards and a suitcase. We are so extremely grateful for every bit. It's weird and humbling asking for money. We signed up for this, but then we asked others to help. "Hey world! An overwhelmed   mom family with 2 boys are going to do something pretty crazy and have a non-English speaking child come stay with us for 5 weeks. Want to give us your mon-ay??" We knew that it was ultimately our responsibility to cover the fees, and some of the funding did come from our personal Orphan Care fund because we wanted to include ourselves in giving to Victoria. But it was a leap of faith and prayer and here we are. God heard and answered- through many of you!...

Yesterday we got our fingerprints done. Because obviously people don't just go get a casual set of fingerprints done, there must be a reason, right? The reason is that this summer our little family will be hosting a little girl from Ukraine! V is living in an orphanage, but this summer she will get to experience the love of a family as we welcome her to our home. She is so young, only 6, and it breaks our heart that kids grow up in orphanages. We are thrilled that God has called us to be part of her life. Behn and I have always felt the draw to care for orphans and kids from hard places. We actually went to Ukraine on an Orphan Care trip 5 years ago. (Read about it here ). When God led us to buy a house with a extra space, we knew we wanted to share it; we just did not know how we would. And now we do know- this summer it will be filled with a little girl. The hosting agency is Open Hearts and Homes For Children. She will come with the group and we will pick her up in New Yo...

...which is good because I am one, praise the Lord! Have been for over a year (actually almost 2 years if you count pregnancy, which I do). Today Graham and I got another day alone together. Poor Frankie caught G's cold and was home sick. It was good for us to be alone though, because G's still not 100% and I'm under the weather too, with his cold. Plus, he still hasn't slept soundly in several nights, so I'm tired. This afternoon as I was hanging out with G, I felt a nostalgic feeling from my childhood. Today felt like one of those cold winter days I'd come home from school and Mom would have hot chocolate waiting for us for a snack. The smell of dinner in the crockpot reminded me of smelling dinner as I walked through the door as a kid. Even the sound of the furnace reminded me of the one in our old house. It's so funny that now I'm the Mom. I'm the one making hot chocolate (for myself), I put dinner in the crockpot. When did I grow up? Of c...

A Philosophical Post for You: Today as I was driving, I was listening to NPR as usual (no tv at home, so any chance for 'news' and I'll take it). It was "Science Friday"- not my interest- but still caught my attention. They were interviewing a brilliant astrophycisist, a woman who was a professor at MIT. Her life's goal was to study the moon- it's origins, what it's made of, what's inside of it. She was enthusiastically explaining all these theories of how the moon came into being- that maybe the earth was collided into and then the moon broke off. And maybe there were once 2 moons (um, where'd the other one go??). She was overseeing a big project that sent up some kind of satellites that were gathering data to answer some of these questions. I turned off the radio after a few minutes because it was overloading my brain. Some of the thoughts going through my head were: How much do these projects cost? And how will the answers they find h...