Lux et umbra vicissum…

I set up an etsy site.

http://beadsnwood.etsy.com

Thanks for the suggestion, Nat!  I made it so that Joel can list some of his woodworking there at some point, too.  Now I’ll have to try to finish up a bunch of my UFO’s – unfinished objects!  I’m building up quite a collection of them at this point.  The only thing I have listed for now is the set I included here on my site.  Most of my other pieces are pendants that I hadn’t decided how to hang, etc.  And some sets that I haven’t finished.  And some bracelets that I hadn’t decided if they were finished…  you get the picture.

I haven’t felt much like blogging lately.  My grandmother took a turn for the worse a couple days ago and they were sure she wasn’t going to make it.  She rallied a bit, though, and is still hanging on.  I’m just trying not to get my hopes up too high.  The whole thing is incredibly stressful, and if it feels that way to me it must be even more so for my mother, my aunts, and my grandfather!

Anyway, here’s a jewelry set I just finished.  I’m planning on charging $26 for the set.  It’s made out of gold plated beads and wire, swarovski crystals, fresh water pearls, and crackle glass nuggets along with some less fancy clasps and such.   I like how it turned out.  Might have to use this pattern again.

Items accomplished yesterday:

notarized numerous papers

got money orders for background checks

kept track of five small children

mailed background check requests

mailed requests for reference letters

bought many, many stamps

set up sleepover for Alexis for tonight

finished fund-raising letter

wrote down over 250 names of people to send letter to

created and printed post-placement report pictures for Desta and Eli

Things still to do:

go to sheriff’s office for local background check

go to different branch of sheriff’s office for fingerprints

try not to go crazy

meet with social worker Monday for final home study update visit

fill out financial info for home study and dossier

send employment letter to ABS main office for signing and notarization

request bank letter saying we’re in good standing

retain as much hair as possible

make copies of last three years of taxes

address envelopes for fund-raising letters

mail letters

pray pray pray pray

do internet adoption class  to satisfy training requirements

make more jewelry

apply for tax ID for selling jewelry

pray some more…

She went in after a routine biopsy gone awry.  They were biopsying a lump on her breast – an outpatient procedure, normally – and somehow they nicked an artery.  They didn’t know she was bleeding at first, but her blood pressure dropped, she started struggling to breathe, then she went into shock and her heart stopped.  A nurse anesthetist performed CPR on her for 45 minutes while others worked frantically on other areas to get the bleeding stopped.  She was bleeding into her lungs.  They pumped 3 pints of blood from her lungs and she was still bleeding.  They reopened her, found the “bleeder” and tied it off, but her lung collapsed.  She may have had a stroke, but they’re not sure.  She now has a blood clot in her leg and possible clots in her lungs, and she has pneumonia.  She’s been on a ventilator and has been kept sedated for the most part so she doesn’t fight the equipment that’s keeping her alive.  When she’s allowed to wake up a little bit she’s been able to nod and shake her head in response to questions, but they don’t let her get that awake very often at this point.

I’m planning on traveling to visit my parents this weekend to visit Grandma in the hospital.  We’ll be up there for the week of July 4th anyway, but things are just so complicated right now…. if she didn’t make it until our planned visit I’d feel terrible.  She’s only a few hours away.  I’ll drive up Friday night and stay for Saturday.   I’m planning on taking my jewelry things with me so I can work on them a bit when I’m not actively visiting with Grandma.

Please pray for peace and comfort for Grandma Louise and for my family.  She was in quite good health before this so it’s been a complete shock.  She’s also the youngest of all of my grandparents.

I know that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills,  but I don’t understand why some of them are so skinny.

BBC News Report

One place I’ve found that’s trying to help is Unicef.  AWOP could also use your help as they try to feed the children in the orphanages, care for sick and dying people in the area through their newly forming hospice program, and seek to bring food and education to families that can’t afford it.

We’re getting close.  Our home study update is almost done, and it won’t be long before we have all of our dossier together.  Then comes the real faith test: to send in the dossier we’ll need to have more than $15,000.  Right now we have maybe a couple thousand that we’ve saved.  (We’ve already paid for various adoption expenses out of our pockets, such as the home study update, the initial agency fees, etc.)  Here’s the way I see it right now…

This adoption is God’s will.  The Lord has given us some pretty convincing affirmations of that along the way, and I don’t think most Christians who know our story would deny it.  So going on the assumption that God’s will is known in this case, I think we can also assume that God will see it through.  Does that mean we have no responsibilities when it comes to making things happen?  No, not necessarily.  Certainly, our first responsibility is prayer.  I remember a pastor once saying that praying was like plugging into the power source – it makes things happen.  Our next responsibility is to seek out ways the Lord would have us raise the adoption funds.  I’ve been working on the jewelry again, I brought things home from Ethiopia to resell to raise some funds, and we’re trying not to spend money unnecessarily.  I put off writing a letter to friends and family because I knew many people had given to our last adoption and I didn’t want them to feel put upon to give again.  While I was in Ethiopia, though, I felt the Lord leading me to begin drafting such a letter.  The confirmation for me was when some friends indicated that we should send one out because they would love to help again.

Seems to me that when God wants us to do something for Him, He’ll provide a way.  No one is forced to participate in that process, but the ones who choose to are always blessed.  If not one single person responds to our fund raising letters, God will manage the adoption somehow, but many people will have missed out on a blessing.  Now, don’t get me wrong, not everyone is called to give to every good God-willed project.  However, I do think that people are missing out on a lot of blessings by not considering and praying about giving in specific areas.

So if I have your address, you may be getting a letter in the near future.   Please pray for us in any case, that this adoption would happen in God’s timing and that He would give us peace as we wait for the funds to come in.

As a reward for reaching their “advanced reading” goals, the kids at my daughters’ school were allowed to take part in a “Fear Factor” event that the staff set up out in back of the school. Now, this is an elementary school. They couldn’t do anything too traumatic or dangerous. So it was mostly stuff like sticking your hand into a jar of meal worms to get a prize at the bottom and retrieving rocks with your toes in ice cold water. There were two cool stations, though, and I got to be at one of them. [Read more →]

The Hotel Room in Hosanna

There is one “western” hotel in the area, and we have a room in it.  I haven’t caught the name of it yet.  I’ll have to ask Michelle again.  [It was called Hotel Hossanna as I discovered later.]  It’s somewhat… interesting.  Michelle told me it was only built a couple of years ago, and yet there are parts of it that are already falling apart.  Our bathroom is a good example.  The bathroom door no longer has a latch, so it’s good that Michelle and I are comfortable with each other.  The toilet has had the tank cover and flusher removed so that you need to put your hand in the tank (not quite into the water) and pull up on the flushing mechanism to make it work.  It doesn’t fall back into place, either, so once enough water has gone through you have to push the mechanism back down.

The shower is interesting, too, though I think it was made that way rather than deteriorating to this point.  There is no bathtub, nor is there a shower curtain.  There is a small step up to a slightly raised area of floor in which is a drain.  (Thankfully, there is also a drain in the main part of the floor since it would be impossible to contain the water as you shower.)  Above the raised section of floor, a thin pipe and shower head stick out of the wall, and a little ways below that are the hot and cold water knobs.  A water heater is attached to the opposite wall, and a small light that sometimes comes on with a noise of various electronic parts attests to the fact that it’s doing its job…

Yet the shower that I took was rather less than satisfying.  The water heater may be heating something, but whatever it is it doesn’t seem to be water for my shower.  Make no mistake, the water that came out was ever-s0-slightly tepid, but it began as a trickle and stopped altogether when I was ready to rinse off.  I had to laugh as I stood there and pondered my situation, and I was very glad that I had decided not to put conditioner in my hair!  I waited for several minutes, hoping the water might come back on, but to no avail.  Finally, I stepped down from the raised section of floor and stood by the main floor drain which was near the sink.  I managed to rinse myself reasonable well by cupping water from the sink in my hands and dumping it over my body.  Why was water still running in the sink, but not in the shower?  Oh, heaven only knows!

Thought I’d post a picture of Eli’s cake from Monday.  Joel’s been out of town for business for a couple of days since then, so my parents are helping me out.  Joel will be back tomorrow and I’ll be back onto a more normal schedule.  I’ll try to pick up typing up the journal entries then.

Paperwork is going, but I’m out of stamps so it’s stalled briefly.  Done soon, I hope!  Last home study visit scheduled for the week after next.

Hosanna

The people here rarely see feringie [white people], so we cause quite a commotion when we go out. The children stand back and stare, giggling, until one gets bold enough to run up and say, “What is your name?” I tell them my name and ask them theirs. They usually respond, and then they run away giggling having exhausted their supply of English. [Read more →]