Beard for Glory: The Video

You knew there'd be a video right? Well, here it is. 

William is an amazing storyteller and this is not just a video promoting his beard. (he knew he couldn't get away with that) This is the story of our nearly four year adoption journey and what God has done in our lives. 

Please watch, vote and share.

Waiting for Glory: Month One (And Beard for Glory Update)

It's hard to believe one month ago today we said "Yes" to Glory!

It's been a whirlwind of paperwork and emails and physicals and fingerprints. Thankfully, our CIS is expiring for the second time (never thought I'd be saying that!) next month so we were already in the process of updating our home study. We should have it in our hands this week and I am working fast and furious on our FIFTH dossier. As I use to tell my grandma as a little girl, "Oh, let's just don't talk about that."

The kids are beyond excited about baby Glory and talk about her all. the. time. Who is going to rock-a-bye her, what they are going to teach her, when she is coming, her birthday cake, where she will sleep and on, and on, and on they go. It is precious.

We've also been spending some time promoting our current fundraiser "Beard for Glory" AND, drum roll please..............................................................

The No Beard votes have taken the lead!!!

 

No Beard - 158

 

Beard - 138

That means we have raised $1,480 with this quirky ol' idea of mine. Not bad if I do say so myself.

Remember, voting will go until Valentine's Day so please keep liking, sharing, pinning and tweeting. (Imagine if someone who died 50 years ago read that. What the what? Sorry. Ran. Dom.)

We can't send a Thank You to everyone who has supported us but, Lord willing, one day soon we'll be able to post a video of a sweet baby girl getting off an airplane and joining her forever family because of YOUR generosity.

Big or small each gift counts and every time you share our story YOU are bringing Glory closer to home.

Waiting for Glory,

My 2013 Reading List (And Beard for Glory: Day 11)

I LOVE to read. If given any amount of free time, my activity of choice would be reading. 

Since I don't have free time, I've got my work cut out for me ...

From top to bottom my 2013 reading list is:

The Autobiography of George Muller - "These excerpts from his diary allow Muller to tell his own story."

The Irresistible Revolution - Shane Claiborne - "This book will comfort the disturbed, disturb the comfortable, and invite believers to change the world with Christ's radical love."

Turn My Mourning Into Dancing - Henri Nouwen - "Let God move you through your suffering - whatever form it takes - and into the joy of dancing - moment by moment in His grace."

A Place At The Table - Chris Seay - ""Author Chris Seay is giving you a challenge: eat and drink like the poor for 40 days and donate the money you save on groceries to a charity or project that serves the poor in concrete ways."

The Poor Will Be Glad - Peter Greer & Phil Smith - "What if there were a way to eradicate world poverty and hunger? A Way to help the poor help themselves, while giving them the priceless gift of dignity? Sound too good to be true? It's not."

Tend to Me - Emily Cook - "Our jobs are never done, and what did get done could have done better. Our hearts are too small, our bodies are too tired, to love these little people as they deserve to be loved."

When Helping Hurts - Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert - A path forward is found, not through providing resources to the poor,but instead by walking with them in humble relationships."

The Urban Halo - Craig Greenfield - "When Jesus moved from the most exclusive gated community in the universe to the worst ghetto in the world, seeking out prostitutes, lepers and children, he sparked a revolution in at least one man's life. My own."

Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ - John Piper - "The depth and complexity of Jesus shatter our simple mental frameworks."

Sub-merge: Living Deep in a Shallow World - "This book is a handbook for anyone serious about ministry. It needs to be read by the whole church."

31 Nuggets of Hope - Shelly Roberts - "Nugget by nugget, you will be drawn tot he source of all HOPE. You will come away deeply encouraged and better equipped to care for the needs of your family. You will be reminded that you do not walk this journey alone."

The Power of the Praying Wife - Stormie Omartian - "Every woman who desires a a closer relationship with her husband will appreciate this refreshing look at the power of prayer in marriage."

Our of the Spin Cycle - Jen Hatmaker - "You may be busy or even overwhelmed. But you are also strong and brilliant. And here's a secret: a lot of those things on your list of expectations are things Jesus never expected you to do on your own."

Before You Were Mine - Susan TeBos & Carissa Woodwyk - "As parents, we will never be able to fix our child's fragmented beginnings or have all the answers our child will want or need. But we can offer a message of hope and redemption."

Not pictured: The Connected Child - Karyn Purvis, David Cross & Wendy Sunshine - JUST READ IT

Beard for Glory: Day 11 Update

Beard: 101

No Beard: 76

The No Beard votes are catching up! 

Keep sharing - we have paid our referral fee but the dossier fee is right around the corner!

OH - And what's on your reading list for 2013?

Sevenly is Heavenly and Beard for Glory Day Five

Sevenly is a rad little company that has blown up since it's start just a couple years ago. Their driving theory was “If we could help people give, we could get them to care.” It seems to be working.

"By creating weekly cause campaigns where people can purchase lifestyle products (t-shirts, sweaters, hoodies, tote bags, etc.) that benefit a partner charity, Sevenly has successfully unlocked a way to not only raise major funding but huge awareness too."

I have, ahem, a few of their shirts and they are amazing. The designs are awesome and the quality and softness of the shirts is the same.

Since we are on a spending freeze the least I can do is share with all of you this weeks cause and design.  

This weeks charity is Together We Rise. Together We Rise is dedicated to improving the lives of foster children in various ways, including activities, sports camps, music, art, family placement, and improving overall living conditions.This may not sound important but for a kid who feels isolated and alone, being able to do "normal" things makes a world of difference.

After just FIVE days we have raised $835 to help get our Glory home! 

Beard - 99

No Beard - 68

THANK YOU to everyone who has given and shared! We need to raise about a thousand dollars a week to hit our goal of $5,000. If you are on FB, Twitter or Pinterest would you please SHARE our shop? 

If you blog would you do a little post about our quirky family and Beard for Glory campaign?  

We need this little ol' campaign to blow up.

Beard for Glory - 48 Hour Update

 

Beard - 86

 

No Beard - 26

Ladies, I am disappointed in you. So many of you have turned against me. What happened? I thought we were friends.

All joking aside, we raised $500 in the first 24 hours! Boo-yah! Thanks so much for voting and sharing - keep it up!

If you haven't already, "Like" the Facebook page Beard for Glory to get play-by-play updates of this marital dispute campaign.

Remember The Point - to get our Glory home ASAP.

We can't show you a picture of her sweet chubby cheeks and gummy smile BUT yesterday we got the great privilege of meeting the director of her orphanage.

She's taking a package back to our girl.

Share, share, share!

Waiting for Glory,

Beard for Glory Kickoff!

You may not know this, but my husband has the God given ability to grow an "epic" beard.

The epic beard.

I didn't know either until last year when he grew out his beard for 12 full months. Said beard then took on it's own persona. I couldn't go anywhere with the beard without hearing "man, that beard is epic" or "great beard" from every other man the beard and I encountered.

I'm all for beards but I prefer my husband and being married to the beard got a little, well, hairy. I was thankful when the one year mark arrived and the beard had a long dicey encounter with a razor. 

The beard has been gone for barely two months and my hubby is already longing for it's return. So I thought, "How can a girl make the most of this legendary facial hair?"

And Beard for Glory was born.

Here's the deal folks - we're letting you in on a little marital wager. (Are we the only ones who do this when there is a disagreement? The wager part not the public on the interwebs marital disagreement part.)

Visit Beard for Glory and vote with your wallet. $5 buys you one day - beard or no beard.

On Valentine's Day, whoever has the most "days", or votes, wins. The beard grows or it goes for that number of days. YOU decide. The Point - ALL the money we raise gets us closer to bringing Glory home. Our goal for Beard for Glory is $5,000.

Ladies, if you consider yourself my friend, would you please skip your latte this week and buy a day or two for me? You know where I'm coming from right?

It's a Girl!

Before bed each night we pray with our kids. Moses always wants to pray he doesn't have bad dreams. Meadow usually wants to pray for her babies or her Mimi. T wants to know what we are doing tomorrow and is then thankful for whatever that is. M always has a long list of people, animals and superheros.

One evening in October Meadow surprised us all when she requested we pray for her baby sister. I promptly explained she did not have a baby sister. There are boys as far as we can see - no sister in sight.

But she persisted.

Every night for almost a week she wanted to pray for her baby sister. Nothing we said could convince her otherwise. (Yes, we tried to talk our kid out of praying for something. We made Jesus proud.) William and I grew a little more freaked out each night and he made the next available appointment for the big snip surgery. For real.

What's In A Name?

The first referral we received from the DRC was a little boy name Gradi. Gradi is about 4 or 5 years old and we planned to give him the name Malachi - first or middle - it would have been his choice. Gradi went home to live with his uncle in February and the name Malachi came off our future-Wallace-babes-list.

In March when we met the mother of our foster boys (prior to meeting them), she pulled two photos out of her purse - one of each of them - and told us their names. Guess what M's name is?!?! We got our Malachi. (For the time being anyway:-)

Then there is the story of the two Moses'. I still find it no coincidence that I have a four year old little boy named Moses and there is another woman with a four year old little boy named Moise on the other side of the planet. For some reason he and his mother were brought into our lives and we're still trying to figure out what that reason is.

After we lost our referral for Moise, we decided to take a break from international adoption. We were, and still are, tired.

Shortly after determining we needed a break a few folks contacted me suggesting certain agencies or waiting child lists. I kindly blew them off.

All but one.

One email from a stranger included information about a waiting baby girl, and I almost hit delete, but then I saw her name. Glory.

Do you see that list up there?! That name, dead center?!


Glory is the name we had chosen for our next little girl.

Oh. S%*#.

I responded with my schpeel.  We have been in the process for almost four years, lost two referrals this year, we are tired, yada-yada-yada.

But. I. couldn't. get. Glory. out. of. my. mind.

I decided to do what is anti my personality. To not pursue her. Instead, I prayed. Specifically I prayed if Glory is ours, the nice stranger woman would email ME. Not the other way around.

I thought surely she would be gone. Who has healthy waiting baby girls? Surely someone would step forward for her, right?

Nine days later, the nice stranger woman sent me a message. Glory was still waiting.

I went to William, explained my prayer and that it had been answered. We decided to pray some more.

Pursuing Glory would mean starting over financially. From the beginning. The very beginning. Like $20,000 ago.

In order to get to the point of accepting Glory as our referral, we would need $11,000. So we prayed for God to give us a financial sign.

A few days later I finally had a chance to sit down and add up our Show Hope grant, Lifesong Foundation account (from our Both Hands project) and our savings. To our surprise it came to $10,885. Pretty close to $11,000 right?

Then, as we were getting ready for bed I emptied my pockets to find two checks from friends who had come over that day to purchase last minute Christmas gifts.

$11,000.

And that, my friends, is a sign. Confirmation to pursue this little girl we never even would have considered.

I am breaking down and doing what I've told other people to do a dozen times - adding a "Donate" button to our blog and one of those hideous thermometer thingis. We've got a lot of money to raise people and not much time to do it. (Glory should be home in about SIX months!)

Feel free to drop a few dollars in the pot. We've also got some new-to-us fundraisers coming up. Tomorrow we'll reveal a unique fundraiser my husband is STOKED about!

Waiting for Glory,

Dying to Myself - My Resolution For 2013

 I'm all for resolutions. Starting fresh. New beginnings. Strategic plans. I love it.

As I began thinking ahead to 2013 and the things in my life I want to be different, I kept circling back to the same theme - dying to myself.

I know, that sounds kinda morbid but follow me here.

I do want to:

• read my bible more
• pray more
• serve my husband
• be a more patient mother
• exercise (at all)
• eat better
• and a long list of other things!

But first, I must die to myself. In order to truly do any of those things well, I must put aside my selfish desires and guilty pleasures. I can't put my husband ahead of myself if I always want to be right. I can't show my kids the love of Jesus when I am grumbling at them.

I want to give of me until it hurts. My heart. My finances. My patience. My time. Myself. I want to give it all away to the glory of God because I think it will get me closer to Jesus.

I want more of Jesus and less of me.

Jesus came to die but first he served. He healed. He broke bread. He partied. He wept. He laid down his life for you and for me and I think if we are to truly know Him then we too must lay down our lives for the sake of others.

For our husbands, wives, kids, family, friends, neighbors, orphans, widows and the poor.

Laying down your life is really giving it away. It's saying "Here I am Lord. Use me."

So my word for 2013? Dying. Dying so that I may truly live.

What's your word for 2013?