Crazy Love Challenge!!!

A very nice reader of my blog recommended that I visit "A Place Called Simplicity" and take a look at their Crazy Love challenge, that it might be something for us.

I have followed this blog for a while, but actually am way behind on following blogs.  It is summer on the farm and very busy as always!  I keep thinking that one season is busier than another, but in reality they are just different kinds of busy!  Summer is planting and tending and harvesting, soccer and fair, work and building.  And warm weather fun in there too!  Fall is preparing for winter, storing up produce, hay and making sure our buildings for people and houses are ready for winter, as well as fall soccer season, plays beginning again, and all the usual (including school, but we aim to do that year round).  Winter is projects inside - that is the time to strip and redo the floors - but the hard work of caring for animals and ourselves in cold weather, making sure that the animals do well in the harder season, lots of school and inside projects.  Spring is baby animals, mud, preparing for planting and planting, lots of building and reorganizing as we transition back to outside spaces. 

It is all different kinds of busy.

So, anyway, I haven't been really active on following blogs because I tend to not sit down too much!!  LOL!

But this wonderful reader had seen what another blogger was doing to challenge folks to support adoption!
A Place Called Simplicity: Crazy Love Challenge

Honestly there is so much we all can do, by just doing a little to support adoption, whether we are adopting, thinking about it, wanting to help families who do, are impacted by adoption or have a heart for orphans. 

I hate to post a need, but that is part of the request from the blogger.

We are in the midst of a hopeful adoption.  Our homestudy is done and we are awaiting a very special referral.  It is our heart that so many families want to adopt babies, healthy babies.  We have a huge heart for special needs children, and after all the years of God working on us, taking us places we never thought we would go in our lives, He has brought us to a place where we know that we can offer so much to a child with special needs.  And with the support system of a large loving family, we have the resources to lay out a lifelong support for a child who will have lifelong challenges. 

We have turned it back over to God - years ago we had said "yes we could do 'this', but not 'that'", and now we have come to realize that that "that" is exactly what we are to do, and to do with joy.  How God arranges that, I am forever in awe.  But it is a road we so want to walk.

So, here we are, waiting.  We have been told that for a domestic special needs adoption, we will need around $7000 all total, maybe a bit more with attorney fees.  Our homestudy is done, but if the phone rings, we need to have those funds available.  We have seen God provide every step of the way in each adoption.  We can provide all the care, all the day to day, cover all those expenses, but the fees we don't have right now. 

So, I sell on Amazon, on craigslist, and wherever I can.  We are working on downsizing as much as we can, there is so much that we don't use on a regular basis - you just never think about it.  In other words, we are being fiscally responsible!  In the last two weeks, I have saved $88 at the grocery store using coupons on double coupon day - a great friend has been teaching me this!  I still take extra hours, but am very looking forward to that being done soon.  I sock away every little bit! 

I know that God continues to provide.  The money we need now is such a small fraction compared to what we raised for our other children, it almost seems irrelevant, except it isn't.

So, anyway, go to the link, see her challenge.  Pray for families and children.  If there is any little bit you can do, know that it helps and really adds up!  Remember the loaves and the fishes!  I have seen God take our "little" and make it so much more!

We choose to live simply, raise our kids, work hard and love everyone we can!  Anyway, go to A Place Called Simplicity and browse her blog - it is wonderful.

And, for those of you who wonder what I look like, I will post a photo.  There are very few that I actually like, so you are unlikely to see too many, but I will give it a try here!  Steve took portraits of everyone one day this spring after a guitar recital and they turned out really nice!

Want to see some more?  I will try to get them on here tomorrow!!!!!

God bless you all, and get some sleep!  I am headed to bed!!!


"For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans for hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11