World Vision Child Sponsorship

This post is a little late coming. In November I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Women of Faith Conference. It was so much fun. I had a really good time. One of the things they were doing at this conference was asking for people to sponsor a child through World Vision.
World Vision doesn't just help the child you are sponsoring, they also help your child's community. They help provide the community with access to clean water and medical care, immunizations, annual checkups, new schools and scholarships. In addition they provide training in literacy, agriculture and cattle breeding to help parents increase production and income.
After a quick call to Kurt to see if we could commit to the monthly donation, I went to the tables to look through the stacks and stacks of photos and information. I was a little overwhelmed by the number of children who need sponsorship. I felt very small. I wanted to be able to help them all but I knew that I needed to trust in God to provide a sponsor for each child. I needed to be content doing what I could do and not worrying about what I couldn't do.
Since I have a connection to China, I asked for a child from China and amazingly enough they only had one child left to be sponsored.
So we are now proudly sponsoring a 9 year old boy from the Ningxia Province of China. He lives with his parents, one sister, and one brother. His father and mother are farmers. It is difficult for them to meet their family's needs. I pray that the few dollars a month that I send can in some way enrich their lives.
We have already received a letter from our sponsored child. It was so nice to open it and read the words of this small child half a world away. I pray that the Lord blesses him and his family.

More on the Women of Faith Conference, getting personal

There were so many great speakers at the WOF Conference. Many of us laughed and cried together.
I never even heard of some of these people, but boy am I a fan now. I really enjoyed Patsy Clairmont. She is so funny. And I grew up watching Lisa Whelchel on The Facts of Life so it was really great to hear her speak.
All of these women spoke from their heart, but Lisa really spoke TO my heart. She spoke about her childhood, "growing up" on TFOL, and her adulthood. She spoke about feeling disconnected from her family. She also spoke about all women needing to find that special friend that we can share everything with. That friend who supports you through everything you are going through in life. That friend who listens to you, encourages you, laughs with you , cries with you, gives you a safe place to go when life is getting you down. You get the point. Right? And of course you do the same for her.
Well as she was speaking about all of this I was thinking about my life. I definitely didn't have the challenges in my life that Lisa did. But I did have things happen to me that shaped who I am today.

Warning--this might be more than you care to know about me. LOL

My parents divorced when I was in 2nd grade. My mom's family and my dad's family all lived very close to each other. But my dad moved three hours away to another state. My sister and I were to spend every other weekend with my dad, but because of his work schedule and the distance he would have to drive we spent this time with my dad's parents instead. I became very close to my grandparents.
My dad's side of the family (with the exception of my dad) were Christians and would go to church every Sunday. My mom's side of the family were not religious at all and never went to church. When I would go to church with my grandparents I felt very uncomfortable and did not like it much. I always viewed my mom's side of the family as being "fun".
Since I had two very different sides of the family and I wanted love and acceptance from both I felt like I needed to be what each side wanted me to be. I felt like two different people (actually three if you count the person I had to be when I went to visit my dad and step mom). With my mom's family I could be more of the me I thought I wanted to be. I didn't feel like I had to try as hard because they lived like we did. But when I went to my grandparents house I felt like that me wasn't good enough. I had to be better and because I wanted their love I felt myself behaving differently when I was with them. This would make me very tense, always trying so hard to please everyone. I remember times when I would go home after a weekend with my grandparents and just explode on my mom. I felt like I had to be perfect all weekend and once I got home I had to let loose. My poor mother. I spent so much time worrying about what others thought of me. I was afraid to do anything wrong for fear that they wouldn't love me anymore. I can't really recall ever being "carefree" as a child.
Now after hearing all of this you would think that my safe haven was my home. That at home I could be the "real me" whatever that is. But that really isn't the case either. My mom remarried when I was in 4th grade and the man she chose just happened to be an alcoholic. When he was drunk he was not a nice man. He would verbally and at times physically abuse my mother. She stayed with him because she felt like she could not raise two children on her own. (She finally divorced him when I was in 11th grade.) So you see my home was not the safe haven it should have been. I remember having a handful of friends growing up that I enjoyed spending time with, but it was always at their houses. None of my friends wanted to come to my house to play because of my step dad.
Because of all of this (and some things having to do with my sister that I won't get into today) I have become what some people call a "people pleaser". I hate conflict. I just want everyone to get along. I hate to see someone hurting. If someone is hurting I want to go to them and let them know that I am there for them. But I find myself holding back at times. Still worrying about what other people would think about me.
Kurt and I became Christians in 1998. The funny thing is now I am so much closer to my dad's family. I get it now. I understand why I felt like I needed to be better when I was with them. Because when you are living for Christ you make different choices. You want your life to glorify God. You want to be better.

I planned this post to be all about that special friend Lisa was talking about. But I feel a little drained from sharing so much so I will make another post about that tomorrow.
Blessings!

Steven Curtis Chapman at Women of Faith

I am in love with Steven Curtis Chapman, don't tell my husband. LOL
Just kidding!!! What I do love about SCC is his faith in God, his love for his family, his honesty, his heart for orphans and, of course, his talent. I originally signed up to attend the WOF Conference because SCC was scheduled to be there.
Steven sang his song "Heaven is The Face". Oh, how beautifully sad this song is. His honesty about how he longs for little Maria is inspiring. He can glorify our God and give Him praise even in his grief. Of course most of the women in the coliseum were in tears as he sang about his precious Maria. He also sang "When Love Takes You In" and "Cinderella". Honestly I don't think there was a dry eye in the place. He changed the last line of Cinderella. I don't remember the exact line but it was something like "and I know the dance will go on".

The first time I saw SCC in concert was the spring of 2005. What he did for Kurt and I at that concert he will probably never know. He gave us hope. Hope that we might grow our family through adoption one day. You see, we always stopped at the "thinking about it stage" because of our finances. We didn't think that we would ever be able to afford it, so we never did anything about it. Living on Kurt's military pay, because my entire paycheck went back to the private christian school our three children were attending, did not provide for a large savings account. When we found out about Show Hope (then Shohanna's Hope) we had hope that if we put our trust in our Lord Father and watched our spending, saved where we could, and applied for every grant we qualified for that we might be able to grow our family through international adoption.
The funny thing is we applied for about 8-10 different grants. At that point in time we felt like we just couldn't complete our adoption without some financial help. But God proved that He is bigger than we are and if we stay faithful and do our part He will bless us. We didn't receive any of the grants, that's right, NO grant money. But through saving when we could, income tax refunds, a candle fundraiser, some donations from family members and donations from an awesome church family we had everything that we needed when we needed it. We did have to put our international flight expenses on a credit card, but that has long since been paid off.
Our life has been forever changed because we went to a SCC concert back in 2005 and allowed God to open our hearts to international adoption.

Awesome weekend at Women of Faith!!

I had the amazing opportunity to attend the Women of Faith Conference in Greensboro Friday and Saturday. Our church took a group of 16 women of faith and we had a great time. It just flew by too quickly.
The only negative of the whole weekend was the traffic at the coliseum. They were having three events there on the same day!! CRAZY TRAFFIC!!
To be completely honest. . . I only went because Steven Curtis Chapman was singing. I mean, come on, how could I pass up an opportunity to see Steven Curtis Chapman?!? But what I discovered was that I had a great time and completely enjoyed everything about the conference!!!
The speakers that we were blessed to hear were: Steve Arterburn, Patsy Clairmont (love her!!), Marilyn Meberg, Luci Swindoll, Sheila Walsh, and Lisa Whelchel. Steven Curtis Chapman and Mandisa both sang and they had a great worship team.
I will be posting a couple of other posts (and a couple pics) about my experience at the conference so check back for more.