Another Day in FantasyLand

I can't remember if I have blogged about this before, but Faith and I are never home alone. We are blessed with the company of Faith's two imaginary "children", Penny and Pony. I have no idea where the names came from, but I am pretty sure Faith came up with having imaginary kids instead of playmates so that she could always be the boss. It is a situation similar to her only other pretend play game--school. Yesterday she cautioned me against stepping on her "students."

Things generally seem to be pretty mundane in the world of Penny and Pony. They morph easily from babies to toddlers and sometimes need more care and Faith-style punishment (which tends to be on the harsh side) than others. But last night when I was putting Faith to bed I learned of a much more sinister occurence in the world of Faith's imagination.

Faith told me that Penny had lost her legs, her feet, and her hands. I said, "Oh, no, Faith, that is terrible! What happened?"
Faith said, "The Yellow Bear ate them!" Then her voice dropped to a whisper, "And now the Yellow Bear is right there," and she pointed under her covers.

I was afraid this would end up being a long night. But I just said, "Oh, Faith, that is too silly. Would you like me to put your blanket on you?" And she meekly said yes and went right to sleep. Despite the limb-devouring golden monster lurking under the quilt.

Cash 4 You?

I just got paid 11 bucks and cleaned some clutter at the same time! I did it by selling some books we didn't need anymore through cash4books.net. You create an account, input the ISBN # (which they will tell you how to find) from books you are interested in selling, and if they want to buy the books they will pay for shipping them and credit your Paypal account with payment for them. I think I spent more time writing that last sentence than I spent on any other part of this process. OK, that was a slight exaggeration, but it was easy, and if you use this link and sell books through them I will get credit through their affiliate program: http://cash4books.net/index.php?ref=85846. The only unfortunate thing about it was that they only bought four books out of the thirty-or-so I was willing to part with. Oh, well, their loss is Goodwill's gain.

A Thanksgiving Feast

Here is a little taste of the beauty we experienced this Thanksgiving. Thanks so much, Arnold and Lilia, for your hospitality in receiving ALL of us at your beautiful home. As usual, your kindness and generosity went above and beyond. We had a truly lovely time, as you can see from the pictures. For more photos of our trip, click here and type the name of the city we live in.

Happy Thanksgiving to All Who Enter Here

David, Faith and I spent the evening enjoying the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special. Great stuff. Here's an excerpt:

Linus van Pelt: In the year 1621, the Pilgrims held their first Thanksgiving feast. They invited the great Indian chief Massasoit, who brought ninety of his brave Indians and a great abundance of food. Governor William Bradford and Captain Miles Standish were honored guests. Elder William Brewster, who was a minister, said a prayer that went something like this: 'We thank God for our homes and our food and our safety in a new land. We thank God for the opportunity to create a new world for freedom and justice."

I've got no idea as to the historical accuracy of the Peanuts gang, but it sure sounded good. It also sounded good to hear Faith laugh as much as she did watching this. She knew things were funny, but couldn't quite understand why, so she would giggle and giggle and then say "What?!" She did that at least a dozen times. Too cute. She did know it was hilarious when Peppermint Patty called Charlie Brown, "Chuck." For her, that was the best joke of the night.

Someone on our online adoption group posted this today. Thought I'd pass it on for your Thanksgiving meditation --

On October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a formal proclamation, passed by an Act of Congress, initiating the first annual National Day of Thanksgiving:

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy...I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of theUnited States, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day ofThanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens....[it is] announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord....It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody. We have much to be grateful for this year.

And for Lana-the-assimilated-kiwi - Happy Thursday (Or is that Friday?!)

Lest you think she has stopped speaking in Funnese

Faith, on my birthday yesterday: Mama, we got you a present. . .it's a whisper!
[translation: it's a surprise]

And the other day: Jerk, Erk. . .that rhymes!
Me: Yes, but Erk is not a word.
Faith: Erk is Spanish for hammer.

And when I told Faith that I was about to turn thirty-three she replied, "I'm only one 3." haha.

Songs, Stories, Sweets, and Shopping

Last night we hosted a benefit for our church's adoption ministry. And when I say "we" here I mean our brilliant, hardworking, dedicated planning team and me and David. We had a silent and live auction, along with a program that celebrated adoption with songs and family stories. After weeks of organizing, soliciting donations, and promoting the event, we were truly blessed with a major haul of fruit for our labors. We had great attendance and raised over $20,000 between last night and advance ticket sales and donations. The money we raised will be used to provide services, programs, and grants for Christian adoptive families in our area. We also felt this event was effective in putting our ministry on the map in our church and our community. Our church is large and very active in outreach and missions of many kinds, and we were advised that the cause of adoption might "get lost in all the good." Fortunately, many people at our church and in our city (we had over 160 donors/sponsors of this event) seem to have made a place in their hearts for this cause that is so near to the heart of God as revealed in scripture.

I knew we had a great group of family stories to share through videos, and I'm so glad that so many showed up to see these. We had the story of a mom and dad who adopted their eleven-year-old son through the foster care system when he was ten years old. They talked about how they had prayed for a child and he talked about how he had prayed for a family. Another friend of ours who is a single mom has adopted 11 kids both domestically and internationally. She challenged potential adoptive parents not to wait until they had the perfect life situation to adopt. A third family shared their story of adoptive five siblings from Guatamala. They endured a three-year-process to get their kids here with them. We had a lady there who is associated with our local foster care system who signed up several potential foster families, and we had associates there from our adoption agency, America World, who were able to distribute information to several families interested in that process. Our pastor, who is also an adoptive father, gave a great message on how adoption is a picture of our adoption as children of God, and really encouraged others to think about and support it.

David and I have already seen this ministry blessed in so many ways, and we have only been working on it for a few months. God gave us so much grace to cover for our inexperience, and our team really helped us to make much better choices about things than we would have made. David and I were laughing last night about some things we had planned that our team wisely steered us away from (thanks, guys.) We prayed that He would show up strong in this, and He definitely did. We are praising Him today for His everlasting goodness, the gifts He has given us in our friends and our family who supported this so much, and are excited to see what He has planned for this ministry in the future.

We could not have hoped for a better celebration of the miracle of adoption. It was simply a beautiful night.

One Love T-shirts

Introducing the Africa edition of our "One Love" T-shirt! With a lot of help from a local printing company, we were able to design and produce these. All adult small, medium, large, XXL and XXXL size shirts are the dark blue color shown here on the left, and extra-small and kids extra-small, small, medium, and large shirts are the light blue shade on the right. If you are interested, information on ordering these shirts is in the right-hand column of The Bullington Board. We really do appreciate your support. We're also really hoping these shirts will be a conversation starter about adoption so we can spread the passion all around. . . .The one love that we intend to display is not only the love shared by a family, a love that is currently not being felt by about 145 million orphans around the world, but also the love and unity that we Christians share as adopted children of God.

So thanks for sharing the love.

Ephesians 5:1-2 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.