A Gift to Our Blog Readers

Here's a coupon for a free hot drink from Barnes and Noble. It expires tomorrow. I used this yesterday afternoon and it was great. I didn't actually sleep last night, but aside from that. . . .all good. You can find more excellent deals like this at Money Saving Mom.

Adoption Ministry

David and I have been wanting to make a list of all the not-so-coincidental-coincidences that have happened since we've started working with our church's adoption ministry. There are so many ways that things have just clicked into place with this. We thought that everything would be such hard work, but as is often the case God had everything mapped out and all we had to do was show up--in part because we have been surrounded by a wonderful team of folks that have passionately shared this vision and the tasks we have before us. Here is a sampling of what we have experienced in the last few months.

• A few months ago we thought of having some kind of adoption celebration event. We envisioned a small afternoon concert with a nominal ticket price so that some money would be raised for our church's adoption ministry. We really just wanted to increase adoption awareness as a part of our church's culture.
• We spoke with church leadership about our plans. They just happened to already have a plan for an orphan/adoption ministry with a sponsorship component, programs for adoptive and foster families, and a grant-making fund. Only no one was running the adoption programs. And there was no money in the account. So we were given the green light to do what we could towards re-energizing this ministry.
• David and I just happened to have the exact same vision for what this ministry could look like. Simultaneously over the course of one weekend each of us began thinking of our church as potentially being a one-stop shop for information and financial support for Christian adoptive parents in our area and possibly beyond. We both hoped that if anyone heard of someone wanting to adopt in our area the name of our church would immediately come to mind. (This may not seem like a big deal, but the terms we expressed our ideas on this to each other could not have been more similar, and that is not generally the case with us. Usually our "shared" ideas are the result of much discussion and compromise.)
• In September we talked with some folks in our Sunday school class who had expressed interest in helping with this. They just happened to have even bigger dreams than ours for what sort of adoption celebration event we could do at our church. Their vision included a program and an auction and much more of a push to get others to show support financially for this great cause. They just happened to have the energy to create the event with a very tight time frame.
• We just happened to be able to find a date on our otherwise very crowded church calendar and were able to claim November 13. November is national adoption awareness month.
• A whole lot of folks just happened to want to show support for the event by donating generously to our silent and live auction.
• Our church's search for a new pastor ended in September after nearly two years. David and I had prayed that whoever came to our church would be receptive to our plans. The person that our church chose to fill the pulpit and pastor our congregatation just happened to be an adoptive father of two who just happened to be experienced in starting crisis pregnancy centers and with helping with a fledgling adoption ministry at his previous church.
• David and I started thinking about what other churches in our area we would like to work with on this. One church in particular seemed like a great fit. Before we approached anyone there, we received notification that the church we had in mind just happened to be hosting an adoption seminar with our agency a few weeks before our event is to take place. We were able to talk to some people there about coordinating our efforts.
• A local television station just happened to be planning a story on adoption that will air a week before our event. We had already contacted the anchorman of this station, an adoptive father himself, to be our master of ceremonies. He contacted us about appearing on the program and promoting our event that way as well. (We filmed our part of the story today, and though I felt we had some communication problems since we are so inexperienced with this kind of thing, there was another family there who did really well and I know that it will turn out fine. We filmed our part in our church's library with Faith there with us and she was taking full advantage of our preoccupation with the interview. It is hard to speak eloquently on adoption and your future children when your current child is tearing things apart, dropping books in your lap, and reappropriating the library checkout computer.)

There was coordination of all these happenings on a higher level for certain. We feel very humbled by all of the things we have witnessed through this work. Please continue to pray for us, and if you are in our area email me for more details on our November 13th event!

And More Waiting

Today Faith asked me if Davis and Pearl would be here for Halloween. There is no pacing a 3-year-old. Evidently this conversation a few days ago did not do it. It is also going to be hard to disconnect Davis-and-Pearl in Faith's eyes. She'll be pretty disappointed that they aren't a package deal.

Today it rained. All day long. As Faith and I were walking in the wet from the library to the car, I was talking about the weather and saying how nasty, gray, wet, dark, cold, windy, etc it was. (Adjectives, they are important.) After I got done with my oh-so-cheerful list of descriptives, Faith looked around and said, "It's shiny!" And it was. It was absolutely beautiful, standing there next to our car under a broad green tree with my little girl in my arms and the rain gently falling in misty swirls of shine. And I missed it. It is great to be with someone who can really see.

To cap it off, Faith saw her first rainbow later in the afternoon. And it was totally visible from one end of the arch to the other. It was perfect. And shortly after that we saw perfect rainbow number two. I asked Faith who made the rainbows and she said, "God." I asked her why he made them and she said, "Because Noah's ark wasn't wet." Quite right.

Busy Bullingtons

Not much going on here on the Bullington Board these days because we are caught up in busy-ness. Twice this week I have realized sometime around 2:00 that I have not eaten anything! One time David and I overheard a waitress at Waffle House talking about how she was so busy she forgot to eat for two days. That was a running joke with us for a while because it seemed so ridiculous. Now I can see how that happens. Well, not really, but sort of. Don't worry about me, by the way. I totally make up for any possible caloric loss during the second half of the day.
We are working hard with a team of folks on our Nov. 13 Adoption Celebration/Auction event, which is shaping up to be a really great event. Anyway, since I don't have time (again) to do anything original, I wanted to send anyone who comes by over to Angie Smith's blog for this absolutely beautiful post. Definitely made me cry (not that that is hard these days.)
Leslie

Waiting for bro and sis

Faith asked us last night, "Will I still be little when we get Davis and Pearl?"

We told her she would still be three when we adopt Davis, and that she would probably be six when we go to get Pearl. I was afraid she would try too hard to ponder this, but I needn't have worried. Her focus immediately shifted to joyfully exclaiming over how many birthdays she would get in order to be six.

Be a Tourist in Your Child's Home Town

Here's a brief article about Addis Ababa, the city to which we will travel when we adopt Davis.

Babies Don't Keep

For those opposed to sentiment (as I once was for sure) move along, move along. For those who don't mind wallowing in it occasionally, here's a good one.

Babies Don’t Keep

by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.


For the record, preschoolers don't keep either. I'm totally taking this as license to continue my current trend in house-not-keeping.

And I can't wait to be rocking my baby.