Kelly is a Kingdom Worker

Most summers we attend the Christ In Youth MOVE Conference with our high school students. It’s a great environment for our students to be challenged to live as Kingdom Workers. A few months ago I shared about a project our students took on because of the challenge.

Last year one of our former students, Kelly, was able to be a part of the Kingdom Worker Crash and share her story. While in high school, she accepted her Kingdom Worker Challenge and took part in a ministry in our church for ladies with special needs. It was encouraging to see how she was able to serve and then able to share about that experience through the Kingdom Worker Crash. MOVE chooses ten students from across the country to video their stories and then show those at the various MOVE Conferences they host each summer.

We showed Kelly’s video a few weeks ago in our church services and plan to show it in our small groups this Sunday as springboard to our discussion. Kelly does a great job sharing not only her experience, but how God shaped her through it.

Experiencing Generosity on our Adoption Journey

I shared last week that we are back on the road to adoption.  Eli will be one month tomorrow and we are moving forward with the different steps that lead to finalizing the adoption.

As we have relaunched this journey, we have been reminded that we are not doing it alone.  While we knew that was true, people have expressed love and support in a number of ways.

While I enjoy blogging, I recognize I don’t have a huge audience that frequent my posts.  However, what I shared last week brought about a huge jump in visitors.  I know that is because so many have a heart for adoption and shared our adoption story.

We also saw contributions to our Brackemyre Family Adoption Page. It is a humbling experience when people give from their own resources to support what we have decided to do.  We are nearing 50% of our goal on our page and had a couple of unexpected gifts come in the last week.  With that has been given, we have been able to stay current with our attorneys and other home study needs.

If you are one who gave on our page or shared it or read our story, THANK YOU!

As we continue down the road to adoption, we’d love for you to join us in one of three ways:

1) Visit our AdoptTogether page to read a little more of our story

2) Share our AdoptTogether page with those in your circles of influence. Perhaps there is someone you know who has a heart for adoption.

3) If you are able, you can give through AdoptTogether toward adoption expenses.

We have had people give us diapers and outfits, provide meals and stop in “just to see the baby.”  We are truly grateful and look forward to the next few miles on our adoption journey.

Back on the Road to Adoption

Many months ago I posted about our bump on the road to adoption. We had made connections with a birth mom and were preparing to welcome a new child into our home. Birth mom decided to parent and our journey toward adoption seemed to stall. We had a number of people who had given toward adoption expenses through our AdoptTogether page.

Then last month – enter Eli.

Through a friend of a friend we were connected with a birth mother who was due early July. She decided to pursue adoption with us. We made plans to meet her on a Monday – two weeks before her scheduled C-section. As it turns out, Eli made an early entrance on the next day. Eli spent several days in the hospital and we were communicating with our attorney to get all appropriate paperwork in place so we could gain custody. A week after his birth, we brought Eli home.

Due to the money already given through our AdoptTogether and another grant we received, we were able to cover some of the initial expenses. There are still other expenses associated with adoption, including some due to this being an interstate adoption. We are adopting a Hoosier!

There are at least three things you can do if you feel lead to help with our adoption.

1) Visit our AdoptTogether page to read a little more of our story

2) Share our AdoptTogether page with those in your circles of influence. Perhaps there is someone you know who has a heart for adoption.

3) If you are able, you can give through AdoptTogether toward adoption expenses. While there are many worthy causes and many other families pursuing adoption, we’d love any support people feel led to give.

In our experience, adoption has been a period of waiting and more waiting followed by a flurry of activity to bring a child home.  Thanks for taking the time to read about and even be a part of our adoption journey.

@AdoptTogether Featured on CNN

An organization we think is a great one is AdoptTogther. AdoptTogether is a non-profit funding platform helping families raise money to pay for adoption costs. We have a profile on the site and have friends who have used it as well.

The cool thing this week: AdoptTogther was featured on CNN. Hank Fortener, founder of the organization, was interviewed and was able to share about the mission of AdoptTogether. There is no PR team within the organization so they count on social media and other outlets to get the word out.

Why AdoptTogether?

The average cost of domestic adoption ranges from $15,000 to $40,000. international adoptions range from $20,000 to $50,000.

One of the biggest obstacles to adoption is financial. AdoptTogether seeks to help remove that barrier by inviting friends, family, co-workers and the community to carry the financial burden.

Take a few minutes to check out the CNN article and even share it on your social media platform.

Cheryl’s Blog Post About Valentines Day @DaytonMomsBlog

Cheryl’s second post went live a couple of days ago on the Dayton Moms Blog just in time for Valentine’s Day.  She writes about 8 ideas for your kids on Valentine’s Day.

And it’s true!  Each year she does something for the kids on Valentine’s Day.  It’s a simple way to show love to your kids on a day when everyone is thinking about love.

Read the post or check out the ideas below.

For almost 10 years I was a single mom of two little boys. Instead of feeling sad or lonely on Valentine’s Day, I decided it was a great opportunity to show my boys how much I loved them and teach them how to show love to others. t became a tradition that I looked forward to. I thought that someday (many years away) when they had a special someone, they would benefit from this “training”. We started each Valentine’s Day off with a box of chocolates, and a card and then after school or our events for the day, ended our evening off with a delicious Italian dinner, equal to that of scene from Lady and the Tramp. Each year the boys looked forward to this and I was always on the lookout for another way to show them how much I love THEM. Here are a few ideas to add to your own list. Valentine’s Day may be silly to some, a greeting card holiday to others, however I always love the opportunity to tell my kids how much I love them.

1. Prepare a candle lit dinner for your kids.
2. Write your child a letter or a poem and tell them why you love them.
3. Plan a scavenger hunt for your kids, ending with a box of chocolates.
4. Make individual books on Shutterfly or another picture loving site for each child, listing what you love about them.
5. Have a home-made card for your child to open up everyday leading up to Valentine’s Day- with a quality you love about them in each note.
6. Buy a Valentine puzzle, put it together and write why you love your child on the back, take puzzle a part and give them a piece each day until complete.
7. Spend some time at the dinner table or in the family room, pass out conversation heart candies and talk about what you love about each member of your family, you get a heart to munch on after each time you share.
8. Have a Valentine picnic (in Ohio this is indoors), enjoy heart-shaped food and end the evening with a box of sweets.

What do you do to make Valentine’s Day fun for your kiddos?

Her First Post – The Blend @DaytonMomsBlog

Yesterday I shared that my wife is a contributing writer for Dayton Moms Blog. This morning her first post went live. It’s called The Blend. 

Enjoy!

The grocery store had kale on sale. 2 bunches for $1.00. I had to get some, there was a soup recipe that I wanted to try that needed kale. The soup was delicious. I still had one heaping bunch of kale in my fridge. Having heard of kale smoothies, and their amazing health benefits, I googled some recipes. I couldn’t imagine how this bitter and pepper vegetable would taste in a smoothie with coconut milk and blueberries, so the search continued for the perfect blend in a smoothie recipe.

About a decade ago, I found myself in a different blending dilemma. I needed to figure out how to blend some sweet, salty, bitter, peppery and even some bruised all into something delightful or at the very least palatable. 

I was divorced, with two little boys when I got out my blender. I needed to blend a broken man, two shattered teens and a bitter ex with my two wounded boys, a damaged heart(mine) and an absent ex. I began reading anything I could get my hands on about blending families, I was sure that I could read up on the topic and “fix” things in record time. The first book I read caused me to put the blender away. The Smart Step-Family by Ron L. Deal was a great book in my blending venture. Deal writes “The average stepfamily takes 5-7 years to form a family identity”. I read and reread that over and over again, 5-7 years to blend? I wanted to be blended NOW! The book provided me with great tools and practical guidelines to help in the blending of our families. So I took out my blender again and decided it was worth the effort and time.

The blending didn’t happen overnight. It was not as easy as throwing in some kale and blueberries and coconut milk and pressing puree. It took time, and I have learned that blending a family is sometimes like a pressure cooker, and not as easy as an Insta-pot. Ron Deal makes the analogy that blending families is more like using a crock pot, it is slow and takes time. I personally liked the idea of a blender, throw everything in and press a button and there you have it, easy clean up, easy to put away and manage.

I’ve just hit the 6 1/2 mark of The Blend. It has indeed become more of a crock pot experiment over the years. Our once salty teen has become a loving, giving affectionate person. Our peppery teen is now a warm and sweet adult. The most surprising is that bitter ex, is now a friend. The bruised have healed and are healthy and the absent is present. It has taken time, you can’t rush these things, even if you want to. 

The Blend has changed me. I learned to focus more on what was best for my kids and less about me and how I felt. I put myself and my needs aside to understand how the salty and the sweet and the bitter felt. I changed. I changed to help the blending. I looked for ways to compliment the salty and bitter and add to make things better than hide or mask the taste. I am far from putting the blender away. I have to continue to change the recipe to make our family identity taste the best it can. The recipe changes with weddings, adding children, college, jobs, children moving away and any other life changing events. So I keep the blender handy, I know that it really is more of a crock pot deal…….and given time, it smells and tasted delicious…..it’s just not catchy to say you are “crock-potting” a family.
Now where is that kale………

More Dangerous: Shark Attacks or Selfies?

Several months ago, I shared an infographic talking about our selfie obsession.  It shared some of the following statistics:

• 74 percent of all images shared on Snapchat are selfies.
• 1,000 selfies are posted to Instagram every 10 seconds.
• There are 93 million selfies each day, which would represent 2,583,333 rolls of film.
• 19 out of 20 teens have taken selfies

I don’t think any of that is surprising to anyone who frequents social media.  For whatever reason, I forgot this stat:

More people died from taking selfies in 2015 than from shark attacks.

Of course, I had to look it up.  Here’s what USA Today reports about it:  in 2015, 12 people died while attempting to take a selfie; 8 people died from a shark attack.

Here’s how some people died:

• a man fell down a staircase at the Taj Mahal’s Royal Gate
• a couple fell of a cliff trying to capture a picture
• a man shot himself while posing for a selfie

Another website tells us that 49 people have died from selfies since 2014.  How crazy is that?

I started looking at this as I was preparing for our small groups this week.  We are talking about how excited we are to share the good news with others.  As followers of Jesus, we should be energized when it comes to sharing what we know about Him with others.  We love to share selfies and social media posts with others.  We get excited when our favorite team wins.  We rave about the latest movie we watched. But do we (or better yet, do I) look for opportunities to share about news that is both really good and that really matters?

Good question for us to think about.

Finish Our 1MISSION Project – Fill the Green Buckets

We are in the home stretch of our 1MISSION project. Our goal was to raise $4,000 to build a home for the Barajas family. We are just $900 away from reaching that goal. We have a couple more weeks to get to the goal.

One way you can be a part of our project is to SHARE our 1MISSION Campaign Page Link. Whatever social media outlet you use (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook), you can share the link to give people an opportunity to give and be a part of providing a home for this family. Here’s the link: https://my.1mission.org/t/2539/impact. Copy it and share it.

Another way to be a part of our project of course is to GIVE. For our Wilmington Church of Christ family, we have a practical way to do that. For the next few Sundays, we will have green buckets (see below) by the doors of our Ministry Center. As you enter or leave, you can drop extra change or dollar bills into the green buckets. Everything given in the green buckets will go toward our 1MISSION family.

Join in with us to reach our goal and provide a home for the Barajas family!

Home Stretch of our 1MISSION Project

For the past few months, we have been working on raising $4000 for “our family” in Mexico – the Ortiz Barajas Family. We are now in the home stretch!

To date, we raised $2,500 through concession stands at our Upward Basketball League and at a karate tournament held at WCC. That amount also includes a gift from our KidCity kids. We have also had a couple of online donations which brings our total collected to $3,100 – we are just $900 from our goal.

We have a few more weeks to reach our goal and provide a home for this family in Mexico. Here are Two Things you can do:

1) Give To Our Online Campaign. All gifts that are given go directly toward providing a home for Barajas family through 1MISSION. If we have many individuals give online, we can reach our goal.

2) Share the Link to our Online Campaign. If you are on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or other social media outlet, share the link to our campaign page. Let you friends, family and followers know how they can partner with us and with 1MISSION to provide a home for this family.

Here is the link to our page where you can donate and also share: https://my.1mission.org/t/2539/impact

If you are able, please give toward building a home for this family.  Take a minute to share it with your followers!

Our Story of Adoption & How You Can Help

In the past few months I’ve posted about our Gotcha Day and how adoption has impacted our family. Max, who is almost 19 months old, will soon be joined by a little brother.

We have connected with a birth mom who is due June 22. We are making plans to travel to be present for the birth and to get to know the family. We have started the process to adopt again and have enlisted a great team here in Ohio and a great team in Maryland to assist us. Adopting Max happened very quickly and we pulled together various resources to pay for his adoption. Financially we need some help and we are using a non-profit fund-raising platform called Adopt Together to help us raise the necessary funds.

If you are someone (or you know someone) who has a heart for adoption, please visit our page. It tells a little bit more of our story about adoption and gives people an opportunity to help with the expenses. While this adoption won’t cost as much as Max’s adoption, we are seeking financial support.

To visit our Adopt Together page, click on the image below.  On our page, you will be able to read about our plans for adoption and how you can help if you feel led to do so.