Beginnings

I'm excited to share what is going on in our lives for whoever may read it in hopes to encourage others and to have a place to document this journey! I want to look back on all God has done and praise Him for all of it. I'm a stay-home mom with 3 kids, a pastors wife, and in the process of adopting a little boy from Uganda! I am a planner, organizer, excel spreadsheet maker, and I love watching God take my "plans" and turn them into something so much better. I'm living in a house of crazies....seriously some of the most entertaining people on the earth and I figure the public MUST know about them! So here is my gang of Marvines (pronounced MARVIN...who knows why there in an "E").

My husband is an incredible man...doesn't he look so manly holding that drill and standing over piles of wood? I just love him. He may be the most opposite person of me right down to the tiny details of life like how we like our chips and salsa, but this man was put on this earth to be married to me. He teaches me how to laugh more, feel more, love more, and look to Jesus when I forget.

 I call Silas James "my strength." There are more muscles, personality, adventure, will, boy-hood and charisma packed into that little body than I thought possible in a human being. He came out of the womb sharing his strong opinions and hasn't stopped in 6 years. He is in 1st grade and freaking me out with his mature conversations. The other day after he got too rough with his brother he tried to convince me that he shouldn't have a consequence because I was a girl and I just didn't understand..."God made brothers to be rough with each other". Huh? What 6 year old thinks of that....there are many more stories to come about this crazy Marvine man!

 Noah Jordan is "my sweetness." He is our BFG (Big Friendly Giant). He is 4 years old and is the same size as his brother with bigger feet. He is sweet, shy, gentle, and OBSESSED with all things superhero/ninjago/transformers. The child loves toys. Sometimes at night he tiptoes in our room hours after we put him to bed and hands us a pile of his beloved action figures and says "will you put these somewhere far away so I won't be tempted to play with them?" Brad and I just love how his little mind works and his awesome questions like "mom why do we have tongues?" He is so sweet with his baby sister and is always giving random hugs and kisses that warm my heart!

There is a whole lot of boy-ness everywhere! I just love boys! They make life so exciting, they get me way out of my comfort zone, and they teach me to chill out and have fun! And yet there is some pink going on too...

Don't you want to squeeze her? This is my sweet girl Eloise Joy "Ellie" who I call "my sunshine." My mom thought of that name and I think it is absolutely perfect for her. She is so happy, so sweet, and so busy! She is now 14 months old and already a little mommy, feeding her baby dolls, trying on shoes and following her brothers around the house laughing while carrying action figures. She is always up for a laugh and I just love how she assumes that the world exists for her entertainment: if I blow my nose she erupts into laughter because mommy must be trying to make her giggle! I love this girl SO MUCH!

Ok so those are the introductions. Brad is the true writer of the family so he may be on here occasionally and he came up with the name "Held Together" for this blog. It is based off of the verse Colossians 1:17 "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." This is a verse that has meant so much to me, especially in the process of adoption which we recently began. I struggle so much with feeling like I have too much control and I'm going to screw it all up...well I might screw things up, but God knew I would and I am only part of his creation who cannot mess up God's ultimate plans! Thank you Jesus! He is holding this family, marriage, adoption process, and my sanity together!

So why on earth are we considering adoption in this crazy life of ours? Brad and I took a trip in June to Uganda to support The Suubi Project which was started by an incredible family in our church. The suubi project is an orphanage, school, and church outside the capitol city of Kampala that is reaching people for God's glory. We left our kids with family for 10 days to go and preach, teach, help with a VBS, lead worship, and just love on the people who were there. It was hard and dirty and INCREDIBLE. It was so good to see what God is doing around the world and to be a part of it.

 Here is Brad leading the kids to their next station at VBS...he was pretty much in love with those kids by day 2.

 Here I am teaching songs to the kids during VBS...one of my favorite times of the day!

While we were there we spent a lot of time with the 13 kids who live in the orphanage near our guest house.  I knew this could be dangerous for Brad and I...hanging out with sweet, adorable, parent-less children. My idea of adoption was: fall in love with the Ugandan culture and come back in 4-5 years when Ellie and the boys are older and adopt a baby girl. So what was God's idea: adopt an OLDER BOY RIGHT NOW. Brad and I both absolutely fell in love with a little boy named Martin. We are still trying to find out how old he is, we think between 7-9 years old. He was very quiet and sweet and was always seen serving the kids around him. I tried not to want to be his mom because that was just a scary thought...where has he been all his life...I want a sister for ellie...life is too insane right now to adopt, but God did something to me. One day I was walking back to the house from a long day of VBS and Martin ran down the path, jumped into my arms, and said "HI MOMMY!" He took all of the bags off of my arms and carried them up to the house for me. What am I supposed to do with that? There were so many older kids there with no father, no mother, no family structure. I can give up my idea of adopting a baby girl for now to give one of these older kids a family for the first time if that is what God wants for us right now.

When Brad and I came home we were very ready to see our sweet kids and to pray and listen to the Lord's voice on what we were supposed to do with our love for this little boy. Adoption is such a scary thing for a planner like me...you can't plan or control ANY OF IT!!! Brad and I prayed together and separately and both felt God confirming to us in many ways that he wants us to pursue Martin and to TRUST HIM with the big picture and the end result. So my job is to take one step at a time and trust the Lord with all the many questions and fears that I have that I don't get to know the answer to right now. My heavenly father sent his son to DIE in order to adopt me and he has called us to adopt Martin, no matter what suffering may come. We know that our God will never leave us or forsake us and that is where our confidence lies.

So where are we at right now????

We just completed our home study a few days ago and are finishing some paperwork from that. I am still learning what the process is going to look like but we know it can take anywhere from 4 months to 2 years! In the midst of piles of paperwork we are working on doing some fundraising because we can expect this process to cost around $20,000…go ahead and gasp…I did when I heard it. If this is what the Lord wants for us, he will provide it!

Please pray for us! We have already seen what incredible things happen through prayer! God provided the money for our home study and we did not know where that would come from! We did recently find out Noah has to have his 3rd eye surgery in September or October which will be a big chunk of money that we know that God is fully aware of. Please pray for his surgery as well as our adoption process! If you feel led to help us out financially in this process you can donate through the paypal button on my blog. We are in the process of custom-designing a puzzle as a symbol of how God brought the pieces together for us to bring home Martin. You can purchase a puzzle piece for $25 and your name will go on the back of the puzzle piece to show how you were a part of bringing him home to us. We will be framing it and hanging it in our home. There is more info to come on that fundraiser!

We know that God will provide the strength, the courage, the funds, the patience, and the Grace to endure and find joy through this process!