Yes....it is a carrot!!! (in a scary voice)dum dum dum.....dummmmm!
Fear, terror and hatred have been my 3 year old's reactions to all vegatables recently. This boy who once ate more than Jonathan and i combined and everything that was edible now has an opinion about what he likes. With passion (or is it drama?) he has decided if it is not a cheese taco or an AB&J (Almond butter and fruit jelly sandwich) that he doesn't want it.
So... all knowledgeable experienced momas...i am begging for some help!! How do i get this boy back on track with loving his meals!?? He is hungry.... he has just gotton picky.
I want him to be grateful for all food we have been so blessed with not only because it is a good attitude to carry into adulthood but because i know the poor boy needs more nutrition than 3 cheese tacos a day. Rewarding and punishing are not working. Please help us!!! I will try anything!
My Elijah started his first official club 2 weeks ago. He is an AWANA Cubbie … he has to wear a vest and everything! I am elated about it all. My Hubby practically can quote the whole Bible and I am positive one the greatest influences in his memorizing the Bible was his participation in this club many years ago.
So we did well with the first verse…. “God loved us..and sent his son” 1 John 4:10…(in fact all of us have been chanting it in our sleep) …but this week was another story…
The verse was “all have sinned” Romans 3:23. And boy was it a struggle all week we would say it and talk about the verse and all week Elijah would avoid the “sinned” part. He had the “All have” and the “Romans 3:23” down… but would always replace the “sinned” with something else… “all have made”, “all have God” “all have he he he he” … he knew how to say the word and he knows well what it means…he just didn’t want to say it.
I know why it was so hard… a lot of times i have a hard time admitting it to. But that is first step to renewing and beginning our relationship with the living GOD. We must admit that we have failed and that we can’t do life on our own. That we are not and never will be good enough… that we need Jesus.
Yesterday Elijah was sitting with me and we were talking and he asked “have you sinned mommy?” and I told him the dirty sad truth…. that yes I have, that even today I did several things that were not pleasing to God, that I chose my way instead of God’s way.
All have sinned… we are all sinners….weather we admit it or not… the key to true joy though is eating the humble pie and admitting it… it is the first step to rekindling the most amazing relationship that exists and helping every other relationship flourish, heal and grow.
As you know we are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia and it dawned on me, as I was reading a friend’s blog, that though I have filled out many forms and official notarized letters on why we are wanting to adopt from Ethiopia… I haven’t really explained it here.
Jonathan and I both have had a passion for adopting children since before we meet. Jonathan’s mom and sister are adopted and I had numerous foster sisters and brothers in our home as a child. Both of us have traveled extensively all around the world and looked into the eyes of children that have been abandoned, the fatherless, the impoverished, the hungry, the homeless, and the alone. Our hearts have ached as we have not been able to meet the needs of all of these children.
Through our non-profit humanitarian aid org, Global Partners, we help over 550 orphans in India and 30 orphans in Haiti and many other children but there are over 143 million orphans in the world. Children that will go to sleep tonight without a warm bed, a goodnight kiss, a prayer, a full tummy, a person that loves them… that cares if they wake up in the morning.
So… we can do something about it…we can take one of those precious children home, we can love, nurture and parent that child. So that’s why we are doing it.
So why Ethiopia? (stealing these statistics from my friend’s blog, who I went to Ghana with in 1997, and who is also adopting from Ethiopia)
One in ten children die before their first birthday. One in six children die before their fifth birthday. 44% of the population of Ethiopia is under 15 years old. 60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because ofmalnutrition. The median age in Ethiopia is 18 years. 1.5 million people are infected with AIDS (6th highest in theworld). 720,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS alone.
Per capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any country inAfrica. In the 90s the population (3%) grew faster than foodproduction (2.2%). Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school. 88% will never attend secondary school. Ethiopia has approx. 4.3 million orphans and the country istwice the size of Texas.
It is also one of the most open countries currently for adoption and the process is rather short. We researched many other countries as well… but God lead us here.
There really aren’t very many countries that are open to adoption though the orphan numbers are heart wrenching. If orphaned or abandoned children are not adopted their fate usually lies in one of these options…they starve to death, they are funneled into sexually and physically abusive relative situations, they are sold into prostitution, or they could become street thieves and beggers for someone else’s profit.
The truth is gruesome.
There is a mom out there in Ethiopia that cannot care for her baby girl for a reason we do not know right now. There is baby girl, our baby girl, that needs us and that we love already though we do not know her yet.
YARD SALE for ADOPTION-
This weekend September 24 and 25 we are having a huge yard sale for adoption. If you want to drop off some stuff this week or want to come and help a day please let us know! Also we would love to see you here we have some great treasures so far – furniture, antiques, baby stuff, kids clothes, toys, teen clothes, washer, all kinds of good things!
I know…you have probably hundreds of possible answers rolling through your head. Well now I am going to really throw you off and tell you it has something to do with Elijah’s first pets.Still guessing?...
2,000 Red Wriggler Worms! Yay!!!
I know other people get dogs …..we get worms… we are all about the low maintenance pet. I know from the pics below you may be a bit grossed out but there are powerful lessons these little worms can teach us.
It is hard to teach a three year old the deep concepts of salvation, forgiveness, repentance, and God making something completely new out of us. Recycling in some ways is a good picture of our old useless flesh and God turning it into something new, especially composting.Think about… first we must be humble enough to realize who we are compared to our amazing God… nothing of use…we when realize we on our own can’t do anything of real eternal value then we must take ourselves to the compost bin (stick with me here) – basically admit that we fail at being our own god/leader and we need God to make us into what He wants us to be…yield ourselves to God… (throw our self to the worms)… then like the worms do to a rotting banana peel God takes us and makes us into a new person, giving us Himself to make us in to something ready for Him to work through.. amazing soil that will grow a beautiful and fruitful garden.
So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know Him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 2 Corinthians 5:16-17
So I'll get down to the nitty gritty of making your own compost bin teaching tool (it is cheap) and great if you have a use for amazing soil (garden/plants) supposedly you can even keep it indoors…though I am not trying that one yet. Though we are all fond of our 1,000 Hermies and our 1,000 Wormies (as named by Elijah), they are staying outside for a while.
How to: (Elijah loved helping make the bins and tearing the paper)
Cheapest place I found to buy 2,000 Red Wriggler Worms:
So whether you want to have your own worms or come visit ours. The powerful God lesson for my kids is what sold me and if you know me, i am a little "earthy", so recycling fills a small since of duty in me to be good to our earth God gave us. Also, I am excited about all the good soil these little guys are going to make for my garden. Hmmm….. good soil… Luke 8:4-21! I love teaching my little ones!
it is our habit to get the most out of our weekends... this weekend was no exception.
Friday we headed up to Ohio to spend time with family.
Saturday we went to a castle in Ohio (I know random ..huh?) to see this beautiful couple make their marital vows. The bride (my cousin) was so giddy. Very fun!
Sunday we arrived back home around 4:15am after 7+hour drive… the little ones slept well.. Jonathan and I were lacking but Jonathan was at church at 10:00am (well more like 10:20am) to send off Jonathan’s aunt, uncle, and cousin back to Slovakia while I and the babies slept in. Then we went to Jonathan’s mom and dad’s to eat, swim, and fellowship. At night we met mom and dad over at my sister’s to go stargazing and glance through their new telescope…such a clear night… we could see countless stars. We toasted marshmallows too… yum..which some how, in all the night’s fun, ended up on Jeriah’s pants and all over my arm and shirt.
Monday I cleaned house a bit then went back over Jonathan’s parents to eat and swim again and caught a beautiful sunset and Jonathan caught the VT game with his family.
and Tuesday…well the weekend was over.
Often I wonder why God has me where I am at… then weekends like this one He shows me the great blessings of having such great family so close.We may not always have this blessing…especially if God leads us to some other country…till then I will enjoy every moment.
just in case you thought my life was some what blissful from my last post...in the hour it took me to sit down, check my email and write that post.... my 3 year old pooped horribly in his bath... so i switched him to another bath, cleaned him up again, filled the other tub up with clorox and water... forgot about the water running in the other bathroom...read elijah his bible story and the tractor book....prayed with him... came back to my computer finished my blog... realized that noise coming from the other room was the water i left on... realized my bathroom was flooded 2+ inches all over the floor and my toilet was making funny noises....bucketed water as quickly as i could and toweled and bucketed and toweled... and so on.... and cleaned up all the evidence before my dear unsuspecting working late buhda (nepali for hubby) came home.
oops... i guess maybe i will be hearing from my loving buhda tomorrow about this one. though non of that could ruin my day and my smile.
p.s. do you think clorox really does kill 99.9% of the germs?
There are a collection of things that make me thoroughly giddy. One of those things is enjoying the simple miracles of life with friends from another culture.
Today we swam together, I made my first curry all on my own with no recipe (which they actually liked a lot), we drove along the parkway, hiked around peaks of otter lake and just enjoyed each other and God’s beautiful creation. It was Beda’s first time to ever swim in a pool. We have experienced a lot of firsts with our friends. Just 8 months ago they lived in stick houses in over populated refugee camps in Nepal. Like these. Now, by God’s sweet love, they are here with us in Roanoke, VA.
As we walked around the lake they wanted to take pictures of everything, even the apple trees. They couldn’t believe that we could pick them for free and that they weren’t all gone yet from everyone else picking them. They got excited when we feed the fish. They were surprised that, with a license, you could keep the fish you caught and not have to pay anything.
Something else random I learned today… not all mushrooms growing wild are poisonous. Beda taught me how to tell the difference between good and bad ones. She was like a kid in a candy store walking around collecting yummy mushrooms. She said in her village that finding a mushroom was rare because everyone would get to them before you. If you wanted one you had to be out there searching by 2:00am. And here I have passed them by for years paying no attention to the scrumptious free feast at my feet. Though i think i will only hunt with the expert... there are some scary mushrooms out there.
Mira nannees (“my babies” in nepali) enjoyed their “friends” too! We all had a rambru(very good) time. And now I reflect on my day with a contented sigh… I am exactly where God wants me to be… here in Roanoke, VA and the nations that my heart longs and prays for are coming to me. Thank you Lord for bringing the Kadariya Family to us! Thank you - Nari, Beda, and Tek for making my day so special!
