T4A2010

I don't even think one blog post can truly sum up the conference. It could take ten, bear with me! I mean it took me about a month to fully wrap my mind around it!

INCREDIBLE! We learned so much in two days! Our eyes were so opened to the desperate situation at hand 167 million orphans, a number growing monumentally everyday. Staggering. We, the church, have a calling on our lives. One of my favorite statements said, "If God is the Father to the fatherless, then we, the church, are the mother to the fatherless."

I had prayed that my heart would be refreshed to the reasons God has called us to this adoption. After so much paperwork and support raising, I am just tired. We aren't even waiting yet, and I am tired. God really pressed in that He hasn't called us to adopt because of our infertility issues...that's the means. He's called us to be His bride, to answer the call and love and care for the orphan. Yes, of course this may be our only means of family, so there is deep desire for children tied into feelings of loving the orphan...but all the same it's a calling.

If you don't think God's serious about the believer's call to love the fatherless:

Deut 14:29-"And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do."

Deut 26:12-"When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year, which is the year of tithing, giving it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they may eat within your towns and be filled,"

Psalm 68:5-"Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation."

Psalm 82:3-"Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute."

Psalm 146:9-"The LORD watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless ,but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin."

Isaiah 1:17-"learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause."

James 1:27-"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world."

At the last session, Matt Carter, asked this question. "Why? Why does God have an enduring passion for these children?" He answered that with this quote and it grabbed me! "The global orphan crisis is one of the major hindrances and barriers to seeing the Great Commission fulfilled in our lives." We're called to "go"...that's it. We have this beautiful gospel picture of being adopted into the family of Christ by the willing sacrifice of our Savior and the spilling of his blood on the cross, and we have to "go and tell" the world! 167 million orphans, fatherless, destitute, alone. How can we the church stay silent and do nothing? I think the greater question is what if we don't?

20-60% of 15-24 year olds that came from orphanages are HIV infected.
19,000 children a year age out of the foster system here in the U.S.
Almost 50% of orphans are adolescents, 12% are younger than 5
Almost everyday 5,760 more children become orphans
Every 2.2 seconds another child ages out of the system with no family to belong to and no place to call home. In Russia and Ukraine 10-15% of these children commit suicide before age 18.
Every 15 seconds, another child in Africa becomes an AIDS orphan.

(statistics from UNICEF)

These should make you uncomfortable. Oh Jesus, move us to action. "Adoption is one of the clearest signs that the church could give of the gospel." How can we as the body of Christ be missional for this cause? There are hundreds of ways and some don't even involve your cash. There are foster families who are tired and need a break. They have tangible needs of money, clothes, beds, cleaning. There are other families who have already adopted or are in the process and God has placed this call on their lives and they need your help, monetarily, a night out, encouragement, prayers. When is the last time you blew someone away with your generosity?

What would it look like if there were no orphans?

Together for Adoption Conference-This Weekend!

Check it out at www.togetherforadoption.org. Jacob and I are so excited to be apart of this incredible event here in Austin this weekend. It's going to be amazing with experts from across the country speaking on everything from transracial adoption to raising support to the empowering the church to support adopting couples. I can't wait to tell yall all about it. Pray for us and all the volunteers and speakers traveling from everywhere for safe travels.

Also, I've been a little under the weather so I have been taking care of myself, but wanted to tell you that we raised $680 for the garage sale!! Yeah! Support has been coming in from friends and family and we're incredibly blessed.

Soon to be waiting after we apply to the Abba Fund and get a loan from them.

Bless yall!

Martin Family Garage Sale-This Saturday September 18th!!

Precious friends. We are having our adoption support garage sale this weekend! Others have been so generous and we have a lot of stuff...now please join us in praying that it SELLS!

If anyone has good "garage sale" advice....please send it my way! This is my first ever garage sale.

Bless yall!

Support

Updates, updates. I hope I haven't lost all of my readers due to my lack of blogging. Work has been insanely busy for me and we've also been super busy. Our life in blurbs:

-We didn't get approved to switch to the minority only program with our agency. It's a small program with limited families. What does this mean for us? God could definitely still put a child of another race in our family, but he just wants us to raise $37,500 for his greater glory!

-We traveled to Wisconsin last weekend to see Jacob's dad's family. His grandparents and aunt and uncle live on the family farm. Everyone else came in to see us as well. We had a great time, well other than Jacob's dad breaking his ankle in three places and needing major surgery with pins and plates while we were there.

-Jacob started Fall semester this week. YEAH! Keep him in your prayers.

-We had our college leaders over for dinner last night. All 7 of them. We had a great time getting to hear their hearts, what God is doing in them, praying with them, and encouraging them. We know God is going to do incredible things this semester in our city and on campus for His name and renown.

-I had a little thyroid issue come up. The Lord really pressed into my heart to have it checked and I did, and it was just starting to decline. I was insanely tired, a little down, and gained 8 pounds in one month! I was put on medicine to help correct it and have done some natural supplementing and therapies as well. It's really an answered prayer. Thyroid malfunction is a fertility killer, so good thing to figure out for all kinds of reasons. I did the blood work yesterday to see where my levels are after six weeks on the medicine. Our doc thinks it got out of whack from our miscarriage last year.

-Yoga is my bf. I love, love, love it. I was doing it three times a week and since I've been so busy that's declined. But this week, I am back. I sleep better, feel like I can breathe better, got stronger. Yes, please!

-We sent support letters out last week. Jacob and I prayed over them and asked God to open people's hearts to give for our adoption. We have an overwhelming feeling that God is going to blow us away!

-Our little Lola girl was fixed two weeks ago, broke my heart. I cried when I left the vet. She cried all the first night and I thought I was going to lose my mind. Two days later, she was her normal self.

-Fall garden planting commencing in T minus one week.

-We start at our new satellite campus for church tomorrow and I am serving in the nursery rocking babies! We opened a campus in a low income area of Austin. We renovated a building and put in a non-profit center to office there. It's an amazing vision that our pastor was given year's ago. J and I feel called to be apart of this and be light in this neighborhood so that the gospel can penetrate the hearts of these people.

-Did I mention we are having a garage sale as part of the fundraising for our adoption? I am thinking Saturday September 11th, but still working the details out. If you are in Austin or Houston and have stuff you'd like to donate, please email me and we'll gladly pick it up.

Did I mention that we have to raise about another $23,000 for the adoption? If God is calling you to love the orphan by helping us adopt....please also email me. Be apart of God's great story and His glory and the life of the child He has for us.

-I am so ready for Fall! Soup and cool weather and football (yes I know, I even miss it). I am counting the days to like November...when it finally gets cool here.

God has continued to reveal to me the depths of faith wrought in waiting on Him and his plan. Waiting is so hard. I should have nothing to complain about because it's only been two years of waiting for Him to bless us with a child and others have waited far longer. I just know He's going to do something incredible because He already has in us. He's so good. He's so patient and loving. Stay tuned in our lives...for the best is yet to come.

Bless yall!

Jesus Loves the Little Children

Our homestudy went well last Friday, it was sooooo many questions and a long day, but good. Our caseworker is a precious lady and we are excited to be working with her in this process. We have about three weeks until all the paperwork is processed and we are officially waiting or as they say, "paper pregnant." Wow.

I've noticed throughout this whole journey that God has really been stretching us past our comforts. It's been two years of loss and waiting. Two years ago Sunday that we lost Grace and the thought crept in that this may not be as easy as we thought it would be. Fast forward to last October where we realized that adoption was to be on the radar sooner rather than later. Fast forward to now and here we are again at a crossroads.

Please never read this and feel sorry for us and give us the good ol, "bless their little hearts". God has been beyond gracious, my friends. He's AMAZINGLY good to us and we live abundant lives. We are being made more like Him and we are growing in our faith and just having him "rock our worlds" for the better. He's stretching us again in this process and making us stand back and say, "ok, Lord...if this is what you want for the Martins....we're all in! It may be hard and we may struggle, but we trust you 100%."

Jacob and I had long said and even written in black ink on our adoption paperwork that we were open racially across the board in adoption. We'd be thankful and excited for what ever skin color the child has that he will put in our family. We go to a church where that's embraced and celebrated, where it's almost the norm in adoption and we praise Jesus for that. We know white couples that have adopted children of other races and they are actually the minority in their own house. We know a couple who are adopting a special needs child from China, we know couples who adopted children from other countries who have H.IV. Praise God for these people who would step up and love these children without even batting an eye.

As we stand here and are faced with praying through what we are supposed to do, weighing the cost, knowing this probably won't be our only adoption...we believe God is calling us to step out in faith. So, we are switching to the program in our agency that is only for minority and biracial adoption. I know some might struggle with this, even out of the goodness of their hearts and simply not wanting us to see suffer more pain and heartache, but I hope you instead are faced with the gospel of Christ. I hope you see how we believe the verse in James that says, "pure and undefiled religion is caring for widows and orphans in their need" refers to the orphan is Africa, in Russia, in China, the white child in the US, and the child of another race in the US. It breaks my heart to know that the cost for us to adopt a biracial child here in the US is three times less for us than a white child. Who will love these precious babies...if not us? Who will step up and say, "yes Lord, send me", if we don't? Will they be passed into a failing foster system or be a child growing up in the welfare system with parents who didn't want them in the first place and would dare call them a mistake? Who will validate over and over again who they are in Christ and not as the world sees them? Who will sing the verse over them with tears in thier eyes, "red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world", if we don't?

I know we will face difficulty in this, our child will surely someday be teased or feel like they don't fit in. I was treated that way as a child a thousand times and I come from a white family. I just know that God wants us to be the kind of people who can bring a child into our family who looks nothing like us and call them "son" or "daughter" because He does. It's simply a preview of heaven that we will be blessed to experience here on earth. It will probably be the greatest joy we could ever be given by Him who's adopted us.

So, we are excited to share this news with you all and hope you'll continue to pray for this precious life that God is going to put into our family. Amen and amen.

Homestudy Scheduled!

Well, talk about getting it done all at once! We have our first visit here at our house next Wednesday and the second at the agency in Fort Worth on Friday. YEAH! It's going to be a long week next week. God is so good!

Please keep us in your prayers!

Mexican Hummus....Um, Um, Good!

Mexican food is one of my bf's. Of course, we don't do the lard and the cheese around here...but yall this is some tasty business right here. I scored this recipe from Vegetarian Times and added some flare.

Mexican Hummus

1 15.5-oz. can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup salsa
1 Tbs. lime juice
2 tsp. olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced (about 1 tsp.)
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 cup toasted pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup cilantro

Directions

1.Put beans, salsa, lime juice, oil, garlic and cumin in food processor or blender, and purée until smooth.

2.Spoon mixture into bowl, and stir in pumpkin seeds and cilantro. Use immediately, or cover and refrigerate. Makes about 1.5 cups.





So, I try and not use canned beans if I can help it...too many metals. I soaked 1.5 cups of pinto beans with kombu (seaweed that's nature's beano) overnight and then drained and cooked by bringing to a boil and then lowering heat to as fast simmer covered for an 1.5 hours in 6 cups water. You'll know when they are done because they fall apart. Yes, I bought the salsa (organic) and didn't squeeze my own limes (organic lime juice)....I am trying to create recipes for ladies who have busy lives!! I'm right there with yall.

It gets better. I broiled squash, zucchini, and red pepper in the oven marinated in EVOO and salt and pepper about 4-6 min a side. I then spread the hummus over a sprouted tortilla and picked basil from the garden, three leaves, some raw red onions, leftover arugula from the quinoa recipe, and voila! Another wrap, easy to assemble and oh so yummy! You can also serve this as a dip with veggies or whole wheat pita. Any left-over toasted pumpkin seeds you have, go great in a jar and eaten as a snack or in oatmeal for breakfast.











Bueno.