Thursday, February 24, 2011

What Brings Us To His Feet?

Today is just another day, with all the rituals and non-glamerous things a mom does.  But inside my mind and heart things are moving.  So what is seen on the outside is no where near the volcanoe that is churning on the inside.  There are many cues that have brought me to the place where I am.  Sadly, one of those cues is the fact that my devotional life has been slipping for sometime now.  '' All of the sudden'', I realize that I have been trying to forge so many things on my own again.  ''All of the sudden'', that tidal wave that leaning on Jesus always helps me ride is now overtaking me.

Another cue that has made this impact on me is the referral of our newest son.  Adding to my family makes me take a metal checklist of what is good and not so good, especially about me as mommy.  Our son will come with needs, wants, desires, fears that Andreas and I will have to work through with him and sometimes for him.  He will come with an instant language barrier into a biligual family.  He will come with the desperate need (whether he knows it or not) to know Abba.  So how can I show him, love him properly, and overcome for him, if I haven't spent true time with Abba and have wandered off like a head-strong teenager yet again.  The truth is I can't.

My third cue is the tug-of-war I see in my 6 year olds life.  The tug-of-war between the world and Jesus.  What mom and dad are teaching me and what I hear and see at school.  Sometimes I just want to scream with anger as I see the innocence of my child disappear into the reality of what is.  To be very honest I feel like, at this point, I am losing that battle.  As I scramble to figure out how to help Samuel overcome this with Christ, I realize my folly yet again.  When was the last time I fell at His feet and let my heart burn with Christ's desire and not my own.

So as my mental checklist goes on I realize, yet again, I can do nothing without Him.  I have more special needs than my son!  So I find myself bursting at the seams to yet again, ''seek ye first....''.  Everyday brings forth new and wonderful news about our son's homecoming and my heart says, ''seek ye first...''.  Every afternoon when I pick up Sam from school and he tells me all the not-so-good things he has said in the day (he is wonderfully honest), my heart says, ''seek ye first...''.  Every evening when I just simply want to shut down from all the things that pile up in the day, my heart says, ''seek ye first...''.  So I guess what I am really reminding myself here is that it is not really MY heart saying anything, but Abba say, ''come child.''

Laurie

Friday, February 18, 2011

"Guarded Optimism"

The quote above was posted by John's mom earlier today.  This gives hope, but please continue to pray for John.  He has quite the road ahead of him and still needs lots of time and care to continue on the road to healing. There is a prayer vigil going on now until tomorrow at 12 pm., sponsored by Daybreak Community Church (their church) for John.  It is an open invitation and anyone can join.  You can find it on facebook under Prayer vigil for John Karenbauer. Just go in and sign in on times to pray.  Thank you for caring for this precious family.

For those of you who have been asking we haven't heard anything on our adoption because Chinese New Years has been going.  However, this is the last day of vacation for them and so "game on".

Please don't forget to pray,
Laurie

Monday, February 14, 2011

Update on Prayer Request

Hello all,

I have an update on John.  I have talked with his mom and she said that he is better and on a regular ventilator, but that he is not in the "safe zone" just yet.  Please continue to pray for him, his family and the wisdom of the doctors.  He is still under a lot of medication and his lungs need to heal some before they will take him off the ventilator.  Praise Jesus for the hope that we have today after the extremely difficult touch and go last night.  I would also appreciate prayer for his two sisters.  They have the same pneumonia, but not the underlying asthma problems.

Praising Jesus for the hope and praying for more healing,
Laurie

Urgent Prayer

Dear Friends and Family,

As many of you know I use to be a nanny for a family in the States.  I love this family very much and have maitained contact with them as the kids have grown.  Yesterday the youngest boy, John, who is 8 yrs. old, went into the Intensive Care Unit for severe pneumonia.  He is fighting for his life and is on a ventilator at the moment.  I ask you all to pray for him and his family right now.  I believe that God can heal him either miraculously or by the help of the doctors.  Please pray that he not only lives, but there is no damage to him with all that is going on.  

Thank you,
Laurie

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Traveling

Hello all,

I know that a lot of you have asked for details about our child, but we can't share much just yet.  With the beginning of Chinese New Years on Feb. 3rd all is silent and will be until the end which is Feb.18th.  What I can tell you is our little boy is almost 3 years of age and is living in the Northwestern part of China.  We are so excited to finally come to the conclusion of this adoption.  After 3 1/2 years and 3 different countries we have finally found our child.  As you can tell by the video, Samuel is estatic.  He talks about him often and even pretent plays with him.  Samuel keeps asking to go to the toy store and buy a present for him.  I will share more when I can.


Meanwhile, Andreas and I had the privilage to travel to Scotland.  Mom and Dad Kjernald were very generous this Christmas with the stipulation that we did something fun with the money (thank you so much mom and dad).  So they took Sam for the weekend and we flew Ryan Air (about $30 for a roundtrip ticket) to Edinburgh.  What a cool city.  I really liked it, even though it was misty and grey.  We flew in on Friday night (my first business of the evening was Starbucks!!!), we spend Saturday in Edinburgh and had a wonderful time meeting up with my childhood friend Paige Medlock (one of the highlights of the trip).  Then Sunday we took a trip out into the Highlands (Run by the hairy coo - story with the pictures).  Sunday night we went to St. Giles cathedral and joined in a communion service and Monday morning we flew home.  I really did like Scotland, but I have to say the biggest hightlight of the trip was simply spending time with my husband.  He truely is my best friend and I enjoy our get aways together.  Sorry ladies, but I think I married the best man ever!!!  All of my girlfriend may contest, but this is my belief.   

I will tell a little more about Scotland in pictures below.  We would appreciate your continued prayers for the adoption.  We are hoping to travel in May or June to pick him up.  

Blessings,
laurie


The pictures are actually backwards, but I'll work with it.  This is a lake in the highlands that freezes and they use to have curling contest on.  As in all things our tour guide says that the "sport" of curling comes from Scotland.  It may be true, anyone want to look it up.

In one of our stops there was this bench in the hills.  It is one of those Notting Hill benches and I thought it was sweet.

Part of the gorgeous Highlands of Scotland.  I would love to go back and see it in the summer.


Self portrait of course.

Below is a Hairy coo (cow).  Our tour guide runs a company called The Hairy Coo.  They provide free tours into the highlands and then at the end you can pay what you feel it is worth or what you can afford.  We had our reservations, especially when we strolled up to an orange minibus that said "Honk if your Horny" on the back.  However, it was a really good tour and the tour guide really knew his history (did anyone know that Tony Blair was Scotish?).  We had a lot of stops so it wasn't all driving and saw some great places.  The Hairy coo was brought to Scotland by Vikings and apparently the Vikings took the Scotish women and left the coos.  Hope it was a good trade! This particular coo is Hamish and he is famous in Scotland.







In the town of Callendar.  This is the border of the Highlands from the lowlands (makes sense). What a beautiful sight to see everyday.  

Andreas and I had fish and chips (really good ones) in Callendar.

This my friends is Doune Castle.  What castle you ask?  Well, (and this is particularly to my friend Dave Rhodes), this is the castle that Monty Python used in 1974 to produce the low budget Holy Grail movie.  So this is my best "you stupid British K'nigits" face.  No battles were fought at this castle, but the Stewarts of Scotland owned it.

That is my good looking man. (not the red one)

This is the main William Wallace monumet.  Apparently there are about 20 monuments, but this one is in Sterling where William Wallace and his gang fought for the castle (picture to come).  Our tour guide set us straight about what really happened with William Wallace and not how the movie told us it was.

The famous Sterling Castle.  This castle switched hands many times during the wars.  The famous or infamous, Mary Queen of Scots was here a bit and left her son here and never got to see him again (due to Catholic vs. Protestant issues).  Sterling is also where my friend Paige is doing her Ph.D.  Apparently, it is worth seeing, but we didn't have time. I guess we have to go again.  

This is carved in the front of the Wallace monument.  I really liked it.  What amazing stone work.  The thistle on the top is considered the national flower (I think).  It was everywhere.  

 This is the Edinburgh Castle.  It is amazing to look at.  It is hard to believe the so long ago they took all the stone and put it on this mountain.  There was a huge line, so we didn't get to go all the way inside, but we saw some of it.  It stands at the top of the Royal Mile.

These are haggis balls.  Hopefully, I can get the video up of us trying them.  Yes, they look really gross, but the Scotish really seem to love them.

Below is Paigee (as I call her).  Sorry men, this beautiful woman is off the market.  She is not only beautiful, but incredibly talented in art, among other things.  She is the one that taught me stain glass and pretty much all the other artistic things I can do.  Thanks Paigee.  It was really good to see her and get to see how the Lord is working in her life. Thanks for coming and meeting us.  We are standing in the Edinburgh castle.  

My wonderful husband and I in front of the Edinburgh castle.

Two doors down from our hotel was a cafe called Chocolate Soup.  Of course we had to go and get hot choclate there.  The cup says " it's a Chocolate thing".  Need I say more.

The Edinburgh Parliment is a cool work of art in itself.  On the side it had many quotes and I liked this one.  

This mount is called "Author's seat".  You can walk up there.  It is one of those places that King Author and the knights of the round table were said to have a place.  It is so cool to be in the city and then all of the sudden see these amazing outcroppings.

This is the Queen's palace at the bottom of the Royal Mile.  Of course the Scots call her the Queen of Scotland and not the Queen of England.

On another outcropping of the city stood this.  Very cool.  We never did figure out what it was for though.

This sign made me laugh.  Would you really shop for fruit and veggies from someone who is OFF License.  Sounds a bit risky to me.  But then again, the Scots eat haggis.....

A cool pic of the stone buildings on the Royal Mile.  

This is the Edinburgh Castle at night.  The city is quite amazing and we didn't have very much time to explore, but I am really glad that we had a chance to go.  Thanks again Mom and Dad.