(Krissy writing)
Alright, all you avid readers of our blog (the one or two of you out there...)...It's time, yet again, for another blog posting.
First things first, we have made progress on our adoption. We got our homestudy approved, and received the full-out contract in the mail from our adoption agency (with an invoice, of course, for $4,950). We'll be sending that in here in the next day or two, once we hear from them on a couple of questions we had about the contract. Jimbo (our correspondent and liaison for the Mongolia adoptions) made up a schedule of events necessary to occur during the course of the Mongolian adoption. It was about three pages long, and very detailed, but I'm so glad we have it now, because instead of twiddling our thumbs and listening to the crickets chirp when people ask us "What comes next?" we can actually have a ready answer! Yay! So, now that our homestudy has been done and approved by the agency, we will sign the contract, and send it and the agency fee to Small World, and they will in turn send us the Mongolia Dossier Guide. We'll have to complete all of the necessary documents and send it back in, and they will review it and send it to Mongolia. They say that from that point, the process takes about 2-3 years to get our child. Yikes - a long time, but it will definitely be worth the wait!
Next, we are leaving on Sunday for our 3rd Annual Luedecke Road Trip. Fun times. This year's schedule will be:
June 21 - 24 San Antonio for Renovare conference
June 24 - 25 Breckenridge (TX) for visit with Anna and Jimmy
June 25 - 27 Colorado camping in Pike Nat'l Forest
June 27 - 29 visit with our friends the Vorhees' in Longmont
June 29 - July 3 camping in the Grand Tetons and exploring all of Yellowstone/Jackson Hole, WY
July 3 - 4 long drive back home via Amarillo.
Gonna be a lot of driving, but honestly, that's what Gary and I are excited about - we LOVE road trips and camping. Perhaps that will change with kids, but hopefully not.
Let's see...what else can I tell you about our lives since our last blog at the beginning of April??? So much has occurred, but hard to remember it all... I'll go by the weekends:
April 3 - 5 Gary's surprise 30th birthday, my family here for the party and for the weekend
April 10-12 camping with friends for my 29th birthday
April 17-18 my family here (including Grandma and cousin Kyle and his wife Nicole) for Bri's amazing senior voice recital
April 25 adoption homestudy
May 2-3 Gary's grandmother had a stroke, so we spent the majority of several days at the hospital
May 8-10 went with Gary's folks to Dallas for Gary's graduation from DCC
May 14-15 my family here for Briana's graduation from UH
May 22-23 in San Antonio for Mallory and Dan Weise's wedding
May 29 church staff pool party get-together (way fun - not done often enough!)
June 4-6 visiting friends Don & Dottie @ Lake Conroe for the weekend
June 12-13 replacing back fence and painting the living room/hallway (both look GREAT!)
In the midst of it all, we managed to maintain some semblance of sanity (that one is up for debate, but humor me now and just grin and nod) and continue with the normal lives of a minister and voice teacher. We never know what actually hit us when all is said and done, but are just thankful that God is always still sovereign and we still manage to spend real quality time with Him throughout each day.
I would agree with myself and all others that agree with me that we are ready for a vacation. (Did that even make any sense?) And that's what we're doing...FINally.
I'm excited to spend some time at home with my Mom and Dad and sister and neice and nephew.
Mom's in Arizona currently caring for my grandma who has pneumonia right now. Please keep that in your prayers, as she regains health and strength.
I also just have to be vulnerable for a minute and put this in: Recently at the beginning of May, I started attending the morning ladies' bible study, which was started back up after a long break (several years). Then that stopped for the summer, and I have been attending the "Frazzled Females" bible study on Tuesday evenings at our church. I have been SO blessed by this group of women, and have been hitting myself upside the head asking myself, "Why did I not do this SOONER?!" We have been making our way through a book called "The Modern Girl's Guide to Bible Study" by Jen Hatmaker, and it has really opened my eyes to the wonderful (and do-able) world of STUDYING the Bible and journaling. I never have considered myself much of a journaler, but it has been so fulfilling to be able to converse with the Holy Spirit by reading His written Word, and then responding with my written words. The funny thing about this book is that she is basically writing herself out of a job (probably not really) by suggesting that we don't need a guided Bible study, in order to have that personal quiet time every day. We just need to be open to the Holy Spirit's guiding and direction and made familiar to the study tools available in most Bibles nowadays (ie. footnotes, cross-references, book introductions, concordances, topical indexes, etc.). I know that most of you reading this are like, well, duh...I've always known that...and believe me, I have! But it's a completely different world when you're actually, on a consistent basis, putting to use these study tools and the concept of journaling about what you're reading. There's something to be said about writing down your thoughts and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide and direct you as you're writing. For instance, just to give testimony to the fact that the Word is living and active, I read the 1 Corinthians 13 chapter three days in a row, journaled about it all three days, and discovered three completely different amazing truths each day. That is a passage that you hear quoted all the time, but actually sit down and study it, piece by piece, and there's a mountain of treasure there!!
If you can't tell, I'm excited about this whole study/journaling thing, and have looked forward to it every day. I honestly considered just reading the Bible to be "studying" it. And while there's value to reading straight through, there's so much more to be found when you actually roll up your sleeves and dig into it!
So that's a personal thought. I don't necessarily feel so comfortable at this point sharing those morsels that God has brought to light through His Word lately, but eventually, perhaps I will share what He lays on my heart through my obedience to really studying. Please pray for me in this "journ"ey.
That said, I'm going to go be productive for the day. Hopefully it won't be two and a half months before we post again, but no promises. :)
