A Psalm, a Prayer, and our Number

Our new number is 29.  Included below is the text of Psalm 29 (an amazing Psalm) and our prayer as we apply Psalm 29 to our lives.

1 Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,

ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;

worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.

3 The voice of the Lord is over the waters;

the God of glory thunders,

the Lord, over many waters.

4 The voice of the Lord is powerful;

the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

5 The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;

the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.

6 He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf,

and Sirion like a young wild ox.

7 The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.

8 The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;

9 The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth

and strips the forests bare,

and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

10 The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;

the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.

11 May the Lord give strength to his people!

May the Lord bless his people with peace!

Reflecting on the Psalm through prayer:

God, we desire to ascribe glory to Your name through our lives.  You are worthy of our praise, worthy our life’s focus. 

God, Your voice is powerful.  Your voice echoes through our lives - leading us to Your purpose, calming us with Your peace, bending us low as we hear Your thunder.  God, Your powerful voice not only strips the forest bare, but also tenderly makes the deer give birth.  We know that same voice calls to the orphan and says, “I am your Father.”

God, as You sat enthroned over the flood, may we know that You are also sitting enthroned when our world of adoption-unpredictability whirls around seemingly out of control.  May we know that Your plan is in perfect motion, never straying from purpose or finding a piece out of place. 

May You give strength to us, and bless us with Your peace.  Amen.

Addition Update

Just in case adoption isn't enough stress in your life, make sure to do a house addition at the same time.  That will ensure you know where your breaking point is....as you will live your life mostly beyond your breaking point!

By the way, the guys that have been doing the framing this week.....boy I could blog about them for days.  Just picture the stereotypical "plumber" look, you know what I mean, with the full moon and all.  Well, these guys go WAY beyond the full moon and, well, I'll just leave it at that for now.  But let me say that they have no tan line.  Seriously.  And there is no bashfulness whatsoever in the way they carry themselves.  Anyway, they are both a couple of exceptionally nice guys, they just apparently enjoy feeling a little extra breeze during the day.  Just in case you're wondering, there are no pics of the framers!

Enough of those mental pictures.  Here are the latest pics of the addition.  We keep asking ourselves...."did we go too big?????"   As a wise man once told me, "if a little is good, a lot is better."  So I think we're OK.

Have a great day!  If you see a full moon tonight, you can think of us!

LifeLight 2010

We attended the LifeLight Music Festival yesterday in Sioux Falls, SD.  The festival runs Friday through Sunday each labor day weekend.  Each day, approximately 100,000 people attend.  It's humongous!  It's held in the middle of a hay field out in the country.  The large field becomes filled with cars, lawn chairs, people, great music, and amazing worship.  We always enjoy the event each year and enjoy going with several other families.

We left for Sioux Falls at around 1:00 pm.  The concerts lasted until about 11:00 pm.  We hit the road to come home at about 11:45 pm and got home around 1:00 am!  Very late for an old man like me.

The bands we got to see yesterday?  Parachute Band, Downhere, Family Force 5, BarlowGirl, NeedtoBreathe, and Mercy Me.  All in one day, all for free!!! The music is all really, really loud - but also really, really fun.  It's great to hear the message that each band has to share and to hear music centered around worship all day.

The older kids enjoy going down to the "mosh pit" where they can scream their heads off and jump up and down for hours on end with thousands of other youthful types.   Heather and I usually take turns hanging back with Eddie Joe (does NOT enjoy the loudness of the music up close!).


The Big Fella loves to boogie as soon as he hears a good beat.  While hearing Family Force 5 (a crazy, crazy band) he could not keep from layin' it down.  Check out the vid below!  The Big Fella is sporting his Ethiopia Adoption shirt from the Stutzmans.





Some other pics of some of the other happenings.

Heather with her very good friend Roxanne.  They've known each other since the 8th grade.  If you ever want some seriously embarrassing stories about Heather, Roxanne is your source!

The Big Fella enjoying a burger

NeedtoBreathe up on the stage and the Jumbotrons as the sun was beginning to set.  I think we were about a quarter mile from the stage!!!

Eddie Joe ALWAYS has fun with Naomi.  Naomi's friend Lauren was also with us.

Here's a link to photos directly from the LifeLight website:  PHOTOS

MORE pics.  These are from Sunshine's camera.  She had a much better view of the festivities.

 Sunshine and the Big Fella

Old people taking it all in - Heather, Sherri, Russ, and Scott (the men are talking Husker / Gopher Football)

Lead singer from Downhere (I think he looks like Donnie Osmond)

One of the Barlow Girls (3 sisters with the last name Barlow - they really rock it out!)

Sunshine and L Jo

Pics of the Mercy Me part of the concert - They were very good!

From Ashes to Africa

Just finished reading the book "From Ashes to Africa" by Josh and Amy Bottomly.  The book is a candid view of the Bottomly's struggle with infertility and their journey to adoption from Ethiopia.  The book is written in a beautiful narrative where both Josh and Amy take turns telling different parts of their story, from their own point of view.  The writing is very descriptive and well done.  One of Josh's comments in the book is that in order to write purposefully, an author needs to "cut open a vein."  Josh and Amy do this many times in the book as they share the details of the pain of infertility and the joy that they found through adoption.

The Bottomlys also share their heart on many difficult points of international adoption.  In their meeting with Silas' birth mom Hermela, they share the pain of a mother who is unable to care for her birth-child as she says goodbye to Silas Tesfamariam, they share of saying goodbye to Silas' grandmother, of saying goodbye to Silas' country.  They share their feelings that this broken world often results in many difficult and painful situations woven together through the loving touch of the hand of God.  They share that in this world of infertility and abject poverty, the whole creation groans (Rom 8:22) longing for healing and leaving us to know that we are not meant to "feel at peace in our skin."  In the chapter where they meet Silas' birth-mom Hermela, Amy reflects upon their meeting and their departure and writes,

Part of me felt the rightness of adoption, the rightness of God fulfilling a dream of ours, the rightness of God meeting a need of Hermela's, and the rightness of Hermela's courage and sacrifice.  The other part of me felt the wrongness of adoption, the wrongness of broken families, and the wrongness of abject poverty.  Reflecting back on the times I had complained about my struggles with infertility or I had expressed anger toward God for my life's unfairness, I now felt remorseful and ashamed for what I had though and felt, how it all paled in comparison to Hermela's plight, along with the hundreds of thousands of others like Hermela who struggled every day just to survive.

Since the 2007 adoption of Silas, the Bottomlys have also adopted a beautiful little girl from Ethiopia named Olive.  You can catch up with their story at their blog .....Ethiopia or bust.....

If you've ever struggled with the thoughts of how infertility and adoption can exist in God's "Plan A" for our lives, this is a good read!

Jumpin' Jimeny....

I borrowed a camera from work to try it out.  After taking a few boring posed pics of the kids, I decided to liven it up and asked them to jump for me.  At first it was met with "why" and "do we have to," but then in no time it became a game and I couldn't get them to stop.  It was great fun and believe me there are many, many more pics where these came from.  There was lots of laughter, and I have been instructed to not share the pics of Bo doing her cheerleading jumps!  But, for the right amount of money......

Anyway, here are the kids.....

Sunshine!

Rye Bread!

T-Bird!

The Big Fella!

Eddie Joe!

Here are the latest pics on our addition.  It has seemed very slow, but we have had a lot of rain recently and we are now starting the "framing" stage which I have been told will go very fast.  Hopefully that will be true.

 

Oh, and Rye Bread got some cool new shoes which need to make the blog....

Another Gotcha Video - Another Amazing Story!

Amy from Filled With Praise and her family share their amazing story through their Gotcha video.  This is one of the best Gotcha videos that I have seen.

You must watch this! You must be moved! You must enjoy!


Our Journey to Elijah Mihretu - Ethiopia Adoption from Amy @ Filled With Praise on Vimeo.

Video - Leeland and Brandon Heath in Cambodia

Check out the video of Leeland and Brandon Heath in Cambodia.