Always Enough

We are heading back to Uganda tonight.  I don't want to put a lot of thought into this post because we have to get ready to go.  So, here are some of my favorite pictures from furlough.

 

Ignore the weird quality of this picture ... I have no idea what is going on.

This is a video that my dad and I made to show Churches around America.  I wanted to share it with you all now.

Please be in prayer for safe travels for our family today.  I have to pack the computer now, so that is about it for this post.  I will try to be back soon and will hopefully not be writing about our trip, because hopefully it will be uneventful. :)  It may be a while before I get back here because i may be too caught up in hugs and hanging out with the kids!  Thank you all for your prayers!

Happy New Year!

2012 was filled with more struggles than we would like.

More good-byes {And 'see-you-laters'} than what we think should be 'normal'.

2012 was filled with joy.

Unspeakable joy.

With laughter.

Lots and lots of laughter.

2012 was filled with blessings.

Blessings of all shapes and sizes.

And sweet surprises that blow us away.

2012 brought lots of fun reunions back in America.

And some sweet family time.

Ending it off with this.

So, here's to 2013.  Whatever it may bring.  Laughter or tears, healing or pain.
Happy New Year!  May we always remember that God is the source of our blessings and joy and to hold onto God during the pain and sorrow.

Psalm 2:7

I will proclaim the decree of the Lord: He said to me, " You are my son; today I have become your Father." - Psalm 2:7

There was a lot of excitement in our van as we pulled into a driveway in Greensboro, North Carolina.  Once we were inside, we gave hugs to the 6 kids who had been adopted from GSF, whether they remembered us or not.  Here we are with all six of the kids and their families.

Godfrey, Patricia, Joyce, Zuri and Zeke, and Patricia and their families.  Also in this photo are 2 families who used to work at GSF, the Greers {adopted Patricia} and the Jacobsens; as well as a family in the process of adopting from GSF, the Van Camp family.

The next day, we pulled into another driveway where two little boys and a big dog came running out to meet us.  Pius and Brian were also adopted from GSF and live in the same town, but couldn't come the night before.  It was much too short of a visit, but it was soo good to see them!  {Sorry for the lack of a picture}

We then did some more traveling and after a few stops ended up in Knoxville where baby Favour lives.    Favour was still little when she left, so it was fun to see her walking around and all grown up.  She didn't really remember us, but we remembered her.  We also got to see Susanna who was an intern at GSF last year.

After A LOT more traveling, we finally got to Milwaukee and got to see Joann and Angel.  It was glorious to be able to spend some time with these sweet girls and their family.

And, with a lot of excitement, we finally arrived at the West house.  The West's have adopted twin 11 year old girls from GSF.  And, since we don't have a homeschool teacher this year {any teachers looking for a job in Africa?}, a fellow GSF Missionary {Auntie Claudia} sent her three adopted girls to go to school with them for a year.  We had a great time hanging out with them!  While we were there, we had one day that another  adoptive family was able to come hang out with us.

Auntie Claudia's girls are Hope on the far left, Emma in the very back on the right and Maggie in the red shirt, front left.  The twins are Grace next to me, second from left on the front and Martha, next to Maggie with a pink hair bow.  The other family adopted Layla, formerly know as Faith, on my lap and Samuel, formerly know as Aaron in the front middle.  The two others are Brice, who helped build our house and Meredith who was a nurse at GSF.

After we left their house at 7 pm one night, we drove to Iowa to stay with another family who adopted two kids.  We got there really late {around midnight}, so the kids were asleep.  The next morning, I woke up before the rest of my family, and headed upstairs, because I couldn't wait to hug those kids again.

 My mom is holding Hannah Zai and I am holding Edi Caleb.  It was so good to see how they are growing up!
Towards the end of our trip we will be going to see two of the other boys.  Watch out, Team Clarke, it's gonna' be fun!

Their forever mom took this picture, but I just love it so much.  This is their new baby brother.

Then, there's Jimmy who we will not be able to see.  But, you know, when you live in Alaska, you can't expect to have visitors every day.  Here's a fun picture of him in his first snow blizzard.

Last, but not least, is Annett.  Annett is still in Uganda, but her family has legal guardianship of her.  They are going to pick up Visas on Friday and travel HOME on Sunday!  Annett gets to be home with her family for Christmas!!  Praise the Lord with us!!  You can follow along with their journey on their blog, here.

Love this picture of Annett!

Glory to God for giving these precious children families!

Tuesdays Unwrapped

1.5 - The number seemed quite harmless to me at 5:00 last Tuesday afternoon as I sat in the Dermatologist office.  Around 5:30 I learned that it is indeed more than just an ordinary number, in this case and could in fact be harmful if left alone.  The nurse told us this number after using  a camera/computer called the MelaFind {Click here to read more about it} to take a picture of a mole on my back.  The MelaFind has been trained to scan moles and give them a score which dermatologists use to determine whether or not it should be removed.  So, I sat on the operating table and tried to figure out what 1.5 could possible mean while the Dermatologists discussed what to do.  By the time the doctor came back in I had convinced myself that 1.5 must be good and 10 must be the worst.  Not so.  Negative 1.5 would have been great, but anything above 0 is suspicious.  1.5 was just too high to mess around.  It would have to go.  So, in came the plastic surgeon.  Off went the mole.  Into the lab it went.  We were sent home with stitch cutters to remove the stitches in 10 - 14 days.  I assumed that this mole would be like the last one I had removed.  Still small and non-cancerous.  No big deal.  We wouldn't have to come back here again.

That point where I try to find an image to go here.  Grace is a fitting word.

Three days later my mom called the Dermatologist, 'hello, I'm calling to see if you have lab results for my daughter.  The dermatologist said it would be 1 -2 days before we heard back.'   The lady on the other end said all the doctors are with one patient and we will have to wait.  A few minutes later the doctor called and my dad answered.  Then, my dad asked my mom and I to come into the living room.  Not the best sign in the world.  Turns out, the dermatologists and lab people looked at it for quite awhile {yes, I find that a bit weird that their were several people thoroughly checking something that had once been attached to me} and found a slight sign of a melanoma.  Now, before you jump to conclusions that I probably use a tanning bed, let me inform you that I have NEVER used a tanning bed and I don't plan on ever using one.  There is a family history of melanomas and I inherited the genes.  What a great thing to get from your father and grandfather, right?  I really don't have time to write about the family history thing and I think my mom did a fine job of writing about it, so if you want to read more about it, go read her post.  Anyhow, because their was a sign of melanoma, they have to remove more skin around the spot.  So, I will be going in for surgery.  This morning at 11:00.  I would greatly appreciate your prayers.

I'm linking up with Emily Freeman {author of one of my favorite books, Graceful} today in Tuesdays Unwrapped.

So today, I've tried to find some things to unwrap here.  Some things that may seem messy and turn out to be unexpected gifts.  Turns out, there are quite a few.  I mean, my grandfather almost died from skin cancer when my dad was a little kid.  My dad had a melanoma and didn't know until a kind nurse pointed it out and told him to go get it checked out.  The dermatologists wanted to 'keep an eye' on my mole, but they decided that since it will be 2 or 3 years until we come back, they needed to go ahead and 'MelaFind' it and remove it.  I'm so glad they did.  This would have been a much bigger deal had they waited.  And, I'm thankful for dermatologists who were used by God so that I still have a family.

To read Tuesdays unwrapped posts from Emily Freeman and others, click here.  You can also join in - its super easy.  This is my first time to do anything like this and it wasn't very hard.  If you want to know how to do this, click here.

Thankfulness through the year.

I saw the idea of sharing one thing you are thankful for for each month and decided to try it.  Of course, that requires me to think back pretty far, but I will do my best.
December Thankful for lots of fun parties and times with the GSF kids

January I'm thankful for some sweet friends at GSF to share my Birthday with and for the gift of adoption as two little girls came to America with their Forever Families.

February Thankful for great times with the 'Big Brothers and Sisters' of GSF.  Lots of laughter and memories there.

March Made me thankful again for clean, running water as our water tank wasn't working and we had to go 'fetch' water.

April Thankful that God began His redemption work in the many new kids that came to GSF in April.

May Thankful for Moses & Mary and their new life together.

 June Thankful for Phiona and her boldness to try out for Miss Uganda and use her new position to raise awareness for orphans.

July Thankful for the new Youth Center and its usefulness to so many at GSF, including the Special Needs Kids.

August Thankful for all I have that made saying 'See you later' so hard.

September Thankful for the extra time I had to get school done, for being reunited with my family again and getting to see so many friends.

October Thankful for time with lots of friends

November Thankful for family time in Co, for time with our GSF 'family' and now, time with my dad's family.

There are many more things that I am thankful for, but you can only write so much in one post.  BTW, if you want to read about things going on at GSF look on the left down at the bottom to find blogs written by people at GSF.  I'm thankful they all blog so we can keep up with what's going on.  What are you thankful for?

Sebastian & Azida

First of all, sorry I haven't written in over a month.  I'm not really sure what to write about.  I may start writing GSF stories that I never got to write.  I might also try to update every once in a while about how our travels are going.  Today, I want to write a story that I have been meaning to write for a very long time.  It has actually been sitting in my draft box for like 4 months.  I'm finally getting around to posting it.

 Okay, so before you read this, if you haven't been around for a while and haven't read Sebastian's story, I would like to ask you to do that here.  It is kind of a confusing story, so if you don't read it you may be confused.  TIA, This is Africa.

I had to look back to see how far I had gotten in writing his story.  I wrote a while back and said he was going in to get the other half of his surgery done.  Well, when he went in they were told, 'It's too big, we just can't do it because its too big.'  I tried over and over to write that post, but I couldn't do it.  I couldn't find a way to write that post ... Sebastian can make anyone's day in an instant and it  broke my heart to know that his cleft-pallet may never be fixed.

Credit: Claire

However, there was a little glimmer of hope.  We were told that there would be an English doctor who is an expert at this coming a month later.  So, a month later they went back and the doctor said he would try because if he didn't do it then, it would never get fixed.  The surgery was successful and only a little hole was left.  He is talking a lot more now.  I've been trying to get up a short video {like 5 seconds} of Sebastian talking up here, but it won't work. :(  I'm really sad about that because it is a precious video of him saying 'Jesus'.  I have SO many cute pictures of him {because he is just adorable} but here are some of my favorites.

I love this picture of me and  baby A {Thanks, Janie!}

Here you can see her cleft pallet  a bit more

Baby Azida is on GSF's feeding program.  Both her mom and jaja {grandma} are able to care for her so she is able to stay at home and just be on the feeding program.  She is 2 months old and has a cleft lip AND pallet.  Once she gets older GSF will help transport them back and forth to the hospital where she will {hopefully} get her surgery done.  Please join me in praying for her!  You can be specifically praying that she will continue to grow and that she will be able to get her surgery done.

{If you haven't looked at the sponsorship blog lately, you should totally go do that.  Their are some precious kids on there.  Even if you don't want to sponsor a child, it is still a great place to find out about the kids.  You can get to it by clicking on the picture on the top right.}