Living Blossoms

A friend came to me with some questions and I thought maybe if they were worried about these things maybe some of you are too. Please know that I always, ALWAYS welcome questions and confrontations from my friends. I HATE fakeness and I HATE dishonesty so even if it may knock me down a bit to hear what you have to say, I want to hear it. Now, don't take that as open season on Bethany (I prefer that you come to me in love, not accusation!), but know that you are welcome to ask.

It bothers me that you ask for money for your adoption and then in your next breath you talk about going to another thrift store.
There is a huge difference between spending $30 on several items of clothing and spending $20,000+ on an adoption. I think perhaps you are getting an off-kilter picture of our lives. I write about my thrift store finds because it's something I enjoy and I know a lot of my friends enjoy hearing about the deals I find. I don't write about how we've cut back on a lot of things, because it is not interesting to read about. I do write a lot about how I've saved us $2,000 or more on toiletries, food, and household items just this year via couponing. And that's savings on items we would've bought eventually - not that I just got because they were a good deal. (Although I do get a lot of those things too, but only if they're free.) I'd say that savings of $2,000 makes it OK to spend a little bit at a thrift store sometimes. It's cheaper than going out to eat (which we also do about 2 times per week, but almost exclusively via mystery shops, gift cards, and amazing coupons, which I do not always mention when I say we went out to eat), or going out for drinks, or getting a pedicure (which I have actually never done), or having a data plan on your cell phone, or going to Starbucks a few times a week, or buying one pair of jeans at the mall, or any number of other things.

You could get a part time job, and put all that money towards adoption if this is really important to you.
I have a part-time job. Why do people always forget that I work at my church? I also sell things on Ebay and Craig's List, do occasional odd jobs and, rarely, freelance design jobs, and I make a small amount from selling t-shirts online. I also hope to begin selling my photography online. All that money from all those things goes to the adoption - as did all the money from my modeling gigs.

Don't you think that you and Isaac saving up the money yourself will make getting the baby so much more exciting?
Absolutely not. Getting our friends and family involved is far better because then their hearts will be invested even more, and maybe they will consider giving to other families who are adopting. Read Adopted for Life by Russell Moore for how I feel about that. Also, I don't follow that logic; when a woman gives birth her insurance covers most of it, and that doesn't make her having the baby any less exciting.

Why not save and wait til Isaac is done with seminary?
He won't be done with his Master's until 2013 (that will be the year of our 10th wedding anniversary) and his Doctorate till 2017 (I think). We don't want to just be starting as parents when we're in our mid-30s! Oh, and when he finishes, we will likely be taking a massive pay cut because he will become a Bible teacher instead of a tax preparer, so that will not be an opportune time to spend tens of thousands of dollars to have children.

There are some people who are reading your blog who literally will have to adopt if they ever want to have kids. Knowing that you just don't want to be pregnant is a big reason behind your decision rubs me wrong.
I'm not sure how you got that idea, because that is NOT the reason we are adopting. We are adopting because we don't understand why anyone would bring more kids into the world when there are already millions and millions of kids out there already who will never know the love of a family or hear about Jesus. There are an estimated 6 million orphans in Ethiopia alone. That's about 5 times the population of Jacksonville - just in that ONE country. We know that people think we're nuts for not having a desire for our own biological kids. We're used to that and we accept that we're the weird ones, and we certainly do not look down on people who have biological kids. (Obviously not.) But that does NOT mean we are sinful or selfish or whatever people think we are for not trying to get pregnant.
Edited to add: Isaac said on Facebook, "The Bible talks about a man being blessed whose quiver is full. We are choosing to pick our arrows up of the ground instead of making new ones." Quiverfull Movement connotations aside (because we are SO not part of that), that is a very, very good way of putting it.

Why can't you adopt an American child? It's cheaper, and there are kids here that need loving parents.
There are lots of kids here who need parents - that's true. But it is unlikely that a child in the States will die of starvation or HIV or TB or any other treatable illness that they cannot afford or obtain treatment for in a poorer country. Not to mention that a child here has a much higher chance of hearing the true Gospel than one in a predominantly Catholic (I'm talking Catholic like El Salvador, not American Catholic) or Muslim country. Plus, we've been to orphanages in poor countries and we've been to an orphanage here in the US. HUGE difference in quality of life. Just talk to a kid old enough to remember their orphanage in the Ukraine or Jamaica or wherever and you will know. That said, we hope if people are moved to adopt from the USA that they will! Who cares where you adopt from as long as you adopt! But we have felt called to adopt from poorer countries. If in the future God does not provide for that, then we will likely adopt domestically. If that happens we would like to work with a crisis pregnancy center or some such thing so that we can put our money where our pro-life mouths are.

Question from a friend on Facebook: When you adopt your child will you keep his/her born name or give it an americanized name?
Our kids are gonna be 100% our kids, and that will include the names we've had picked out for ages. Although I think if they have a given name, we will make that a second middle name. That'll make for some long names, but then they'll have the option later on. Also, if we end up adopting older kids (like, age 5 & up) eventually, we'll probably just keep their names because it might be confusing/overwhelming for them to change after having that name for so long.

Let me also add that I am not posting this to have anyone think badly about the friend who initially asked the questions. I'm glad they asked so I could clear things up, especially since a few of you have said you'd wondered some of the same things.

Any other questions?

+ We just did devotions together for the first time in ages. It helps that I finally found my Quiet Time that went missing in September. It was under the couch... where Isaac and I had both checked more than once. Isaac prayed for our child who may already be out there somewhere and of course I started crying. There is nothing guaranteed to make me cry other than adoption. I wasn't this bad till we went to the orphanage in El Salvador. It's just so REAL now. I really, really understand why God placed it in our hearts to do this, and I feel much less defective for not having always daydreamed about being pregnant and having kids that look like me.

+ We finally took our Christmas stuff down today. The dining room looks so big without the tree in there! It's kinda sad to have it gone for another 11 months.

+ 4 more Swagbucks and I can get $25 in Amazon gift certificates! And Isaac's account has enough for $5 for Amazon or Starbucks. I'm planning a trip to Knoxville to get together with some friends (woo-hoo!), which I will need airfare for, so I may hold onto mine and keep saving for the $50 Southwest gift card. It's hard though. There are lots of things I could buy from Amazon with $25. If you'd like to earn things just for searching as you would with Google, sign up here! Then when you win, I win. And when the friends you refer win, you win!

+ I had a really unhealthy day today. I ate leftover shrimp and fettuccine alfredo for lunch and then thick crust white pizza for dinner. Good thing I went for a 5-mile bike ride yesterday and a 3-mile walk today! I really love walking to work. I don't know why I waited so long to try it.

+ Did I ever post on here that I figured out the savings from my CVSing? My Aug. 30-Dec. 31 CVSing total out of pocket cost was $50.51 and I saved $863.32! I would've spent over $77 on stuff like milk, gum, tissues, etc. anyway, and that's not even counting the makeup, tons of toothpaste, medicine, etc. that I have gotten that we'll use eventually. I've also made $10 of my out of pocket cost back from Ebay auctions and will be getting $27 back from rebates - so it's like I've only spent $13.51. And I have two nice blood glucose meters to sell on Ebay which will probably fetch another $10 each, so I'll come out getting all that stuff and having spent nothing. Freaking awesome.

+ Isaac came to work with me for 5 hours Tuesday night. We are in the process of switching the church's financials from Quicken to Quickbooks. I can already tell that it's far more user friendly, and I hardly know what I'm doing yet! We also began a bit of the year end stuff which has been stressing me out. I think it will actually be okay though, with his help. I'm so grateful for him. I could never have taken the treasurer position without him being an accountant and being kind enough to help me.

+ Seth has declared me the coolest sister ever. Not only did I buy him a case of Cheerwine in NC, but I also gave him a set of headphones for his phone (well, actually I traded for a 2GB micro SD card) and made him some ringtones. So basically? I'm the bomb. Hehe.

+ GO GATORS!!!

Yay for a normal post!

+ Our Halloween night was fun, but felt nothing like Halloween. We had fun though.

+ Saturday morning we woke up early to go with Isaac's coworkers to the Florida Baptist Children's Home. We cooked a meal on the grill and then served it. Sadly, we didn't get to interact with the kids (some orphans, some temporarily there till a parent gets their act together) much. This was my first visit to an American orphanage. I felt bad for the kids there, of course, but it just reaffirmed my desire to adopt kids from other countries. To the orphans in El Salvador, the FBCH would be like heaven. The kids don't go hungry, and they have house parents so they get attention and affection, and they're taught the Truth, not the cult of Mary.

Saturday afternoon I slept for 4 hours on the couch! That was not expected, but much-needed. We watched Ghostbusters, which I hadn't seen since I was a teenager. That night Isaac went to play football with some friends, and I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which I hadn't seen since it was in theaters last year. It is amazing that that movie is 2 hours long and there is SO MUCH left out of it.

+ Sunday was pretty much engulfed by our Olympian Fun Fall Festival. After lunch we set up for it, which took so long we only had about an hour and a half between it and the actual festival. We had 13 kids come, though, and 6 of them don't attend church anywhere; their only exposure to God is through our club. We had a ton of candy left over again, so that was great. Hehe. I did face painting, and tried a few new things this year that went over big.

+ Monday's activities have slipped my mind, save for watching SNL's Presidential Bash that evening. Very entertaining.

+ Tuesday I voted in the morning and did not have to wait in line at all. Bwaha. I then went out to lunch at Olive Garden with Grams, Ange, and the kids. It'd been ages since I'd been there. I do love their Five Cheese Ziti al Forno, breadsticks, and raspberry lemonade. *licks lips* As mentioned the other day, we went to AAAC's house that night for a small election party, which was a total blast and an excuse to use the chocolate fountain again. =oD I was up way too late that night though, and I've paid for it since.

+ Yesterday I spent the day cocooned in the house. I felt like crap for staying up so late without being able to sleep in, and I was still royally ticked about the election results, so I did not want to see any news or newspapers. I was able to take a bit of a nap in the late afternoon, and I convinced Isaac to join me. We skipped the gym in favor of something more fun, and then finally went to see Fireproof. (We've been saying we were going to see it ever since it came out.) We were both pleasantly surprised by it. I had no idea it was funny, and I was expecting nearly all the actors to be bad, like in Facing the Giants. Instead, only a few of them were really wooden, and the rest, while not likely to win an Academy Award, were quite good. It was well-made too - as good as any indie film I've seen. And of course I bawled my eyes out. Hehe. I also had fun spotting people who were in Facing the Giants. We went to the movie at 7, and still hadn't had dinner, but thankfully it was free small popcorn day for people in their Movie Watcher club, so we snacked on that and then went to Steak 'n Shake. We hadn't been there in months, and they have 4 meals under $4 now - and they're good ones - so that was awesome. It was a great little impromptu date night. =o)

Oh yeah, and when we were on the highway heading down to the theater, we kept seeing all these cops go by very quickly, some with lights on, some without. We got around the bend and saw the cops (now all with lights on) blocking the entire highway. We were right behind them. We still don't know what was going on, but we saw them arrest 3 girls in their late teens/20s who looked stoned. We're guessing they were driving recklessly and, to have so many policemen there, probably refusing to pull over at first. Isaac was pretty freaked out, because the cops had their guns drawn and we were so close to them, but I figured any bullets would've had to go through 3 cop cars to get to us. Anyway, it made us late for the movie, but it was pretty exciting.

+ Someone in Greece bought one of my Supernatural shirts! That is so cool. What will be even cooler is if when we're there in June, I see her wearing it. Yeah, yeah, Greece is a decent-sized country, blah, blah, blah. It would still be cool.

+ Off to watch Survivor and then Supernatural. Happy almost-Friday!

Yep, I'm back. It was an exhausting and wonderful trip, and very different from last year (though last year was also exhausting and wonderful). I intend to write a real trip report later, but for now, here's a taste.



Things I miss when I'm in El Salvador:
- air conditioning
- my family
- pizza
- air conditioning
- speaking the same language as 99% of the people around me
- normal cars (in E. S. we pile into the backs of pickup trucks. It's actually pretty fun, but takes some getting used to.)
- seeing healthy, loved dogs (it was so good to see Mandy yesterday - shiny coat, loved, no patches of fur missing, and you can't see her ribs)
- french fries
- air conditioning
- food variety - i.e., not rice, beans, rice, potatoes, rice, chicken, and rice
- my soft, padded bed
- air conditioning
- chocolate
- tank tops
- sleeping/cuddling with Isaac (they don't have enough rooms for married couples to sleep together)
- sleeping in
- my LJ friends
- air conditioning

Things I miss when I'm home:
- fresh fruit at every meal
- being with friends all the time
- sweet El Salvadoran people
- adorable kids everywhere
- gorgeous scenery (Y'all know I love Florida, but E.S. is pretty much perfect in the scenery department -- it has gorgeous mountains, but also beautiful white sand beaches with palm trees, and it's warm enough to enjoy them both year-round!)
- being immersed in ministry most of each day
- not forgetting my devos, 'cause we do them as a group each morning.
- plantain chips
- cooked plantains for breakfast - yum!
- brightening someone's day just by saying hi and smiling at them (and not having them think you're weird for doing so when you don't know them)
- rain pounding on a tin roof, putting me to sleep
- a visible reminder of why Isaac and I are going to adopt all our kids
- spending 90% of my waking hours with Isaac

Things that both have in common:
- both are democratic countries with a socialist/communist likely to be elected this year. Most of America will likely survive intact despite a socialist president, but it will wreak total havoc in a country like El Salvador.
- fire ants (I got 8 bites, 4 of them spread between two toes. Apparently Repel does not repel fire ants.)
- a great church to be a part of
- the people need a Savior. Here, material things and other beliefs get in the way, and there the pre-Reformation-like Catholic church has a cult vice grip on people, keeping them living in fear. That country desperately needs a Martin Luther to open its eyes.
- they feel like home to me.