Just a Few of the Things We Have Planned

Our itinerary is really starting to fall into place for our upcoming trip to Asikuma, Ghana! Of course, half of our team will be devoting their time to the construction projects. 8 of our guys will be revamping existing structures donated to our foundation by chief of Asikuma, Nana. The structures will be turned into a medical clinic and the start of a foster home for the village. The team will also be building a brand new library for Asikuma’s primary school, all the while teaching a team of Ghanaians how to build along the way. The other half of our team will be available to help with the construction items as needed, but we’ve got a lot of exciting things planned too!

For starters, our pastor from our big ‘ol church, Cornerstone Church of Ames, has hopped on board our team for this trip. His name is Jeff and he is no stranger to Africa. Over the past few years Pastor Jeff has helped to establish a pastoral training center, called the Hope Center, in Serenje, Zambia. (This training center is linked with the Hope Children’s Center, which provides a healthy meal each day to over 50 orphans).

Basically it started by identifying a network of God-fearing pastors in the area who were serving Christ with great passion, but had not been privileged to receive formal training. Our church and Pastor Jeff came alongside these pastors in Zambia and began offering a three-year regimen (four, one-week sessions per year) of biblical and theological training. Pastor Jeff is hopeful that this model started in Zambia can be replicated in Ghana and in other countries in Africa in the future. For our Ghana trip, Pastor Jeff and Jake have been working with Ken, you will remember him as the music man in this post, to round up interested pastors and find a place to hold the seminar. Some excerpts from Ken’s recent email….

Hi Mr. Jake, I was extremely glad when I got your mail and read it. My response is yes and I am ever ready to assist in the pastoral seminar. I think through it the Lord would do something wonderful in the whole area. In fact I have been dreaming of occasions like this for a long time now. We have our large central chapel in Frankadua, which is just some few kilometers away from Asikuma. I think it can be a convenient place for the event and I think the comers would like the place! If possible, you can send some pictures we can use for posters that I would paste everywhere in town. This evening I would start making the announcement, and this coming Sunday I will pass through the churches in town to inform them. My suggestion is I would like us to do the seminar in the morning and at Frankadua for only pastors and elders, and in the evening we will be in Asikuma for an open gospel outreach. My church planned a crusade in town but didn't set a date. I think we will all join our forces to do it for the Lord. Please I would like you to persuade the assemblyman to allow us to use their musical instruments. My kids and I would help playing for worship. I can’t wait to hug you all soon! May the lord be with your souls til we meet soon. Ken

Pretty exciting! In Ghana, Pastor Jeff will be teaching a course to the pastors called the “Theology of the Gospel” which is an overview of the message of the Bible (the "good news") that begins in Genesis and runs all the way through the book of Revelation. Pastor Jeff is bringing his current intern, Rusty, who will help him with the seminars. Rusty can sing and is able to lead worship time, so he is bringing his guitar and will also be leading worship for our bible studies that we are organizing for the village children! We are hoping to hold the bible studies in the school yard in the evenings while we are in Asikuma. Last time we made salvation bracelets with the kids, and they all LOVED it! This time we are hoping to have a handful of different bible studies with corresponding crafts.

We also have lots of donations to hand out as well (shoes, clothes, books, food, etc). My mom, along with many others, have been sewing pillow case dresses for the girls in Asikuma. Look at how organized she is…..she packaged them up in ziplocks and put the dress size on the outside so we can quickly grab them and outfit girls with the perfect size! My mom also makes really cool verse cards which she put in each of the ziplocks. :)

Last week as I was sketching out our itinerary, I was picturing our team handing out these dresses…..and as I did I had an idea: Why on earth are we sewing all these dresses when it would be much more proactive to take the materials to Asikuma and teach the women there how to make them. Then, they could sell the dresses in the market place and make a little business for themselves! Right after I thought of that I emailed a few people who were sewing and told them to STOP! Then I asked them to package up all their leftover fabric, materials, thread, ribbon, etc. I got in touch with one of the gals (Dee) who will be traveling on our team to see if she would be able to offer a sort of sewing seminar to women in the village who wanted to learn how to sew. Dee is actually a teacher in family & consumer sciences at Marshalltown High School, so she’s used to teaching this sort of thing. Not only that, but her real name is Dorcas…..which may sound like an interesting name choice by her mother, but she was named after the Dorcas in the Bible who…..get ready for this…….made clothes for the poor (Acts 9:36-42)! Since she got that name she figured she might as well live up to it, and her life totally reflects her passion for sewing. Her response to me when I asked her if she could teach the women how to hand-sew the dresses was… ‘I will be in heaven teaching them this.’ From there she rounded up packages of scissors, threads, needles, measuring tapes, and more leftover fabric and ribbon and is ready to roll! My friend who created the dress pattern out of men’s dress shirts is also sending her leftover materials and created a little tutorial for Dee to go off of when instructing. I am so excited to see how it all plays out!

On our last day of the trip, once we head back to Accra, our team will also be making a very special visit back at the Beacon House Orphanage…..for a reason that I can’t share with you until after our trip! TRUST ME, you’ll LOVE it!!!!!!!!!!!!:)

Loving Summer!

Yesterday I let Justice go to our neighborhood pool with a friend and his friend’s old babysitter. He came home with a proud smile and a green band around his ankle……which means……he passed the swimming test for the deep end!!!!!!!!!!!!! He was SO excited and told me the whole story at about 80mph. The deep end has been the talk of his summer world! Since mid-June he’s been trying to work up the nerve to attempt the test. At our small neighborhood pool, if you can pass the test then you can go down the water slide and jump off the diving board in the 12 foot water!!!! That’s why he was so excited! To pass the test he had to swim the full length of the pool down and back with his front stroke, and he had to tread water for 30 seconds (he learned to tread water for 15 seconds during swimming lessons earlier this year). According to his story, Justice made his friend go first to see if he could do it. :) Once his friend passed the test, Justice knew he could do it too....and he did! Not to worry though, I heard there is a good lifeguard at this pool.

Meanwhile, JJ is still little enough to be enjoying our inflatable pool at home. As with anything, if you can add a basketball hoop to whatever he is doing, he will be entertained for a looooonnnng time.

The perfect summer dunk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Perfect Fools

Dear Lord,

Keep us safe from the evil of gossiping mouths. Where there has been ill spoken of us, touch the lips of those who speak it with Your refining fire. Let the responsibility of those involved be revealed. Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion who seek to destroy our life; let them be driven backward and brought to dishonor who wish us evil (Psalm 40:14). For You have said whoever believes in You will not be put to shame (Romans 10:11). Preserve our lives from the enemy, hide us from the secret counsel of the wicked. Pull us out of any net which has been laid for us (Psalm 31:4). Lead us, guide us, and be our mighty fortress and hiding place. Lord, we look like perfect fools to those who don’t understand the tasks You have assigned to us as a couple and as a family. Their gossip, rumors, and judgemental words threaten to consume and overtake me. It’s becoming appealing to close myself off from relationships with people. Don’t let me become hard-hearted, Lord. Let me dish out grace, mercy and forgiveness, even to those who would enjoy seeing us fall. May we trust in You, and not be afraid of what man can do to us (Psalm 56:11).

Amen.

Birth Family Preservation

That’s a picture of Solomon, our first adoption referral that we received way back in January of 2009. I remember getting Solomon’s photo and info, taking one look at his smile, and immediately falling in love with him. I pictured him as my son from the day I saw his face. I was certain that he was the one God had pulled us all the way across the world to. He was the one that my heart had carved out a little spot for. He was the one that I felt had been missing from our family photo on our fireplace. We had waited just a few short months to receive our first referral from our adoption agency, and when Solomon’s came our way, I emotionally entered in right away.

There was one thing that did bother me about Solomon’s situation though. Both of Solomon’s parents were still living when he was referred to us for adoption. I thought that was very strange. However, we were completely new and green in the ‘adoption world’ so I reasoned that possibly situations like his must come up more often than what I knew of. I also attributed it to the understanding that orphanages were not at all prevalent in Ghana as they are in say Ethiopia. So, I assumed that in Ghana we would likely be adopting out of a family situation rather than an orphanage. But to be honest, I thought it would be more like us adopting a 2 year old who was being taking care of by a 70-year old grandmother, than a situation like Solomon’s.

When Jake traveled to Ghana to meet Solomon, the pictures of seeing Solomon with both his mother and father didn’t sit right with me. I started wondering why on earth we wouldn’t just give all this money we were paying to our agency to Solomon’s family instead. That way they could stay together and provide for themselves. As our adoption of Solomon went on, I wrestled with this off and on, but eventually my emotions for Solomon masked my questions. I attributed my questions to my lack of knowledge about adoption, and told myself that our agency knows what is best and they wouldn’t refer a child to us if the child didn’t need to be adopted.

Eventually, social welfare in Ghana counseled Solomon’s parents and helped them find a way to stay together as a family. On our end we were devastated. We had envisioned Solomon as part of our family….and to have that taken away was an awful feeling. I wanted to be happy for them….and I knew it was right and better for him to be raised by his birthmother and birthfather. But I was hurting and frustrated.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that this sort of counseling normally takes place long before a child is placed on any sort of adoption list. However, with our agency, it just didn’t happen that way and so we experienced some heavy heartache. This situation did, however, make me more aware of a topic within international adoption termed (birth) family preservation. Family preservation should be a high initiative of any adoption agency, or any group offering humanitarian support in impoverished countries.

Of course many of you may be wondering why this idea of family preservation even comes into play within adoption. Doesn’t adoption entail giving an orphan a family? And doesn’t the term ‘orphan’ mean that a child has no living parents? Well, actually no. The legal definition of an orphan via United States Citizenship and Immigration Services is this:

A child may be considered an orphan because of the death or disappearance of, abandonment or desertion by, or separation or loss from, both parents. The child of an unwed mother or surviving parent may be considered an orphan if that parent is unable to care for the child properly and has, in writing, irrevocably released the child for emigration and adoption. The child of an unwed mother may be considered an orphan, as long as the mother does not marry (which would result in the child’s having a stepfather) and as long as the child’s biological father has not legitimated the child. If the father legitimates the child or the mother marries, the mother is no longer considered a sole parent. The child of a surviving parent may also be an orphan if the surviving parent has not married since the death of the other parent (which would result in the child’s having a stepfather or stepmother).

And that’s why this can all get so hairy. A child can be adoptable with or without living birthparents if their situation meets the above criteria. And you better believe that there are agencies and orphanages out there who disregard the importance of ensuring that adoption is in fact the correct choice for every child of an impoverished widow, sole-parent, or struggling family. However, it is my opinion that for adoptive families, this is the last thing that we ourselves need to be deciphering. There is too much emotion involved on our end.

I would instead hope that we, adoptive families, could receive our referral and have absolute surety that our child was only placed into the adoption program because every effort made to help our child remain with their biological family failed (if the child had living birthparents). I am starting to realize that this should be at the TOP of our list when shuffling through the millions of options for deciding on an adoption agency. If your adoption agency does not have family preservation as a priority then who will? For me, incorporating family preservation efforts is a sure sign of an ethical adoption program, one that I had no idea about when we first started our adoption process.

In Ghana, birth-families often relinquish their children for adoption because they cannot provide for their children’s basic needs. They would rather know that their child is going to be well-cared for, fed, and loved, then to have to suffer under their care. So what exactly do family preservation efforts look like in these sorts of situations? How does an agency or group go about helping an impoverished family turn their situation around? I don’t have all the answers, but I have come across an adoption agency who is doing this exact thing in Ghana. Here is a list of how Adoption Advocates International has implemented this exact sort of humanitarian support into their Ghana program. The following is taken directly from their information packet:

AAI places a heavy focus on family preservation within Ghana. A child is only placed in the adoption program after efforts for him/her to remain with their biological family have failed. We support Ghana's children and families in a number of ways. A significant portion of adoption fees go directly to provide humanitarian support. Primarily, donations are made to NGOs who focus on orphan care and family preservation. Funds are donated to support the following types of programs:

•Educational sponsorships for vulnerable children still living with their family.
•Sponsorships to cover the cost of medical care for persons living with HIV/AIDS or other
chronic diseases.
•School uniforms and books for low income students.
•Seed money for start-up businesses, in order that families can continue to care for their
children.
•Funding for families to secure health insurance through Ghana's national health insurance
scheme.
•Employment opportunities for widows, single mothers, or other at risk women who would
like to care for children in foster homes or children's homes.
•Provide nutritional support for struggling families, children's homes, and school children.
•Free HIV/AIDS educational seminars throughout Ghana.
•Free child care, nutritional, and first aid seminars within the community.
•Sponsorship for young adults in need of vocational training.
•Assistance to struggling new mothers (hospital bills, vaccinations, infant care education)
•Support and assistance to mothers and children living on the street or in market places.

I’ve been working with The Ripley Foundation in Ghana on Christian’s case, and they are one of the NGO’s that Adoption Advocates International supports in Ghana so that these types of programs can be run. Significant portions of the program fees that adoptive families pay to Adoption Advocates International goes to supporting Ghana’s families so that they do not need to relinquish their children for adoption.

All that being said, of course there are situations in which a child has living birthparents but it is NOT in the child’s best interest to be under their care because they have been severely mistreated or neglected. In Ghana, these types of cases also happen, but often at some point the child has been abandoned and is not living with their birthparent(s) at the time of social welfare investigation (such was the case for Christian).

Here are a few more posts on this topic that I have read recently:

This one was written by AAI’s Ghana program coordinator Anita…..short and sweet and to the point. This is a story out of Ghana: http://gillispiefam.blogspot.com/2011/06/ghanas-shining-stars.html

This other post was sent to me by a friend. This one is very long, complicated, and reveals that this is quite a controversial topic. This post relates directly to Haiti and poses the opinion that overloaded orphanages are due to few family preservation efforts in Haiti. http://livesayhaiti.blogspot.com/2011/06/boat-that-needs-rocking.html?spref=fb

16 Of Us

By the end of June we had 16 people confirmed to go on our upcoming August trip to Asikuma, Ghana! Out of that 16 are 11 who have never been to Africa. That’s 11 new sets of eyes that will be opened. 11 new hearts to be stirred. 11 new minds engrained with a responsibility to act on what they will see, experience, and come away with. 11 new sets of hands and feet for God to use to display His glory among the nations.

Well, things got interesting over the past few weeks when we went to book the flight for the group.

It all started a few weeks ago, end of June. We finally had all the exact confirmations of travelers and had collected the info we needed from each person to book the flight tickets. Earlier this summer we had checked ticket prices for our August dates. They were running close to $1700 per person which is a little high (normally they are around $1500), but fine. By the second to the last week in June we had contacted the travel agency that we have always used for Ghana travels to start working on booking our tickets. We were told by our travel agency that they were waiting on a new contract to come through with an airline that would give us even lower ticket prices. We just needed to hold out a few days until the contract deal was all finished up. Then they could work on our itineraries. Well, a few days turned into a week. I started to get antsy. All of the new travelers needed to send in their visa applications in order to get their visas for travel. The problem is that to send in the application, you have to also send a copy of your flight itinerary. We didn’t have one yet. So, not only was this becoming a delay in booking our flight tickets, but more importantly a delay in getting visas for our travelers! Even stranger, after waiting a full week to hear about this new contract, all communications then stopped from our travel agency for another string of days. We literally were getting no responses to our calls and emails. This was so unlike them. Because of our time crunch in needing to get visa applications sent in, we decided that we could not wait on this travel agency any more. We had to start searching out other options for booking the tickets.

By the end of last week we had contacted a different travel agency that one of our 16 travelers was employed by. Jake and I were on the road for tournaments, so things were chaotic and communications sporadic just because of that alone. Initial quotes came in at $2700 per person for tickets from the new agency. OUTRAGEOUS! We looked into booking through the airline directly and quotes were around $2400 with a crazy flight schedule. Either way, this just didn’t seem sensible. That’s a $1000 difference per person in what flights normally run at. We had the travel agency look into flights for the months of September, October and November, and fares were down to between $1300 and $1500. We started checking availability for our travelers to see if we could push back our trip to September.

Meanwhile, Chris Gardner, our head builder for the projects was NOT on board with switching the trip to September. He had worked hard at getting a good construction crew rounded up, had them put in vacation days for work, got the wheels in motion for the workers in Ghana making the concrete blocks, and had gained so much momentum for the project kick-offs being in August. To him, if we were to switch the dates, he felt that we would not be following through on what we said we would do. On the same day that we started talking through everyone’s availability for September Chris had a meeting with a homeowner that he had previously built a house for. He started telling her the whole story about the flight price fiasco, and us thinking the trip would have to be pushed back a month. As soon as he was done telling the story she said this: “Either God is testing you to see how faithful you are to His calling, or the devil is trying to keep you from going. He is trying to mess it all up. And I don’t want that to happen. In life, you can either be the hammer or the nail, and right now, I am going to be the hammer!” From there she grabbed her check book and wrote a check right there on the spot for $5400 to specifically help offset the increased costs of the plane tickets for Chris and his construction crew! WOW! Talk about putting your money where your mouth is! Immediately Chris called me and told me the story. We talked through whether using this money towards the flights was the best decision, or if it would be better put towards actual materials for the project if somehow everyone could work it out to go in September. But Chris was adamant that the lady specifically wrote the check for the August plane tickets. She was certain that the trip needed to be then. From Chris’ description, it seemed to be a moment clearly led by the Holy Spirit. There was no more questioning it.

At this point, more communication went on. Chris and his construction crew had flights covered by this extra donation. There were 5 of them total. What about the rest of our group? Well, we decided we could split up into two teams. The construction guys could go in August and get the bricks and mortar all laid down. Then the rest of us could come later in September and put on the finishing touches.

But the responses came in from the other travelers for their September availability. No one could make the September dates work except for my sweet friend Kellee. Listen to her faith-filled response:

Hi Jans! I read your email and immediately my heart sank. I stared at the dates September 13th - 21st......2 weeks before my wedding. And then the tears started to fall. Not because of sadness that I would have to say no, but because I'm scared of saying yes. And as I sit here and think "How can I?" "That is crazy" I hear His voice, and it says Follow Me. And the more I try to justify that the timing is NOT good and I couldn't possibly do this, I still hear Him say Follow Me. And all I can think of is that everyone is going to think I am CRAZY. That word immediately made me go grab my book Crazy Love and I flip it open and come to a page that quotes John 14:15 "If you love me, you will obey what I command". If we love, then we obey. Period. And so, you have your answer. YES, I will go. I will go because Jesus loves me and I will show love to others so that they may see Him.

Wow. Kellee’s response kicked me into high gear. We had so many first-timers so excited to go on this trip and to see God revealed in new ways. How could we let them down? Please, Lord, somehow, work this out so we can all go in August.

Meanwhile, a few more guys stepped in and said they would foot their extra flight expenses personally so that they could go with the construction crew in August. We still weren't sure what to do about the other 7 of us since over half couldn't make September work. We were still talking through things by the end of the business day Friday, so everything was going to have to wait until Monday.

Sunday night a massive, high-wind storm ripped through the Midwest. We woke up Monday to power outages in Chicago, and trees down everywhere. I checked my phone and saw a bunch of text messages from back home. It turned out that the storm was even worse in Iowa. Lots of damage.

Later Monday morning I worked with the travel agency on getting tickets for those that could for sure foot their extra costs and go in August. We had decided that we should at least get their tickets booked, so they could get their applications sent in for their visas. Since the group size was smaller, the travel agent found more flight options than what she had the previous week. I got 8 tickets booked (for our construction crew and 3 others) at an even lower price than the initial quote. Our pastor who was also scheduled to go on the trip got a great ticket price by booking on his own, and he got the same flight route as the construction crew. Just like that we had 9 guys ready to go for August that could now send in applications for visas. But there were still 7 of us left without tickets.

Monday I started in on my 6 hour drive home from Chicago. Since my hands were on the steering wheel I could not work on trying to figure something out for the 7 of us left. The idea to split up into two teams was now off since the September dates were not panning out with availability. Jake took over in between his games from a different tournament he was at in Milwaukee. Communications started with a 3rd travel agency to see what they had for August flights.

I got home Monday night to see an email from one of our unticketed travelers.

We were gone this weekend and now we are recovering from last night’s storm. Our crops are ruined and we have so much damage of trees. We lost buildings, silos and there is so much stress with the livestock. We have no electricity. I am running on a generator for a short time. I am so sorry about the ticket issue. I will not be able to go in September. If I need to be one who stays back this time due to the high expense it will be ok. With this recent disaster in our life I need to be mindful of my expenses. I am not sure how this crop damage will impact us until harvest. The crops are flat and ‘A’ (her husband) is very concerned. He doesn’t get discouraged very easy but this has him very concerned. Satan is attacking us literally. There is one trial after another for us!

Immediately when I read this I felt the weight of Satan trying to infuse us all with doubt about this trip. This person had just experienced a disaster to their life and income, with no immediate relief in sight. BUT, even so, I felt strongly that this person still needed to go on the trip.

Dear God, please come through for us!

By late Monday evening I saw some hope. We received quotes from the 3rd travel agency Jake had started working with and they could get us 7 tickets for August right under $2100 per person. There was still some tweaking that needed to be done to the itineraries, and we wouldn’t have it straightened out until Tuesday. I contacted our 7, and everyone said they could make the $2100 work, plus foot the hotel, bus, and food costs on top of that.

Tuesday morning, literally at the last hour, right before I was about to sign the deal with this 3rd travel agency, our original travel agency (the one we tried to work with in the very beginning) started flooding my inbox with itineraries for the 16 of us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What in the world? I took a look at the prices and they were by far the cheapest quotes we had gotten for the past few weeks. We literally hadn’t heard from this travel agency for days, yet they had been working on our itineraries the whole time. By this point, I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. I decided to laugh. Then I quickly got to work on trying to see if we could void out the tickets for the construction guys that we had already booked since these were better prices for them. In the end, that didn’t work out, but the best part is that the rest of us now get to go on the trip in August, as originally planned. We are back up to 16 total travelers. And our flights are all booked.

Now we just pray that our visas all come in on time. :)

I am involved in each moment of your life. I have carefully mapped out every inch of your journey through this day, even though much of it may feel hap-hazard. Because the world is in a fallen condition, things always seem to be unraveling around the edges. Expect to find trouble in this day. At the same time, trust that My way is perfect, even in the midst of such messy imperfection. Stay conscious of Me as you go through this day, remembering that I never leave your side. Let the Holy Spirit guide you step by step, protecting you from unnecessary trials and equipping you to get through whatever must be endured. As you trudge through the sludge of this fallen world, keep your mind in heavenly places with Me. Thus the Light of My Presence shines on you, giving you Peace and Joy that circumstances cannot touch. ~Jesus Calling~