From Esi (Nana Yaw's Mom)

Dear Jake and Janel,

It's so good to write to you again. I received your letter which was very exciting to read. I want to take this opportunity to say a very big THANK YOU to you for all the good things you have done for me and my family. Words cannot express how grateful we are for all the love you have extended to Nana Yaw.

I believe Nana Yaw is really enjoying his stay with you with all the numerous travels around. I am most grateful for all the effort you put in plus all the finances you have expended on him so far to get him the F Visa which would allow him to stay and go to school. We back home in Ghana do not even know how to say thank you. In fact, we cannot comprehend this lovely gesture. All we can say is may the good Lord bless you so much. May God replenish your stock tenfold or more as you continue to sow a seed in Nana Yaw's life to turn him around to become a basketball player and academician.

Incidentally Nana Yaw's younger brother who is 14 years, and would be entering high school next year September, is also excelling in basketball. At the last camp organized by Coach Issac he won the most valuable player in the Under-16 years group! He also wants to come to the United States to play. I'll plead with Jake to start looking around to see if he could find a family in and around your place who would be willing to take him on as an exchange student. I have enclosed some pictures he took about two years ago. He has grown taller than this now. He is about 5' 9" at the moment. He is really yearning to come to the United States and I believe he can really excel in life over there just like how Nana Yaw is enjoying. It is only a humble request we are making and we hope we are not being too much of a bother.

Nana Yaw seems to be enjoying JJ so much and it is rather unfortunate Solomon's adoption wasn't able to go through. We are praying that God will make a way for you. I can't wait to see JJ and Jayla again. Those two kids are really loveable and lovely kids and I believe the next time I see them they would be grown. In fact we are planning a trip next year August to visit you. It would be me, my husband, and my two children and maybe my adopted niece. We hope all of us would be welcome in your home for about a 2 week holiday. Don't bother about where we would sleep. We can all bundle ourselves in the basement!

We are really looking forward to Jake's visit in January and please let us know the actual dates when it is getting closer. We are trying to have an internet connection at home so we could communicate more faster with you. Nana Yaw says you have started some processes for him to start driving. He got his driving license in Ghana so I will enclose it in this letter for you. Maybe it will help. The only thing is that you might have to teach him a little bit more since driving in the United States is so different from how we drive in Ghana.

Kindly extend my sincere love and appreciation to Coach Seay and his wife Stacy and their kids. Tell them I have heard all that they have been doing for Nana Yaw and I always pray and ask for God's special blessings for you all. Please don't forget to send me their postal addresses as well as that of the coach in Nana Yaw's school whom he has been visiting. I'll need their email addresses as well as their telephone number so I can try and call them sometimes.

I miss all of you and I wish you well in all your life endeavours. Special regards to JJ and Jayla. God Bless You.

Love from,

Esi

(How could you not love this lady!?!?!?! Miss you Esi!)

This is the picture of Nana Yaw's brother that Esi sent (he is on the left holding the basketball). It was taken 2 years ago.

And, Nana Yaw is driving!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Look out everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Monday on My Mind

I wanted to add a bit from my post last Monday about having openness. I read a verse the other day which reminded me that first and foremost, our openness should come between us and God. Hebrews 4:13 says “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

It’s easy to cover up ourselves to others. My church calls this putting on masks….hiding our true selves because we are afraid of what others will see. But, as the verse above eludes to, we cannot do this sort of hiding from God. “For a man’s ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all his paths” (Proverbs 5:21). “The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good” (Proverbs 15:3).

It is my tendency to hide from God. It’s scary to approach an almighty, holy, perfect, God with my imperfect, sinful, self. But, this is what God desires. God knows the secrets of our hearts already (Psalm 44:21). God’s desire is for us to humble ourselves before him and acknowledge the condition of our hearts. To own up to our motives. To uncover our inner thoughts. To be honest with him. To let our life be an open book before Him. To confess where we have messed up. God reassures us that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Once we confess, we find ourselves not in place of guilt or shame, but in a place of grace and mercy.

On the contrary, when we carry our sins around we feel heavy and burdened. We cover up our tracks. We keep quiet. We hide. We give birth to pride. We are held captive by our own sins. The Bible often refers to this as living in darkness. If we choose to hide there are consequences. One of them is that our closeness with God suffers (Isaiah 59:2). And yet, even with the best of attempts, it is impossible to hide from God. “He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts” (1 Corinthians 4:5)

It’s good to remind myself that it is not just the act of confessing that God is interested in. Afterwards should come repentance. A change of heart. Not just going through the motions – not just confessing sin yet intending to do it again later. But, a change of ways.

I also found some good notes in my Life Application Bible that share why confession is still important for believers to take part in, even though our past, present & future sins have already been wiped out by believing in Jesus. They say: If God has forgiven us for our sins because of Christ’s death, why must we confess our sins? In admitting our sins and receiving Christ’s cleansing, we are 1) agreeing with God that our sin truly is sin and we are willing to turn from it, 2) ensuring that we don’t conceal our sins from him and consequently from ourselves, and 3) recognizing our tendency to sin and relying on his power to overcome it.

“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:5-7).

JJ & Jayla Update

JJ and Jayla are so much fun right now. Can life with 2 red heads under the age of 3 ½ ever be dull? Um, no. Let’s start with a JJ update. Since the weather has turned colder, I’ve been taking JJ to the gym during practices a couple of nights a week so that he can hang with Jake as he coaches. JJ just LOVES being at the gym and running around with the little brothers and sisters of the players. He easily makes friends these days, and is a frequent customer at the concessions area where he dishes out Jake’s change for starbursts and Gatorade. A few weeks ago JJ started practicing dribbling one night all on his own – of course Jake has tried to show him how to dribble before, but JJ usually won’t show interest in something unless he ‘thinks’ of it on his own. It’s so much fun watching how JJ is really starting to not be so reserved/shy/whatever you want to call it when people ask him questions or interact with him. He is starting to answer people back and hold conversations, which he hasn’t done until recently. JJ is very, very, very interested in the older players during practice and often imitates their actions, or talks/acts out the things he has heard them say. When Jake and JJ get home from practice Jake usually has about 3 or 4 funny stories from the night about something JJ did, or who he played with at the gym, or what basketball skill he practiced on the side lines. JJ continues to prove that he is very observant and always listening. :) The other morning I was headed out to get groceries with Jayla and JJ was staying home with Jake. As we went out the door JJ said, “Bye Mommy, see you soon, hurry home, if you see a deer turn left!”

Now for Jayla. Let’s just start by saying that she has this pesky little sister role all figured out already. She actually teases JJ if you can believe that!!!! At least a few times a day she will grab JJ's blankey (if he left it laying somewhere) and then she will run from him and yell 'mine' (and then she will hide behind the curtains). She has this grin on her face that tells us she knows EXACTLY what she is doing!!!! Jayla is constantly pestering JJ as he plays….taking a piece off a nicely built tower, grabbing the box of crayons during coloring time and making a run for it, running to sit in JJ’s spot right when he gets up, stealing puzzle pieces, taking his sippy cup of milk and drinking out of it…..and on and on. Oh she is a crazy one! Right now they are kind of going through a stage where they fight and bicker a lot….but then they will also have moments where they both get the giggles about something, or they get into the ‘chasing mode’ where they laugh and run after each other in the house. Yes, never a dull moment. Jayla is also in love with our cats. She probably spends a total of 1 hour a day running after our two cats, or petting them, or pulling their tails, or cornering them and trying to talk with them. She likes to smack the cats on the back (while saying 'be nice') and she also likes to put her face into their fur and feel how soft they are. An unlovely trait about Jayla right now is that if she gets to crying really hard she will gag herself and throw up. It’s mostly if she is really, really, really mad. She’s done it quite a few times recently. Our church just built a new extension for the sanctuary and all of the kids got new classrooms as well. Of course, this threw a lot of the kids for a loop on the first weekend of being in the new rooms, and Jayla was no exception. She cried so hard about being in a new room that she gagged and then threw up. She wasn’t sick. Just very mad. I was talking with another parent after church about it and she said that her nephew used to do that, but instead of throwing up he would pass out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am thankful that she is not doing that!

Enjoy the pictures!

Go JJ Go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

These first pictures of JJ dribbling are pretty blurry because my camera doesn't take action photos...but I still wanted to post them so that you could see him in action!

This is a typical scene at the gym. JJ has talked one of the older players into holding his blankey, ball, and snack so that he can drink Daddy's pop which he snuck off the sidelines!

Quite the outfit #1.

Quite the outfit #2. JJ has been wearing his Halloween costume around the house a few times a day! Notice the orange and brown pajama pants, one white sock and one black sock, and that Hawkeye keychain!

Quite the tower builder.

My grocery helpers.

Jayla should be the spokesperson for cheez-its.

Look really, really close...can you find Jayla? This is her book reading spot in her room that she always sits at and flips through her books.

Our friend Stacy (Nyla's mommy) took our family pictures a few weeks ago. She got some really cute ones of Jayla that really show her personality! Doesn't this one make you think that she is up to something?!?!

"I didn't do it."

Going after Grandma's kitty.

And here is a short video clip of JJ practicing his dribbling!

Adoption Thoughts

Nothing new so far on the adoption front….just waiting on word from Bernice’s family this week to see if they have any leads to share, or potential children that would be a good fit for adoption. God has given me an awesome peace about just waiting and praying. I am hopeful that we will be able to work on the adoption during our upcoming trip to Ghana this December, so that has been at the center of my prayers….that we would have a child identified by then and that we would be able to work on the adoption in some way during our trip.

I was talking with a parent in Jake’s program the other day about our adoption and she gave me some awesome encouragement that I wanted to share. She had asked me if we had any adoption updates so we were just talking through the latest details. She and her husband have adopted 8 TIMES (!) so she is quite the veteran and she always has great insights for me. She was telling me to think about this period of waiting to find out who our child is as ‘pregnancy’. She said that for adoptions, this part of waiting, wondering, praying, hoping, and going through the hiccups/hardships/worries of the adoption process are all part of God’s way of emotionally allowing us to connect with our child – even though we don’t know who he is yet. Although the physical connection is not there as in pregnancy, through this waiting period is when the emotional connection is growing. For us, the past year of being in this adoption journey is step by step etching out a spot in our hearts for whoever our child may be. It’s all preparation she said, because once you have that photo of your child, and meet him for the first time, you are already in love with him and can picture him as your own….because you are already emotionally invested in him. This is similar to what happens in pregnancy….. as the months go by and your belly grows, your love for your child grows, and a mother already feels a connection with her child in her heart, even though she hasn’t met her child yet.

I remember back to when we first started in on the adoption, and I wondered how it all worked….this emotional part. I wondered how adoptive parents loved their adoptive children as much as their biological children. I knew that they did. I saw so many examples of it, but I just wondered how it would come to be? And now I have my answer. It’s all about how God prepares our hearts for what is to come. I felt how this worked with Solomon. And even the heart ache of that entire situation still had a purpose. It was a piece of God’s workmanship to continue to deepen my love for this adoptive child….whoever he may be.

A friend had this quote on her blog a few weeks ago and I saved it because I loved it so much:

"Waiting is one of God's most powerful tools of grace. God doesn't just give us grace for the wait. The wait itself is a gift of grace. You see, waiting is not only about what you will receive at the end of the wait. Waiting is about what you will become as you wait." -Paul David Tripp-

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

I came across this picture the other day.......

I know I shared it before on my Reiman Gardens post, but when I saw it again I started laughing about it again! This picture expresses anything and everything that words almost can’t explain! It reminded me of the saying ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’.

Below is my other picture that is worth a thousand words to me. At first glance, you won’t know why, but I’ll explain.

When Jayla was born (and during my pregnancy) I felt extremely guilty for JJ….I was worried constantly that he would be mad at us for having her, and I was worried that I wouldn’t have enough precious time with him any more…..you mom’s know what I mean. Well, once Jayla was born, JJ was very jealous of us spending time with her, and he went through some emotional episodes - the first few days she had come home JJ was acting out in his behavior in ways that he never had before. I remember feeling like I was constantly holding Jayla or changing her diaper or feeding her or trying to get her to stop crying. When Jayla was 3 days old I remember rocking JJ right before his nap and just sobbing…..I could hear Jayla crying in her infant seat in the living room, and yet I just wanted to hold onto my sweet alone time with JJ a little longer. I just felt so bad for JJ and that he had to now share his time, and I felt like I never really got many moments to just hold him anymore. Well, this picture above was taken 1 week later. Jayla was about a week and a half old. I remember that dinner was cooking, and I was putting some of Jayla’s clothes away in her drawers. Jayla was laying on the floor, and then in walked Jake and JJ. JJ had told Jake that he wanted to show Jayla his tractors! For the next 30 minutes JJ rolled those tractors all around Jayla, and told her what colors they were. Oh my word, I could feel the heaviness just being lifted off my shoulders. It was in this moment that I all of a sudden had a peace that it was all going to be okay. Little JJ was going to adjust to being a big brother (just like everyone had said that he would) and having two kids wasn’t going to send me to a mental ward! This picture makes me smile every time….I remember this exact moment like it was yesterday.

Well, that wasn’t quite a thousand words, but I think I could have written more! Now you know what that picture means to me. And, now, bloggies, what picture stops you everytime when you come across it in your photo book? What picture were you thinking of as you read this post? Let’s see ‘em…..your pictures that are worth a thousand words and why!