best of 2011

December 31, 2011

Each year Ginny & I work together on some patchwork Best of List.  I truly love this time of year- as it begs one to look back as well as ahead. You’ll need to remember the caveat with the following list:  to be on our list does not mean that a thing was introduced in [...]

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the grace of giving

December 28, 2011

My mother is a gifter.  Take whatever you’re thinking up a notch.  There is no such thing as Christmas shopping or birthday gift shopping; for with her there exists no day where the ones she prefers have moved to the background of her mind.  Each day it seems she is looking for something that will [...]

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all that I have

December 25, 2011

Disclaimer:: I assure you that I tried my best to steer away from this lesson because it almost seems obligatory for each and every Christian to rail against the consumerism of Christmas or the lost meaning of Christmas or heaven forbid you tell me Happy Holidays- apparently I am supposed to go Chuck Norris on [...]

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unraveling mystery

December 17, 2011

Ginny has managed to do a better job of updating the day-to-day on her blog. We have now been in Kramatorsk, the region where Lena’s orphanage is located for three days.  We get to go and be with Lena in the orphanage for two 90-minute periods within each given day.  These times with her have [...]

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from Kiev

December 8, 2011

Snow is lightly falling outside the window of our downtown apartment in the capitol city of Ukraine.  No, it’s actually not the Ukraine, but the same still slips from my lips when I’m not trying.  We were invited to come and make official the relationship with a girl we have been calling our daughter for [...]

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it’s still thanksgiving ’round here

November 28, 2011

We loaded up the newly-named Big Red (our new-to-us Toyota minivan) and headed to Louisiana for a Thanksgiving in the Delta.  We ate turkey and I got to the see the Hog football team re-define Black Friday. And somewhere in the chaos that was our Thanksgiving- we got it.  The email we had awaited since we [...]

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taking the time to die

November 11, 2011

photo credit: I_Believe_ Although my mind has not relented, I guess I may need to accept that a new level of fanatical wildness just may be the way things are now.  Is this just part of getting older? I swear the turbulence is picking up with every mile that passes. As of late… we walked [...]

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a window into us

November 8, 2011

Thanks so much to all of you who encouraged us on the 5 year marker of Eliot’s departure from our arms.  Our friends are always quick to come alongside us on these days, and we are thankful beyond words.  If you are one that thinks, as I did, that folks need space and you wouldn’t [...]

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::5:: (1 of 2)

October 27, 2011

photo credit: Alan Vernon. death by wave I am  standing in water waist deep, Where I waded on my own accord. Waters ’round me race away and sand slips from beneath me. I see it building on the horizon- the mammoth wave that seeks to crush me. I do not move, but fix my gaze [...]

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::5:: (2 of 2)

October 27, 2011

I like to fix things.  Not appliances or cars- as a real man would.  I like to come against issues, sift through the white noise and identify the real problem.  I like to think that God has gifted me with this desire and that it is He that has hardwired me in a way that [...]

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