On to the Twin Cities

I haven't posted the last few weeks because there hasn't been much to post about :). We've laid low the last 2 weeks, working from home and working on the home. The slower pace has been such a blessing - time to rest and be home in the evenings before the busyness of the fall. The ball starts rolling tomorrow. We head to the Twin Cities with our team. We have a training time on Monday and Tuesday with other staff from the region, and then we have our adoption class on Thursday and Friday. I want to try to walk people through this process of adoption with us. My hope and prayer is that as the Lord used someone else's story of adoption to call us to adopt, he'll use our story of adoption to call someone else to adopt as well. The more we're in it and learning about it, the more I feel the weight of the need. So maybe through our story, the Lord will capture the hearts of others... :) Here's what we've done so far so you can get an idea of what the initial process is like (and this can vary depending on the agency):

• Requested official application (sent with small fee).
• Filled out the application (again this can have other names), but this was the BIG application - sending copies of birth certificates/marriage certificate, signed (and notaried) documents to release court and police records for each county we lived in in the last 10 years, questionnaire about us and where we live/lived, fingerprints, copy of our income tax, employment history, 3 references... that's all I can think of at the moment - it was a lot of paperwork but manageable. They send a checklist so you can help keep track of what's done and what isn't. This was also sent with a little bit larger fee (I mention the fees so you have an idea of the increments of payment - due gradually throughout the adoption and not all at once).
• Now we have our adoption class this week. I'm looking forward to it - the topics look very helpful - hearing from birth mothers, adopted kids, parents that have adopted, cross-cultural parenting, 2 info. sessions regarding different countries for international adoption, and time in a small group with others who are at the class. And with this our home study fee is due. A home study (at least what I know before actually doing it) is meeting with a social worker twice - and I'm sure other things - and the social worker puts together a file about you along with the paperwork you had sent, and this is called a dossier (again, what I think I know before actually doing it).

So that's what we've got so far. We'll continue to let you in on the process. Love the Joneses

A Little More Info.

I thought I'd try to answer a few questions related to adoption. The first one I've typically gotten is how long will it take... and with that and most other questions, I don't have a clear answer yet :). We're hoping and praying to go pick up a child this next school year, but really we have no clear idea yet. Any child that has cognitive or physical difficulty/delays or sibling groups are called Waiting Internation Children (WIC) and since that's what we're requesting, it could go a little quicker. We just found out we got into the 2 day class that required before you can proceed with the rest of your homestudy. That's in about 2 weeks and should answer more of the questions.

There's obviously some fear involved in this. As much as possible we're trying to go into it with our eyes open. But if I could only express all the ways the Lord has confirmed this for us. He has clearly called us to adopt and has continued to affirm it over this past year. It's been very reassuring to go into some of the unknowns with the certainty that this is his plan. And there's even been ways where he's just gone before us and begun to pave the way and provide, especially through some of the people he's put into our life. We're tremendously grateful.

And thank you for your encouraging response. People have been very supportive, and I've appreciated that. To the average person, intentionally bringing another heart baby into our home doesn't make sense. But the Lord has given us a heart for this, and with all that he's given us this past year, we want to be wise with the resources he's blessed us with.

So we'll continue to keep you posted. The Lord has crossed our paths with someone who's very knowledgeable about adoption, and he said we'll probably be surprised with the timing... it won't be our timing, but it'll be the Lord's timing and it'll be perfect.
Much love, the Joneses

Pictures from CO

For our anniversary in mid-July, we went horseback riding and to Rocky Mountain National Park.

This is at the Alpine Visitor Center which you can drive up to and it at about 12,000 feet.

We saw quite a few elk. You can see they're above the tree line, not too far from the visitor center.
Don't miss our most recent post below :).

Update and Memorial

Many of you receive our newsletter, but for those of you who don't, I wanted to post our most recent one. We wanted to share some of what the Lord is doing and future plans for our family:

We would like to take the opportunity to let you know about one of the ways God has been moving in our lives, personally, throughout this last year. As you know, we have lost a child, our sweet, baby girl, Payton. Many of you have been through similar experiences yourself or walked through them with a loved-one, and you know the emotions and feelings that are part of those kinds of situations. However, as believers, we also know the power that our precious heavenly Father has to restore our lives and give us hope for the future as we walk with him by faith. We have walked with God long enough to know that he does not take the lives of people we love simply to teach us a lesson. But at the same time he is too good to let the deaths of those we love remain without positive effect. So he brings about good in our lives as he gently heals us. He is sure to use these powerful events as catalysts to conform us to his image. We trust that he has done this in your lives. He is doing it in ours. God has worked many good things from Payton’s life and death, and we want to tell you, specifically, about one of those things.

God began to move in our heart while we were in the hospital with Payton. He first introduced us to a couple who also had a baby in the heart unit. We learned that they had two other children at home, and one of them had had heart surgery as a newborn as well. As we got to know them they told us of how God had moved in them after having their first child to help another child with heart defects. So they adopted Ben, a 17 month old with half a heart, from Korea. Meanwhile, at Mayo, we saw several babies come into the hospital who did not have parents who loved and cared for them. God was breaking our hearts. We had talked about adoption before, but God began to confirm to us that this was his plan for us.

Shortly after Payton died, we attended Fall Retreat with our students. Here God spoke to us again through the speaker for the weekend. He spoke about God’s heart for widows, aliens, and the fatherless. God was again challenging us to sacrificially take care of those who were uncared for to be a part of his plan to redeem them, to bless them, by bringing them out of their situation and into our family. For the next few months it seemed like every time we turned on the radio or TV adoption was the topic - families who had adopted, grown adopted children, foster parents, children from orphanages. We could not get away from talk about adoption. We continually found ourselves in tears together, when a year earlier we would have felt every freedom to change the channel. God continued to break our hearts with what was on his.

We wish we could tell you all that he has done over the past several months to confirm his call for us to adopt. After wrestling with him for some time about having biological children first we submitted to God’s plan to pursue adoption first, and we have recently applied to adopt internationally (Ethiopia, India, or Korea). And because of how God equipped us during Payton’s life, we have asked for an infant with a repairable (minor) heart defect.

We are so excited for this process. We know that it may be hard and that emotionally, financially, and time-wise the cost will be high, but we are excited to trust the Lord through it. The Lord led us early on to use the majority of Payton’s memorial to go toward the adoption as a living memorial, but we are trusting God for the remaining amount. We greatly appreciate you and your partnership in this ministry, as well as in our lives. We continue to praise the Lord for blessing us with such outstanding ministry partners!

Coming Home!

I'm sitting in air conditioning at my parents home watching TLC... it's great :). We left CO at 7am yesterday morning (Colorado time) and got to Rockford at midnight (Central time). So we were on the road for 16 hours. Aside from the long time in the car, it was a good trip. It's sad leaving the mountains, but it's so good to feel like you're coming home when you start seeing the green fields in Iowa - welcome back to the midwest! I really enjoyed our time in CO, but I'm just so excited to get home. I miss Wisconsin and our home and our church and our smaller town.

When we get home, I need to post some pictures - we had a few adventures. I think we should get back Sunday night. We're making a few random stops until then. Hope you're all doing well. Much love, the Joneses

4th week

We're in our last week of classes. We'll be done on Friday. The time has just flown. I can't believe we're almost done; it feels like we just got here! Our staff conference begins Sunday evening, and our relatively quiet campus will be filled with a few thousand more people.

Hope you had a fun Fourth! We went out for pizza and watched the fireworks in a big park in town. I love fireworks and sitting right below where they go off. This past weekend we visited some of Aaron's extended family in Denver and went to the Rockie's baseball game on Sunday afternoon. Aaron's cousin got a box for all of us, and we had a great time getting to know some of his cousins that we had never met. It'll be hard to just watch a game from the stands from now on :). One of the best parts of the game was watching the staff try to put the tarp on the field during the rain delay. The wind was so strong it was picking up the tarp and pulling people across the field. Some of the players were even trying to help! I also saw a clip of this replayed in ESPN :).

Aaron is enjoying intramurals. He had a basketball tournament on Saturday - they didn't do very well, but his softball team won 2 tonight to make it to the playoffs. They're excited. And he's still playing early morning basketball and tubing down the Pudre River every now and then. He's loving all the activity :).

So that's a little update from Colorado! Hope you are all enjoying summer... it's my favorite :).

2 Weeks down

First, I figured out the blog. Those of you who posted were right, it shows up on explorer but not firefox. Now that that's figured out... We turned in our paper and took a final on Friday; so our first set of classes is done. We start the second set tomorrow. We're only taking one, though; so it wont' be homework 24/7, and I'm really grateful for that. But we really did enjoy that classes we just took.

No surprise, it's hot! It's been mid-90's off and on since we got here, but it's supposed to stay like this for the next few days. We went to the Denver zoo with some friends yesterday and really enjoyed it. It's a big zoo! Some high points were seeing a giraffe use try to get some leaves that were just out of reach and seeing the hippos. I don't know if I've ever seen them that close before - they're ginormous! (and yet so graceful as they slip into the pool...) We're hoping to get into Rocky Mountain National Park soon. That's my favorite - the views are spectacular. I think we may go in 2 weekends.

Overall we're really enjoying our time here. The only thing I miss is living in my own place. But it's fun to look to the West and see the mountains, and there's really great staff here. So we get to eat with fun people in the cafeteria. We'll keep you posted...Happy July everyone!

Testing

I can't figure out why the blog isn't showing up. So this is a test to see if it'll post.

Quick Update

Wow! Busy week! We got here safely late Saturday night, settled in and registered on Sunday, and began classes on Monday. Our schedule is...
Biblical Interpretation 9-11:30
Lunch
Old Testament Survey 1-3
Homework
Dinner
Homework :)
But seriously, classes are amazing. I'm learning so much. Our Old Testament teacher is a genius, and the class goes by so fast. It's just been fascinating. Aaron has signed up for 3 intermurals: volleyball, softball, and basketball (which is a 1-day tournament). So he's having a grand time. I'm obviously not participating :), but I did go watch the end of their volleyball game tonight. So the days are very full, but we're loving it. Happy June!

On the Road Again

Tomorrow we leave for Colorado. We'll be there for 6 weeks total taking 3, 1 credit seminary courses for 4 weeks, and after that we have our 10 day national staff conference that happens every other summer. The 3 classes we're taking are Old Testament Survey, Biblical Interpretation (how to accurately look at Biblical passages), and Biblical Communication (how to communicate a Biblical passage). We're really looking forward to our time there. We also have some good friends that will be there doing the same thing, and we're looking forward to seeing them. So the car is packed up, and we're hoping to make it all in one day. I think it'll be about 14 hours... And we're hoping to find a Chick-fil-A on the way :). We'll keep you updated on our time there. Hope you're all enjoying the wonderful entrance of summer!

Pictures of the stripes

So I do not claim to be a photographer for Better Homes and Gardens, but at least this gives an idea of how our paint job turned out. Aaron and I are very pleased with the results....and it looks better in person :).

And to comment on the large duck, my mom "won" it. It's an Aflac duck. I covered up the logo with my own bandana, but I think it fits in a nursury :).

And here's a bonus picture of our living room with furniture in it. We haven't hung a thing on any of the walls, but we'll get there eventually.

Trek Pictures

Here's pictures from our week of camp with the students. Here's our group as we talked about a team building activity we had just done.


Here I am on the "swing."

Here's a picture of the whole climbing wall. You can see the zip lines on the top right.

Here's Aaron (on the right) as he's about to go down the zip line.

A few random pictures from the week. Hope you like them :).

Answering the question

So since I mentioned we were painting the nursury, I've had 3 people ask if I was pregnant. I'm not pregnant to put an end to the curiosity. We just wanted to paint the room so we could put things away and not have to drag everything out again to paint. And the stripes did turn out fabulous. I love how it looks. I'll post pictures soon!

Many Adventures

It's been a long time since my last post! With moving and being at camp with the students last week, it's been busy!

As far as moving goes, all the big stuff is unpacked and settled, it's all the little stuff packed in small boxes in small clusters all over that's taking awhile to get through (you'll recall from a previous post that I'm sorting after the move :). We're in process of painting the 3rd of 4 rooms, the nursury (room #4 will be our bathroom, but I just don't know what color yet; so it may be awhile). So now our living room looks like a Babies 'r Us store. And because we're painting stripes in there and because every home project takes longer than you think it will, we're on night #3 working on it (not counting the 2 coats of paint my dad and Aaron painted this past weekend). I painted a third coat Tuesday night, because the green was stubborn :). We're taping, and possibly painting the stripes tonight. I will post pictures when it's done. I think it's going to look fantastic.

And not to the title of this post, the adventures. I've had many in the last week. We took the students to Trek last week which is a leadership training camp. We had a really fun group of 14 students that went. It was a blast getting to know them. They were such a fun bunch. The scariest of the adventures being in a harness and pulled up about 3 stories where I had to pull a cord to release myself to swing from this great height (and I'm scared of heights. I announced at the top that I was suffering for the sake of the gospel. The sweet camp lady said that was a new one. Might I also add that many of our group climbed up a 70 foot climbing wall and took the zip line down...I wasn't that brave) The next adventure was trying to go out sharing the gospel in the pouring rain with students on Wednesday night. The Lord did provide some great conversations though. This was followed by canoeing in the pouring rain for 2 hours the next day. As soon as we sat in the canoe in just came down. We were soaked pretty quickly. My student co-pilot laughed hysterically for the first 20 minutes, and then I laughed hysterically as she drove us into a pile of tree branches and I was laying parallel to the water to avoid getting my eyes poked out. But we had a good time and made up some good songs. The next adventure was that night sleeping in covered wagons which are actually pretty cool - literally and figuratively. The UWEC girls and I had a great time and when I woke up I saw all them totally immersed in their sleeping bags.

And our neighbors have 6 grandchildren under the age of 6 and all but the oldest were swimming in a kiddie pool completely naked right outside our back door (we live in a duplex condo with a connected back yard). It was hillarious - that was our funny moment of the week.

So Aaron is back from Menards with another roll of painters tape, and I'm going to go finish taping. I'll leave you with one picture with the promise to post more soon.

Love to you all!

Here's our fun group from Trek!

Moved in!

LONG TIME since the last post! It's been really busy the last few weeks! We were gone for a week and a half and then last week we were getting ready to move, and we moved this past Saturday. I can't say we were super organized or packed, but everything made it from the old place to the new place. We have dear, patient family and friends that helped. So we're unpacking and settling in amidst other work. We didn't really sort before we moved, and so I'm sorting as I unpack. We're doing a garage sale with friends and will be able to put things in that. It also gives me a deadline to work towards! I'll try to post a few pictures once we get a few rooms finished.
Also, Aaron and I taped the last prime time Price is Right and have been watching it tonight. An institution from my childhood is coming to an end. I remember staying home sick as a kid, and it was such a treat to watch it...and I still watch it periodically as I have the chance :).