Life Unexpected

I feel as though I have fallen of the blogosphere this past month, yet I have had so many things on my heart to blog about.  The past month of my life has been spent away from my home as I have been traveling like crazy.  It started with an opportunity to speak on the campus of Eastern Nazarene College, my former college, sharing our adoption story, followed by a weekend with my youth group raising money for hunger through a 30 Hour Famine Event, followed by a 10 day mission trip to Honduras (I have a ton to blog about from that one), and followed by a 4 day youth event in Boston, MA.  Upon return, I caught the flu in the worst of ways and have spent the past week of my life in bed, sleeping!  Thankfully, I have the best husband in the world who has taken care of me while I was sick, put up with my traveling, and supported me every step of the way.  Even as I write, I find myself far away from home for probably the last time in for awhile, on my annual 3 day tri...

This past week marked 23 months on the wait list.  It's hard to believe that in March, we will have been waiting for two years.  We would have never imagined the process to pan out the way it has, but we continue to be grateful...incredibly grateful...for the journey.  Our agency is predicting between 24 and 25 months for a referral, so it feels like we are almost there.  We are praying that God would swing the doors wide open and connect us with our forever family.  We have been told that they have seen very little sibling groups under the age of 4 (which is our first preference), but we are holding out, believing that is what God has called us to.  We are waiting and expecting him to do amazing things.  We are trusting him with everything.  We are believing that he has the perfect plan and when it unfolds, it will blow us away! My mom was here this past week baking cupcakes once again.  Let me just say, she is one amazing mom!...

Last week, one of the girls in our small group, Lindsay, invited us to a dance benefit concert that she was in.  She is a part of a Christian dance company, and they were raising money for the A21 Campaign, an organization that raises awareness about human trafficking.  We had just gotten back from a weekend youth event and I didn't have a whole lot of energy, but I knew it was important to her that we were there.  Besides, she told me there was free Starbucks, and that I had to come (she knows my weakness). I am not even sure that I can put into words what I felt that night.  I was aware of the issue of human trafficking, but definitely not that aware.  By the time I left that night, my heart was broken once again for the something that breaks the heart of God every day.  It was overwhelming.  It left me speechless.  It set so heavy in my heart. Nate and I were coming home from skiing a couple nights later and I started bawling. ...

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go away with a few of my youth workers to do some "dreaming", visioning, and planning for our youth ministry.  The location was Stone Harbor, NJ, probably tied for my most favorite place to be right alongside of the country of Honduras.  We started the weekend sharing personally where God had been working in our lives over the past year, as well as sharing the places where we really needed God to be working.  We did the same for our youth ministry that night, as we sat around the fireplace just "remembering" places where God had shown up in the lives of our students. The weekend was a reminder that we are up against some challenges when it comes to not just youth ministry, but our personal lives as well.  Sunday morning, we visited a church that my family and I attend when we are on vacation in the summer.  It could not have been a more fitting morning.  The minute we walked in, we could feel God's presence....

It's definitely winter.  Let me clarify that.  There is no snow on the ground (which makes Nate and I very sad, since we once again got ski passes and this Maryland weather has decided to kill our hopes and dreams for skiing this season!), there is no real snow in the forecast, and it's semi-mild weather.  But it feels like winter.  In my heart...it feels like winter. I have found myself feeling "blah" during this part of our wait.  I am not necessarily angry, sad, or disappointed that we haven't gotten our call yet, I am just "blah."  That "blah" feeling is like when you have been stuck in winter (those of us who grew up in Upstate New York have an entirely different definition of being "stuck in winter"), and you just want to experience that first warm day of Spring.  So you anticipate, you expect it to come, you start to get out your Spring clothes out, and you wait.  And you wait.  And you wait some more.  You know it's co...

I was journaling this morning and made the realization that we are in 2013.  Ok, so the world knows that we are in 2013, but it seemed to hit me like a ton of bricks.  This will be the third New Year in a row that we enter it, hoping and praying, for our referral.  Three is a charm, right?  I was reflecting on the fact that we have finished 3 Christmas seasons in a row without getting a referral, and we have not only survived, but thrived.  I feel like Nate and I have grown leaps and bounds as individuals, in our marriage, and in our relationship with God.  It has NOT been a waste of three years, and I am more than grateful.  In fact, I journaled this morning, I would NOT trade this journey in for the entire world.  That being said, "It's 2013...I think we are ready (just in case God might be reading this right now!). Not only are we ready, but the entire Long/Sawtelle/Ciardi/Ingram/Penney (all of our immediate family) clan is!  In fact, ...

  I can't believe that Christmas is already over.  Last night, after putting about 1500 miles on our vehicle, traveling to Bel Air, New Jersey, and Maine, we finally crawled into our own beds.  And I am already missing my family!  From baking traditional Czech cookies and breads with my sister Kristen, to playing Monopoly five billion times with my nephews, to dancing with my nieces to Christmas music, to going to the Lancaster City Market with my entire family, to cramming into "Duck Fat" Restaurant in Portland with my mother-in-law (which is a yuppie restaurant according to her!), to hanging out with my extended family in Jersey for a Czech Christmas Eve bash, to watching the Golden Pig come, to putting up the Nativity with my nieces, to building a Rice Krispy Train with my nephews, to sharing around our table Christmas morning all that we are thankful for...we truly did it all and I am more than blessed.  At the end of this vacation, I real...