Last night was the first Sewing for Smiles party at Julie Pruett’s house, and it was a blast!!  Julie’s goal is to host pillowcase dress sewing parties every month until the team leaves for Uganda in July, and crank out about 30 dresses per party.  By the time we leave on our trip, we’ll have enough dresses for all the girls in the program.  Last night, with about 18 ladies cutting, ironing, pinning, and sewing, we hit our first goal!  The dresses are adorable, but see for yourselves!

Julie thought of everything – power strips under the sewing stations to plug in our machines, little hangers on which to hang the dresses, an entire dessert buffet (plus pretzel M&Ms on the table right in front of my sewing machine!), and ironing and pinning stations.

She and her mom had prepared the pillowcases and matched them with ribbons ahead of time, so we were able to sit down and immediately start finishing dresses.

After each dress was completed, Julie took a picture of the seamstress with the dress, so that each child receiving a dress will also receive a picture of the woman who made it.  Becaaaaauuuussssse…this is all about relationship, relationship, relationship.  A connection between the child and the person who made the dress.  We want each girl to know that her dress was made with love, specially for her.

As a boy mom, I was racking my brain about what we could make for the boys, and Julie had ANOTHER brilliant idea.  We’re going to collect white tee shirts in all sizes and have a big tie dying party with our kids.  We can take pictures of the kids tie dying the shirts, so each Adacar boy will receive a tie dyed tee shirt with a picture of the kid who made it!  Can you just picture how rockin’ awesome the Adacar kids are going to look in their pillowcase dresses and tie dyed tee shirts!?!?

So, we still need lots of king sized pillowcases, ribbon, 1/4″ elastic, and white cotton tee shirts in all sizes.  Let me know if you want to get in on this!

New photo of ESD on my desktop and we’re in a bit of a joy coma over here.  My daughter has a new hair-do and we were shrieking with delight when we saw her picture yesterday.  Elliott and I were wiggling and screaming and laughing with excitement and Alex called from his office to say, “Did you see the new picture?!?”  And my giddy son, so proud, so ecstatic about his baby sister asked, “What kind of hair is that?”  Awesome, gorgeous hair! 

I love my son’s hair.  It’s blond and curly in the summer and straight in the winter and a little fuzzy in the back like Alex’s and fine and smooth in the front like mine.  It’s getting darker as he grows up much too fast too fast too fast and it sweeps across his face over his ears down his neck.  I can’t keep my hands off of it. 

And now I have another child with hair I love!  I can’t wait to feel it and braid it and adorn it with clips and bows and beads.  I want my girl to love her hair so much, love it as much as I do, feel so beautiful and proud of each bouncy tress.  I want her to see her hair in the mirror and react the way we did yesterday, with a full-on dance of joy, shrieks of delight at how gorgeous she is, bouncing up and down at the endless possibilities.  “What kind of hair is that?”  God’s beautiful gift to you, sweet girl.  A crown for His princess!

Click here for my new favorite Sesame Street clip!

Last year was a year of preparation, of beginning.  In January, our dossier made it to Addis Ababa and we officially entered The Waiting List.  We launched Adacar CarePoint in January.  We took our first trip to Africa.  I spent hours focusing on the spiritual disciplines and the Word of God leaped off the page.  It was one of those years of discovery – new verses, a new continent, new relationships, new purpose.

This year already feels different.  A year of arrival.  I hope that I prepared well because I am boots-on-the-ground in it.  That first day of junior high feeling.  My future is rushing toward me and I can’t swerve or blink and there’s nothing to prepare cuz it’s time to DO. 

I don’t feel ready.  All of me.  My heart is ready, filled with longing for the two African countries that God has placed in it and throbbing wildly at the thought of my daughter, my village, my daughter, my village.  My spirit is ready for more adventure.  It’s my brain.  My brain continues to unsuccessfully wrest control from God and think think think think think me into an anxious blob on the floor.  Worry.  But as my dear husband reminded me last night, we didn’t choose any of this.  God led us to this place.  And He is in it.

Breathe.  Surrender.  Breathe.  Enter His throne room.  Breathe.  Worship.  “Filled with wonder, awe-struck wonder, at the mention of Your Name.”  Breathe.

Today in the mail I received another stack of letters from HopeChest.  Each letter in the stack is from a child.  Each child is in the sponsorship program at Adacar CarePoint.  But instead of the letters arriving into the eager hands of loving sponsors, instead of the letters getting ripped open and read out loud to younger children or passed around the kitchen table, instead…these letters end up on top of a larger stack of unopened mail.  These letters have no destinations.  The children who wrote them have no sponsors.  I’m responsible for about 200 kids in our program at Adacar, and about 115 of them have sponsors now.  But that leaves about 85 who don’t.  These “unclaimed” kids write letters just like everyone else…only their letters sit unopened on my desk waiting for the day when a sponsor will want to read them.  I have a really tiny desk.  And I am running out of room for these letters.  Please pray about sponsoring Jessica or Simon Peter or Charles or William or Sarah or Margaret…this list goes on and on.  Please help me find sponsors for these children.  They have such tremendous faith.  They’re writing letters thanking sponsors who don’t even exist yet!

I’m trying out this new thing – saying no.  Setting boundaries.  Disappointing people.  It’s terrible.  I love pleasing people, and I honestly love DOING everything.  But as I prepare to welcome our second child, I’m realizing that I will have to start disappointing people…and often myself!  I have so much to do to prepare for our daughter, without neglecting our son, and I have to carve out enough margin to keep my head on straight.  This is me giving myself a pep talk.

I’ve spent the last week accumulating advice from adoptive families who have traveled before me.  So incredible hearing their experiences, from hotel and airline advice to ideas for making special memories for their kids.  I’m slowly nailing down the details of our trip.  Everyone I talk with went over back when you only needed one trip.  I’m so excited to get to meet my girl, but I know it’ll be hard not getting to have her and bring her back with us!  I’m having to focus on the sight-seeing aspect of the trip, using the week to soak up her country and culture and make memories and take pictures.  I can’t wait for that second trip when we actually get custody of her – those first few days of learning how to be her mommy and daddy…followed by a lifetime.  But for now, step one, the first trip and the excitement of meeting her and exploring Addis Ababa with the love of my life.