Blog

 This past week my brother and I were in a custom motorcycle shop in Long Beach, California, surrounded by the sights and sounds of various people and machines producing mechanical works of art. As I looked around the facility at the workers and employees working on crafting these mechanical marvels, I noticed that most, if not all, of the workers had tattoos peaking out from underneath their clothing. While I doubt that I would ever get a tattoo (more than a...

I recently had the privilege of attending the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit in Dallas, Texas. It was an amazing, inspiring, and at times, overwhelming experience. At the beginning of each main session, they played the following video. I have watched it over and over since returning home. It keeps me grounded in my passion for the world’s orphans. It reminds me that it’s not about what I do. It’s about what God does...

Mother’s Day 2008 was highly emotional. Our family was so close – SO CLOSE – to having our son’s international adoption approved. Birthdays and Christmases had passed, but I held out hope of having him home for Mother’s Day. That was not God’s will for our son’s life. Instead he spent another Mother’s Day with his doting foster mom in his beautiful birth country. Tears swallowed my eyes as I looked down our church pew and noted, despite three shiny faces smiling back at me,...

One of the hobbies that I enjoy is mountain biking. In the glossary of terms there are two words that, when combined, are the epitome of the sport. Those two words are "epic" and "singletrack". Epic is a term used to describe something that is legendary while singletrack refers to a narrow path used to ascend or descend an incline. More oft than naught, singletrack is a trail used by animals as they move between feeding locations, the...

When we were in the early stages of the adoption process and meeting with our social worker for our homestudy, we expressed that we weren’t sure how to talk with our family about all of the questions that surround adoption.  We had obviously worked through some of the questions in order to come to our decision to adopt, but we felt ill-equipped to explain the process to our family.  So, we asked for advice. Our social worker recommended a book titled Adoption...

  Thre are many universal experiences in adoption: a lot of highs with a few lows.  A common "low" is the experience of well-intended, but not-so-helpful, unsolicited advice from family and friends.  Before I go on, I’ll preface with saying that my family has been uniquely supportive and the hard-to-swallow advice has been minimal.     Yet I write because almost  every adoptive family I know has experienced the frustration of family members and/or friends suggesting how to parent or how not to parent their...

Our life experiences have so much influence on our thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs.  Because of God’s plan for our family, adoption is "normal" for our biological daughter.  All of her siblings joined our family by adoption, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at her unquestioning acceptance.  However, occasionally, an incident arises that reminds me again, just how "ordinary" adoption is in her mind.  Let me share an example . Recently, family members (I’ll call them Bob and Sue) announced that...

I struggle with the term "color blind."  I’m not talking about the inability to distinguish between certain colors, but rather, about the assertion that if everyone would just ignore the color of people’s skin, racism would come to an end. I know that this concept has good intentions, but I see a fundamental flaw.  By intentionally ignoring part of who a person is, are we sending a negative message? If we decided to be gender blind, what message does that send me about...