Planting before the rain.....

I stole this blog title from a wise friend.
         Last weekend, we bought a van.  A 15 passenger van to be exact.

Here it is in real life. My new car.  How I will actually drive it remains to be seen,  I used to have a suburban, which I loved to drive. 

I was blessed with a practically new minivan a few years ago and have loved it.  

To tell the truth, I am not a picky driver, I will pretty much drive whatever car my husband graciously provides for me.

And, said husband reassures me that I will one day be capable of parking it less than a mile back in the parking lot!  For now, we will be getting our exercise as I learn to park our new transportation treasure.

               Anyway, I texted my friend Heather a picture of the van right after we bought it. 

                        And that's what she texted back.  

                       Planting before the rain....... I was so blessed by the truth of it.

See this van is planting before the rain. 

It is the evidence of things hoped for, this van, as silly as it may sound,

               Is faith in action. 

 For my husband, especially, who does the majority of the car buying... (not that we do much car buying) But for him, to take money that the Lord has blessed us with, and buy this HUGE van. Is FAITH. 

See, we are hoping for more kids than we currently have.  

          The ones we have fit perfectly in that nice little mini van.  

But my husband is a man of faith.  And like Abraham, another man of faith, my husband is moving out.  He is moving out, not always 100% sure of where he is going, but yet with a sureness, direction and certainty that he never experienced while wandering this life with NO faith.

Hebrews 11:8 "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.  And he went out, not knowing where he was going."

One of the questions our agency asked us was, "How will you transport 7 children?" Good question. 

 We knew we needed a bigger car to have an even bigger family. 

Well we are proud to announce the arrival of that car!  God Provides.  He makes a way.  Kids are coming.  From Uganda.  Soon. Very soon.  We are hopeful. We are sure.  We are full of faith!

          Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

Frozen Birthday's

Eden turned 3 and Jubilee turned 7 this March......
       We decided to celebrate the girls special days together...

Frozen is kind of a thing at our house right now.

We sing/hear  a lot of "let it go, let it go!" and "Do you want to build a snowman?" every day.

So a Frozen theme was an easy choice, and one upon which both girls were thrilled to agree....

                                                                 The Frozen Sisters

'Elsa'

some of the decore'

                                                                 

Frozen snacks (I forgot to take pictures of the food table all pretty before the kiddos ate the food, here's what I've got!
We had snow balls (glittery frosted white cupcakes), snow man arms (pretzels) snow man noses (carrot sticks) frozen grapes and more... it was super fun, We had signs up everywhere that said things like, "I like warm hugs!" and "do you want to build a snowman? and my favorite, "the cold never bothered me anyway!" all the fun ideas came from a blog I stumbled upon while trying to plan the party called:

pagingsupermom.com 

                                                         (just FYI in case your curious!) 

The Best part about this party was that for the first 45 minutes all the little girls just sang frozen songs with the soundtrack we have downloaded on the iphone! It was adorable! I may post a video later... but I better ask the other mama's first! It is so funny how much all little girls (and even my boys;) seem to just love that movie!                                       

a little more decor

'Anna'

Anna hair

Elsa Hair

Here's those sweet girls, just  a little glimpse!

Ok, so I am not so very good at blogging....

Hello blog world,
  I have decided I am a blog failure.  I officially disappeared from this blog for about 3 months.  I am going to make it my new goal to post something, even if it is short or totally unrelated to the adoption once a week or so.

                In Fact I have several ideas of things I want to post about: home life, home schooling, what Jesus is teaching me, guest blog posts from some of my older kiddos, as well as of course, adoption updates when we have something to share.

Speaking of adoption news we are finally just about done with the home study and actually almost done with compiling our dossier as well.

For those who do not know these adoption terms...

         A home study refers to part of the paper work you compile, including fingerprint clearance cards, Dr. visits, police clearance certificates and a whole lot of other things along with interviews you complete in your home and in an office with a social worker.  Who then takes all this and compiles a report on your family which she submits to the state in which you live and to the adoption agency you are working with. This will then serve as a guide when they place a child or children in your family.  They consider things from finances, health,  personality even your desires to determine the ages and number of children your family is 'suited for'.  It is also basically the way in which you are granted 'permission to adopt' by your state government.

The Dossier refers to the home study combined with a lot more paper work and legal documents such as certified copies of marriage licenses and birth certificates and pictures of your home and family as well as even more paper work which must be submitted to both the US government and the foreign court in the country you are adopting from.  

This is all in Christa language..... I am sure someone else could do a better job of explaining this....

  Anyway, we are exited to be moving along with our paper work (finally).... It has been slow going.  But the Lord knows all our days every one is accounted for in His sight and  we know he has had his hand in this timing.

        In fact we are hoping we will have fun and exiting news to share here soon..... maybe even info about the kids we will be adopting.

For now though we wanted to share some fun pictures of one way we have been enjoying learning about African and even specifically Ugandan culture this winter....

    We went with special friends to see an Ugandan Children's choir....  It was amazing.  The music was beautiful, and our kids got to meet some of the kids afterwords as well as hear first  hand from kids who were orphans at one time but were now in a safe and Godly home with a mother to call their own within their own country in what they call a children's village.

        This ministry is called Wototo Children's Village and it truly has an amazing vision of raising up a Godly generation of children who will be able to with Christ's power change the future for Uganda as a nation.

 

Anyway, hearing their stories and watching their smiling faces and sweet music was such a blessing!
                         
                Don't they all have such sweet smiles? What a special night!

Want to read more about this ministry?
http://www.watoto.com/home


Here's a music video of the Choir:

Be on the watch for more regular blog posts from the Okerlund crew!

In honor of Orphan Sunday and Adoption Awareness November.........

Wow! It has been such a long time since I have written anything on here.
But boy do I have a LOT to say! (whats new, huh!)

1) Our yard sale went amazing! People came! They bought stuff!
Our kids and some of their sweet friends sold baked goods and passed out cards telling people about what the sale was for. It was precious.

We made about $1500 in 2 days which was almost enough  to pay for the home study all by itself! That combined with the generous birthday party donations and the money we have been saving we have raised a little over $4,ooo!
       
     *side note:  our adoption is expected to cost about $40,000, but the great thing about adoption fees is that you generally pay them in small (er) chunks.  We are excited to get the home study finalized so we can apply for some grants and do some more fundraising! (We have some very fun ideas coming)

2) We have now had 2 of 4 home study visits required for Uganda.  They are actually pretty fun and very informative.  So all my fears of 'being evaluated are (mostly) dissolved!

3) We now know for sure (if we didn't know before!)
       WE HAVE SO MANY AMAZING PEOPLE in our lives....

     

Last night,  I was finishing up some VERY LATE thank you notes to people who have:                                                     

                       contributed funds 

                       or yard sale donations 

                       or baked goods                               

                       or time, 

                       in the form of set up/running of/take down of the yard sale 

                       or even babysitting our kids while we did our home study visit,

                       or providing THE REALLY NICE HOTEL ROOMS                                                                                   Or food and fun and friendship 

        when we traveled out of town for the 2nd home study visit,

 (the first was IN our home)

Anyway, I know you all don't want me to mention your names here, BUT I will say this:

                          

                It struck me again. 

                    You are proof,

                There is more than one way to be a follower of James 1:27

  

"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world."

My heart is filled afresh with gratitude for God's Provision for this adoption.  

      It is just so easy to forget from who comes ALL GOOD gifts.  

          The Body of Christ obeying His word is A VERY GOOD GIFT.

                     

   We can't all adopt

(though our prayer is always for more parents to be given this amazing, God given desire) 

   But we can ALL help somehow. 

Helping adoptive families adopt, or supporting ones who already have, IS HUGE!

                                        

The truth is we can not do this alone! 

 We need, love, desire, embrace, stand forever grateful for all the many forms of support!

 So in honor of Orphan Sunday (which was over a week ago now, but I am almost never punctual!) 

We want you to know:

We consider you all to be defenders of the fatherless!

We are so thankful for everyone who has blessed and showered the provision of God on us.  

This is the verse we put on the Thank You notes, it pretty much sums up our hearts:

     "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you.... because of your partnership in the gospel, from the first day until now!" Philippians 1:3-5

(PS if you read this and a thank you note hasn't been given to you yet, and one was meant for you, give me another week or so and then just send me a message that says something like, "Hey Christa, I want to see that really fun photo of your family on the slide I have heard so much about...."  I will take the hint and get it right to you, I tried to remember everyone, but some of the donations were handed to me in passing and well, I forget things sometimes.....)

Calling all Bakers.... and owners of stuff you don't want/need!

Hello Friends: 

                

              Our Yard sale is coming up: OCTOBER 11th-12th

                   Many of you have asked how you can help with our Yard sale.

      

 There are 2 main ways. First you can donate any and all items you would like,

        and we will pick them up if needed and sell them gladly!

          The second way: Bake something for our Kids bake sale.

Bring it to our house on Thursday, October 10th,

and we will include your delicious baked items in the sale.

If you have something to donate or are planning to bake an item please email us at squeezzyface@gmail.com

Or give us a call or face book message....

Yard Sale Time

We are ready to do our next fundraiser!  On Oct 11th and 12th we will have a yard sale.
            If you have anything you would like to donate to the sale, we would LOVE to sell it!
 We can come pick it up, or you can drop it off at our house......
              Just leave a comment here on the blog, or email us at squeezzyface@gmail.com and give us your contact info and we will connect with you!
             We would love anything you think is sell-able at all! We are super excited for this special event.... As we get closer we will give you more details and ways to be involved......
            Hint: our kids want to have a bake sale and lemon- aid stand as part of the event.
They really want to help bring home their newest siblings!
             We will be calling all bakers to contribute baked goods!

We are very excited, and already the donations are starting to come in,
         Just today we picked up some beautiful furniture and such.....
             So beautiful in fact, as we picked it up, our sweet friend who donated it said, 'oh if you like it that much you can keep it....'
So I had to say outloud: "I love these kids WAY more than any beautiful rustic wood furniture,
                AND JESUS IS MORE VALUABLE THAN ANYTHING ELSE!
(Oh covetous- self how crafty you can be!)  I am so grateful I have a Godly and practical husband who quickly reminded me WHY we were picking the stuff up....
  I cant wait to sell all these generous donations and bring our kids that much closer to being home with us!

The 30 reasons party, my #30 b-day, AKA our first adoption fundraiser!

getting ready for the party

more party prep

sweet friends

mustache buds

Jed and some special friends

See the beautiful rainbow? It was there reminding me that God is ALWAYS faithful.

This post is LONG overdue, of course life has been busy for us, but this was such a special night that I am sad it has taken me such a long time to tell you all about it!

Let me just say that we were blessed beyond our wildest expectations! 

We had over 50 friends show up to bless me on my 30th with their love and encouragement of our family and what God is calling us to.

It was beautiful outside and everyone brought dishes to share, cards with such kind messages and (Thankyou) a hundred times over, money gifts, to go towards our adoption costs! 

 We all enjoyed a night of fellowship, fun, food, picnic, play and finally later in the evening:

RAIN, 

LOTS OF RAIN 

and even more fun, kids playing in rain, 

and kind friends who didn't even leave once it BEGAN TO POUR!  

So as our friends showered us with blessings, God showered us with rain! 

The evening will forever be a truly special memory for us as we felt so loved and supported, and very close too (as we all crowded in the covered part of the park;)  all who were able to come, and on through the weekend by many who didn't come but gave us gifts and cards.

We are humbled and grateful.  

Thank you. From the bottom of our hearts. 

We are so honored and blessed .

Our family loves this worship cd for kids by   SovereignGraceMusic.org

Anyway, there is a song on it, called Generous Heart, and I feel like the words express so

 clearly what all of you demonstrated to us that I wanted to share it here

.... all I can find is this youtube video, so enjoy the teens doing hand motions with your kids;) 

Anyway, the final exciting part of the story of the birthday fundraiser, we now have enough money in the adoption account to pay for the home study portion of our adoption, between saving up ourselves and all your generous giving we have a little over $1800! Praise the Lord, for HIS faithful provision.

Here's the banner we made and friends wrote encouraging words, verses and prayers on. Its hanging in our living room now, to daily remind us of who is ABLE! (Our God)