new.

i've been back in the States for 2 weeks and i feel like maybe i can start to put my time in Ethiopia into words. maybe.

The only other country (besides the US) i can compare ET to is China…and the similarities begin and end at the super long plane rides and the overpowering smell of pollution. Even the plane rides were different – the trip to China was quiet for the most part. People didn’t really talk to each other unless they were traveling together. On the way to ET, everyone walked the aisles, hung out with each other like they were family, and children were screaming (The. Whole. Way. There.) Imagine chaos and you’ve got the flight to and from Ethiopia. Yes, it annoyed me, and no I couldn’t sleep, but I couldn’t help but notice and appreciate the difference in cultures.

The first day we were in country we spent time at the House of Hope. The HOH is kind of like a halfway house for children who have been matched with a family. They leave their orphanages and stay there until their family (from another country) comes to pick them up. The anticipation, at least amongst the older kids, is palpable. They have been chosen! They are going to be adopted into a new family and get a new name and a new life and a new home!

While we were playing with these SUPER CUTE kids all i could think about was their impending adoptions and how like God it is to take a life that was headed in one direction and make it new. The Bible talks about adoption in several places but i’m not sure i understood it until that day in Africa. Not only was I chosen (Eph 1:11-12) but I was (and am) transformed! I got a new life and a new (eternal) home.

The part that struck me the most about adoption was that the children are given a new name. It’s such a spiritual concept. I LOVE this about God! In Isaiah 62, Isaiah prophesies that, although Jerusalem was spiritually corrupt, one day they would be restored to glory. The people of Jerusalem were familiar with feelings of desolation and abandonment, but God promised that the days of war and destruction would pass and they will know how much He delights in them. He even promised to change their name (vs. 2)to reflect their transformation.

All our lives we are labeled. As children we are called names on the playground and as we get older we start to believe the lies that we are told. We believe we are too much or not enough, that we are too fat, too skinny, too [fill in the blank], that we are annoying, that we’re ugly, that we just can’t live up to expectations. But we have to trust that God absolutely did not intend for us to live our lives as if these labels belong to us, to claim them as if they’re our own.

Instead, He has changed my name! I am no longer called insecure, anxious, fearful, ashamed, or worthless, but instead a crown of splendor, a royal diadem, delightful, worth rejoicing over!

The children at House of Hope eagerly wait for their adoptive parents. Because they were chosen, they believe that rescue is coming. They will be given a new name. And with this new name comes the faith that what once was ashes will become beautiful.

advent.

i wish i could take credit for this but i can't.


my friend ellie of merry everyday fame, as well as my partner in all things adventurous, wrote about advent on gloryology the other day, and it was so good i wanted to share.


(i apologize in advance if it makes you cry, because it makes me cry every time i read it!)


I’ve stopped several times over the past couple of weeks in an attempt to gather and form these thoughts into words. The season of Advent is unfamiliar territory to me (I admit I’m a tad ashamed). I remember lighting the candles each Sunday leading up to Christmas; I’ve heard the term Advent; but I can’t confirm that I’ve ever really grasped the larger concept or how it applies to daily living. So this Advent season I’ve been reading a book called Watch for the Light—I highly recommend it!

When I first started reading the book, I looked up the word advent and this is what my dashboard dictionary told me: advent, the arrival of a notable person, thing, or event. (Now that sounds like something I want to celebrate—how royal and noteworthy, and to think its something I believe!)

That suffices as a functional summary—in the least a foundation on which God has gradually been building the concept of Advent for me. Here is where I’ve been:



1. We annually celebrate Advent as the season leading up to Christmas, the birth of Jesus, the arrival of our Saviour, the reminder that He will come again.


2. Advent is largely a season of waiting. A season leading up to the arrival of something or someone constitutes waiting and likely for an unknown time. Sometimes we know what we’re waiting for, sometimes we don’t though it does seem we’re always waiting for something. So Advent happens over and over again in our lifetime.


3. How we wait is important and fairly indicative of our faith (see Luke 1, Zechariah vs. Mary).


4. Jesus is coming continually into our hearts and lives. He came from the womb of Mary. He arrives in our hearts when we begin our personal relationship with God. He graciously reveals Himself daily if we are diligent to watch for Him and sometimes even when we’re not. And I believe He beckons us out of our commercial holiday, not to refuse the celebration, but to acknowledge His presence, to behold His power, to give thanks for His grace, to be mindful of Him, to have our priorities reorganized, to prepare our hearts to receive more, to give us a glimpse of what is to come, the list goes on.


5. We wait for Him still.


I will fail to capture in this small space my witness to His coming. But I’ll try. We began our season of waiting earlier this year. There were highs and lows, but by far we refused to make M.E. happen on our own accord. We waited for God to unveil His marked path and determined the course accordingly. Had I thought to watch earlier I would have taken better notes.


I’ve seen Jesus come…in the first excited donation we received months ago before a stocking was ever mentioned, in the lady who even in a struggling economy staring job loss in the face has purchased more stockings for us with the arrival of each paycheck, in the family praying diligently for our trip while wishing with broken hearts that their own Ethiopian baby was home with them, in the family who not only opened up their hearts and home to their own adopted children but send a family’s worth of stockings to those who remain in orphanages, in the ones who give though they live on their own raised support, in the loyal friends who have followed the blog and participated though we haven’t communicated in months, in the couple who gave big not knowing the need, in the one who turned that gift into four boxes of shoes and then some, in the tiny church community who so generously gave us a place to lay our heads in Africa, in the youth groups and family and corporations and non-profits, and in the ones who used their spare change to buy my junk. Oh, I’ve seen Jesus! And there are others to whom I’m grateful. There are people on this continent I’ve never met who are wearing a red wristband and praying. And I am truly awestruck that this is only the beginning. Because it is not about the gifts or the stuff or the money or the givers or the planners or the go-ers. This all simply rests on the arrival of Jesus, His faithfulness to show Himself to those who believe, and His love extended to us even when we don’t.


So more than I want to offer a meager thank you (and we do Thank You), I just want to encourage you to watch for the Light.

Also, another great blog post on advent:
"Recovering the spirit of Advent can take many forms, but at the core it simply means to make space to be vulnerable with yourself and those in your community about the things you long for which only God can do. And in that space, remember that Christmas is about the miraculous, the supernatural, the 'are you kidding me, this can't be true?,' about the incomprehensible God of Gods with skin, moving into the neighborhood."

i probably don't tell the people around me that i believe in them. i consider myself blessed to have friends who are so talented, beautiful, and smart. i believe they are all changing their small piece the world in a big way.

to my friends [you know who you are]:

i believe in you.

i believe that you will make the world a better place for millions of children.

i believe that you will change the face of the Church (Isaiah 58).

i believe that you will create fashion that revolutionizes the world.

i believe that you will compel all of America to laugh.

i believe that you will use your skills to help create community.

i believe that you will tell your story and it will change perspectives.

i believe that you will find deep rooted joy.

i believe that you will earn a living doing what you love.

i believe that you will save lives.

i believe that you will love and be loved.

i believe that you will figure out where you belong.

i believe that you will have a great marriage.

i believe that you will raise amazing children.

i believe that you will get through the hardest year of your life.

i believe that you will because He is.

love,
elizabeth

correspondence wednesday (cont'd)...

...which, like i said, doesn't exactly exist on my blog. but i wanted to follow up:

dear old navy,

i was right!

thank you todd oldham,

elizabeth

------------------------------------------------

dear stephenie meyer's publishers,

thank you. it ended so well. please pay stephenie meyer lots of money to keep writing about these people [ahem, werewolves and vampires] - i miss them already.

bella and edward forever,

elizabeth

------------------------------------------------

dear ethiopia,

140 days.

still [and only] because of Jesus,

elizabeth

-------------------------------------------------

dear jersey shore,

you were just what i needed. thank you for the perfect weather, for the perfect sunrise, for the perfect vacation.

made for the beach,

elizabeth

-------------------------------------------------

dear best friend,

adventures with you are always more fun. here's to pottery painting, miniature golfing, fashion showing, beach reading, alarm clock beeping, ocean beatings, Jesus acting, and sunrise watching. there's no one else like you.

love,

elizabeth

merry everyday.

Commentary: Our tragedy and God's love for orphans by Steven Curtis Chapman

FRANKLIN, Tennessee (CNN) -- According to UNICEF, there are 143 million children in the world who have lost one or both parents.

In America alone, there are half a million children in foster care, and approximately 120,000 of these children are waiting to be adopted. In many countries, children are too often orphaned or abandoned because of poverty, disabilities and disease; every 15 seconds, a child loses a parent because of AIDS. These are staggering facts that can seem overwhelming and discouraging, but I believe that God has a loving plan for each child, and that plan is you and me.

Caring for these children is not the job of governments or institutions; instead, it is the job of families, people and communities. As Christians, our compassion is simply a response to the love that God has already shown us. Mother Teresa would constantly remind those who worked with her that the Bible clearly teaches that whatever we do for the least of these, we do for Jesus. So in a very real sense, caring for orphans is a chance to meet the person of Jesus in "the guise of human suffering." This is an invitation from the heart of God to know him and to experience his love.

read the rest...

the part that struck me is this:

"If only 7 percent of the 2 billion Christians in the world would care for a single orphan in distress, there would effectively be no more orphans. If everybody would be willing to simply do something to care for one of these precious treasures, I think we would be amazed by just how much we could change the world.

We can each do something, whether it is donating, adopting, fostering, mentoring, visiting orphans or supporting families that have taken in orphans. You can change the world for an orphan."

let's change the world for orphans.

merry everyday 08!

we're Ethiopia bound...go read about it!

email from my dad, in response to the chapman family tragedy*

"I truly believe that God has planned prosperity in "the Beautiful Land" for His purpose. Doors in China and other places in the world are suddenly open to us. Like most doors however, they swing both ways. May He give us wisdom and strength to accept His tasks when they are offered."

*one and two

There is HOPE!!

HOPE!


JCICS finally released A Child's Right Campaign for Vietnam. Please help!

orphans, part 2

update:

we heard today that JCICS will not release their Children's Initiative due to some impending results from an undisclosed meeting. however, we're still planning to be ready to jump on it as soon as they make the announcement (www.jcics.org).

this was on my desk calendar for today:the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. james 5:16b

stay tuned!

happy revo day.

in daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee.
in inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.
in 525,600 minutes
how do you measure a year in the life?

how about love?

where are you going?

"We are part of such a restless generation. Always moving, going, seeking then finding, and choosing to seek more. We are not a generation of finding roots in one place.

Because we find roots in every place.

To be moving is to be grounded. It seems like a strange paradox and there are definitely some people who abuse this freedom in order to run. The true movers in this generation don't run. They constantly seek the will of God and beg to be used wherever they are. On the other hand, runners constantly seek a will of their own and use God when necessary. But a mover waits on God. The mover allows their life to bear fruit always.

And leaving never means running.

It means obedience, or searching to find, or chasing the trail that the feet in front of you left behind. It involves adventure, but mostly change. They do not see life as something to defend or be ashamed of. So they welcome change. And this change usually takes place from the inside-out. As the mover becomes more aware of who lives inside of them, change happens."

Photo by Alison Kendrick

Excerpt from 'Don't Run, Be Moved' by Leslie Dudney; read the rest here.

It's no coincidence that both were emailed to me today. God's cool like that...

...greater things have yet to come, greater things are still to be done in this city

...uprising

...building a city

see also:
building a city

....REVO

...city uprising