Hello, all.
We want to tell you how we got here. But, before we do, I want to say that we are really interested in how YOU got here.  What has been stirring in your hearts about these issues? Has it been a journey? Are you just getting used to the idea of “doing more”?  Who has inspired you and how?  If you would like to share, please post to the comments (maybe share a link to your blog if that is easier), submit a blog post for posting or post under Share Your Story in the Known to Me forum.

There was money left on my parent’s dresser where they would find it.  Someone at bible study had left just the amount we needed to purchase school pictures that week which would have been impossible without the gift.  There were grocery deliveries to others by my parents.  Sometimes we could not go along as the area wasn’t safe.  How about the little fund my grandpa set up for each of his grandkids even though he was not rich?  You know I used all few hundred dollars of it to buy my first junky car.  When my husband was 19 years old and in college he had an engineer’s load of school and had to work a lot to pay for school plus the debt he accrued during an emergency surgery.  Some would say ” Get used to real life, young man.”  Instead, a friend living a life of giving, gave him $100.00 a month during the toughest time. So, with these and too many other ‘examples of giving before us and our knowledge of what our Jesus said about giving, we committed to figuring out this life of giving ourselves.

Sometimes we’ve muddled through; sometimes we’ve heard the call.  Still always receiving more than we could ever give.  It was 6 years ago when we received our first Compassion child. As I tore open the package, I was surprised how her picture took my breath away.  There she was in all of her 6yo glory.  Her shoes were only half tied.  Her collar was folded inside her shirt the wrong way.  She reminded me of my own 6yo.  I read in her bio that she had been unable until now to attend school as she had to work with her father to collect sticks which they sold for food.  I guess she was a little different from my child after all.  There before me was her real name, her real eyes and her real situation.  It struck me how my world had been too small without her. 

“Meeting” this little girl in Ethiopia started us on a “Pray, Research, Discuss, Repeat” cycle that eventually propelled us into the far-away land of China Special Needs adoption.  Now our eyes were open to the sea of faces that are the Fatherless.  These Fatherless, our Father says, are known to Him.  For us, through the adoption of our daugthers, we have come to understand more about our own adoption as God’s sons and daughters.  Through our journeys with these children, we have also come to know much more about sacrifice, about loss, about grief,  about neglect, about rejection, about compassion,  about love.  We have found that hard things can be good.  And being in over our heads can be a good place to be.  And we have really only begun.

You have made known to me the path of life.  In your presence is fullness of joy.  Psalm 16:11.

Thanks for reading through a bit of our story.  But we really do want to hear and know more from you.  Would you share your story in the forum?

In June (2008), my sister Barbra (adoptive mom and orphan advocate) sent me a link to an adoption forum where a new list of children waiting in Ethiopia was being discussed.  I sent an e-mail requesting permission to see the children.  I don’t even remember my thought process now.  I know, though, that I was compelled to do it outside of any real thoughts about our adopting.  I mean, we had tried before and it just didn’t seem to work out for us.  I looked through the list.  Each child as beautiful and precious and worth loving forever as the next, but then a little pair came up that rocked me to my very soul.  I am not being dramatic…my thought was “there they are!”  Uhm…who is “they”?!  I assure you this was not about a pair of darling faces (though they are darling).  I had just scrolled through several listings, any of which would melt your heart.  It was about being stirred!  I showed my practical half…the one that regularly saves me from myself.  He was interested, but thoughtful and hesitant.  After all…we weren’t adopting.

Funny how things change.  As I mentioned, Jim and I were just starting to enjoy going out again and having energy left over for ourselves as our kids grew older…very, very nice.  But there was a problem…a constant and growing awareness about preventable sickness, children without protection, starvation, a world so unlike ours that it was hard to accept its reality.  Jim went to the Cornerstone Music Festival with our boys over the 4th of July weekend.  He called me from one of the seminars.  The title I remember had something to do with social justice and BIG changes needed in the area of being the hands and feet of Christ.  Jim came home with a deep desire to seek out Jesus’ views on social justice.  I had spent the last few years in fairly deep Bible Study and had a desire to know Jesus in new ways that would take me far, far from a “going-through-the-motions” style of religion.  Suddenly it was all around us.  We read Irresitible Revolution-Living as an Ordinary Radical by Shane Claiborne, Fields of the Fatherless by Tom Davis, and later Red Letters-Living a Faith that Bleeds by Tom Davis, Make Poverty Personal by Ash Barker, and Dangerous Surrender by Kay Warren.  How could we have missed what should be a central purpose in our lives?  Of course we knew it.  We knew we were supposed to love our neighbor, help the poor…whatever.  No look again…WE WERE SUPPOSED TO HELP THE POOR, LOVE THEM AS WE LOVE OURSELVES, SEE THEM AS FAMILY, GOOD GRACIOUS…SEE THEM AS OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, DO FOR THEM LIKE WE WOULD DO FOR HIM.  OK, now we were getting it.

Jim and I went out to one of our favorite date spots in Downtown Champaign.  Sometimes a girl has to have some sweet potato fries!  We were sitting at a booth at “Seven Saints” discussing what we were learning.  We had been reading about the huge number of “child headed households” in Ethiopia, Swaziland, and Uganda, as well as many other places in Africa due to the hiv/AIDS crisis.  At the same moment we were struck speechless and tearful with the picture of Zeke (our responsible oldest child) trying desperately to keep Charlie and Anna fed and safe.  He would be devastated by the weight of it.  WOW!  Kind of ruins a good meal.

This whole time I had this picture in my head and on my computer of that one little pair.  I also had this desire in my heart.  It went something like this.  “Lord, I know that I can do for the “Least of These” by giving.  I can give until it is uncomfortable.  We are set on changing our life style to do that.  We can even go and work in the “Fields of the Fatherless”.  Maybe it is selfish Lord, but I want to look into the eyes of a little one (or pair of little ones) and see you Jesus, I want to be the one to rock them to sleep, I want to zip up their little coats against the cold, and fill their tummy’s when they are hungry, I want to be there when they cry in the night, or when they grieve the loss of their first family.  I want to be the one!

Within a couple of days of our moment at “Seven Saints” my sweet, amazing, husband and I were sitting on the couch after the children were in bed and he very matter of factly said, ” I think we should adopt, but I think we should adopt just one.  A little girl around Anna’s age.”  Hot Dog!  I tried to keep my heart from bursting from my chest as I said, “Uh, do you know that you just said that we could adopt!!!”  By this time we knew we would adopt from Ethiopia.  Our hearts were drawn to its beautiful people and we would be so proud to have a connection to such a lovely culture, and the food is fantastic.  Many of you know, I am all about the food!  We looked over the financial information for one (wow… a lot, but Jim felt like he knew where it would come from…though many who start this know only that the Lord will provide.).  We settled on the agency that my little pair was with just because after talking to several they just felt right, and then we began our homestudy.  This was August.

The homestudy moved along, and I continued to think of our little pair.  I had the financial agreement for two and on the advice of everyone we had our homestudy made for two because you always should go for more just in case.  Amazingly, while I prayed about it a lot, I really felt at peace about the whole thing.  I remember distinctly driving to Walmart one day.  They were on my heart and I started formulating a plan for mentioning them to Jim.  I thought since they were still on my heart maybe we (I mean Jim) were missing something, and here’s the truth of it…maybe the Creator of the Universe needed me to get this done.  I had one of those rare moments where the Spirit speaks so directly and instantly to your spirit that you just have to laugh.  The flavor was, “If I need to communicate something to that man’s heart, don’t you think I can and will.”  It was good because I think He was laughing too.  Ten-four!  I gotcha!

By the end of September we were waiting on paper work, but were largely past the homestudy.  We were waiting on a new list of waiting kids wondering if our daughter would be on it, but it took a lot longer than we thought for it to come out.  One Sunday morning Jim told me that we needed to stay home from church so that he could have some extended prayer time.  A few days before he had asked me for the financials on two children so I kind of knew what this was about.  I also knew that the financial obligation required by our agency for the care and process of two children was a STRETCH for us.  This is not an easy thing for my very fiscally responsible, head of the household to surrender.  He came in after a few hours praying out behind the shed, surrounded by fields, and asked who we needed to contact to let them know that we wanted that little pair.  HOORAY!  There were tears, but only ones that I could see through to type because I wasn’t going to let a second pass.  I e-mailed our case worker and held my breath until she replied that she was delighted and yes, they were still available.  Oh, I knew they would be because I knew they were ours, but so nice to hear all the same.

One thing that was heavy on our minds during our consideration process was the financial aspect.  We knew that our God is our source and our provider.  We also knew that the money spent to adopt one or two children could help many.  Adoption is not the answer to the problem of extreme poverty.  Adoption is only a tiny part of the big answer, but for the chidren already in orphanages it is the only answer.  Still, we believe STRONGLY that while all followers of Jesus are called on to pour ourselves out on behalf of the widow, the orphan, and the extreme poor, we are not all called to adopt.  We wrestled with this.  If we just gave the money…we would help so many.  In our case, we felt firmly impressed that by adopting we would actually give more to the cause than if we just gave.  Not only had God placed the desire to parent these two children on our hearts, but he had planned that their little presence would stir something in others.  Also, by bringing home these little ones and them becoming part of us we are permanently tied to the others who will never come home.  We can’t forget, we can’t turn away.  It is personal now.  What if we hadn’t gone to get them?  It motivates us to continue to work toward ending the poverty and sickness that leads to the need for adoption.

For us, Known To Me is our effort to come to the aid of those kids that we believe are ours, our responsibility, but beyond our power to bring home.  I saw them, felt their hurt and need for love and family… and left them behind.  While in Africa, I saw poverty of a scope and magnitude that I was completely unprepared for.  In spite of my research and attempt at awareness, I had completely underestimated it.  I also saw the beauty of a culture that values relationships over things, generosity over greed, and kindness over selfishness.  We can also build a community here that reflects the best of the culture I saw there.  Our hope is that relationships, generosity, and kindness become hallmarks of our group.

And so, here we are…

This time, we are really ready to get started.  If you’re here at this early stage, you are probably a part of the group we’ve been baiting for some time about our plans.  I’ll try to answer the most obvious questions in this post.

What is this all about, anyway?

First and foremost, it is about building communities.  That has a dual meaning for us.  It means providing financial and emotional support for a community of orphans and child-headed households in Swaziland (read the “general information” page in the “community” link at the top of this page for details).  We will see this community transformed and “built” in very tangible ways as we help bring it from a place of desperate poverty to a place where needs are met and education is provided to pave the way to a brighter future.  It also means stretching ourselves to build relationships and personally connect to each other.  Connections and relationships that result in open sharing of fears, joys, needs, and support (read the “vision” page in the “local” link).

Our goal is nothing less than transformation of two communities in need.  One in need of basic sustenance and opportunity, another in need of connecting in an increasingly impersonal and isolated society.  Our hope is nothing less than a fundamental change in our way of thinking.  I know I need that change – a change in focus from protecting what is “mine” to a desire to love others through providing freely from what I have been blessed with.

Ok, but how are you going to do that?

Our tools for doing this include a blog in which you’ll hear many thoughts and perspectives on life in general and what it means to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Hopefully our thoughts will make you laugh, cry, think, and ultimately join us in building our “sister” communities.  You are welcome to post comments to our entries and to submit your own entries for publishing.

We will provide an avenue for providing the financial support needed to transform an entire community in Swaziland.  That support will be paired with building individual relationships with the orphans we will support through correspondence and visits (we have a goal of members of our community traveling to our Swaziland community twice a year).

We have provided (and will provide more) links to ways to support communities in need through your everyday purchases (see the “purpose shop” link).  We will also offer parties parallel to Pampered Chef parties where we will bring inventories of these items for purchase, along with good company and a discussion of our goals and our obligation to help others.

We will have book club discussion on our live chat page – the first will be Red Letters by Tom Davis.

We will develop a forum (not yet in place) for discussion and presenting local needs and opportunities to help.

The first step for you to join us is to create an account that allows you to comment on our blogs, submit blog entries, and participate in chats.  Create an account by selecting “New? Register” in the “Login” link above.  There is no obligation in registering… please do that, please contact us, comment on our posts, let us know what you’re thinking.

The posts that will follow will answer the questions of who we are and what compelled us to pull this together.  We’ll then move into some of the “real” stuff, with posts from a recent trip to Uganda that should parallel the trip to Swaziland we will participate in later this month.

We don’t expect you to agree with everything you read here.  These topics are not easy, don’t have simple answers, and we won’t make any pretense of having all the right answers.  We crave your input, especially your dissent.  Struggling through difficult issues together is how we grow.  Please stick with us, grow with us.  As I said before… I hope and pray that our journey is anything but safe and comfortable.

While not much is happening on this site, there is much happening behind the scenes.  We have arranged travel in the near-term to Africa with Children’s Hopechest to visit some of their developed communities and others that currently receive no assistance whatsoever and need a resource community.  We expect that one of these will become the orphan community with which we connect.  We will thus have experienced first-hand the need, and over the coming years, will be able to see and share in the transformation of an entire community.  We plan to begin regular posts and conversation sometime in the first half of October, and will have scattered updates prior to that time.

Stick with us… we will tell the story soon of how all this has come together.  It has been an amazing ride already as we see this taking shape.  In the interim, please read more about our background and perspectives and feel free to contact us with questions.  As I said earlier, you are welcome.

Welcome… really. That’s not just a pleasant way to say hello. I am glad you’ve visited. If you’re here, you’re either interested in who we are, or what we’re doing. You can learn more about us and our motivations in the “about” section at the left of the menu above. If those aren’t consistent with your motivations, that’s fine - you’re still welcome. There is no pressure here to fit into any specific categories. What we will be doing is changing the lives of orphans and hungry families around the world. We’ll also be changing lives here, including our own. After our trip to Ethiopia to bring home our two children who started their lives there, we understand the quote: “we need Africa as much as Africa needs us”.

Despite the crushing poverty we saw, despite the devastation of a lack of work, food, medicine, and shelter - we saw people who thought first of helping us. People who cared more about people and relationships than schedules, money, or possessions. We saw a culture that valued things of real value. We saw the contrast with the stress, tension, animosity, and unhappiness that is pervasive in our society where we have more than enough. We need them as much as they need us.

The key concept in that statement is that we can all benefit from the relationships that will be built. We can support orphans in the ways they need us. We can grow in ways that will help us find the contentment that is so elusive in our society. It will be a journey and an adventure here. This is just a start, and there is much more to come. We will identify a community in Africa we will connect with sometime in October. We’ll also begin to identify local needs and opportunities in the coming months - because we believe the concept of loving others as ourselves does not only obligate us to orphans overseas, but should also be the core of our everyday lives.  In the interim, we will share our adoption experiences, and our perspectives on our obligations to others and why we believe what we do. You are truly welcome… we greatly desire the contribution you can make to our growth, whatever form that contribution may take. We know we don’t have all the answers, and we welcome dissenting perspectives since we believe challenges to our way of thinking help us grow. I hope and pray that our journey is anything but safe and comfortable. You are welcome. Join us.