Just two months ago I told a friend this summer was either going to give the ministry new life, or it was going to kill it off for good. And the same thing could be said for me. It was time to take a risk. The big kind of risk, where you’re not sure you’re going to make it to …
Let Them Love You
Today is my anniversary. Yesterday my father died. Next week, a total of five of us will gather to celebrate the life of the most important man I’ve ever known. And any day now, my sister will bring her first child into the world; eclipsed by piercing family loss. Yesterday was my sister’s birthday, a few days before was my …
First of its Kind
People ask me all the time how I possibly travel the way I do, run a ministry, and care for my three young children. The answer lies in a beautiful and finely orchestrated dance my husband and I have committed to doing together. We purposefully don’t have a nanny or outside help because we know when God calls a family …
Hope for the Journey
You have to see this to understand it. And when you see it, only through prayer and surrender to God, can you attempt to not be overwhelmed or even paralyzed by the need. And even then, it takes the wisdom, experience, and sometimes research to really grasp the complexities and the truly devastating effects of poverty, disease, hunger and thirst. …
Blessings in the Bruises
This fall, in Moldova, I sat back and watched God work brilliantly through my friends during Sweet Sleep’s adoptive parent training conference. Social workers, special ed teachers, a photographer, ministry partners, and staff all worked to provide their expertise, and they had wise things to say. As the ceremony concluded, they asked that the president speak. I was quite certain …
Happy 2015
I’m quite positive the year 2014 is one for the books. And as I reflect on the days and months that have passed this year, the words “thank you” hold a place of purity and beauty in my heart that I want to share with so many of you; because YOU have journeyed through this remarkable year with me. And …
Let Them Be One, As We Are One
I sat today across the table from American and German men who have never met each other, and share nothing but broken Russian and a passion for marginalized children of Moldova. As the man from Germany spoke of his conviction that now is the time to build family homes for orphan care I watched the other, a friend I had met …
Poison
Today, I heard too many times about parents who wanted to, or attempted to, poison their children. These are parents who so desperately cannot afford to care for their children that they see ending the child’s life swiftly as the only solution.
Pictured are Stephen and Peter – brothers who are 7 and 8 years old. They come from a family of 8 children and their mother could not care for them. Josephine initially found the boys picking through public trash containers, hoping to find scraps of food to eat. Unable to feed Stephen and Peter, their mother tried to…