Convition

So I started this blog thing to keep grandparents up to date and keep a running record of my girls daily life. I stuble upon old, new, lost, and dear friends who are blogging as well. Funny enough three of them (all from very different times in my life who did not know eachother at those times) are friends with eachother and are all adopting from Africa. I had the privilage of going to Africa (Ethipia) when I was 25 years of age. I went with my dad and we visited with a friend my dad had in college. We were able to travel down country and experience, observe, and serve, different people who were there. I even at one point was asked to preach (if anyone knows me they know this was a stretch). The experiences I had were amazing, hard to put into words, and have stayed with me all these years. Since then I have gotten busy with marriage, having premie babies, and working at my job with people with disabilities. I have been "busy" but have thought many times "why did I go?", "what should I do?". However, in reality, I have "DONE" nothing. So now I am confronted with these old, new, lost, and dear friends who are "doing" something. I pray for them as they follow this journey of adopting over seas. I find myself having mixed feelings .... is adoption what needs to happen?.......is it better for me to send money? adopt a family? adopt a classroom? Will the kids who are being adopted to the US have a passion for their country and impact their homeland when they are older? What about the kids and families who are together and stuggling everyday for food and water? One vivid memory is going across a bridge and looking at the river. I took a picture. At the top of the river people are watering thier cows, down river people are bathing, down river more people are washing thier clothing, and at the end of the river people are collecting the dirty water from that river. That image has stayed with me all these years, it was a "defining" moment. I find myself stuggling with my kids birthdays. Both my daughters were born as micro premies with tremendous struggles. Birthdays are so important in celebrating thier life and all the struggles we went through as a family. However, as we celebrate birthdays I am stuggling with all the "things" we have but how much other do not. This video was on a friends site. I watched it and then had my hubby watch it...."what do we do with the knowlege and wealth that we have?"