Monday, November 7, 2011

How Great Thou Art

Yesterday at church we sang the song How Great Thou Art. I don't guess I had really payed attention to the lyrics to much before. As someone who like to spend time outside in God's creation a couple of the verses really stood out to me.

Stanza 1:

O Lord my God,

When I in awesome wonder

Consider all

The world Thy Hand hath made,

I see the stars,

I hear the rolling thunder,

Thy pow'r throughout


Stanza 2:

When through the woods

And forest glades I wander

I hear the birds

Sing sweetly in the trees;

When I look down

From lofty mountain grandeur

And hear the brook

And feel the gentle breeze;

The universe displayed;

A lot of people are taking this month to post daily something that they are thankful for. While I am not going start on that now, I am very thankful for what God has created in nature.

Photobucket

If you know me then you know I like to fish. There is really nothing like being out on the lake when the sun is coming up or going down. There's nothing like seeing God's artwork. Being out there by yourself, it's almost if he painted it just for me to enjoy that morning.



Then there are the great mountains that He created. As I look at their grandeur I can only thank God for allowing us to behold His creation.



Then there's these beautiful blue oceans that we saw in Cozumel. The same God that created those created those great snow capped mountains also deep blue waters and white sands of the tropics.

May I never again be out in God's creation without thanking Him for all of his artwork. The song writer was right when he penned "How Great Thou Art"

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Keep Waiting

It's now October 4th and we are still waiting.

Just a quick update on the whole process. We spent the past 3 weekends with the kids. That includes two weekends spent with them in Houston and this past weekend when they came to our home for the first time. Things seem to being going really well. Sunday as we were taking the kids back to the airport one of them asked when they were going to get to move in with us. So yes it they are also waiting and are excited about joining our family.

We did receive a call from CPS today. As far as they are concerned, the kids can now be placed in our home. We are just waiting for the kid's therapist to give her blessing on the move. So yes we are still waiting, but hopefully not for too much longer.

When I titled this blog it made me think of this song. It doesn't really apply that much to the situation but I thought I would put it on here anyways.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Great Month

September looks like it is turning into a great month. As I posted earlier, we had the presentation staffing for the kids we are going to be adopting this week. For those of you that do not know what that is I guess I should expound on that a little. On Tuesday we went to the Arrow office for a conference call with our adoption coordinator, the kids case worker, and a couple of other people. It was just a time that we could get answers to any question that we had and make plans for the future. So we were able to set-up our first meeting with the kids this weekend as well as for the next two weekends. The kids have now been told about us and have seen the family photo book that Sandra put together. That photo book just has pictures of us and our family. So it serves as an introduction to us. Sandra talked to the foster parents last night after the kids saw our photo book and apparently the kids are a little nervous, but excited to meet us. The same could probably said for us.

As I stated earlier we have visits with the kids planned for the next 3 weekends. The first two we will be traveling down to Houston. The third visit the kids will be coming up here to spend the weekend with us. So things are really starting move fast now. If everything goes as expected the kids will be placed with us mid October.

On September 30 the movie Courageous will be coming to a theater near you. I guess I'm looking forward to this movie due to the fact that I will be a dad within a month. It really looks like a movie that all dads should see. If you don't know anything about the movie the official website is http://www.courageousthemovie.com. Here is the trailer.



Finally of less importance a couple of my favorite bands are releasing new albums this month. Needtobreathe's new ablum The Reckoning will be out next week. The new Switchfoot ablum Vice Versus is coming out the week after that.

So it's going to be a great month.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Vacation

Well today starts my vacation.  Sandra is working next week so we will not be going anywhere.  So it will just be a week of relaxing, well at least part of it.  I am cooking for the Grandparents day lunch tomorrow at church.  This will include smoking 3 pork butts that just finished up this morning and 2 briskets that I just put on.  So it will be a long day of cooking.  We have borrowed season 1 of Lost, so we will be having a Lost marathon today.   The rest of my vacation will include spending a day with my mom and Bop (my grandpa), hopefully a day of fishing with Johnny's Guide Service, and I might have to go to the driving range or play golf sometime.

We should be having our presentation staffing for the kids the first part of next week.  That's basically a conference call with all parties involved where we can ask any question that we may have.  If that goes well we are hoping that we will be heading to the Houston area on Friday to meet the kids for the first time.  So things look like they might start moving pretty fast from this point forward. 

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Hello World/The Call to Adopt

So Sandra and I have had a blog for a while but I’ve never really posted on it. She has really taken it over, which is fine because I never really had any interest in blogging. That blog can be found at http://bjandsandra.blogspot.com . So tonight I decided that I wanted a blog to call my own, somewhere that I could put my thoughts down. It might be something of spiritual significance, an update of what is going on in our lives, or just random thoughts. Who knows how often I will update this.

Sometime last year we decided that we were going to adopt. Well I’m not really sure that we decided. It was more like we felt called to adopt and decided to answer that call. It’s been a long process that had us go through a lot of training classes and a lot of waiting. As many know we have been selected to adopt a sibling group of 3. I must admit that this is a little scary and I’m a little nervous, but I have no doubt that this is where God is leading us. So the next few weeks should be interesting.

Hopefully we will be meeting the kids for the first time within the next couple of weeks. I guess that is what I’m most nervous about. We are going to be meeting these kids for the first time and they will know that soon they will become a part of our family. I know I wonder about how the kids will react to us, how quickly they will bond to us, and all that stuff. I can only imagine how the kids will feel. Their world has been turned upside down for the last couple of years. Now here is this couple that we don’t know that is going our new family. I’m sure that transition won’t be easy for them. So please keep them and us in your prayers as we go through this transition.