Processing. . .researching. . .discernment and more

I feel the need to blog. . .mostly just to process. . .I love what Pastor Jon says about "Living in the Tension" but I hate living in the tension! Why? Because I like things black and white. Either GOOD or BAD. . .I hate the middle of the road. . I hate trying to constantly figure things out. I like things nice and tidy and that just isn't how the world is! That's not what parenting is like, that's not what marriage is like, that's not what relationships are like and that surely isn't what ministry is like! So, that's why I desperately need my Jesus! I need Him to speak to my heart exactly what I'm called to. . .before I go there though, I'll tell you one more thing I don't like!

I DON'T LIKE RESEARCH! It seems that's all I've done lately. I have a number of organizations that I've been looking into. However, I'm a visionary. I want to get passionate about a project and run with it. I don't like to hear about a project and try to get in depth with that organization and try to figure out if they are corrupt or not! I've been emailing back and forth with this one lady (head of an organization) Man, she is answering every question I ask. . but, I don't like it still! For one, I THRIVE on relationship! This type of my ask a specific question. . basically drilling them like they are a bunch of possible crooks / criminals and they answer does not form relationship! In fact, I so realized this while I was typing that I clicked over to my email and emailed her asking personal questions! ha ha! The truth is, to really be able to recommend an organization and DO my research, I have to do it with a bit of a cynical eye which is not my cup of tea. I want to just believe what everyone tells me. . .I know that's not realistic and I've certainly learned that the hard way, but I don't like it. It hurts my heart truthfully. . .

Ok, enough complaining! I told you that I process while writing! The truth is that I know I want to get "out of a situation what God planned" not just "get through it"! So, what I'm realizing is that that good part of research is that is slows me down. Now, I am not a super patient person. I want to decide and then hit the ground RUNNING! However, the necessity to research has made me take things very slowly. The other part of that is that I have the time to truly stop and ask the Lord, "Are you calling me to this?" I want to be in the CENTER of God's will. . not just doing "good" things, but doing what God has laid out for me to do. So, you can pray that I seek God and He speaks loud and clear. AND, that He confirms what He says over and over so that I know without a shadow of a doubt.

He's already started to do that in one little way. . call this my "aha moment in Scripture" like Missy talks about. I was reading in Galatians (thanks Jamie Z). In Galatians 2, Paul finally goes before the Apostles. Sure they disagree on how to "do" Christianity in a lot of ways. Especially since Paul's calling is to the Gentiles. Here's the coolest line, vs. 9-10 ". . .(they) gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they pronounced the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews. ALL THEY ASKED WAS THAT WE SHOULD CONTINUE TO REMEMBER THE POOR, THE VERY THING THAT I WAS EAGER TO DO." Ok, that may not seem huge to you.. . .but, it was to me. They disagreed about a lot, but the foundations of these churches were 2 things, JESUS and the POOR!

God used that to confirm in me that these plans "for the poor" were of His Heart. . .of course, He followed that right up with scriptures on works vs. faith. He talks about "faith without works is dead" and "we are saved through faith". . .now, I know this is an age old debate, but it's one that I truly struggle with b/c I'm the "good girl". . .I look good on the outside and "do" good things, which means I constantly need to be examining my heart. Here's my prayer now, "I want the works. . .the wells for Liberians, the birth kits for Ugandans and whatever else the Lord may lay on my heart to be an outpouring of my faith! I want my works to be revelatory of my faith. "That they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven". . .

So. . . .I know that God is using this time in my life. Time to be slow and research, time to speak and to prepare my heart for any work He has laid out. Pastor Jon also always says, "the process is just as important as the product" No matter what plan God has for me, the process of changing my heart to be more like His is WAY more important! Continue to pray that I be changed and use this time wisely. Not moving any faster than the Lord.

Also. . on a little bit of a side note, but totally intertwined and definitely enough to be a whole post in and of itself. . .pray for my ministry at church. I have lost my childcare, so I am no longer spending a whole day working there. I am still in charge of small groups and events, but feel like I'm slacking on the job. I know God is changing my life right now and how He is directing my time, but I want to do this well. I feel on one hand that I should just find someone to give it over to who could really do it well. . .feel that I'm letting down our church or pastor b/c we aren't moving forward in these areas and at the very same time and wondering if God wants me to just keep plugging along. We can "stay afloat" in these areas with me working at home. . .if I'm diligent with my nap and evening time. I just want to know what's God's best so I don't feel like I'm cheating anyone. . .does that make sense? I've kind of poured my heart out here. . so please don't go telling Jon that I'm quitting or something. . .just trying to figure out how it all works together in sync! I just need super clear direction from our Lord! I'm SO glad that I get to go to the God who created the universe for advice!

Characters!

*Note* These next 3 posts are really all one. . .I've noticed that lots of people put their pics up each as a separate post. . .I like this, b/c sometimes when the blog is so long. . I don't know what to comment on at the end (Jamie Z=). . .so, not every pic is it's own, but I did 3 separate sections!

On Thursday night, we were invited to a dinner out at Epcot for my dad's company. It was a blast. To give you some background, my children watch, "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" every day! They LOVE it! However, in person, Davis HATES the characters (hence the reason he's not in any but this one!). I have to imagine that it's a little far fetched for a little Liberian! He must think, "well, we've got REALLY big lizards there, but I have NEVER seen a rat that large!" ha ha! Gracie, on the other hand is at the age where most kids are scared of the characters. Not Gracie! She ran up to Mickey at this party and hugged him and took pictures for 20 min! There are other cute pics that their photographer took, I'm sure. . .but, I haven't done the work to go find them yet!

As a part of this weekend, the company gave all the employees 2 2-day park hopper passes. My dad gave me his and scored another one too! So, while since Greg had gotten his wisdom teeth out (see Glogging on Heavy Meds) I decided to take the kids to Animal Kingdom all day Saturday. Since I was going alone, I decided to invite along on of the famous "Nee Girls". Ruth was gracious enough to spend the day with us and help me too! We had a blast. . even though, it rained most of the day! The kids stayed positive and we just didn't worry about our hair or clothes or the fact that we were soaked! It ended up being a lot of fun. We met up with some other CNL people and hung out with them for a while. With that many adults, we even did the roller coasters and big kid rides too!
The kids with Timon (from the Lion King)
And, of course, Rafiki (also from the Lion King)
Lilo and Stitch. . .not my favorite, but they were characters!
Watching, "The Festival of the Lion King" my favorite show on Disney property!
With Goofy and Pluto. . .2 of my kids' favorites!

Sharing Ice Cream

Cassie, don't look at these pictures! You won't like what you see! Thankfully, I had a clean change of clothes and washed them all up, switched outfits and on we were! All of the adults, but me went on "Mount Everest" the roller coaster, so I watched my 3 and 2 others. . .what to do with 5 kids while just sitting around waiting? eat ice cream of course! And, Brayden had just taken a nasty fall which we always compensate for with ice cream!!

The Safari

Brayden actually took this picture! It turned out ok. . .way better than the others which were, "I'm taking a picture of your booty" oh my!
Our favorite thing at Animal Kingdom is the SAFARI!!! There are wild animals left to roam free! I swear I like this just as much as the kiddos! Unfortunately, Gracie fell asleep just before we got on. . . .poor thing, missing it all. However, Miss Ruth was thrilled to have Gracie snuggle in!
The boys sat with Aunt Monica and Uncle Brac. . .I'll have to tell you our funny story of Gracie and her "momica" later. . .she's such a hoot! They LOVE Momica and Bwac and are SO happy to have them live here and dote on them!
Ok. . .no joke. . this is without a zoom!! We drove right past him standing on the side of the trail!
It is so rare to see the lions here b/c they sleep 18 hours a day! This was the best safari b/c both lions were awake. I wasn't quick enough to get the lioness and totally missed the front of this lion. He walked right over and looked at us!

Nyenna and Titus

Today is a PRAISE THE LORD kind of day!!! Check out these beautiful children. They are Nyenna and Titus Lorenzen. My friend Laurie went to Liberia last year and adopted their cousin, Kojo. Upon learning how close Kojo and his cousins were, they embarked on a LONG journey to adopt these sweeties as well! This has been a long journey FULL of ups and downs. I have been so blessed to follow along Laurie's blog (expect it to be a bit slow for a while, but bookmark it to go back to or go back and read the last year . .whoa!) through this journey. No matter what was handed to her, they responded with grace and trust in our Lord Jesus! These two have an amazing family to come home too and I'm just praising the Lord that they'll be home soon! You can join in praying for a smooth transition to home, family and America!

Glogging on HEAVY Meds

*Note: This was written on Friday night on HEAVY meds! Yes, he is just this sarcastic and no, I'm not offended!

Today was a hellish day. As a thirty year old man I did something today that most of you did when you were in high school or college...I had my wisdom teeth removed. . AND, they were all impacted! I will share with you that I have been putting this off for over ten years. I have had several dentists tell me that they need to be removed, but I believe dentists are glorified salesmen. Dentists are in business to do more oral procedures so I truly believe that they try to upsell us, the unwitting consumer, and therefore I never moved on it. Besides the fact that I thought I was being scammed, I had no other real reason for the delay, other than I guess, I don't like pain. But two weeks ago when I was eating a wonderful sandwhich from TooJays (the triple j) I felt a shooting pain in the back of the right side of my mouth. To my dismay I quickly realized that not only had my impacted wisdom tooth finally broken through, but there was a significant crack down the middle of it. So at seven am this morning my mommy (yes that's right I said mommy, I think its allowed when you are in pain or having surgery to revert to a childlike state), took me to the oral surgeon. (Note: he is talking about his actual mother. We both think it's a bit creepy to refer to your spouse as mommy or daddy!) Two hours later I left the Dr's office with lips like Julia Roberts and cheeks like a chipmunk. So here I am on a wonderful pain medicine called darvaset, glogging for you my wonderful and caring fan base. (Please feel free to send gifts, cards and well wishes to my personal assistant Brandi at brandim@westwoodchurch.com).
So many things have happened since I last mused, Brandi had a birthday, Jon and Renae came to town, I had my wisdom teeth out and most important Dumptruck got his anal glands cleaned. (If you have a dog that needs to have this done you know what I mean).
The focus of this heavily medicated glog will be a tribute to my wife:
Brandi is a wonderful wife, fantastic mother, and one hot piece of tail but having said that I would like to focus on the things that she is not. (I am going to blame the drugs for this section, I am not sure why I would proceed with this undertaking, but oh well).
-She is not a fantastic cook...my wife was born with a cell phone in her hand and the best use that I can see for this phone is to order us some dinner.
-She is not a vocalist, please understand that when she sings it is passionate and heartfelt worship of our Lord and Savior but it is a good thing that God judges the heart and not the sound because she would be in trouble.
-She is not a great driver, she most likely is an excellent driver, however as I previously mentioned she was born with a cell phone in her had and thus she is a distracted driver. Please note that I am not exaggerating with regard to her affinity for cell phones. Brandi averages 3000+ minutes per month which does not include the time that she spends on our home phone or time spent communicating via email and blogs. (How does anyone have that much to say?)
Having written the first three I have come to realize that many of you might be thinking that this sounds mean...well sometimes the truth hurts. No really the things that I have mentioned above are ongoing jokes that Brandi and I share they are not meant to be mean spirited rather as some of you may have come to realize as you have read my previous glogs...sarcastic.
My wife is a wonderful person full of grace and joy. Brandi is a fantastic wife and mother, a great friend and a terrific help mate. I married way, way up even though she is 5'2" and I am 6'5".
I wanted to share some additional thoughts with you that I have been pondering since my last glog:
1. When am I going to start my own personal glog? The answer is very soon. I would like to take this opportunity to request that you my faithful gloggies submit your ideas for a title to my glog. Please post the potential monikers as comments. I am eager to get started but I need your input. I am likely to disregard all of the suggestions but perhaps you might make the cut.
2. In addition to title suggestions I want to hear from you, give me some topics that you would like me to inform you on. Please understand that I am willing to research and sling ink on virtually all topics but let me warn you in advance of a few that I refuse to tackle:
-Inhumane treatment of iguanas in Ecuador
-Mononucleosis
-The effect of disinfectant on strands of Influenza A virus subtype H5N1
-Campaign finance reform
-Chicken and Dumplings
Thank you for your faithful readership keep checking back and soon and very soon there will be a glog site
And so as always, in conclusion a preface:
There is nothing worth doing that doesn't require some forethought...
Most likely,
Greg

Raising Money for Acres of Hope?

Many of you have been reading this blog since it began. Others of you have followed our journey from the time we left for Africa and may have wondered why we felt the need to travel. It is because of this that we feel the NEED to correct a few things. If you read back through my old posts, you will notice that I was Acres of Hope's biggest fan. I raved about the agency we had chosen and wrote lists about how it was the best agency ever. I also spoke a LOT of their humanitarian work. In fact, this was the reason we choose Acres. I published over and over what we had been told about their work in Liberia. This is even why I started, "Fasting for Feeding" to raise money for their feeding program which read on the website, "we are presently feeding 8,000 children each day".

It is because of my, oh so public accolades that I feel corrections are in order. Over the last few months, we have learned many things that have caused us great concern. Unfortunatly, we have unknowingly misled you. Many (not all) of the things that I have posted here re: our agency and its relief work in Liberia were not true. For this I am very sorry. I especially apologize to those of you who have been sacrificially saving your hard earned money to send to Africa. We appreciate your heart so much and are dilligently looking for an organization that we can place our trust (and money!) in. We will let you know as we learn.

Notes to the reader: First of all, I must state that we are NOT disgruntled adoptive parents. In fact, our adoption went great. It was fast, we got TONS of pics (thank you Donna!) and our son is Amazing! We were, as I stated before, Acres biggest fans. . until we began to do some in-depth research. Second, for those grammar fanatics out there: I am going to drive you crazy! Throughout this post, I will use the terms we and I kind of interchangably! I know this is bad grammar. . .however, WE learned things because of emails I sent. Therefore, I think it's a bit misleading to say "we talked on the phone" when "I" was the one doing it! So, just try your hardest not to be annoyed! Ok. on to more important topics!

The MAJOR issue that I need to clear up, is in regards to the feeding program. We first heard of the feeding program through Acres website, the one that their office voicemail told us to check for all the info we needed. The website claimed (and I often repeated) that they "were presently feeding 8,000 children per day" through their feeding programs. This is the main reason we chose Acres (see my very first blog). A couple of months ago, though, we began to hear from others that there was no feeding program. This shocked us, to say the least! I doubted that it could be true. I had not only read it on the website, but had spoken to the founder of Acres about it. I told her this was something we were passionate about and told her we were raising money for this program. We even talked multiple times about me wanting very much to tour this feeding program when I got to Liberia. I even received an update on the program from the founder that seemed to indicate that everything was going as planned.* We often directed people to the website to see this very fact and spoke of it often (most of my friends here were tired of hearing about it!). Note: this information was on the "Acres Projects" page from 2005 until being removed in December of 2007. It was located in the section entitled, "Project Grow" and had a DONATE NOW button right below it. Upon hearing this disturbing information, we did not take one person's opinion on this, but emailed again asking for references within the organization they were working with and how this relationship worked. We never received a response with answers to those questions and were confused that the bare bones budget we had been emailed made no reference to this. We realized that feeding 8,000 children is a HUGE thing. This would require a fulltime staff member to oversee and deliver. Most of the schools or even orphanages that would take the food do not have adequate (or safe) housing for it, so it would have to be delivered often! I asked, via email, what staff member was in charge of this as well. . and never got a response other than the founder re-emailing me her proposal for me to raise funds for a future project. So, at the same time, we began to ask others, families that had travelled before us. We called at least 3 other families who had travelled to Liberia in the last year and had stayed for 3 weeks or longer and were involved in the work there while in Liberia. All answered that they had never seen a feeding program and didn't think it existed. I emailed a number of former staff, including the former adoption coordinator and former orphanage director who both said that there was not currently a feeding program. We even went as far as to ask Eric, the Country Director, upon entering Liberia. Present at that meeting, were also Buster and Daikou (other Acres employees). "No, there is no feeding program," they answered. Upon emailing Acres re: this issue the response was that, "Unfortunately, there was some outdated information on the website. Earlier this spring I asked my office staff at the time to have that information changed (to what it is now). I apologize for notfollowing up to see that that was done. I realize now that some of you felt misled by that. I was deeply disturbed to learn that this was not done and never intended for anyone to be deceived. In fact, I did what I thought was necessary to avoid that very thing."*** We were also told that there used to be a feeding program of that magnitude, but the food ran out. I will say, that I understand outdated websites. However, this information was first posted on the website in 2005 and has been "outdated" since it's inception. I, personally, do not believe that they ever fed 8,000 children per day for ANY length of time. This is also the website that WAS updated to reflect price increases while the "misinformation" remained. After reading that it was "outdated information", I called the organization that was supplying the food to see how much food had actually been delivered. This was the organization that the founder had mentioned in my "update"*. Kids Against Hunger, a ministry of Feeding Children International told me (via phone while checking their records) that in:

• 2005, Acres of Hope Liberia was sent 489,960 meals. Their records did not indicate exact dates or number of shipments, just total meals
  This would feed 8,000 children ONE meal per day for 61 days
• 2006, Acres of Hope Liberia was sent 142,560 Meals. This shipment was on Jan. 7th
  This would feed 8,000 children ONE meal per day for 17 days
• 2007, Acres of Hope Liberia was sent 285,120 meals. This shipment was on August 6th.
  This would feed 8,000 children ONE meal per day for 35 days
  

Also, in an email from Kids Against Hunger, they told me that Patty (the founder) had said that the food would be used for the kids in the orphanage and then some in surrounding areas.** The Acres staff in Liberia confirmed this saying that they tried to give the food to the kids at the orphanage, but those kids did not like it. Now, they are giving it out to various orphanages around town when shipments come. This disturbed us (especially Greg) even more because we paid $1,200 (current families pay $1,500 - $2,000) for an "orphan fee" which would cover our child's needs. Kids Against Hunger usually asks the various organizations to cover their expenses by paying at least for the food, but ended up donating all of the food they have sent because they were told that there was no money for this. Unless there is a mystery organization that has been supplying food that the organization is refusing to tell me about (I say refusing because of the number of times I have asked in the past. . also, I sent an email mentioning these very facts (minus the information from the past 3 years b/c I just got that today) and asked for them to please respond with any proof to the contrary and received none).

There were other aspects of their humanitarian work that caused us concern, but because I was so outspoken about the feeding program and you were so graciously and sacrificially saving your money for this program, I felt this was the only one I needed to truly expound upon. . .Needless to say again, the feeding program doesn't exist and I am so sorry that I ever advertised it as such. I promise that we WILL find one that does and will continue "Fasting for Feeding"!

All of this really threw us for a loop! We wondereed where that left us as far as Liberia is concerned. However, we do have a passion for raising money and awareness for Liberia. Now, though, we feel the need to VERY carefully check out every organization. This is so hard when the bulk of their work and staff exist in Liberia. . .you know it's not an easy place to just jet on over to! So, here are a few areas that we will be looking for and questioning the new organiztions in. . .please feel free to add some good questions!

#1: Their Mission / Vision: This is an easy one. It's pretty easy to check. This is one of the reasons we loved Acres in the beginning. The stated mission and vision were awesome and we were excited about working towards that end. I also think, personally, that I felt relieved to be able to find an organization that "did it all". Now, I think that finding good organizations that specialize in each area is a great thing and that the very pursuit of these organizations is a wonderful thing in and of itself because it forces us to do more than just write a check!

# 2: Their Fiscal Responsiblity and Grasp of its Importance: We are still trying to figure out the exact questions to ask here. . .If you have any suggestions, we would love to hear them. We know now that we should ask for their tax info filed as their 501(c)3. We will also ask lots of questions on procedures and talk to multiple people to find out if these procedures are followed. We know there are a few websites here in the states that rate non-profits, but think this is harder when you are working with a non-profit here which is funding an NGO (non-governmental organization) there. After starting "Fasting for Feeding", as many of you know, we began to discuss raising more money for Acres and their expansion projects. In our initial conversation with the founder of Acres about fundraising for their expansion projects, she pretty easily threw around numbers. Asking us to raise more money than the project demanded (we had a number figured and she suggested raising $500,000 - 1 million more than that). This is the first thing that concerned us. However, as we began to put things together for fundraising, we had to get much more specific. We began to ask for more specific information with which to persuade our donors that the organization was one of integrity and honor and that they were fiscally responsible and transparent. To raise funds for a project, one of the first things that needs to happen is proving what the organization has done in the past. This goes along with the Biblical concept of being faithful in little so that you may be entrusted much. So, I emailed and talked to her asking for financial documents that would prove fiscal responsibility. After many emails, we finally received a bare bones budget. This budget concerned us as it did not come close to accounting for the actual number that the organization had to have dealt with based on the numbers of adoptive families that we had discussed and made no mention of the funds in savings Ishe had told us that there was $800,000 in the bank) or the funds being spent on humanitarian work.

#3: The Board of Directors: For non-profits especially, the Board of Directors is an important aspect of an organization. You see, we are HUGE believers in accountability. We believe that our hearts are deceitful (Jer. 17:9) and we can be easily led astray without even really realizing it and must have great accountability in place. This is even more important in positions of leadership! Therefore, we will ask lots of questions about who is on the board and how they got that position. As well as asking about the various relationships among board members. Unfortunately, we later found out that the Acres board is made up of the founder (naturally), her husband, her nanny, her carpenter and one lawyer. Obviously, even if the husband, nanny and carpenter have amazing credentials, they are not in a position of unbiased ability to hold the organization accountable. This would have caused us great concern from the very beginning had I thought to ask this question.

#4: How Money is Raised: Many organizations have different projects that raise money for the same thing. This is great, however, they must be very careful to not be rasing double money. . .basically, double dipping. Does that make sense? For instance, we pay an orphan fee to Acres for the support of the child we adopt and are told that the remaining money goes to cover the cost of kids who won't be adopted or will remain in the orphanage for an extended period. We think this is great and had no problem paying it. However, the website also advertises "orphanage sponsorship" in the form of "$25 a month to provide food, clothing and medical care for one of our precious angels". So, which of these is the way that the orphans are cared for?

#5: Well planned out Vision and/or Plans for the Future: We LOVE to see vision. However, there must be "feet" put to these visions. Planned out budgets including staffing, building, and other costs associated. Grant propsals even with benchmarks to be reached and qualitative goals. Also, this vision / plan must be laid out in advance with a reputation of sticking to what they propose and actually seeing it through. For instance, the proposal we were given that 3 million dollars needed to be raised f included 2 compounds 1 for missionary housing that would be rented out and 1 for an orphanage, school, medical center and elderly center****. However, a few short months later 2 adoptive families were given a tour of the facilities in process and were given a different explanation (Click HERE for their story). Then, a couple of weeks after that, the founder sent out an email saying explaining the building project now.***** This was now proposed as just 1 building and not the 2 that were shown to the visiting families OR the plans that we were to raise money for. I don't know if the plans changed 3 times over the last 6 months or what happened. . However, in the future, we will look for well thought out and proposed plans that the organization will see to fruition.

#6: Money well-spent: This will mean many things in different organizations. First, money is tracked specifically. For instance, if an organization allows you to donate to specific causes, they should have procedures outlining how that money is followed. Also, and this is a no-brainer. . making sure that money is not wasted. This is that same as it would be for a local church not wanting to see the pastor drive around in a gold rolls royce (sound familiar?!). The last point in this area may be a bit contested by others. . but, hey, these are our guidelines for projects we'll get involved in! This one involves paid in-country employees. First, let me say that we totally understand that people "in the ministry" don't make great money. We are not asking for that. However, we do think it is wrong to just pay someone what they'll work for, if that amount will not feed their family or provide for their needs. Now, if the ministry has no money and is asking people to sacrificially serve, knowing they cannot pay what that person is worth or deserves, that is another matter all together. You see, this is one of the most disheartening things that we saw in Liberia. Acres is not one of those organizations that has no money. In fact, the founder herself told me earlier this year that they had $800,000 in the bank and would have close to a million by the end of the year. I have since been told by another staff member that the number has shrunken a bit instead of grown, but is still well over $500,000. In fact, while we were there we rode in their brand new $40,000 LandRovers. They had just picked up 3 brand new LandRovers with leather interior and cd players which brought the total of working vehicles to 6! They have less than 20 employees (way less, but I'm overestimating!) who would need them. All of this, when their nannies that watch the kids at the orphanage make less than $0.50 an hour. These same nannies are literally living on garbage dumps (I was going to have you click here to see pics of one of their homes, but the lady who posted them felt her blog needed to "go private"). The highest paid staff member is the only one who can afford to live in a place with power (a generator) and running water and he lives at the offices! One of the guys offered to make us dinner one night which is an offer we excitedly took him up on! Little did I realize that this same employee (one of the top 3 guys) had to walk for water and cook this dinner over an open fire. I personally think it is slap in a man's face to pay him $2 an hour and have him drive around town in a brand new $40,000 vehicle. (note: we do believe that these types of vehicles are needed for the roads there, but this is excess). We know that Liberia does not have a competitive job market right now and people WILL work for mere pennies and be glad for the job that they have. That does NOT make it right! These people should be able to at least support their families while working full time for this organization.

#7: More to come: Yep, I'm sure that I will be adding to this list of guidelines as we go. We are in no way saying that this is a comprehensive list and are actively looking for how it can be improved and exactly what questions to ask! Personally, I hope to not have to learn the hard way again, but I'm sure I will in some capacity. Sometimes, when you are being deceived there is not much you can do about it. . .At some point, I'll have to let go and proceed with specific organizations. But, I want to have done my research too!

I think this whole situation has actually caused me to have a hard time trusting organizations. I think there will be a definite "living in the tension" (as my pastor so eloquently puts it!) of researching like crazy and haviing good guidelines laid out and then following my heart as well. If an organization can prove themselves by these standards, at some point, I'm going to have to trust them a bit. I think this may be hard for me for a while. Part of me felt really dumb when I learned all of this. I so wish that I had put this list in place before now. . I wish I known what questions to ask. I feel a bit like an idiot for touting so loudly programs that never existed. And yet, I know that the Lord is in control. He used those times in my life to stir up an excitement for reaching people for His Kingdom through meeting their needs. He used even those lies to cause me to research even more the plight of the people of Liberia. I pray that I will continue to be refined through this process. I'm now looking forward to the journey of researching different organizations. I can't wait to uncover every organization I can find that is working in Liberia. I'm also excited about just praying about where God is calling us to be involved. The need is great and harvest is ready. . now we just have to figure out exactly what our job is in the harvesting process! Please stay tuned as I'll share as I learn. . .though, you know that now if you've been reading for any length of time!

For those of you who may be offended by this post: Please know that I share with a hesitant and hurting heart. I hurt knowing that any of this has gone on. I am hesitant b/c I hate when people are upset with me, which I'm sure some will be. I'll admit to you now that I am not perfect. If I have worded things too harshly or didn't make sense in some area, I apologize. Please feel free to read the files I have posted on the Left hand side of my blog. . then, begin your own research. With any organization, I think it's important to know #1 what you value in an organization, #2 What's really going on. Just like you'd use a consumer's digest. . .call up the consumers! Don't take just one person's word, but do your own research.

PS: Check back early next week, because I think I may have already found some projects that I'm ready to support!

Brandi and Greg
NOTE: the Astericks (*) are used to indicate files uploaded. Please see the LEFT column for a listing of these documents
* indicates PROJECT UPDATE received from Patty, Acres Founder
** Indicates email from Kids Against Hunger
***Patty's Response Letter
****Village Proposal
*****Patty's Building Propsal Revised

Photo Booth Fun

These were taken at my sister's wedding. Yep, she had a photobooth!! How fun is that? I have been obsessed with photo booth pics for as long as I can remember. I basically want to do it, every time I pass one! The top ones are me, my sister in law (and famous aunt) Laura and Brayden and the bottom ones are me and the kiddos!

The Chocolate Ball. . .Finally!

Yes, I know it has been a WHOLE week since I last posted! I told you it would be a crazy week getting ready for our Chocolate Ball . What I didn't count on was getting sick too! Tuesday morning, I spent 3 hours in the doctors office with 3 children (aagh!) to find out that all the 3 kids and myself have bronchitis! This just added to the craziness that was our week. Basically, if I wasn't running around like a chicken with its head cut off, I was sleeping on the couch. I went 2 nights with pretty much NO sleep (between coughing my head off and the 2 boys waking up 6 times!). However, it all worked out in the end!

We ended up with exactly 75 couples in attendance! Yeah!! Praise the Lord. I have given Him the name, 'the God who brings them" and He always does! The cool thing is that I think it totally fulfilled its purpose too. The purpose of our smaller connection events, like the dance, is to connect people in the Body who may not have growing relationships with one another. This is a non-threatening way to form relationships and memories. It was so cool to watch almost half of our "dancers" being fairly new to Westwood and not otherwise connected in our Body! That was very exciting. All in all, I think it was a success.

Personally speaking, it wasn't my best day. I haven't really been "on my game" so to speak. I didn't spend enough time on the program and wish I had spent more time there (planning to intermix some "fun" music). I also didn't involve my team as much and didn't plan enough for clean up. I had hired some youth to help and thought I'd have 5, so I didn't really recruit for clean up. I figured we'd have 5 youth and some of my team would naturally stay. Well, only 2 youth showed up to help and since I hadn't really asked, none of the team stayed. This left me a bit stressed thinking I would be cleaning by myself! Thankfully, my friend Hannah (who took these pics. . thanks Hannah!) stayed as well as 2 other couples (1 of which was just a visitor) and one other lady. We were there till 1 am, but got it thoroughly cleaned up and set up for Saturday night service. For our next event, I will plan better and make sure to involve my team more! Everything is better when done together! So, here are a few pics!


This is Amber, Carrie and I. I did NOT look so cute! I ran home and had 10 min to shower and change before running back up to the church (it was a 16 hour day!). . . .so, give me a break a bit! I tried on my sister's bridesmaid dress that morning to wear and it fit perfectly. So, after running home and showering, I threw it on. . .well, it didn't fit now! aagh! Of course, I burst into tears (I hadn't been sleeping well, was sick and pretty overwhelmed with the amnt of work left to do in the next hour!) I ended up wearing a cute dress my trendy sister had bought me. However, it's one of those very popular styles that happens to look maternityish at times. I had 4 people ask me if I was pregnant! Not fun!! oh well, at least everyone else looked cute and had fun! on a side note: I started working out this morning! yeah! Time to lose those adoption pounds!This is the foyer, that was transformed into a black hallway with red carpet leading up to it and velvet ropes. (Monica's idea! Way to go!)
This is what we settled on for centerpieces for 3 of the tables! They turned out ADORABLE!
We had 4 separate chocolate fountains! Gotta love it!
The most fun part of the night! Davis proposed to Krystal!!! Yeah! It made the whole evening memorable! It's my first event to have a proposal at! I loved it! I also love this sweet couple! He leaves for Iraq in a few months and they have such sweet hearts for the Lord.
The couples really participated in the dance instruction! The other reason I posted this pic is for you to see the cool columns. Jess was in charge of the lights, tulle and columns. Didn't she do great?
The woman with the short hair and short dress closest to the camera is my mother in law. The woman next to her is our dance instructor. My in-laws have been taking dance lessons a couple of times a week for the last 6 months. They are awesome! We had them do a demonstration dance for us and help with the instruction!
So. . .there ya go! Finally! I am feeling better, so expect me to get back to my old blogging self! Thanks for praying for this you guys! It is a lot harder to plan and execute these events with 3 little ones underfoot! I appreciate your prayers!

Oh. . .what to blog?

I know it's Monday and has now been 3 days since my last post! I feel a need to blog! However, I don't think I have any cohesive thoughts right now! I want to blog / journal and process about my ministry life and how to do that with 3 kids. . .about NGO's and how they pay their in-country staff. . .about Ugandan women and their childbirth experiences. . .about tough questions and how to live in tension in so many different areas. . . .but, all I have time to think about is Valentines!

No, I'm not a hyper romantic. Actually, what is consuming my mind is our "Chocolate Ball" this Friday night. We are hosting an evening of Desserts and Dancing at our church. We'll have chocolate fondu fountains and lots of other desserts as well as ballroom dance lessons from Arthur Murray Dance Studio. I always get stressed out the week of our events. Oh yeah, I'm the Connections Coordinator at our church (more on that in a later post!) but that puts me in charge of all our events at church. This is one of our smaller ones, but kind of stresses me out. The huge events with 3,500 people create about the same amount of stress for me b/c we actually sell tickets for this one. The large events are free, so I always have a laid out budget. With this event, the money I have to work with depends on the number of people present! aaagh! I'm hoping for 150+ but currently have 125. My friend Sunday and I are personally calling 75 couples in the next 2 days to invite them! Please pray that just the right number of people come that God has ordained! The other thing that threw me for a loop is our centerpieces. We had planned on using some that a friend had on hand, but we just found out today that we can't!! Thankfully, I have a friend who is a creative dir and others who are quite creative and I think we have a NEW plan. . .aagh! All this means, lots more work and lots more running around. . . .oh yeah, with 3 kiddos! All that to say, I'm just praying that we get it all done, for the right amount of people, in budget, looking beautiful and that in the end it is a fun event that gives people a chance to connect with others and further their relationships among the Body. Wait, add to that. . .all without losing my mind! ha ha!

So, if you don't see many blogs till the weekend, you'll understand! (I love that I don't feel stupid for apologizing for not blogging. . .b/c normally I wouldn't post that b/c it would feel assumptive that people would actually be checking back and wanting to see blogs. . .but, now I know at least Missy is reading this and would be checking back every day! The rest of you may be glad to not have a list of 10 posts to check when you come back periodically. . .so count this little disclaimer just for her if necessary!

Add to that. . my laptop is broken!!! I hate having to sit in my bedroom and blog. . . .I'm so praying that it will be fixed when I call tomorrow!

Ok. . .sorry so boring today!

Weekend Pics with the Pipers

Yeah, Renae finally emailed me her pics from this weekend! Well, I should really say "from Sea World" b/c that's the only day we took any pictures! Yep, no pictures of the 4 of us. . none of the kiddos they never get to see, none of "us girls" or the guys! But, GREAT pics of my kiddos! As I said before, we had a blast. Jon and Renae are some of our favorite people in the world. They are the sweetest couple and now have a super sweet kiddo! They love the Lord dearly and are passionate about serving Him. Jon and Greg get along extremely well. . they are quiet frightening together. . let's just say that Jon could be a glogger! And, Nae. . .well there aren't words to describe her sweet, gentle spirit, compassion for hurting people and passion to see people know and love the Lord! They also LOVE my children. When they lived in Florida, we basically just had Brayden (they moved when Gracie was just a few months) and Johnny and Nae Nae were 2 of his favorites! He was thrilled to see them again and very quickly both Gracie and Davis realized what a gem they have in Johnny and Nae Nae!

Here is the only pic we got of Renae and I! And sweet baby Abe!Johnny and Brayden. Brayden was in "hog heaven" and asked Jon to carry him everywhere. Jon is the only adult who would have obliged with that request at hot Sea World!

Brayden and I! Isn't he so sweet? Yes, my eyes are closed. It's from my mom's side of the family. . .all of us do it! We are squinty eyed Swedes!
Davis kept wanting to hug baby Abe. I thought I'd get involved to protect Abe and also get some snuggling in!Davis and I. . .I love this picture! Rarely do I get a cute pic of me and the kiddos!
The Piper Family!!
Renae and Abe. . .how they have fallen in love with their little guy is just adorable!
My fam! Cute, I guess, but Gracie looks a bit ghetto! Definitely a "we've spend the day at a theme park" look going on!
As you know, we go to Sea World quite a bit! Usually, though, we pretty much stick with the shows and run out of time.. .the nice thing about having annual passes is that we usually only stay till nap time and head home. So, we have never really "done" the Happy Harbor area for kiddos. They have 5 different rides that ALL the kiddos can do.

Check Gracie out on the carousel! She loved it and kept saying, "'nother ride mama"

Davis lovin' life! The protective hand around Davis is Kevin. Our friends John and Kelly went with us to Sea World too (he works at Discovery Cove, so he "helped" us with Jon and Renae). They are a super sweet couple that we rarely get the time to really hang with and are expecting their first little one soon! They also have a super sweet son, Kevin. Kevin is 12 (I think?!) and LOVED the kiddos. He pushed a stroller at all times and was holding one of the kids. He also didn't complain a lick about spending most of the day at the kiddie ride area and rode every single ride! My kids LOVED him right back! He was so cute and protective of Davis on the ride. . . note the above pic where I didn't even have my arm around Gracie!Gracie at the Dolphin Show (my favorite one!). . she doesn't look great, but is still darn cute!
This is Kelly. . you can't see her cute pregnant belly all that much, but click HERE and you will!

Ok, back to the rides! Brayden has always said he DID NOT want to go on the Shamu Kids Roller Coaster. Well, this time he said that if Nae Nae wanted him too, he would. He ended up sitting next to Johnny and loved it. I'll scan in their pic (yep, we splurged and actually bought the roller coaster picture! So did Jon and Renae (which I expect to see framed in their home!). Afterwards, we kept praising him and he just kept saying, "I was scared. I went on Shamu and I was scared." But, yesterday he said he wants me to go with him next time b/c I'll hold his hand!

Ok, then they had this crab ride. It's like the adult rides where the go high in the air and drop you, then raise you up and keep dropping you. Well, kids can ride. . even little ones. Can you even SEE Gracie and Davis next to me? The straps are HUGE compared to them. Gracie got pretty freaked out by the big strap but when we got up there (at least 2 stories) she LOVED it. She kept giggling. I think she and Davis are my thrill seekers for sure. Davis loved every ride!
Oh, I'll miss this sweet boy! It pains my heart that he won't remember me next time I see him. I love him so much! Isn't he adorable?! I'll also miss his sweet parents. We beg them to move back every time and they beg us to move to Siloam Springs, Arkansas. Where??? yeah, that's what we say! Heck, maybe we'll all move to Africa one day! Hey, the girls can dream, right?!