My house has been graced, or taken hostage rather, by four boys, ages 7, 6,6 and 3. You might be wondering why I would allow that many boys to run around my house, and truth be told, I am wondering that too. The older my kids get, and therefore, the older that the neighborhood kids get, the less I allow them to play in the house.

But today I strayed from my own rules and allowed two boys to play over for the afternoon. The reason I did this is because today was a windy day. And I don't just mean breezy, which in Idaho terms means 20 mph or less, I'm talking constant wind with 50 mph wind gusts. Add to that upper 30 low 40 degree temperatures and you have a cold, miserable day.

Speaking of temperatures near freezing, I am a little stressed because I have two Magnolia trees, one has just flowered and the other is on the verge, that are being threatened by the freezing temperatures at night. I think I will keep my fingers crossed that it doesn't happen.

Okay, back to my story...

So in an effort to keep myself from being the person who gets tackled, wrestled, put in jail or is told to play the part of the alien, I decided I would be willing to put up with chaos of four boys playing in my house instead. And I called it right. There was equal amounts of wrestling, choking, hide and seek (with weapons I didn't even know existed) and of course the classic "kick your friend under the table while eating your snack above." I can deal with the wrestling and choking, as long as no one turns blue, but I quickly put the nix on the under the table kicking as I didn't want anyone going home with broken toes. That would be really tacky.

Oh, the other thing I was spared was having to look at Pokemon cards. These cards drive me crazy! Don't get me wrong, I enjoy looking at the cards....one time, but I am tired of being asked to name each character only to be laughed at as I stumble through the words, which I am pretty sure were never meant to be pronounced in the first place.

But what I loved about having the boys here, with all their restless energy, was hearing them call themselves a "club", and then make sure that Caleb was included in everything they did. From making sure that Caleb had a weapon, to wrestling a little easier with him, and even sharing some Pokemon cards, Caleb was included in everything they did. This isn't unusual though. The kids in our neighborhood (and there are many) all get along really well. They have grown up together and all look out for each other. And Caleb, for his part, just does his thing and remains quite agreeable. We are very blessed to live where we do!

Speaking of agreeable...

Adam and I were taking the boys to spend some money they received for selling a toy on ebay. Isaiah was holding a 5 dollar bill and after looking at it intently he said "hey mom, if you look at this picture really close, it kinda looks like grandpa Bartlett". After looking at it I said "I think you're right, I can see grandpa in this picture."

And then Caleb, holding his 10 dollar bill, and in his own agreeable way said "yeah, and this looks like grandma!" (He was referring to Alexander Hamilton).

So "grandma", if you are reading this, not only are you lucky because he didn't give a name, but I am pretty sure he didn't mean it!

But I will let you be the judge...






Nah, I don't think so either.

I had my weekly phone conference with our case manager today, and learned that a referral has been given to a family who has also been waiting to adopt a child in the Novosibirsk region. This is encouraging news because, as you might have read in my earlier "update" post, referrals came to a stand still as officials dealt with the backlog of adoption hearings.

Fast forward three months and it looks as though things are starting to move again.

This information is very recent so we are still unsure of the speed and consistency that referrals will be given. The next few weeks should give us a pretty good idea of what to expect, but of course that is assuming that no other changes are made in the region.

I don't think I will hold my breath for that!

On another note, we have been waiting for 5 months now! I admit that my excitement has grown with each passing month...that is, until I received a bill for the second set of adoption fees. Yikes!

In case you are wondering about the billing process, here is a quick explanation:

WACAP will bill us three different sets of adoption processing fees. Our first fee was due upon being accepted into the Russia program. Our second set is due at 6 months or upon acceptance of a child referral, depending on which comes first. The third set is due upon acceptance of a child referral, and as you can see, if you receive a referral before 6 months, you are hit with a hefty bill all at once.

In some ways I am glad that hasn't happened to us, but nevertheless, our second set of adoption fees is due. I couldn't help but think the other day, as I wrote out the check, that what we have left in our account needs to cover our third set of fees, four flights to Russia, hotel and food lasting up to 5 weeks total, our Russian Visas, our daughter's Visa, a mandatory humanitarian aid donation (isn't that an oxymoron?), medical exams and finalization fees. (Insert panicky voice and nervous laugh)

But truth be told, God is good. His providence is amazing, so while I get nervous when I look at the numbers, His peace also abounds in me, and I know everything will work out for good and for His glory.

Psalm 36:5
Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the skies.

As Caleb and I were pulling into our subdivision yesterday, he asked me to pull over and let him walk home. Mind you, he is only 3 and our house is not very close to the entrance, so naturally, I said no.

Unfortunately for Caleb, this is not what he wanted to hear, so after pulling into the garage, he decided that the only way to show me that he was not happy was by throwing his monster truck out of the car. When he realized that all this did was make me laugh, he did it again, and again, and again; getting a little more frustrated and mad with each throw.

Okay, I will admit that I should not have laughed, but it was interesting, and somewhat humorous, watching him process his frustration. It's as though his little body was going to explode unless he released some of that energy.

So in an effort to show Caleb that he doesn't get away with that behavior, I sent him to his room. Little did I know that he had a plan of his own. Five minutes later I went into his room and noticed that he had dumped out all of his cars, legos and other random toys and scattered them everywhere.

At the time, all I could think was "this is the last thing I need to be dealing with right now." And at that moment I think I saw him laugh at me.

Oh well I suppose I deserved that.

Moving on now....

To get to my original point of this story, which, believe it or not, is not about Caleb's tantrum, but rather about God opening my eyes in the middle the chaos that so often surrounds me.

In an effort not to let my 3 year old child get the best of me, and I suppose in some ways to escape my own reality, I decided to turn on some music. As I was scrolling through the radio stations I heard a song by Third Day called Revelations, and as I stopped to listen, I had my own revelation from the Lord.

You see, Adam and I are in a time of wondering where God is taking us. So our prayer, for awhile now, has been that God would reveal his will for our lives and prepare us. While it sounds very simple, that fact that we are in the middle of our adoption complicates things. I know that God is not concerned because this will all work out in His own timing and for His glory. But, from my human viewpoint, I can't see all the pieces coming together, and it makes me a little nervous.

As I listened to the words, I shot up a prayer that God would show us what to do, because now, more than ever, we need to know that He is in control; that He knows where we are, and He won't let us fall. And yet, at the same time that I am praying through this song, He is telling me that He hears me. He knows my concerns; He knows my fears and He knows that where I fall short in faith, He fills the gap.

So we are left to wait on the Lord. There are still pieces of this puzzle that are scattered and until the Lord connects them, we have to continue trusting that we are exactly where we are supposed to be. It is not magically fixed at the moment, but it is good enough. And when the time comes that we get to see the whole picture, all this, the fear, concern and wonder, it will all be worth it.

Thank you Lord, for this journey. For along the way, we have experienced you, your grace, love and providence as never before.

I just need to take a moment to vent, and maybe those of you who read this blog can sympathize (especially if you have children)....I do not like Daylight Savings Time! And while I can't prove it, I suspect that it was created only to frustrate parents. I have spent the last week battling both myself and my children to get out of bed and have even stooped low enough to use bribery to achieve that objective.

Oh well, whatever works, right?

I have found that the term "spring forward" is not quite fitting. The spring in my step has been replaced by drag in my feet and the only thing to get me going is a mocha in the morning, Dr. Pepper in the afternoon and Cadbury Eggs in between.

Yes, I have fallen off the bandwagon and it is pulling away.

(Abrupt subject change)

I am going to change the subject now to something that I intended to start with. I have posted another Nooma video by Rob Bell called Rain that I think is very relevant to everyone.

We all go through really difficult periods in our lives where we question God. Where we wonder why he would allow certain things to happen to us and/or the people we love. This video speaks on that very topic and how, during those times of "rain", God is not only present, but He is holding us near.

I will leave you to watch this video. As for me, I have a bandwagon to catch.

Now where did it go?

I wanted to take a few minutes to update you on our adoption.

As of today, nothing has changed in Novosibirsk. There is still a backlog of families waiting for their court dates to be set and completed. As a result, referrals have remained low on the priority list as they don't want to cause more work for an already overloaded system.

We are in a really good place as far as the adoption goes. While we would love to receive a referral, we also realize that it would be especially difficult if our daughter had to remain in the orphanage longer than we anticipated. For now, our prayers that God will provide caretakers that love and care for her will suffice. We know that He knows the beginning and the end, and He is not surprised at this slow down. We continue to trust that it will happen in His perfect timing, and until that day comes, He will continue to mold us into His likeness and prepare us for our daughter.

Please Lord, continue to give us patience while we let you work.

On another note, Adam and I have started taking Russian lessons. We had our first lesson last week, and it was really helpful. After just one lesson we are able to read Russian. Okay, I will admit that we don't know what we are reading most of the time, but nevertheless, we are really excited!

I need to get lunch started. I just had a coffee with very little food in my stomach, and am now getting the shakes. Not good!

Have a great day and until I write again, das-vi-dan-ya. (That is the English phonetic spelling for goodbye in Russian).

The following commentary was written by my brother, and with his permission I am sharing it with you.

Luke 10:2
He told them, "the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into the field."



Loaves and Fish
By Steve Bartlett

I was reading in Mark chapter 6 last night the familiar story of Jesus feeding the 5000 with the five loaves of bread and two fish.

We've all heard this one, right?

I hadn't. At least I hadn't REALLY heard it until last night.

First, let me set up the story. A very large crowd had been listening to Jesus preach. The Bible says that there were 5000 men in the crowd. When you add in women and children, a conservative estimate would easily double that number. Let's just say there were 10,000 people in the crowd. Not a small number by any stretch of the imagination.

It was getting late in the day and Jesus' disciples looked around at the crowd and said to Jesus, "We are in a remote place and it is already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding towns and buy themselves something to eat."

Now, let's pause here for just a moment to look at what the disciples are saying. It seems like a very innocuous comment at first glance. In fact, I don’t recall ever giving this a second thought…until I read it again last night. If I were to paraphrase it would probably sound something like this: "Jesus, we are out in the middle of nowhere and these people are hungry. If you don't get rid of these people they are going to become OUR problem."

The disciples are faithless, selfish, and full of fear.

Faithless? The disciples and the crowd were literally in the physical presence of God. They had witnessed many miracles and even performed some themselves. Yet they seemed to think that a hungry crowd was somehow beyond fixable.

Selfish? You might be asking, “Weren’t the disciples concerned for the people in the crowd?” Were they? Or were they more concerned for themselves if the crowd got out of control? (When you have 10,000 hungry people, things are bound to get a little nasty.)

Full of fear? Put yourself in the disciples’ place. A throng of 10,000 hungry men, women and children against thirteen men are not good odds.

But then Jesus responds. And this is the part that kicked me in the gut. Jesus’ initial response is short, but it is absolutely devastating. Are you ready for this?

Jesus says, “You feed them.”

Notice that Jesus does not tell them HOW to feed the crowd; He simply calls them to action. Jesus did not call the disciples into a huddle and say: “OK, Peter, you go find 10,000 hot dog buns. James, you find some hot dogs...Hebrew Nationals to be exact. John, you build a big fire so we can roast the hot dogs. Andrew, you find enough sodas for 10,000 people…”

Jesus didn’t call on the government to pass out stimulus checks so that the people could buy food.

Jesus didn’t even change the stones that many people were undoubtedly sitting on into loaves of bread.

No. He simply says, “You feed them.”

The disciples are taken aback. They respond, “Lord, to feed this many people would cost eight months worth of wages! Do you really expect us to go and spend that much on bread to feed these people?” (Do you see the selfishness coming out again?)

Then Jesus, in his infinite patience, asks them a simple question: “How much bread DO you have?”

And that is the point.

Jesus doesn’t ask the disciples to do His work with something they don’t have. Rather, he asks them to ACT in FAITH with what they DO have.

You see, when God asks us to do something, He will make it possible. He doesn’t fail. Whatever is needed to accomplish His purpose will be provided.

Unfortunately, we all too often become discouraged when we don’t have what we THINK we need. We say, “God, I don’t have the money.” We make excuses like, “I don’t have the talent.” We brush off His purpose with “I’ll get to it when I have the time.”

And just like the disciples we are faithless, selfish, and full of fear.

And Jesus calls us, even today, to ACT in FAITH with what we DO have.

We see a family struggling to put food on the table. “You feed them.”

We see families being evicted from their homes. We see the homeless in sub-freezing temperatures. “You shelter them.”

We see people hurting all around us. “You comfort them.”

“You…them.” Do you see the pattern?

And now, even in the land of plenty, we have difficult days surrounding us. Economic turmoil, job loss and home foreclosures abound. People are hurting all around us. We ourselves are hurting. These are dark times.

But the light always shines brightest in the dark! We now have a wealth of opportunity to ACT in FAITH with what we DO have! I love how John Piper says, “Let’s not waste this recession.” This is an opportunity to take the focus off of ourselves and to step out in faith.

When we act in faith with what we do have, financial recessions don’t matter.

When we act in faith with what we do have, God will give us all that we need.

When we act in faith with what we do have, people will get a glimpse of the true nature of God and they will want more!

When we ACT in FAITH with what we DO have...


“You feed them.”

I have added a new title to mothering....buzzkill.

In case you are wondering, Urban Dictionary defines buzzkill as something that spoils or ruins an otherwise enjoyable event.

Okay, now that we have that figured out, let me explain why I feel this way.

It rained this morning...a lot. In fact, it rained so much that I am pretty sure every worm that lives in the ground came up for air, or maybe just to escape their flooded homes. I am really not sure which, but either way, worms were everywhere.

After seeing all those worms, I was anticipating an interesting trip to the bus stop because Isaiah absolutely loves worms. He holds them, puts them in his bug collector, places them on Caleb's head and even puts them in his pockets (mind you, he forgets to take them out and they end up in my dryer).

Now, back to the buzzkill part. Here is my side of the conversation I had with Isaiah while waiting for the bus. I will leave you to imagine what he was saying and doing.

Isaiah, please don't take that handful of worms onto the bus.

No, I don't think the bus driver would appreciate that.

Isaiah, please don't eat the worms.

Well, I don't really care if they taste good, it's disgusting.

Now I am getting desperate and a little embarrassed, so I try to scare him.

If you eat worms, you might have baby worms crawling out your ears and nose.

Okay, that didn't work, he just thought it would be cool. How else can I discourage this?

Oh good, the bus is here.

Hey Isaiah, the bus is coming, put the worms down.

What? The worm pooped in your hand?

That's disgusting!

No, I don't want to see it. Just wipe your hand in the grass.

I love you Isaiah, have a good day!

This is an extension of my previous post about walking through the valley. This song, Bring The Rain by Mercy Me, speaks about bringing glory to God through our circumstances.

The truth is, there will be many rainstorms and valleys in this life and we can either choose to become bitter and angry because of them, or we can say "use me Lord, in the midst of it, for your glory."

When we allow God to use us through our circumstances, he brings a peace that surpasses understanding.

I encourage you to really listen to the words of this song, they are really powerful.

This whole adoption experience has been a very rich time for us. It's as though God has taken us from the hilltops, where life was comfortable and we could see everything that lay before us, and placed us in the valley, where were have become uncomfortable and unsure of what lies in the darkness.

It's as though our plans for adoption, which we carefully thought out and drew up, were turned upside down and God said "huh uh, you are going to do this according to My plan. All I ask is that you trust Me."

Can we argue with that? Do we even have a say in the matter?

And so our trip began. In faith, we packed our bags full of things we thought we would need for our journey and began our descent into the valley. There are times that worry, fear and lack of trust have become the rocks that we stumble on. There are times when we come upon a fork in the road and we find ourselves asking, "which path do we take, and what if we choose the wrong one?" There are times that the valley seems too long and too dark that we become fearful of the unknown, unable to take another step.

And just when the darkness seems too much to bear, God says, "don't look forward for the path is too dark; don't look to the side for the walls are too steep; don't look behind you for you have come too far to go back. Look up and let My light guide you. All I ask is that you trust Me."



The Valley of Vision

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see Thee in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold Thy glory. Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up, that to be low is to be high, that the broken heart is the healed heart, that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit, that the repenting soul is the victorious soul, that to have nothing is to possess all, that to bear the cross is to wear the crown, that to give is to receive, that the valley is the place of vision. Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells, and the deeper the wells the brighter Thy stars shine; let me find Thy light in my darkness, Thy life in my death, Thy joy in my sorrow, Thy grace in my sin, Thy riches in my poverty, Thy glory in my valley.

The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, edited by Arthur Bennett



It is so easy to put God in the backseat when we live on the hilltops. Life is too good, too easy, too pleasurable to want to be accountable to Him. And yet, I have found that walking in the valley, being in relationship with God and experiencing His peace, is much more fulfilling than any worldly treasures could bring.

May His peace abound in you,
Anna