C4C

I had the AMAZING opportunity to spend the other weekend with 400+ women who love Jesus and love Adoption. The impact of a room full of other mothers worshiping our Lord with a shared passion is a nothing short of beautiful.

Created for Care started in 2011 with one adoptive mom who desired to get 25 of her adoptive mommy friends together for a small retreat and refresh time. God ended up opening that door to 250 moms from across the country and totally blessing their socks off. Fast forward to 2012 and God has grown it into 2 sperate retreats in January and March with over 400 mothers EACH. For a mommy who often feels alone in the walk God has called me to this was truly amazing to see. To talk with women who have already walked this road ahead of me and can say "Yes its hard, but God is GOOD and it is worth it", women who are right in the thick of it and understand the hard waiting and the endless mountains of papers , and women who are just starting in and are waiting to hear Gods call and follow His leading.

I had a whirlwind weekend FULL to the brim with EMOTION... prayers pleading with God to empty me of myself and fill me with His spirit. Longing for Him to grant me the faith to move mountains and glorify Him with my life. To mold me into a mother who seeks His face and shines Jesus' love to my children and the people He has put in my life. A constant flow of tears as I had the blessing to praise our Lord in worship with a room full of other sisters in Christ. A weekend FULL of ENCOURAGEMENT.... sessions taught by women whose children are home and that airport moment has faided and real life has set in. My favorite breakout session was on Special Needs adoption. I was so encouraged to hear from real women whom God has placed these beautiful children into their families and hear from them that yes there are hard days but God is faithful and one sweet hug from one of these kiddos can make it all worth it.
It was hard at times to be surround by so many like minded women and feel an ache wishing I had that same support at home, but I am so thankful for my far away friends who totally "get it" and who are only an e-mail or phone call away.

View from our room

Session

New Friends

Roomies in our matching PJ's

Sixty Feet Mission Trip Friends

Finally meeting friends in person

I totally hope I get to go again next year and if you are signed up for the March retreat get ready for an amazing weekend! The ladies who served and put it all together did an amazing job. It was a breath of fresh air. 

This was my favorite song during worship. Such a testimony to the journey God has brought us through so far and will continue to do so. It's all Jesus, the whole time. 

Day 1 - Part 1 (Written By Josh)

After approximately 22 hours of travel, we finally landed in Entebbe, Uganda at 12:30pm local time. We were joyfully greeted by the Uganda ground team and Earnest & Catherine. It was very kind of them to wait up so late to greet us. We also got to meet our bus driver Abus. Yes, Abus drove a bus. We learned that he is a Muslim, and an awesome bus driver, so please keep him in your prayers. We spent a lot of time with him and are praying that God will use that time and future opportunities to reveal himself to Abus. 

LOVE Pastor Ernest and Mama Catherine, here with Joy

About an hour on the road and we had reached our living quarters. It was an 8 bedroom house and we all paired up for rooms. After getting settled it was about 3am before Christen and I finally got to bed. I think it may have been a combination of the jet lag and excitement, but 6:30am rolled around and I was up taking photos of the sunrise! I knew that running on 3 hours of sleep for what was coming next would be rough. We had breakfast, a morning

devotional, piled in the bus and we were off.   

Views from the porch

Pretty intense gate! 

What I first saw on the streets was on of the greatest cultural shocks of the trip. Traffic was mad. People were driving and walking all over the road. There were multiple times where I flinched because I was sure a passing car was going to fillet us. A lot of the roads had no lines and industrial sized pot holes. Thankfully though, Christen, who gets super car sick, was fine the entire time. 

As we drove to M1, there was a lot to look at. Many of the streets were lined with tin and wood shacks or run down concrete shops. Almost all of them were selling anything from mobile phone service to meat on a stick. We even saw a fish market and several meat markets. None if it was on ice, and none of it was stamped with expirations dates. You had no clue how long anything had been there or where it came from. I guess the locals are just experts at eyeing bad food, which would be a useful skill to have. 

We finally made it out of the city and into the beautiful green, rolling countryside. The smell went from a thick diesel exhaust to the smell of an overgrown marsh (there was a lot of swamp land). We drove and drove in anticipation of seeing the place and the children that we had long been praying for. We passed through one more row of shacks selling bongos and then we saw the infamous sign......

Normally I would leave you hanging there, and it makes a lot of sense to do so because it is very suspenseful, but we had a group of very unique men who were well balanced in serious work and...goofiness. 

We had to stop the bus to wait for the rest of the ground team and we happened to stop right next to a group of young men who were boda boda drivers. Now if you don't know what a boda boda is, you should look it up in the dictionary...although I'm sure that wouldn't help you either. It's a flimsy motorcycle taxi. We're not talking about a Harley Davidson here; more like a moped (mo-ped). The drivers were entertaining (and I think they were pretty entertained by us as well). They even let Judd drive a boda boda! He did pretty well and apparently had practice from back home. Then came Jonathan. Jonathan's turn went something like this: [Excitedly jump on the bike!!!] [Kick start!!!]...FAIL. [Kick start again!!]...FAIL. [Kick start again.]...FAIL. [The driver kick started it for me!!!] [Off I go!!!]...[bike dies]...FAIL. [The driver started it for me again.] [Off I go.]...bike dies...FAIL. [Driver jumps on the back of the bike and tries to drive it for him..]...[ok, I guess]...eventually he realized that he was popping the clutch and then he got the hang of it, but to watch him enthusiastically try over and over again was hilarious! He is such a good sport and his church is very blessed to have him. 

Strike a pose

 

There he goes!

This was even funnier in person

We had a fun time waiting and took some pictures. The girls even took a potty break in the bush with the cobras (well, they didn't see one but Abus said they could be out there). As soon as the Uganda team arrived, we were off; being led by the Holy Spirit down a dirt road to a destitute place that would serve as the setting for some of the most memorable and spiritually impactful times of my life. 

Brave Girls

Leaving (Written By Josh)

Well here it is! I'm going to attempt to chronicle the experience of our 11 day trip to Uganda, where we served orphans and imprisoned children, by composing the details, thoughts and emotions involved. I'm sure I'll inadvertently leave some details out, but I'll do the best I can to remember everything. I really want people to understand what I experienced, because what I experienced was the power of God. My hope is that His glory will be made known and He will be praised through my testimony.

There's not much to say in terms of the logistics of getting ready. It was what it was. Lots of lists with lots of busy things to do. My wife Christen is typically much more concerned about this than I am, which is really a good thing (until it becomes overwhelming for her) because, due to my laid back attitude in this area, there is a possibility of everything that needs to get done... not getting done. Yet, somehow, every time there is a vital list, we get through it. There hasn't been a single list that has kept us from completing our goal... ok, ok I admit, this is chiefly due to Christen, whom I am very thankful for.

The hardest thing about preparing for our trip was my lack of cheerful benevolence with the fact that we were leaving the girls. My apprehension was enough to make me question if we should really be doing this together. I felt comfortable with the idea of the trip itself, but I couldn't ease my mind of the fact that we would be away from our babies for 11 days. What if they get hurt or sick? What if they feel scared? What if they don't understand why we aren't there for them and they feel abandoned? I was afraid that my children might, in some ways, become the children who we were going to serve. But I was encouraged by the Holy Spirit and reminded that service to the Lord is not done in a spirit of fear but by the most mighty One. I felt a bit like Christian in The Pilgrim's Progress when he was called by Jesus into salvation and he had to run from his family as they cried for his return. When the Lord calls, run, and don't look back. You can trust Him that He will never call you into sin, and everything He does will work for your good. There is no other way with God for those who love Him and have been called by Him. He promises that the race will be hard and will require DEATH to yourself, but he who loses His life will find it in Him. And that life; living to God, is true life. It's abundant life everlasting. I had to keep my eyes on the prize and run the race that was laid out for me. I never though that my children could actually become a hindrance to my running. The truth about what I was experiencing was this: once love and concern for others turns into fear and a desire to control to the point of ignoring God's calling to action, THEY HAVE BECOME AN IDOL. I was struggling with wanting to obey my fears instead of God. But my Lord was gracious to cause me to continually refocus; to continually examine myself to see if I was in the faith. I'm so thankful that His spirit is more powerful than my flesh, and that He is far more faithful than I could ever be. I'm so thankful that He works in me to cause me to will and to act for His good purposes. I'm so thankful that God is so jealously passionate about His own glory that He doesn't leave me alone to work by my own strength, but supplies His strength to prove Himself. All things are from God, and through God, and to God. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

-Josh