A look into our possible future....

 

 

Please join our family in prayer during this season, as we find out if we will be blessed to call these two precious girls our daughters. We are ready for some good news and are full of peace and totally trusting God!

A love that multiplies....

I had shared a few weeks ago how our family was starting the foster/adoption process here in Tanzania. We also have some exciting news on two little girls who will possibly be joining our family, and I would like to tell you a little bit about them. I was telling my friend last night I feel like I have guarded this information for some reason and I am not sure why. She told me it was probably because I didn't want people to think we are crazy, and it made me laugh because she was dead on. I am ok with being crazy though, because when you really think about it the love of God is a completely crazy thing!

The very first month we were in Tanzania we had to travel a little over a hour to go to language school for three weeks. I remember driving down the road our school was on and we drove right by a baby home called Cradle of Love. I recognized the name from seeing it on Facebook and told Brian I would for sure be visiting it while we were in school. I think it was the next day I walked to Cradle with Brian on one of our breaks from studying. We met the amazing director at Cradle, who has since become a dear friend of ours. I spoke with her about my passion for babies and was so thrilled to have met someone with such a kindred heart towards babies as well. She took us around Cradle and introduced us to many of the babies, whose ages range from newborn to three years old. In one of the rooms we met a little girl who at the time was about eight months, and her little life story broke my heart. I remember instantly telling Brian that I thought this little girl was our daughter. She was very shy, sullen, and didn't like to smile much. :) I don't remember what they told us her name was, but I held her and fed her and felt a connection with her I cannot explain. I was sad because I also knew that in Tanzania adoptions are not easy, in fact they have a reputation for being a horribly long and drawn out process. You also have to live in Tanzania for three years before you are supposed to be allowed to adopt. So here I am holding this little girl who I instantly fell in love with, knowing there is nothing I can do about it. The next day we went to see her and I found out they had started calling her Glory. I couldn't believe it. I had very much felt the Lord tell me a couple of months ago that we had a daughter named Glory waiting for us in Africa. When we met this little girl that was not what we were told her name was, and then it was. It was more confirmation for my heart. Language school continued and I tried to get over to see Glory every day. Then our three weeks were up and it was time to head home. It was heartbreaking to have to leave Glory for Brian and I, not knowing when we would see her again or how the future would play out. Over the next few months we were in contact with the director to see what we could do, if anything, to get Glory in our custody. Once we were in our new house and settled we began the process of fostering and told our social welfare there was a little girl in a baby home we were wanting to take in. The told us it would be fine to take here in once we were approved. We have seen such favor with how fast things have moved for us, and we are just now waiting on our background checks from America to be completely approved. My heart was still uneasy though, I was not comfortable taking Glory in without knowing for sure that she would not be able to be taken away from us. We want to have every single last detail in order, and because of Glory's background it is a little complicated. So yesterday we went to Arusha to meet with the social worker there who is in charge of Glory's case. He told us that he is going to look into what he needs to {as far as looking for Glory's birth mom} but he thinks that we should be able to have her in our custody for sure. I cannot explain how exciting this was for Brian and I to hear. We had been told multiple times that we would not be able to adopt Glory for one reason or the other, but Brian and I have both felt very strongly from the beginning that this precious little girl was ours, so we continue to press on. God is so faithful! There are many other details to Glory's story, but maybe another time for those. We love this little girl very much, as do our four kids. They love Glory and talk about her often. They have spent a good amount of time with her, and very much want her to be a part of our family. So will you pray with us please? That over these next couple of weeks we will continue to get good news and everything worked out for Glory to come and live with our family?

Then there is baby girl. We got an email from our friend, who is the director at Cradle of Love, while my parents were here about baby girl. Her story was very different from Glory's and at the same time equally heartbreaking. The email my friend sent said they were getting a newborn baby girl whose rights were going to be signed over, would we be interested. It is VERY uncommon for a family to just sign rights over in Tanzania, as shame is a huge thing in this culture and would be an ultimate shame for sure.It also makes the adoption much easier when the rights are just signed over. So we waited to see if the family actually brought her to Cradle, which they did. The aunt and uncle had been caring for her and they were the ones to bring her. They both agreed to signing their rights over and us adopting her, but we need the entire family to agree. So the entire family is getting together on Christmas and will be deciding whether or not they will allow us to adopt baby girl. We went and met her yesterday and she is absolutely precious. She was born on October 10th, so she is just two months old.

Now, I understand where some people may think we are crazy. Taking in an 18 month old and a 2 month old while we already have four young children at home?! We had always wanted to adopt two children at once, for many reasons, and now it looks like that may be happening, and YES we are a little crazy. :) This is who we are though, and we are 100% positive this is a part of our families call being here in Tanzania. So will you please pray for our growing family? We know and fully trust that God is in control and that brings us great peace. It amazes me to see something we have been talking about for over ten years now, to finally be playing out. God's timing is so perfect and He already knows every single member of our family. It is amazing to walk out this journey, as it builds our faith and increases our trust and joy in Him. We will keep everyone updated as we find out more!

Guest blogging for Miss Grace Filled Life

Today I had the honor to guest blog on Kathy Olson's blog, Miss Grace Filled Life. I have known Kathy for fifteen years now, and have such love and respect for her and her husband. Check out my post and have so much fun looking around her blog!

Here is the link

http://www.missgracefilledlife.blogspot.com/

YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat... oh my!!

I have never been good at technology, but I am realizing there are so many different ways to stay connected to our family and friends at home, I have to at least try. So I have now hijacked my husband's iPhone {that someone so sweetly donated to us} and have an Instagram account {mandeeloudermilk}, a Snapchat account {mandeejoejoe}, and we just created a YouTube account. Here is the link to a video Brian made giving a overview of our first six months in Tanzania, Africa. I will be posting little videos of our daily lives often, so subscribe to our account to keep up with us and watch our beautiful babies grow up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie_dN3_aalI

Click on this link to see the video Brian made and check out our other couple of videos to see what our kids do in a typical Tanzanian church service.

Today I was outside hanging our laundry on our clothes line, and the Lord brought to my mind a blog post I had written a couple of years ago. It was about how Africa was our fourth child { obviously written before the birth of Harper Praise}. I made comparisons about being pregnant with Africa, and loving the country and the people there before I had even met them, just as a mother is with her unborn child.

This next part is so amazing {and funny} to me. I felt like He told me that I had had my first all natural delivery of one of my babies. Let me explain. With all four of my children I have been induced. They would break my water and then right away give me an epidural {gasp!}. This says two things about me, {one} I am a very inpatient person and {two} if there is a way to avoid pain, I will take it. All of my labors were very quick, easy, and pain free. But not this one. :)

The delivery of my "fifth child" was the complete opposite. It was long, painful, and at times seemed unbearable. I had a picture today of a woman in labor, screaming at her husband to please make it stop, the pain is too much she can't handle it anymore. Then I remember may times over our first few months here begging Brian to please take me home, the pain is too much, I can't handle it anymore. The pain of dying to myself, the pain of realizing how many idols I held onto, the pain of the loss of our old lives. Then I thought about a woman in labor with no pain medicine, and how the only thing that gets her through is the fact that at the end she will get to hold her precious new baby. Even through the pain of the first few months I knew {even when I didn't want to admit it} that if I stuck it out, it would all be worth it, the pain would be worth it. Woman who are preparing for an all natural delivery mentally prepare for what is coming, because they know there is no way around the pain, it is just a part of the process. For the first time in my life, I couldn't rush things, or turn to Brian to fix everything. It was just me and God, and although it was ugly at times, the birth is over and has turned into something amazingly wonderful. I love my life here. It seems crazy to me to remember how much of a struggle it used to be, because now it just feels so natural and easy.

If you are in the hard labor stages, be encouraged!! Cling to Christ! He is more than able to bring us out of any situation or trial!

God is so amazing. I mean SO amazing. We had no clue about New Life Foundation when we picked up our lives to move to Africa, and now, New Life is the main focus of our ministry here in Tanzania. The kids at New Life have completely stolen our hearts, and I know the deep love and joy I have for them is straight from the Lord. We know full well THEY all are the reason we are in Tanzania!

The kids from grade six down to nursery are getting ready to go to their home villages for a holiday. Even though 70% of the children at New Life are considered orphans here in Tanzania, they still have some form of relative to return to during this holiday, which will last a month. We have been working a lot with the 6th grade lately, and a couple of the girls in that class have really stolen Brian and I's hearts in particular. When we found out that one of them had no where to go during the holiday, we knew right away we wanted to have her come stay with us. Well, then we found out that another girl very precious to us had nowhere to go either, so we knew right away we wanted to have her come and stay with us as well. Then we found out there was only one girl in grade six left with no where to go, so we knew there was no way we could leave her behind. So one turned into three. :) We have come to find out that all three girls are from the same village. The village is very far away {takes one full day to travel to} and very unreached. They have tried to send local African missionaries to go and minister to them, but it was even too overwhelming for them to handle living there. Their tribe kills their food daily, or they don't eat. They don't live in homes, they live in what was described to us as nest like things. If the girls ever do go home for a visit, they must have a chaperone go with them, otherwise there is a very high chance they will be married off and not able to return {remember they are 13!!!!}. We feel so beyond blessed to have this opportunity, and are excited to see our relationships with these precious girls grow. We are praying to see trust levels increase as they spend more time with us, and to have some amazing times of ministry with them in our home. They are really some of the sweetest girls in the world, we feel so blessed that this is our lives. Our kids are THRILLED, and will wear the older girls out I am sure!

Prayers

Would you please pray for our family? This season of parenting our four young children is proving to be a way greater challenge than I ever expected. They are such good kids. With that being said, when you take four young kids away from everything they have ever known, and throw them into a new culture that is crazy different than their old lives, there are bound to be challenges. After six months on the field, emotions are starting to come up.

One of daughters will become very emotional and cry for an hour at a time. She misses her friends and family at home. She is only six, and doesn't fully know how to express what she if feeling, so it bottles up until something sets her off and then has an emotional melt down. Unfortunately, I totally understand how she feels, I do the exact same thing. :) She will cry and cry because she just wants a baby doll, and how do you explain to a six and five year old, there is no Target here to go and get one? You can't really. There have been many tears over the last four weeks from all four kids.

Harper Praise is now two and a half. We have never really experienced the terrible twos until now. I know I have let her get away with way more than I should since being here, but mommy guilt is a very hard thing to deal with sometimes. Harper gets an unreal amount of attention here. Obviously, we stick out very easily because of our white skin. Throw in Harper's beautiful red & curly hair, mix in a little of her Swahili, and that girl is literally mobbed every where we go. Culture here is very different. It is very common for people to just grab Harper out of my hands and try to walk off. Harper will have none of that though, and she screams and screams. People have even taken her out of our car through her window a couple of times. Not being rude, again just culture here. She is constantly {like every minute} being poked, prodded, hair stroked, etc. People laugh here all the time, so now she thinks they are always laughing at her. She gets upset often, saying, "Mommy, they laughing at me again." Try explaining to your two year old they aren't laughing at you, it is just culture honey. She cries a lot, mostly it seems out of anger and frustration.

We had lots of help at home. My parents lived right across the street from us, and were a part of our daily lives, every day. Now I am lucky if I talk to them a totally of 45 minutes total every week, and that is really hard. Going from being a financially self-sufficient family, to completely living off of support is proving to be quiet the transition as well.

Do I say all of this to complain and grumble? Absolutely not. It is never easy to expose our weaknesses to others, but honestly we covet your prayers!! We love what we are doing here, and are thankful for this calling on our lives. That doesn't mean there aren't hard times though. :)

I guess from all of that you can pray for us in the following areas,

*Supernatural love, supernatural peace, supernatural patience for Brian and I as we parent our kids during this harder season in our lives
*Our kids emotions to stabilize, that they would find words to express how they feel to us before emotional break downs occur
*Wisdom for Bri and I, and for our marriage to stay strong and unmoved by everything going on around us