Reflections of 2010 and Happy New Year 2011!

I really should be sleeping right now, since both of my kids are asleep. They have both had the flu and together we have been fighting this for 10 days now. That equals NO sleep for me. However I am wide awake and no I don't think it is all of the caffiene I have been living on for the last week.... I am reflecting and envisioning and I am excited.

2010 - was a great but difficult year for our family. We built our home, which is now a huge blessing but it was a very difficult process for us. The main thing that sticks out to me when I think about 2010 is that WE, as a family went down a very different road for the first time. We felt Gods call on our hearts for the fatherless, the unloved child, the orphan, or the least of these - however you want to word it. This time was different, this time was clear we were to go make it one less. In the process of this we pretty much spent our entire year analyzing everything we knew, had been taught in church, had ever heard of and also every part of what being a Christian is about. I am not even kidding people. We questioned it all. We felt a calling to our TRUE CALLING. God truly broke our hearts. The more resistant we were the more our hearts broke. I cried countless tears. As true American Christians, we had always considered we were blessed by God, that He wanted the best for us, that he wanted us to be successful, that we were suppose to be in church and be kind to one another. I am really not being cynical, I am not. I am exposing to all of the bloggy world what I actually thought and what Bryan did too. I think he is enjoying a nap as I am sharing his feelings too. We, not at all our parents fault they were raised the same way and so on, were raised to be "good" and God would be happy with us as long as we tithed, went to church, and were always honest and tried to do good. But suddenly this version, my version, of the gospel just wasn't cutting it. It wasn't adding up. If I was blessed by my "stuff" what about the dying child in Africa, the homeless man in Dallas, the orphan in Haiti, Africa, Europe, or China or the foster child in here in Texas? Did God forget about them? For God so loved the world, not Canton, or the US or the sinless (thank goodness). This didn't make sense. I analyzed it all and discovered quiet the contrary to what we believed. God loves those just as much and THEY are the center of his heart. Just for fun try to figure out how many times in the Bible the least of these, or orphans, or widows or fatherless are mentioned. They are mentioned both in commandments to us to take care of them and in how we should be! Thought provoking to us anyway. We are given what we have to take care of those. After all we are to be His hands and feet. Our prayer is that God would break our hearts for what breaks His. I would say that if you want to be near to the heart of God, find a widow, find an orphan, find someone in need. I am not at all meaning for this to be preaching to you, I just want a written record of how God changed our hearts for the good and moved them towards His in 2010!! AND we are not ever going back.

FYI, I am working on reading several books that actually go along with this. I am believing in a revival among Christians for the orphan cause of the world.
Radical
The Hole in the Gospel
Interupted

2011 - Oh how I get excited to think of this year. I am excited to see what God has in store for our family as we continue to strive to know His heart better!! But I can't wait to see the face of the sweet innocent one that God broke my heart for - completly unexpectedly. I know everything is in HIS timing (yall remind me of that when I am posting an I am impatient post!!) but I really think that by the middle of the year we will get to see his or her face on my computer screen for the first time! and also have gotten to hug them and kiss their face for the first time in Africa and here is where God's timing comes in but I would love for there to be 1 more face in my Christmas card next year and have that child HOME with us by this time next year. Now this last part might be pushing it but that is truly what I want and am praying for.
I am excited to see Cole and Averie grow in their understanding of the Lord and the heart of Jesus.

I guess as far as resolutions are concerned, I could stand to get more organized, lose a few pounds, get more sleep and learn something new. But if I had to pick something that I really mean, it is that the Bryan and Mandie Cantrell family would strive to be broken by the things that break Jesus' heart and to know it more.

Adoption Update: I should get notarized home study in the mail Tuesday and will be mailing our Orphan Immigration Papers on Tuesday or Wednesday! (I-600A for those of you in this adoption world) Pray for a speedy turn around.

May God Bless You in 2011 but May He ALSO use YOU to Bless Others!!

Happy New Year!!!

James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress, and keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

In the beginning......

In the beginning.... I am at a total loss for how to put all of my thoughts and feelings down on this introduction post of our blog. I don't even know how to blog and am not a great speller. From here on it will be about happenings, thought, feelings and the actual goings ons of our adventure to our Baby E from Ethiopia Africa. I wish I could tell you that I have always wanted to adopt, or we have always had a heart for orphans or that we were even aware of the statistics of orphans or we always knew this would happen we just didn't know when. But I CAN'T, we CAN'T. I have never even considered adoption even in the 5 years it took me to have Cole. Bryan has never even considered it either. What I can tell you is that God softened our hearts towards Africa about 7 or so years ago. We sponsored 2 children, who I now know were a part of God's plan to land us here, more on that later. We have exchanged pictures and letters from these 2 precious girls for the past how ever many years. About 3 years ago, Bryan had an opportunity to go on a mission trip to Uganda, Africa with our church, Lakeside Baptist Church. It was a wonderful experience for him to see that land and to share our Jesus with them. Our hearts were so very grateful that we had won the "birth lottery" and were born here in the great United States of America. ( As bad as it seems sometimes, we live in the best country ever) Still no adoption thoughts - I mean NONE. Fast forward to about February or March of this year. I was reading a friends blog and she had a a link to a post called "I don't want my kids to be happy" (see the exact link at the bottom right on my blog) As a mom who spends a great portion of my life doing flips to make my kids happy, I just had to see what this lady was saying. Well here is where is begins. I read the post and I want you to read it too, but I read it outloud to Bryan. The lady is adopting a baby from Ethiopia. Bryan asked me if I thought we could ever do that. I said, "NO!" he said, "Me either!" and we moved on. We both could not get "over it". We agreed to continue to pray about it because we were in the middle of building our own home and couldn't make any decisions. We both tried to just tell God that we would sponsor more kids. (It is easier to just send money afterall.) Months past and I kept being led to additional posts and videos of people just like us, who thought we had our family complete and were not expecting God to call them to adoption. I watched a video, also linked to the bottom of my blog. I balled my eyes out. I cried in the shower almost everyday, I was overwhemed with emotion anytime I had time to think about it. I later found out that Bryan was also overwhelmed with emotion especially in the shower. Weird - I know. We prayed for signs, even though we aren't suppose to and WE GOT THEM --EVERYTIME. I even got letters from the 2 different organizations that we sponsored through both telling us that "this child is no longer available/elgible to be in this program!!" Those children fulfilled their purpose in our lives and we in theirs. We finally agreed we would follow God's very clear leading in our lives, but when? We couldn't resist much longer- we had thought of every possible scenerio, the good, the bad and the worst but the only reasons we could come up with not to adopt were selfish! And looked a lot like this - TIME, MONEY, TIME, MONEY, the UNEXPECTED, TIME, MONEY, OUR KIDS, TIME, MONEY. We want our hearts to be broken by what breaks Jesus' heart and it is very clear in scripture that the fatherless/orphans, and widows are IT. We spent weeks praying over different agencies, talking to agencies, and talking to people who are using those agencies and already have there children home. We are into full blown paperwork at this time. We have absolutely no idea what the next 12-15 months look like but we are hoping that you will follow us on this journey. A journey that I am most positive that we , Bryan, Averie, Cole and I, will be the ones being blessed by this precious little one God picked for us to raise, probably more than the child will be blessed by us. Right now as I am writing this, I believe there is a woman/family praying that just found out they are pregnant -that someones heart will be softened to the point of bringing their child, who would have no chance at life, home and loving it like our own and raising them to love Jesus so that one day WE will ALL have a glorious reunion in Heaven. Because you see in Ethiopia these families give up their kids so that they can "live" - because the odds of the child living to be even 5 are not so hot. I am just overwhelmed with emotion (even as I write this) that God has chosen us, the Cantrell family, to be that family. My prayer is that God would use us and the real life feelings we have and would use our journey to soften hearts towards the orphan crisis. Please join us on this awesome/scary/excited/blessed/overwhelming/uncertain/God ordained/God inspired journey and please share our story and blog with everyone you know. Because someone shared a blog with me there will be ONE LESS!! One less orphan and we will become a family of 5.