Happenings 2013

It has been another year of wild, crazy. blessed adventures....right up to this very moment when I'm trying to get an update on here before the last minute Christmas cards reach mail boxes saying there is an update here!  (More pictures coming soon......)

Often, during our morning prayer times before jumping into the day's activities, we pray from youngest to oldest....so I'll do the same with our update.

Anna is now 9 years old!  She is very excited about hitting double digits next year.  She has an amazing memory and a sense of direction like a human GPS (something helpful to the driving siblings that lack that skill).  This year she got to play a "school girl" in the musical, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.  She and her dear friend, Molly, were dressed like twins.  We discovered she can sing and dance and saw here exuberance displayed as she grinned from ear to ear every time she was on stage.

Joshua is now 11 years old and 5'3" tall!!!  That makes him taller that two older siblings (Mark and Rachel).  He still plays soccer and basketball and loves computer games like Mine craft.  He thinks he may be interested in a future career working with computers, so we have been trying to give him opportunities to work with them, including moving a couple of school subjects to computer.  He and Anna are continuing to try to relearn Chinese.  We love our Chinese classes with Bonnie and our friends. 

Mark is 12.  We learned he has hidden talents as a dancer which were employed when he was also cast in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.  This will be his first year to compete in NCFCA speech along with the older kids.  He continues to be fascinated by things like science, economics, politics, current events and deep theological questions.  He seems to absorb books through his pores. 

James is 15.  He recently got his driver's permit.  Ironically, we were rear-ended on the way to test, so a prolonged use of a rental car has prevented any actual driving lessons so far.  He is hopeful for Christmas break!  He is competing in speech and debate, but his real passion continues to be music.  He plays drums, piano, guitar and coordinates recording with a band he organizes.  He loves the production side of arranging and mixing music and used those skills and his new equipment to help with his siblings musical.  I'll try putting links to a favorite piano and drum piece...

Sarah just turned 18!  She is working through college applications and decisions for next year.  She loves teaching and theater.  This is her fourth year of teaching junior speech classes.  This fall, she also added a public and competitive speaking class for high school competitors.  In total, she had 70 students in her speech classes.  They were a great bunch of students and the classes were really fun.  She is also teaching Shakespearean Literature to a small group of students.  This will be her 4th season to act in a program called Shakespeare's Greatest Hits.  She loved her role in 12th Night last year.  She applied and was accepted to a program by the Oregon Shakespearean Festival last summer.  She was able to spend two weeks in Ashland working with the actors and directors and other high school juniors from around the country.  Another highlight of her wild and crazy fall was playing Snoopy in You're a Good Man.  After watching her with years of pain and a year of surgeries and rehab, it was a huge, huge blessing to see her singing and dancing in that rigorous role! Thank you Dr. Herzka and Proactive Physical Therapy!

Rachel is 21!  How did this happen!  She is a junior in Journalism at Patrick Henry College and working hard to save up the tuition money needed to finish next year.  Last summer, she had amazing opportunity last summer to attend World Journalism Institute with WORLD magazine in North Carolina.  She stayed on after the two week program to work at WORLD headquarters.  We were blessed she was able to work for them remotely the last few weeks of her summer break and here with us.  She wrote stories for their website all summer and continues do write for them intermittently while in school.  She has done some stories for the magazine and also writes for their student publications, God's World News.  She is also continuing to write Tara's Travel Journal for Club House, Jr.  If you google "Rachel Lynn Aldrich" you can find links to some of her stories.  Or, of course, you could subscribe to WORLD magazine -- which we would highly recommend!  She brought home a special friend for Christmas.  If Blake looks familiar, it is because this friendship started more than a year ago when they were cast as George and Emily in the play Our Town (see last year's update....) 

Pete and Kristine......well.....40 something....not yet 50.....  wow!  We are trying to figure out how to spend our 25th Anniversary this spring.  Pete is still working from home for SAP, which we LOVE.  He has fully recovered from shoulder surgery earlier this year and is back to working out and preparing for adventures and racing events.  He and James are able to do some of these together and even recruited Rachel for the Spartan Sprint!  I, Kristine, stay pretty busy just keeping up with everyone else.  We are still doing most educating for most of them at home.  I enjoy helping Sarah with her speech classes and college visits, getting "music appreciation" lessons from James, reading Rachel's stories, scientific explorations with Mark, learning Chinese vocabulary with Josh and Anna, helping children with various therapy exercises, partnering with our dear co-op families and hosting events of various kinds! 

As we look back over another year, we realized how truly blessed we have been.  We are thankful for the precious family and friends in our lives and for God's grace that is continually poured out in great abundance. 

Who by Worrying

I love that Matthew Chapter 6 passage that admonishes us not to worry.  It was one of the first Bible studies I remember doing as a young adult.  I used to worry a lot and felt my worries were very reasonable. 

It doesn't feel like I worry very much any more, but I do think about things a lot.  Perhaps that is a less anxious version of the same thing.  I'm not sure. 

On the radio today, I heard someone saying that when he hears someone say they have a problem with staying focused, he asks them if they ever worry because worrying means you are focusing on something.  An interesting notion for someone who struggles keeping my focus on what is in front of me instead of somewhere else. 

The same speaker quoted a "study" on worry.  I tried to do a google search for this study.  I found it quoted several places, but not the original source.  I did find something to suggest it came from a fiction story.  In any case, it had some thought provoking and believable statistics that said that after following what adults worried about over a two year period, they found that 40 percent of what they worried about will never occur, 30 percent had already occurred so couldn't be changed, 12 percent were needless imaginings about health, 10 percent were "petty little nothings" about what other people think, leaving just 8 percent that were legitimate concerns.

The problem, of course, becomes identifying that 8 percent, because a vigilant worrying person could imagine all of those things might belong in the 8 percent.  While I don't feel like I'm worrying very often, I do rerun a lot of things through my mind and a lot of "what if" scenarios.  I wonder if sometimes I do it for my own entertainment. I've never been good at reading a book or watching a movie without trying to figure out how it is going to end. 

There are legitimate things that need attention, so we can't ignore every unsettling thought that comes to mind.  We are admonished many times not to worry and told frequently to put our trust in God.  He has given us a Helper.  Perhaps the key is to trust that as we commit each of these thoughts, imaginings and scenarios to Him in prayer, He will prompt us for action when it is needed.  I know this happens. In the absence of such prompting, there is a 92 percent chance the best thing for me to do is simply write it in my prayer journal and wait to see how He will work it out.

Thriving in the Desert

I have been reading the book, A Praying Life, by Paul Miller.  There have been many quotable thoughts from this book.  I am up to a chapter called Unanswered Prayer: Understanding the Patterns of Story.  He has some good things to say about "Thriving in the Desert" that I could relate to from experiences in my life.

"God takes everyone he loves through a desert. It is his cure for our wandering hearts, restlessly searching for a new Eden.  Here's how it works.
  The First thing that happens is we slowly give up the fight. Our wills are broken by the reality of our circumstances. The things that brought us life gradually die. Our idols die for lack of food...
  The still, dry air of the desert brings the sense of helplessness that is so crucial to the spirit of prayer. You come face-to-face with your inability to live, to have joy, to do anything of lasting worth. Life is crushing you.
   Suffering burns away the false selves created by cynicism or pride or lust. You stop caring about what people think of you. The desert is God's best hope for the creation of an authentic self.
  Desert life sanctifies you. You have no idea you are changing. You simply notice after you've been in the desert awhile that you are different. Things that used to be important no longer matter...
  After a while you notice your real thirsts. While in the desert David writes,
                'O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. (Psalm 63:1)'
  The desert becomes a window to the heart of God. He finally gets your attention because he's the only game in town.
   You cry out to God so long and so often that a channel begins to open up between you and God. When driving, you turn off the radio just to be with God.  At night, you drift in and out of prayer when you are sleeping. Without realizing it, you have learned to pray continuously. The clear, fresh water of God's presence that you discover in the desert becomes a well inside your own heart. The best gift of the desert is God's presence."

He ends his chapter reminding us that when we don't receive what we pray for or desire it doesn't mean that God isn't acting but is weaving his story.  He reminds us to watch for the story God is weaving in our life.  Colossians 4:2 "continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving."  He says, "Thanksgiving helps us to be grace-centered, seeing all of life as a gift....watchfulness alerts us to the unfolding drama in the present."

Reflecting on my own life, I have had desert experiences.  The most significant one came along in 2004.  I ended that year feeling like I was standing in the middle of a vast desert that I couldn't see across and the only thing I knew to do was to cling to my Savior.  I remember very clearly one morning as I was preparing to go to the first Sunday service of the new year in 2005.  In my desperation, I prayed that God would give me a new scripture to cling to in the new year.  He answered that prayer in a huge way that Sunday morning and I came home and wrote the following passage down in several places so I would keep it in front of me,
   Isaiah 43:19 "Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."
   By the end of 2005, I recounted numerous "new things" that had sprung forth that year.  I had become utterly dependent on God. I had thought I was before, but it was a new level of looking for his story in all things, especially those things that were hard and painful and didn't make sense to me. I learned to hear Him more clearly.
  In October of that year I had heard a prayer request for a little girl in China.  I also heard God speak to me about trusting Him when it didn't make sense.  That began the unfolding of an amazing story in all of our lives and ultimately the addition of two blessings in our family from the northwest corner of China. 
  Chapter 43 of Isaiah is a long chapter and I certainly didn't memorize it.  In the months we were waiting to travel to China in 2006, I was at a meeting where someone included a scripture in their praying it was, "when you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned..."  I recognized it and thought it was from Isaiah, but wasn't sure where.  I looked for it the next day and found it was also Isaiah 43.  I decided to study the entire chapter and was stunned when I also came across, in that same chapter, a passage I had seen quoted on blogs of families adopting from China,
  Isaiah 43:5-7, "Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring descendants from the east, and gather you from the west; I will say to the north, 'Give them up!' and to the south, 'Do not keep them back!' Bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth - everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him."

Yesterday, the kids wanted to do Bible drills and I ended up sending them to Isaiah.  I told them of the scriptures in Isaiah and we read 43:5-7 and discussed some parallels in our lives.  God brought two descendants from the east (China) and gathered us from the west when we went to retrieve them.  They were from northern China and especially in our second adoption, we had to fight to ask them to "give them up!"  All adopting families are required to exit from southern China where the US Consulate is located to request the required visas for the return to the US, we indeed said to the south, "Do not keep them back!"  He did bring a son from afar and a daughter from the end of the earth.  I believe they have been created for His glory.....

God's stories are the most amazing stories.  I know He gave me that little bit of scripture to sustain me in the desert.  The desert was painful to almost unbearable, but it did change me, it taught me utter dependence, it killed idols, it taught me what it means to pray continuously.  I learned to watch for the story God is weaving.

24 Years

Today was our 24th Wedding Anniversary.  We have now been married longer than I had been alive when we had our wedding!  So perhaps, now that I have been married more than half of my life, my reflections on marriage have a little bit of credibility.  I don't know a lot about being single and don't remember it very well.  I do remember looking forward to marrying my best friend and waiting with great anticipation for our married life to begin.

People told us it would be challenging.  It didn't seem like it would be so difficult for us since we were in love and got along so well and were such nice people.  They were right though, married life is still life and it still involves fallen broken people, like me, and that makes it challenging.  It was harder than I ever thought it would be, but the adventure has also been better than I imagined.  I knew I would have things to learn, but I had no idea how much.

No relationship can grow, flourish or even survive without great energy and investment.  This is especially true in marriage because it is such an intimate partnership and the foundation of a family.  We all need help, advice and encouragement.  I am so thankful for books, seminars, ministries and friends that have grown, encouraged and helped us along the way.

Marriage is faced with challenges and assaults from every side and in every area of life.  Being one with someone else gives you a freedom to be yourself in all your beautiful, ugly glory.  A spouse has an up close and personal tour of your faults each day.  It is sobering, really, and I wonder what miracle has caused this man to love me so.  It truly must be something supernatural that helps him to love his wife as his own body. (Ephesians 5:28).  I know it is a work of the Spirit that helps this selfish, prideful, fleshly woman to respect her husband.  Not that he isn't worthy of respect, because he is.  He is loving to me and our children, a leader in our home, a hard working and capable provider and protector, a passionate follower of Christ, and he is smart, handsome and fun. 

He has learned to love me even on my bad days and to think I am being cute when I am being ridiculous.  I know that is a learned skill.  He knows when my shoulders and nerves are tight and is willing to give up precious minutes of sleep to massage out the kinks.  He has learned to love with a sacrificial love and I am trying to learn to do the same.  It is a hard thing to set aside my selfish priorities each day to love, care for and show respect for another.  I am thankful that God's love can work through me and overcome my selfishness.  There is a war at work in all of us that wants to tempt us to find fault while excusing ourselves, to question motives and taunt us to give into frustration and focusing on our failures and those of others.  I hope I have learned and am continuing to learn to listen to that voice of truth - the one that says to believe all things, hope all things, endure all things because love never fails.  I want to see the best in people and to love them with all their gifts and faults -- especially the husband that God, in His providence, has given to me.  I want to keep believing that I am living the dream with the husband I would have dreamed of having if I were single and the children I would have imagined if I had never had any...in the blessed life I never could have imagined before I started trusting God to write the story.

I could not have pictured what these 24 years would have looked like.  It has been an exciting, exhausting, terrifying, gut wrenching, joyful, tear-filled, hope-filled, blessed adventure.  I am in great anticipation, again, of what lies ahead in this great adventure.

Happy Anniversary to my dear husband.  I love you, always. Kristine