Adoption Headquarters

We have officially set up an adoption headquarters in our house! We have always had this little nook off of our bedroom by our bathroom that we have NEVER known what to do with and it has always been under used …. NOT anymore! It is now ADOPTION HEADQUARTERS as we like to call it.

Here I am hard at work!

Here is my document check list that is taped to my desk. I will live and breath by this for the next few months. Everything that I need for our dossier is in here. It tells me exactly how many copies of each item I need. It tells me if that item needs to be notarized or translated to French. This will become our life!

prayer request

Our little boy – pray for safety, comfort, his nutritional needs to be met and for him to feel our love from hundreds of miles away. We also know that his mom is not a believer and has chosen to not parent him. She lives in Port-au- Prince and is believed to run with a local gang, so we pray for her life to be saved and that she would some day come to know the Lord. Pray for comfort for our little boy’s step-grandpa who had been caring for him and was no longer able to.

Rescue Center – pray for them to receive the new materials that they need, for the ladies that work there and care for the 50-60 children that are there at any time, for them to love our baby boy, and for them to receive the much needed medical supplies and baby supplies that they constantly need to run the RC and clinic.

Our family – Pray for patience as we wait the approximately 18 months to bring our baby home. Pray for us to fill out all the many forms correctly since we are doing this adoption independent of any agency. Pray for guidance and ideas on fundraising for this adoption. Pray for our boys as they wait for their new brother to come home, since that is rather confusing for a 3 and 1 year old!

Money – Pray for our finances for this adoption to fall into place. We know that we don’t have an extra $10,000 for an adoption right now, and know that God is big and can do much more than we ever imagined he could ever do. Over the next month, we are going to need $1,000 for a home study, $700 for an I600 form, $3500 for our first payemnt to our facilitator and $150 for a translator fee for some of our documents. So, we are a little stressed about this money showing up before the end of September, but we also know that God is big and will provide somehow.

lack of sleep

Last night I could not sleep. I tossed and turned and could not get images that I had viewed for hours out of my head. You see, I follow a few blogs from people in Haiti and for some reason last night was different. The images stuck. They woulnd’t leave. I couldn’t convince myself that they were hundereds of miles away and there was nothing I could do for them. My heart wouldn’t let my mind go there.

You see last night this image became real to me. Last night these children became real to me. They are real children with real problems in need of real people to love them. Many of these children are actual orphans where one of both of their parents has died and they now have no one.
I am pretty sure that Aaron and I have decided that we don’t need a bigger house or more money to love one of these kids. These kids need us way more than we need a bigger house!
I am wondering how many more sleepless nights I will have until one of them is granted a mommy, daddy, a cute dog, and two crazy brothers.

favorite person in the world

I can’t even begin to descibe how much I love this man. He has changed my life and together we have had so much fun with each other.

When we first met he was a youth pastor and not my “type”, but I thought he was hilarious and cute. I also valued his relationship with Christ and knew that he was maybe not the man for me, but I would be very happy with someone like him. We didn’t start dating immediately (I had a boyfriend that turned to fiance, but that is a whole other post), but we did enjoy being around each other whenever that happened.

Finally we started dating in December of 1999 and by the next summer I knew that this man would be mine forever and we would be soul mates and have children together and build our life together. We got engaged on Feb 14, 2001 and were then married that summer. My life has not been the same since then.

On this journey with Aaron I have seen God do some amazing things in our life and I know that he has lots more in store for us. I am proud to be the wife of Aaron Ivey, and am overcome with thanfulness to God for granting me such a Godly man when I deserved nothing like that.

I love you baby!

love one another.

John 13:34 ” I give you a new command: Love each other. You must love each other as I have loved you.” (new century version)

I John 4:19 “We love because God first loved us.”

I had two very interesting converstaions today. They have both stayed in my mind all day long and no matter how much I try to move on, I just can’t. They are tugging at my mind, my thoughts and my heart throughout the entire day. I’m mad that I said nothing in response, and mad that I didn’t feel as though I had the security to say anything about these either.

I know that both of these conversations affect me deeper then they used to because of our Little Boy is bi-racial and we adopted him when he was born. These conversations spoke dear to my heart and rallied up my emotions on both of these issues. Okay on to the conversations ….

Conversation #1
Today I had a conversation with a woman about someone in her family that was dating a BLACK man. I put the word in bold because everytime she said it she acted as though he was the worst thing that could possibly happen to her daughter and her family because he was black. I kept thinking to myself surely she is not truly a person in high authority and has these thoughts. Surely she has forgotten that my son is BLACK. I wanted to say “HELLO REMEMBER ME, I’M JAMIE AND MY SON … OH YEAH HE IS BLACK”.

Unfortunately I was unable to say anything. I know Aaron has already gotten on to me about this, but honestly it was not a time that I could. Lots of people around, the conversation was about something serious (not this) and this was kinda just thrown in there.

Here is the deal for us people that call ourselves Christians. We are here to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Read the verse I typed above. Love each other as I have loved you. It doesn’t say love white people. It doesn’t say love Americans. It says love each other.

This lady represents the most subtle form of racism. She feels as though she (being white) is better than him (being black) and doesn’t want to be associated with him. Who is she to think this? I am very much aware that there are people in our country that feel this way and I just pray that my boys don’t have to deal with this much in their lifetime.

I have heard this before … I have nothing against black people, I just don’t want my kids to date any of them. WOW – I wish they would actually listen to themselves. RACISM

I can HONESTLY say that I will be happy with whomever my boys decide to marry. I only ask that she love Jesus and desire to follow him wholeheartedly. She can be purple, Mexican, black, Iranian or whatever it just doesn’t matter.

Conversation #2
A lady had a friend that placed a baby years ago and the adoptive family gave their word that they would allow visits for her to watch her baby grow up. A year into it they changed their mind and she hasn’t seen him since. What? How could they do that? That is NOT right!

Okay I have been dwelling on this all day and I know now that I need to give this over to God and realize that this is nothing new to him and that he will give me comfort and words to say when needed.

my baby boys are gone.

Recently Aaron cut his hair short again. He does this quite often and I love it. The next morning after he cut his hair Big boy was in awe of his new hair do and couldn’t stop asking for his own new hair do. I DID NOT want to cut his hair, so we dropped it and Aaron went out of town and I was hoping he would forget.

Oh no. The very first thing he said to Aaron when he got home was “can I get my hair cut like yours daddy?”!!! No lie it was the FIRST thing he said. We tried to drop it but it would not drop. Finally we decided this would be our first time to use our parenting plan … PRINCIPLE over PREFERENCE. For us, principle will be more important than our preference. It was our preference that he NOT cut his hair but it was against none of our principles that we choose to follow as Christians! So, we gave in and he got his hair cut. Now you know that Little Boy could not be out of the action and had to do whatever his big brother was doing.

So the other night we all gathered around the patio outside the buzzing sound of the clippers began. Here are the pictures to prove it:
Big Boy before:

Big Boy during:

Little Boy before:

My boys after:

My babies don’t look like babies anymore. I know that this will shock some of you and it’s okay if you don’t like it. Believe me it is taking some getting used to. If you could have seen Big Boy’s face when he first saw it you would know it was worth it. He looked like the happiest kid in the world!

the results are in ….

I know most of you have been sitting at your computers all day waiting for the results from my race this morning. Did I do it? Did I meet my goal of 25 minutes for the 5K this morning.

Well here are the official results from the Nashville Striders website:

FEMALE AGE GROUP: 25 – 29

PLACE O’ALL NAME AGE GUN TIME CHIP TIME PACE

1 167 —————- 27 23:36 23:33 7:36
2 206 —————- 27 25:25 24:44 7:59
3 215 JAMIE IVEY 29 25:14 25:09 8:07

WOW! I just went online to check the “official” results and realized that I placed THIRD in my age group. Yeah for me! So surprised and so proud. Yes my time was 25:09 so we’ll just say I met my goal for the day.

This next part is just for runners, so if you are not and don’t care about running you can close your screen now b/c this will not interest you.

Here we go ….. I am TERRIBLE at pacing myself. TERRIBLE. The gun goes off and I sprint out of there like I’m running a 400. I know not to do this, but I have a hard time not staying up with the pace. If lots of people are passing me I want to run with them. It is competitiveness and pride all together. My goal was to run between 8:00 and 8:10 min miles. My first mile was a 7:42 – WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING! That killed me not only physically but mentally as well. My second mile I was at 16:20 so you see how I slowed down tremendously then I hit the finish (3.2 miles) at 25:09. I STRONGLY believe that if I could pace myself better I could run stronger throughout the whole race and finish stronger and then acheive a better time. Any advice? I want a GPS watch so that I can know my mileage and pace at any time, but they all start at about $200 and I don’t have that much money saved up yet. Until then, what can I do.

Also another question for you runners …. I ran a 7:42 mile today and when I train I am usually never under 9:20. Am I slacking? Should I be picking up the pace? I have a 10K in two weeks and if I do what I did today on my first mile I will NEVER make it to the end. My end goal is a half on 9/22 and personally I don’t think I’ll be as ready as I was in March. Oh well, this is life and I must run.

Thanks for your advice!

Submission to Him

Recently there has been a common theme going on in my life. I just finished a bible study with some ladies from our church and the last week was so good for me. The study is called HE SPEAKS TO ME – PREPARING TO HEAR FROM GOD by Priscilla Shirer (daughter to Dr. Tony Evans) and it was very good.

The last week was entitled a Servant Spirit and it was about submitting to God.
Day #1 Submissive to the Lord’s Assignment – basically what has God created you to do. He has a purpose for your life.
Day #2 Submissive to the Lord’s Challenges – “In this world we will have trouble. But take courage. I have overcome the world.” John 16:33. We must change our perspectives on the challenges that come to us in our life. God says we wil develop perserverance through trials. God also says that his glory will be revealed some how in our suffering.
Day #3 Submissive to the Lord’s Desires – “Delight yourself in the LORD; and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4.
Day #4 Submissive to the Lord’s Authority – Safety, freedom, and enjoyment come when we live within the bounds of authority God has placed on our lives.
Day #5 Submissive to the Lord’s Timing – We musn’t attempt to rush God. To rush spoils the very reason God initially desired the event for us and cheats us of the joy that comes when we experience God’s will. His plans are perfect without our input or interference.

Today I also finished my book 90 minutes in Heaven by Don Piper. This man was in a terrible car crash in 1989 and was dead for 90 minutes. They declared him dead upon arrival and a pastor that was in the traffic jam b/c of the accident felt God asking him to pray for this man even though he was told he was dead. He describes the 90 minutes he spent in heaven, but most of the book is dedicated to his recovery and numerous trials that he went through b/c of his accident. I thought of him after I did my lesson this week when I did the lesson about being submissive to the Lord’s challenges. He clearly became submissive to God’s challenges throughout his recovery. He was also able to look back and see how God was using his challenges for him to love on other people around him. It made me think … what is God using in my life so that I can relate to people?

I highly recommend this book. Whether you believe that he did really go to heaven or not, the book is still a great story about someone’s determination, and recovery from a terrible car accident.

I am praying that I too can be submissive to God’s timing in my life, his challenges in my life and his authority in my life.

Spiders …. oh my!

We have seen two black widows around our house this week. I don’t know much about them, but Aaron told me they are the MOST deadly spiders alive. Is he correct on this one?

We have not seen our backyard in a long time because of the heat that has been hitting our area lately and when we ventured out there this morning to play before the sun could get straight up over our yard we found tons of spider webs. I wonder where all those spiders are hiding?

Just now I heard a loud scream from downstairs and thought Aaron had fallen down or something. Then it was quiet. Then I hear him yelling for me. I run halfway down the stairs and he yells for me to stop and be careful there is a HUGE spider under the bottom step. I tell him to kill it and he says he can’t. He is scare of spiders. So, being the wonderful wife that I am I came to my husband’s rescue and killed the HUGE spider (it really wasn’t that big!).

Enough excitment for our night … I’m off to bed where we will probably have spiders crawling in our bed as we sleep.

First day of school

We had our first day of school this week. Too bad Little Boy doesn’t have his own backpack yet. He wanted to hold his own bag though just like bubbie, even if it was a diaper bag. My boys both have the same teachers that they had last year and that makes me happy.