Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Surrounded by Love
Here is a picture of our little Hope with her cousin Hope who she is named after. We all love you cousin Hope...so many memories and more good times to come. We pray that Hope Marie has the same love for life, family, and God that Shawna Hope has. 
Carmen and Hope
Misty Doris and Bethany
My sister Doris and her husband Rick...Thank you for everything! We love you both.Our wonderful daughters, Misty, Carmen, and Bethany along with wonderful sister Doris, her husband Rick, and their daughter Sarah staged a special party for Hope last Sunday. It was a welcome to Texas, America party for Hope and a “Meet Hope” party for our extended family and as many friends as we could get the word out to. They worked really hard and were completely successful in providing a memorable celebration of Hope becoming an American citizen and part of this great family circle.
We will be posting pictures for several days coming up, but there is a problem at Blogger at this moment. Also we are trying to get pictures to post of the shower given by Linda, Dwain, and Julie and the Living Word Sunday School class from our church. Hope has received an abundance of toys and clothing from these events plus so many individual gifts and cards.
I was thinking about it Sunday night after the party, how Hope must feel, going from a being a love starved orphan to being the center of attention, literally surrounded by an overflowing abundance of love. Isn’t that a pretty good picture of what happens when someone accepts Christ and becomes an adopted child of our Heavenly Father and part of His family?
Our Pastor quoted Christian author Max Lucado a couple of Sundays ago, “ If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.” As Christians we should rejoice that we are no longer orphans.
Ronnie
We will be posting pictures for several days coming up, but there is a problem at Blogger at this moment. Also we are trying to get pictures to post of the shower given by Linda, Dwain, and Julie and the Living Word Sunday School class from our church. Hope has received an abundance of toys and clothing from these events plus so many individual gifts and cards.
I was thinking about it Sunday night after the party, how Hope must feel, going from a being a love starved orphan to being the center of attention, literally surrounded by an overflowing abundance of love. Isn’t that a pretty good picture of what happens when someone accepts Christ and becomes an adopted child of our Heavenly Father and part of His family?
Our Pastor quoted Christian author Max Lucado a couple of Sundays ago, “ If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.” As Christians we should rejoice that we are no longer orphans.
Ronnie
Friday, March 7, 2008
Sleepy Head
This is one of my favorite times of the day. She looks like a little angel lying there asleep, and when she is waking up she is so cute. The first month that she was home she always woke up whimpering or crying. Now she wakes up more peacefully, but oh yeah, after a few minutes the little angel has transformed as the picture on top shows.
Ronnie
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
And Your God Shall Be My God
Hope is an expert imitator. I walk in the kitchen and sigh, and I hear an echoing sigh right behind me. I put my hands on my hips and say, “ Now what do we need to do next”? I look down and Hope has her hands on her hips just like I do.
We sit down at the bar to eat and she bows her head waiting for me to give thanks. If I don’t start immediately she cuts her eyes up toward me and pats me on the arm. She says amen just before I am finished almost every time.
All of this and more she has learned in just over a six weeks. Of course she doesn’t know the why of any of these things she is just imitating. It makes me aware of how careful I need to be in what I say and how I live. Her understanding of our faith and why we do what we do, pray, go to church, etc. will come later.
Our blog is read by people all over the world. We know that those readers represent many different religious or even non-religious beliefs. We hope that all will continue to read our account of Hope becoming part of our family. Our intent is not to preach, just to share. There may be some who fear that Hope will have religion forced on her, and that she will lose her cultural and spiritual roots. It is true that she will lose touch with the spiritual beliefs that she might have had in China, but we could no more force faith in Christ upon her than we could capture the wind.
That is the beauty of the true Christian message. It is a belief of the spirit and the heart. Our lives will be an example to Hope and she can imitate, but there will come a time when she questions who she is, who we are, and what is true. She will go to church with us, she will hear the singing, the preaching, and it will influence her, but not convince her. Only God’s Spirit can do that. Of course that is our heart’s desire, that she would experience this peace, joy, and hope that we have, but deep down in her heart it will be her choice.
Ruth 1:16….where you go I will go, and where you live I will live, your people shall be my people, and your God my God.
Ronnie
We sit down at the bar to eat and she bows her head waiting for me to give thanks. If I don’t start immediately she cuts her eyes up toward me and pats me on the arm. She says amen just before I am finished almost every time.
All of this and more she has learned in just over a six weeks. Of course she doesn’t know the why of any of these things she is just imitating. It makes me aware of how careful I need to be in what I say and how I live. Her understanding of our faith and why we do what we do, pray, go to church, etc. will come later.
Our blog is read by people all over the world. We know that those readers represent many different religious or even non-religious beliefs. We hope that all will continue to read our account of Hope becoming part of our family. Our intent is not to preach, just to share. There may be some who fear that Hope will have religion forced on her, and that she will lose her cultural and spiritual roots. It is true that she will lose touch with the spiritual beliefs that she might have had in China, but we could no more force faith in Christ upon her than we could capture the wind.
That is the beauty of the true Christian message. It is a belief of the spirit and the heart. Our lives will be an example to Hope and she can imitate, but there will come a time when she questions who she is, who we are, and what is true. She will go to church with us, she will hear the singing, the preaching, and it will influence her, but not convince her. Only God’s Spirit can do that. Of course that is our heart’s desire, that she would experience this peace, joy, and hope that we have, but deep down in her heart it will be her choice.
Ruth 1:16….where you go I will go, and where you live I will live, your people shall be my people, and your God my God.
Ronnie
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