I need that! Do you really?

This past week was our first home study visit with our social worker.  She asked what my goals were.  I said  I want to raise my kids the way God wanted me to.  She looked at me and asked, "Anything else?"  I couldn't find anything else in my brain that I have set as a goal.  I felt like I needed more goals for my life.  Maybe I have them and I don't realize it.  Sarah said that one of my goals is to go to work everyday and do the best that I can and work hard.  I said that I work so I can retire someday.  Maybe she's right, and I do set that goal everyday, but without realizing it.  There are probably a lot more goals that I have and can't put them into words.  This week we have visit number two.   She said she will need to talk to Sarah and I individually for awhile.  Sarah's a little nervous and is worried that our answers to her questions won't match up.  That's just how Sarah is.:)
I thought that maybe I would also tell you all one little thing about each person in our family you may not have known, so you can get to know us a little better.
Jeremy:  You probably know I love baseball and softball, but did you know that the Yankees are my favorite team, and Don Mattingly who played first base for the Yankees (now the manager for the Dodgers) is my favorite player.
Sarah:   She likes to cook and bake (and it is very delicious to eat).
Taylor:  She loves to read books, and has read the entire Harry Potter series about ten times.  What?
Jake:  His favorite football team is the Denver Broncos.  I had nothing to do with this.  Maybe I need to discourage this a little harder.:)
Hope:  She loves to do crafts.
Judah:  He has no fear (this could be bad).  This week he took the swimming test at the pool that allows you to jump off the diving board and go down the tube slides.  He passed.  He immediately went to the HIGH dive and jumped off one time after another.  The craziest part about this whole thing....He has NEVER had swimming lessons.
So, this morning our pastor preached a sermon on being a Christ follower.  He briefly said something about having things that aren't needed, and looking like every other neighbor, and asked the question, "Am I really a Christ follower?"  He was saying that we could do without so many things that have nothing to do with our relationship with Christ.  Sometimes the things we have can be a distraction in furthering our relationship with Him.
It's crazy to think of a kid that went from trying to meet his every day needs to coming to America and going into Wal-Mart saying "I want this".
I would say in the past four years Sarah and I have had discussions on this topic and look at it in our lives.  Before, if we wanted something we would just go buy it.
My question to you is, how many things do we have in our lives that we justify as a need because of the culture we live in?
Example: a cell phone.  Sarah and I have discussed this before and we decided a cell phone is a want, but then say it's a need and justify it by saying, what happens if there is trouble on the road, etc.  We don't have smart phones, but if we did we would probably justify it by saying this is the best way for us to communicate with others.  If I broke a guitar and needed a new one, I could justify spending $2500.00 on a new because I play in on the praise team and I wouldn't be able to without a guitar.
Even if we budget our money and give 10,20,even 30 percent to God and have money left to spend or save, is it okay to get that luxury because we can afford it?   I used to think that way, now I question it a little more.  I'm not real sure.  It's something we struggle with a lot.
There are two questions for you  that I'm hoping you can give me some more perspective on.  What do you think we justify as a need because of our culture?  And, is it okay to splurge for ourselves if we can afford it?

Rock on
J

I'm going to pull an old classic out of the closest for this week.  Ozark Mountain Daredevils.  I'm not sure what my favorite part is, the mouth bow or the guys making the chicken sounds.

Be awesome at everything

So, it's been a couple weeks since I posted.  Our life has been pretty consumed with ball games.  Everybody is now done with games, except my oldest daughter.
For those of you new to this blog here is the reason why we started this: http://rockstarfamily6.blogspot.com/2013/05/why.html and this is what all the numbers are about to the right,
http://rockstarfamily6.blogspot.com/2013/05/one-two-skip-few-three-four-skip-some.html.
So this next week, actually Monday we have our first home study visit with our social worker as well as our first big payment to our agency.  This will be the first of four visits.  There will be one visit where she will need to talk to the kids about the a whole idea of bringing in another child to this family.  If it is anything like our last one, the younger kids can say the darndest things.  Last week we went to the police station to get finger printed so we can see if either one of us are criminals :)  I remember the last time we did this we didn't hear anything for along time about Sarah's prints. She was really worried, about what, I'm not sure.  It turned out that they were a bad sample the first time so she needed to redo them.

Earlier this year we had an auction for our school, and they brought in a world class jump roper.  He was pretty entertaining.  He could skip rope with his butt sitting down.  After we saw this my family went home to try it and it didn't turn out so well.  Anyway, he had a saying: "Be awesome at everything". I loved it, this was right up my ally.  I'm kind of a perfectionist, which has rubbed off onto my oldest daughter and this kind of annoys my wife. My other kids, well we'll have to wait and see.
Here is Taylor's level of awesomeness.

The other night Taylor had a high fly and lost it in the sun at a bad angle and ended up with three stitches and glue.  This was the only drop of athletic ability she received from Sarah.:)  Taylor was a little upset about this, as she is with any mistake she makes, and sometimes beats herself up about it.
After hearing this guys philosophy and loving it, I left with one question.  One that I hope many of you can enlighten me or give your opinions on.  What do you do when you are on a team with others to accomplish a goal, and your level of "awesomeness" is different than others on the team?  If yours is higher (in your opinion) do you try and push the others to be better, or do you lower your awesomeness to what you think theirs is? If you lower your level of awesomeness you're not being awesome at everything. Right?  If your level of awesomeness is lower than someone else's (according to them) do you think, "Okay, maybe I can be better."  Then you push yourself to their level of awesomeness.  Or, do you just think "who do you think you are pushing that on me, I'm already awesome at what I do?"
I know I've handled it a couple different ways before.  Both were opposite of each other, and I'm not sure if they were good or bad.
What are your thoughts on this?
I'll leave you with a song and a link from a favorite band of ours we first discovered three years ago at a festival our whole family went to.  They just came out with their new album and you can download it for free if you go to http://www.votaband.com/ and follow the link.  If you follow me on twitter @jsnipes477 you can find a link to go to so we might be able to win a concert at our house and a trip to Nepal.  This means I might have to start tweeting more to stay interesting. :)

Rock on
J

All the small things

One of these days I'm going to come home to a scene like this.



No, not because of any river, creek, or lake swelling up, but because of my wife's tears.  Every time one of you has donated she starts to cry with joy.  In all, we have gotten rid of eight numbers, and we thank you for that.  Couple things I forgot to mention.  I said that donations are all through paypal, but I didn't think of those who don't use paypal.  You can do it through snail mail if you want.  If you wish to donate and not send pictures, that is fine also.  If it comes down to just a few pictures then we probably wont do the collage; I'm sure you might not want to be one of just a few on there.  We might just do it with our family and send it to you.  We'll see how it plays out.

My dad and step mom were back in Iowa not too long ago for the week. They live in Utah, and it's been a couple years since they came back.  We didn't do anything extravagant, but they did make a point to come see all the kids play ball while they were here. It could be viewed as just a small thing, no big deal, but I know to me and my family, it was a big thing.  When I was a kid my dad was my baseball coach, and maybe to him it was just a small thing, something he enjoyed,  teaching the kids to love the game, but to me it was huge, bigger than some could imagine.  Maybe those things we husbands do for our wives like breakfast in bed, rose petals leading to a candle lit picnic in the kids' playhouse, or a little kiss seem small, no big deal to us, but to our wives, it's huge.

A week ago Taylor had a softball game , it was the top of the 7th and we were up by 1 with two outs, ready to end the game, right?  They hit a slow grounder right to Taylor at the pitcher's circle, she fielded cleanly, set her feet, and over threw the first baseman's head, two runs score, other team ahead.  She comes back to strike out the next girl.  Bottom of the seventh, the Eagles come back to win the game.  Taylor came home that night upset and didn't want to talk, even though they won the game.  I told Sarah, in all reality it's not that big of a deal in her scheme of life, but I didn't tell Taylor that.  Who am I to tell someone else that the situation they are having at the moment is not a big deal, I suppose my job at the moment is to listen.  I knew Taylor wouldn't hold on to it, and that she would let it go, especially since her coach told her she couldn't step on the field the next day if she didn't. She loves softball too much to do that.

The very first day we had Judah (still across the ocean), I thought he would like to play with an ipod. I thought it would be a small thing that he would think was cool.  I wonder now if I hadn't done that if he would still be an electronic junkie.  It may have turned into a big thing that created a lot more work for Sarah and me.

I also corrected Judah on small behavioral things when he first got home that I wouldn't have done with my other children at that age, and I think it was a huge deal to him.  I think my mentality behind it was because he learned some of that from being in an orphanage, learning how to survive among other kids with his thinking of "this is mine stay away".

I guess my whole point behind this is that we all need to be aware of what we do each day, each hour, each minute, whether or not we feel it's insignificant or not, because a lot of the times  someone else is around and we could affect their lives. Good or bad.    I try really hard to to pay attention the small things while I'm coaching the ball teams. These kids watch you closely.  I have been really blessed to be able to coach along side three other guys that share the same philosophy.  We want these kids to go out and play hard, do their best, and fall in love with the game, and one small action or word could change that forever.  So here is a shout out to Ryan, Brad, and Nate.  Thanks guys.

 A couple years ago I started to say a prayer every morning on the way to work.  I would ask God to help me follow the Spirit's leading for the DAY.  I use to think I needed some big revelation from the Spirit on what God wanted me to do with my life, thinking that if I wasn't doing something big I was not doing enough for Him.  I think it's a lot easier  going along in life not worrying about life and what's coming up, but living in the Spirit's leading for the day.  I have gotten out of the routine of doing that everyday and I really miss it.  I think it helped me be more attentive to things I would do through out my day.

Now just imagine me dressed up in punk, standing on top of my amp,guitar in hand, with Sarah down below and her hands out like this

whipping her hair around, and me going crazy playing this.

Yeah, that's how we roll.....................................................................play.


Rock on
J

Three sides to every story

So, this is not what I was going to post on this week, but it just so happened to come up a few hours before I started writing, and I thought it would be good to do it now before I forget. I really don't know where this is going to end up, but I guess we will find out.  But first, we just wanted to give a huge thanks to our first donor, who has moved us down to 199 numbers left to fill.

This all started when I was reading an article this morning from the NY Times about evangelicals adopting, running into problems, and finding out about corruption in the system in countries abroad.  I then started to read people's comments.  You can read the article here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/us/moved-to-adopt-evangelicals-find-children-and-pitfalls-abroad.html?pagewanted=2&_r=3&smid=fb-share&

Lately there have been many arguments about all the unethical adoptions taking place internationally.  There are three sides to international adoption that I see.  

The first side may sound as if they are for adoption, just not internationally.  Since there has been an increase in international adoptions, people attributed a lot of it to evangelicals and labeled it that: an evangelical movement to rescue the orphans.  This first group brings up the corruption of a lot of countries adoptions and call evangelicals naive, saying that they don't know what is really going on, that the end justifies the means, in terms of bribery.  They just do it because of some religious mandate from God.  It makes me wonder that if the majority of international adoptions were not from evangelicals,  would these stories and articles be the same in their content and point?

The second side is the people that are for international adoption.  If they are like me, they give their point of view from a perspective of someone who follows the great and mighty Savior, who prays for His guidance.  Where some will be led to go internationally, some will stay within the U.S., and others will help financially and by prayer.  We take His words from James to take care of orphans and widows intentionally.

The third side is the families who make this decision to give up their children.  Sure, there are the stories such as the one in the comments where a guy was asking the native Rwandans if there were any babies to adopt, and they were scared.  If that's the case, I would be scared also.  That type of corruption needs to stop.  I have only heard stories, not experienced it first hand.  But, then the other stories of families that recognize that their children might not survive if they stay there because of their situation, and they love them so much that they want them to grow up and have a "chance", not thinking of themselves but their children.  There are situations where children may lose both parents, and the extended family is not capable of taking care of their child.

Sarah and I believe that family preservation should come first.  We support two children through Compassion International to help those children's families stay together.  We know those programs work.  We also know that not every adoption is corrupt.  We have worked with an agency that did all they could to ensure that the adoption was legal and ethical.  We have seen the good, but we know there can be bad.    

As long as we still live in a sinful broken world, I do think there will always be orphans and widows.  There will always be corruption, and evil, selfish people.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe we will get programs in every corner of the earth that will support the people and they won't have to give up their child.  Then again, what about the people in countries that can afford to raise a child, but decide for some reason that they are not ready to raise one in their stage of life?  This is why I believe we need to adopt or help families adopt, because there will always be orphans that will need the love of a family, both here in the U.S.A. and countries abroad.

I leave you with a good song from Joe Walsh.

Just remember, "one is right the other is wrong. I guess it depends on which side you're on".


Rock on 
J