Even chickens know....

   Somehting happened this morning that may seem like an ordinary thing ( for a farmer)  but in all actuality is something very miraculous.  I did not plan on posting today ( I have garage sale items that need to be priced : / ) but I had to share.  We have chickens, in case you didn't know, and pigs and rabbits and a turkey, and etc....We also like to hatch our own chics. We have a very broody hen named Jenny who is a wonderful Mama but also a mean son-of-a-gun. If you have never seen a broody hen beofre, it is one of the scariest things you will ever see. Just try and take an egg from her.  Her pupils dilate and she puffs up and makes horrifying screeching squak-like sounds and will peck the heck out of you.  She is the meanest to Ryan, I think because he is a man. Funny thing, before she went broody, Ryan and her were the best of friends, and she would climb on is back and stuff.  Sounds like a typical woman, now she just pecks him if he gets to close.   Anyways, she is a fierce mother though.  We had another hen get broody but was not good at protecting her young..the chics she hatched unfortunatley fell prey to a snake.  We have since defeated these snakes...thats an interesting story as well.  Never thought my butt would go after a snake before , but I did, and prevailed, thats another story though.
       Anyways, Jenny is the most amazing mother I have seen in nature. This hen has hatched numerous chics. She lays on them faithfully for 21 days straight, she does not move from her spot. We put the food and water right next to her so she doesnt get too undernourished.  Its kind of gross but she will not even move far to releive herself. That is how devoted she is too theses soon-to-be chics. We could all learn a lesson from Jenny. After 21 days they hatch and she teaches them everything. Eventully we let them all wander around and peck and scavenge like free range chickens do.  She guards her babies and messes up any other chickens who get to close.   Then when the time is right..she makes them go their own way.  All of her chics take a piece of her personality with her. The funny thing is, Jenny sits on multiple eggs, only one is usually hers, we put about a dozen eggs  under her that we have gathered from other hens. She lays on and raises all of them, The best part is the different breeds of chickens. Each new chic has aspects of their biological mother, but they all end up with Jenny's strong will, seriously.  What a testament to an adoptive mother. This however, is not what I wanted to share with you all today, even though it is a wonderful example of adoptive love.  It reminds me of this verse, "Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"   (Matthew 6:26)  The adoptive love of the Father is reflected even in this chicken ! Just imagine how he takes care of us.  For real y'all !
  Anyways, back to what I wanted to share.  Jenny has been sitting on eggs and they started hatching yesterday.   We just kind of leave her to her thing and check on her everynow and then, more out of curiosity ( just can't resist watching chics hatch, cutest thing ever) because she really has it handled.  This morning before leaving for work, I wen tto check on the chics and Jenny. A chic was in the corner of the pen and appeared like it had died. It had somehow left the warmth of Jenny(newly hatched chics have to stay warm) and could not make it back and was curled up in a corner.  It breaks your heart a little. jenny wa sstill busy hatching eggs so for some reason couldnt get his little buy back to her.  I went to pick the chic up to get it out of their and it moved a little. It moved so little that iwas not sure if I was seeing things.  I held it in my hand, it was limp and lifeless.  Did not appear to be breathing.  I did not just want to dispose of it because I swear I thought it had moved.  It was very cold to touch. I rubbed it and tried to stimulate it , with no response.  As a last effort, but with high hopes. I decided to put what seemed like a lifeless, limp chic under Jenny, thinking maybe the warmth will help.  I placed the lifeless chic directly under Jenny , almost being squished by the other chics and eggs still hatching and left for work.

    I came home about 4 hours later.  I went to check on the chicks.  All I could see were healthy chicks. I counted to make sure my numbers were correct. The few hours of warmth and touch of the Mama han completely revived the little chick that was as good as dead earlier.  You can not even tell a difference between him and the other chicks.  This simply amazing to me. You guys, human children need this warmth and touch and love. Institutionalized children do not get this very basic need of physical touch and warmth. This kills baby chicks...just imagine what it is doing to 153 million orphans. Without love, and touch these children literally do not grow.  It is amazing to see the before and after pictures of children before they were adopted when they are in the orphanage and just 6 months later when they are home in a forever, loving family.  I was able to get in contact with a woman who adopted from the same orphanage that "Nick" is in and she met him. She told me that he was very small but precious and loving.  I can't wait to see how much he will grow when we get him home.    

Sovereignty

       Wow. It has been an amazing few days...We had our a fundraiser the other night at a pizza joint...we had about 60 family/friends come..it was a great night. We made enough to pay some more intial fees and that lead to some amazing happenings. However, before I get into that. I need to answer a question that has been asked to me several times...what has lead us to this adoption? There is really only one word to answer this question. God. I love how when I answer people...a lot of times that is all they need to hear..and they already understand. For some others..they need a better explanation...and I am more than happy to share it because well it is really just a beautiful and amazing story to share. I like to tell it because it feels me with wonder everytime I think about all the little circumstances that came into play while we were "thinking" it over.

       So I have kind of always had adoption on my heart...I don't know how long exactly but for awhile..I knew it was always something I would like to do. Becoming a mother for me,just really, opens up your heart to every child in the world without a loving parent. It would break my heart when I thought about an orphaned child. However, a lot of people have that empathy for a suffering child. But what turns that into a drive to adopt? After getting married...my desire became deeper to adopt. I had mentioned it to Ryan a few times, and honestly, he was not really "feeling" it. He felt that it was something he needed to have as strong calling to do and he just didn't feel that "calling". I am not a very pushy person and besides, adoption is definitely not something you want to push onto anybody. I kept my desires to myself mainly. We would talk about it every now and then. It was never an exact "no" from Ryan. but it was definitely not in the cards anytime soon.

       We preceded to have our 2nd daughter in May 2014 an I ended up changing my career from firefighter to stay-at-home mama. This was a huge adjustment but at the same time very good for me. With me staying home and my oldest in school all day my husband and I had alot more time with each other and honestly struggled a little at first. It was through this struggle that we knew we needed to be making God the priority in our house and diving into the Bible as a family and strengthening our relationship with the Lord. We also started getting more plugged in to our church. Healing started happening to our family through these actions, healing that no one can accomplish but God, but that is for another post. Throughout this time I still had adoption on my mind. Its like with every birth of my biological children, I felt this pull to reach out to those without a mother. I would stay up late at night when my husband was at work and browse through adoption and foster websites..sometimes peeking at pictures of waiting children.

         In April of this year I even inquired to some websites about doing a homestudy to foster, etc...but obviously never following through. I wondered to myself why I was feeling this strong pull to adopt. Around the same time I started volunteering at a pregnancy center ministering to woman with unplanned pregnancies...this just fed my curiosity about adoption. In August one evening when my husband was at work I typed "adopt a waiting child" into google. I clicked on one of the first few sites that came up. Beautiful faces stared back at me. One face in particular just grabbed my heart, and has not let go since. I wanted him home right then and there. I sent an email to the site inquiring about this little boy. I was mad at myself for doing that because I knew that well, Ryan, did not have the heart for adoption. So it was probably all in vain, but hope resided in me, there was something different this time.

       The next day or so I showed Ryan this little boy, when he saw his picture there was a look on his face I did not expect, it was a look of compassion and love. He said we should pray about it. I was ecstatic in the inside. "Really?" I asked him a few times. That night I got on my knees and prayed for Ryan's heart to be open to adoption and that one day we could bring this little guy home. I think I was in tears already because I already loved him. Several times I thought to myself "this is crazy". I soon got an email back telling me that this little boy was in a country in Eastern Europe. When I found this out it made my heart skip a beat because we have very good friends of our family that had adopted two teens from this same country a few years back. I was literally going to volunteer for them that weekend for their minsitry at their church called Project 1:27 (James 1:27), a ministry aimed at encouraging families to adopt and foster. They were having a foster parents night out, and I was going to be the paramedic if anything happened. I knew at this point this was no coincidense, it was God at work.

       So many times we can ignore these very clear signs that God intricately places before us, but it was very clear to me. That night I volunteered and it was amazing. I told my Mom and Phyllis (the friend who had adopted from same country) about Ryan and I possibly adopting. Phyllis gave me a book that night called The Connected Child by Dr.Karen Purvis. It is a book about parenting children from "hard places". I dove into this book right away. The book just blew me away. Very good information and just a totally redefined way of parenting for all children not just adopted children. 

       Meanwhile, Ry was up early every morning, journaling and diving into scripture. He told me that really there was no "No's" when it came to adopting this little boy. We know him as "Nick". But he still felt we needed to continue to think and pray about it.  There is a lot of risk to adopting and it is well scary. How do we pay for it? How do we travel overseas to a country that has high conflict? Is this going to be the right thing for the children we have now? Whose room do we put him in? So many questions and fears. Every day though some kind of sign was given to me, I mean literally I would drive to my part time job and see an "Adopt" sign on the side of the road. That actually happened. It made me chuckle. Then one day at work (I was teaching CPR) I looked down at my roster for class and saw the name Purvis. I literally had my copy of The Connected Child by Dr.Karen Purvis in my purse with me. I was like "no wayyy maybe its a common name". So I asked the lady who signed in with that name if she was related to Dr.Karen Purvis. "Oh yeah , she is my mother-in-law," she replied. I got extremely excited and showed her the book in my purse and we talked a bunch and she wished my family luck! I texted my Mom and Phyllis immediately! That was just too much for me. I was ready to do this! Ryan was almost ready too. He told me that everytime he had a fear or a question pop into his head about the adoption that when he read the Bible it had an answer everytime that pointed towards adoption. That all these other fears were well just fears and not something to hold us back. I would be more specific with my scripture but he is not home. So maybe another post.

        A few days later we decided to jump in with both feet! Its been a crazy month or so since then. Just researching everything and trying to pick adoption agencies and just really not having a clue of what we are doing. I am constantly being encouraged by my Father in heaven though. He lifts me up daily with little pieces of evidence that he is right here with us. Just this process of adoption has been very healing for my family already. Bringing us closer together and just well learning better ways of parenting. Getting our priorities in line . Simplifying things. We have already sold one vehicle and are trying to sell another to get rid of car payments and have some more cash for adoption. Really working on our relationships in general because this little boy is going to need a whole lot of love and time. Working on our patience with our children. Nick will need calm, patient, loving parents. I got baptised a few weeks ago. Thats another post. Learning about the plight of orphans in the world, this has been eye opening and heartbreaking.

       Did you know 19 percent of orphans that age out of their orphanage or other care will commit suicide within the first year? Another 80 percent of these orphans that age out will go into crime or prostitution just to survive. That's 99 percent of all orphans that age out. Children with special needs or medical issues in the country we are adopting from are literally not seen as valuable as other people. They are literally abandoned, which is probably what happened to our little Nick. All of this is so humbling. We as Americans are so incredibly blessed and it is our responsibility to take care of these children. 153 million orphans in the world. 153 MILLION. But here is another fact, there are more Iphones bought everyday then children born. What does that tell you? Something is broken. We can fix it. One child at a time. Adoption is super expensive and super risky. But it is worth every penny and every risk just to give a child the love that everyone deserves. We have been adopted by our Father in heaven through Jesus ..and we need to recipricate this love. If you have no idea what my last sentence meant that is ok. I can explain in more detail just email me if you want. We all need to wake up and act.

        I have literally been taking things off of my wall tonight to sell at our garage sale tomorrow to help raise funds. I don't need a stinking painting if this child does not have a mother or father. I don't need all these books, all these clothes, kitchenware, tennis racket i have used a few times, shoes, more than one purse, toys my kids hardly play with, that bridesmaid dress from a few years back.  While a child puts himself to bed everynight without a kiss or a story. So yes, look at me weird and make fun of my flip phone, but it is getting me closer to Nick. Not sure how I got to this soapbox. Probably because it is 2am. GOODNIGHT GUYS AND GOOD MORNING NICK...YOU ARE PROBABLY JUST FINISHING BREAKFAST AND STARTING YOUR DAY. I LOVE YOU. BE THERE SOON.