Comments (13)

By Dave ©, March 10, 2010 8:36 pm

We are incredibly grateful that most of you have been journeying with us for the past several years. As Betty likes to say, we have become family!

Yet we also know that there are many new visitors. So for those of you who are newer to the site or perhaps missed this the first time around, please watch the following video. It summarizes our adoption story, which was the catalyst for this site.

Without getting too preachy here, I want to encourage you to throw your burdens on God and let Him do miracles in your life. He won’t let you down! He won’t leave you! He won’t let you go!

Comments (7)

By Dave ©, March 2, 2010 8:40 am

Short film about a budding photographer who is just six and, as such, eventually just wanted to play!

***

Carmen update: Carmen’s eye is not healing. We have been putting antibiotic eye drops in her left eye 4 times per day for a week. Yesterday, we started a new antibiotic drop that we hope works. Her eye is still red and watery. Hopefully it looks worse than it feels. Please pray that we find something that works!

Comments (4)

By Dave ©, March 1, 2010 12:54 pm

Lauren has mentioned on multiple occasions that she’d like to be a photographer when she grows up. She’s also written about it two separate times as part of her school work. You might recall this one.

The other night, as I was putting her to bed, she asked me if she could go to photography school when she’s older. I told her she could as long as she agreed to teach me everything she learns!

Now, I don’t know if Lauren will end up being a photographer when she grows up or not. I don’t even know if she’ll grow up. That might sound fatalistic and morbid but that’s something we just don’t take for granted anymore. We don’t assume much about the future these days.

Thinking less about the future helps me focus more on each day. And that’s good.

Speaking of good focusing, I took Lauren on her first photo shoot this past weekend. There’s a creek not too far from our house and I thought it’d be the perfect setting to teach her a few things while enjoying time together in the great outdoors. Lana and I talked about it ahead of time and both agreed that Lauren should learn to shoot in manual mode (with auto-focus) right from the beginning.

Here’s our little “fotogofr” in action:

Her first assignment was to take a photo of the tall grass, attempting to get it in focus while blurring the background:

Although she passed with flying colors, I realized that I was trying to teach her too much in one session. So we decided to work on exposure only, specifically shutter speed. I set her aperture (poorly at that…too open!) and ISO. After a few instructions and test setups, I left her to figure out and set the right shutter speed for all of her shots for the rest of the day. Here are two of our favorites:

I promise you; Lauren took these photos…all by herself. Yes, these are two of her best ones. And, yes, Lana edited them to clean them up. But of all Lauren’s photos, only one missed the boat with respect to exposure. She had some focus issues. She had a few composition quirks. But her exposure was spot on and I’m so proud of her!

Comments (3)

By Dave ©, February 28, 2010 9:01 am

I wrote this almost two months ago, on January 3, 2010. I’m not sure why I never posted it. I guess I just got really busy with work and sort of forgot about it. But I think it’s worth posting now because it is somewhat prophetic, at least the last part. We definitely need your help! We feel like we’re under heavy attack from the enemy. Please pray as Lauren does that, “Satan will be binded from this house.”

***

This is the first year I can remember entering in which I’m pleased with the direction of my life.  So rather than resolving to do things differently, I am asking myself questions like, “how can I keep the momentum going?” and, “how can I actually increase that momentum?”

Don’t get me wrong. I could stand to lose about 10-15 lbs and improve my physical health. I could definitely be more patient with Lana and the girls. I could certainly be a lot more disciplined in almost every area of my life. There are actually a lot of aspects of my life that I’d like to be different. However, from a big picture perspective, I’m pretty happy with where I’m heading and where we’re heading as a family.

***

About a year and a half ago, Lana and I made a 10th anniversary weekend getaway to New York City. During that trip, we talked about where we were going in life. We agreed that we weren’t really heading in the same direction as each other and that this disconnect was straining our marriage. We talked about things we could do differently, things we could do to “get on the same page.” We made two decisions that weekend. First, orphans were going to play a big part in our future. Second, we were going to pursue a shared hobby, photography and videography.

To be honest, we haven’t made a lot of tangible progress with our first decision, probably because the decision wasn’t defined with enough clarity. We sponsor a couple of children through World Vision. We bought some backpacks and gave them to Mi Refugio, which passed them along to children in Guatemala. We have talked about traveling back to Guatemala to help at Mi Refugio and hope to do that someday soon. Beyond these things, though, we haven’t moved significantly in this area.

We do think we’ve made some progress related to our second decision. Lana and I have both enjoyed learning how to use our camera. The first time we took our camera off of full-auto was extremely intimidating. Yet it was well worth it! We still have a lot to learn but we feel like we are on our way and make a good team. And we are happy that our children will have a few decent pictures and videos to document their childhood.

***

There are two more concrete decisions Lana and I are making this year that will hopefully keep our momentum going.

First, we are increasing our focus and effort to get rid of stuff — physical stuff. Our mantra is if it’s not useful, it has to go! Among other things, we feel like God is giving us this time with Carmen to prepare us for a different future. In many respects, we can’t make a lot of tangible progress right now. We can’t move to Guatemala right now. It’s just not happening. We can’t even go to Guatemala as a family to help at Mi Refugio. Our circumstances with Carmen demand that we stay pretty close to home. Well, really, our circumstance demand that we stay home, period. Yet we can make tangible progress in one key area. We can get rid of physical stuff that takes up our time and energy to maintain, stuff that will hold us back one day and keep us from “getting up and going where the spirit leads.” We began getting rid of stuff last year and will continue this effort this year. We want to be free of our stuff so that we will be freed from our stuff!

Second, we have made a family commitment to read the Bible together each day this year. I know, I know. This is something that we should have been doing already. We do read the Bible and pray as a family but not as consistently as we could or should (see comment about discipline above). This year will be different. 2010 will be the year we solidify our spiritual core, if you will.

***

We need your help!

Please pray for our family. It seems as though each time we make a decision to step closer to God, we get a big dose of spiritual attacks from the enemy. Stress, arguments, selfishness, pride, impatience, restlessness. These are just a few of the things that have caused us to stumble. These are the things we must overcome to be more effective for Him.

Please continue encouraging us this year. We are hopeing for a really big, positive change soon (Edit: she’s here!). Yet we know this, too, will be stressful (Edit: can I get a witness???).

Comments (18)

By Dave ©, February 8, 2010 2:35 pm

Dear Hope,

Nine days ago, you arrived in this world in a flash! This first week with you seems to have gone by just as quickly. You are changing before our very eyes and it’s so exciting to watch you grow.

I know you can’t read yet but I don’t want to miss this opportunity to tell you a few things. These are things I tell your sisters often. You need to know them as well:

• I love you bigger than the entire universe! I will never be a perfect father but please know that I really do love you and am working really hard to be the best dad possible.
• Your mom and I are the luckiest people in the entire world because we get to be your mommy and daddy and your sisters’ mommy and daddy. Sometimes I pinch myself just to make sure I’m not simply dreaming.
• God has an amazing plan for your life. It may or may not be the plan you have for your own life but I promise you that His plan is good. You don’t want to miss it!

Here is a short film I made especially for you. I’m pretty sure that you’ll be embarrassed by it long before you appreciate it. But I do hope that you appreciate it someday. I plan on making a bunch of these to help capture your life story.

Love,

Daddy