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!

I have always been inspired by Molly’s mom and dad. They took care of Molly with no nursing care help. I often prayed for strength and rest for this family. Today, I pray for comfort.

Molly with her mom

I found a new pair of pants for Carmen in the wash. Where did they come from? I know they are Carmen’s because they are her size. Dave figured out last year that the best pants for Carmen are capris. We can buy them big (like a size 10) to go over her adult-sized diapers and because they are capris they are short enough for her.

I have my suspicions about who they came from…

***

We have some big decisions to make and would greatly appreciate your prayers. In the next couple of days, I’ll try to post what we are thinking and praying about.

Hope’s hair is strawberry blond. Where did that come from?!

When I woke up, I had two thoughts: 1) I better hurry up and learn how to take portraits so that I can take great ones of the Guatemalan children and 2) if Dave and I are able to go together, that means Carmen is most likely no longer with us.

If my dream comes true and we do go back to Guatemala, it will be bittersweet. I will surely be a weepy mess seeing all the beautiful Guatemala children. But, I will also feel so proud to honor Carmen’s life.

***

Thanks Tammy for the delicious meal. Dave said, “Yep, this is a Tammy meal!”

]]> http://www.beautifulcanvas.org/2010/03/guatemala-dream/feed/ 2 http://www.beautifulcanvas.org/2010/03/the-faces-of-hope/ http://www.beautifulcanvas.org/2010/03/the-faces-of-hope/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:09:28 +0000 Lana http://www.beautifulcanvas.org/?p=6932 These people are always taking pictures of me. They can try to make me, but I’m not going to smile! OK, maybe a tiny smirk.

Ohhhhhhh, I’m tired.

I tricked them! They think I am going to sleep, but I’m not!

Here’s some random stuff about Hope:

• When the nurse first handed newborn Hope to me, I fully expected to have that moment when new baby and new mommy stare at each other in awe. Nope, Hope came out wailing and kept right on through our special moment. Turned out her blood sugar was low, 32, and she was not happy. After the nurse gave her a bottle of formula, she cheered up.
• Hope was a sleepy newborn. Very, very sleepy. Eat, poop, sleep, eat, poop, sleep. I’m glad I got to experience the sleepy newborn stage with Hope. Moms need more rest in the beginning and Hope gave me that.
• Hope can sleep through anything. No white noise machine here!
• Hope started giving us little smiles right around 4 weeks old. Couple of nights ago, Little Miss Hope decided to stay wide awake from 2-4am. She looked up at me, smiled and said, “Goo.”
• Hope is a spitty baby. She goes through about six bibs per day.
• Hope does NOT like baths. It is like trying to wash a kitten who is clinging on for dear life to whatever she can grab.
• Hope likes to be snuggled up next to Carmen but she does not like it when Carmen has a seizure and whacks her in the head! (After that incident, we now keep Hope far away from Carmen’s arms!)
• We are enjoying Hope. It’s an exhausting yet beautiful time. Because of Carmen, we stare at her a little longer. And hold her a little tighter.



***

Carmen update: The new antibiotic seems to be helping Carmen’s eye. Hopefully in the next few days her eye will be totally healed.

Thank you Sarah for the wonderful chicken/mashed potatoes dinner. I’m definitely going to make that chicken!

***

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!

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!

***

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???).