happiness...in a song

How can you not just grin after watching this? :D :D

Love,
Katie :)

Famaversary

 Say what?!
What on earth is a "famaversary"?!
Well, for any family that's adopted, it means it's the day your adopted sibling came home to a forever family for, well, FOREVER.
It's a big deal.
I love my Meddie sis.
She is my precious little girl and I can't believe I lived a day without her.
She's growing up so fast and I'm SO thankful that God chose us to be her family.
Adoption is such a beautiful picture of what God did for His children.
He reached down into our pitiful existence that was destined for destruction and saved us from utter destitution.
Can I get an AMEN?!
My sister was headed down a path for who knows where.
I know it couldn't have ended well.
She still has memories and consequences from the four years she had in her native country, but we love her more and more each day.
We show her how much Jesus loves her and that He is her only hope.

To celebrate a little, I took my beautiful girl out for some sistah time!

I taught her the best way to eat french fries :D dipped in chocolate ice cream!

My only sister is one of the best gifts God has ever given to me!
He is so good!!

Love,
Katie :)

(enter title here)

AH!!!!!!!! I've fallen way behind on these journal posts! I apologize!
Life suddenly got rather busy as I prepare to leave for Michigan for a wedding this weekend!

That's Megan and me :D :D
She and her fiance, Elijah, are getting married after knowing each other for less than a year!
Is that not so adorable and romantic?!
A lot of my CP friends are going to be there, and it's just going to be a really spectacular weekend!

I watched Peter Furler's latest music video last night, and it gave me goosebumps!!!
so so cool :D

I'm really hoping that once I get home from MI, I can restart doing those journal entries!

Love,
Katie :)

Journal Post 2

3/8/12

Day 4 in Ethiopia

  Sitting under my mosquito net, I can feel Him as I never have before; like I could simply reach out and touch Him. Oh LORD Jesus how I love You. God is REAL. I have felt His presence and seen Him at work. We're in southern Ethiopia now. Everything is dirtier and everyone is poorer than I imagined. It doesn't even seem real. Yet these people live in the dirt with no clothes, no toilet, no beds, flies constantly in their eyes and ears, lice, bedbugs, cockroaches, no food, no water, etc. I've seen the real deal. And yet I got to praise Jesus WITH them. I felt true joy radiating from them. I started bawling from the sheer overwhelming feeling of it all. Oh praise be to God! I am so blessed to be here. Trusting God has never been so hard or so sweet. I've had to surrender my fears and my heart every second since we arrived here. And isn't that what God wants from us as His children? Just to completely give up control and say, "I know you got this, God."

Love,

Katie :)

Journal Post 1

 The following journal entries are unedited except for names and locations are taken out for the sake of their protection.

3/6/12

Day 2 in Ethiopia

 As soon as I inhaled my first breath in Africa, I knew I was in love. I can't stop obsessing over every beautiful detail. From the red, dusty dirt to the unfinished buildings, I LOVE it. This morning when my dad was in the shower, I got to stand on the balcony of our wonderfully tiny hotel room of the Riviera. I took in everything: the melody of the honking buses and the bustle of EVERYONE walking to work. I stared across the open field and took in the breathtaking view. The mountains are gorgeous. As one of the staff members organizations drove my dad and I to Hannah's Hope where Meddie lived while she waited to be part of our forever family, I drank in every last detail. The craziness of traffic, without stop signs or stoplights and people walking everywhere, thrilled me to the core. Going to Hannah's Hope was such a surreal experience. I had seen hundreds of pictures of MY sister there, and now I finally got to experience it. It was ten billion times better than I expected. I got to meet several members of the staff whom my parents had gotten to know pretty well. And the kids...my heart aches with how much I miss them and I only spent 30 minutes with them. One girl was of the same tribe as Meddie and I did a double take the first time I saw her. She looked almost identical to my sister. I absolutely adored her. She and another little Gambella girl were glued to me. I loved those two like they were my very own. And while I wished I could just take them home with me, I knew I they had families waiting to love on them and be united just like God had planned. After a painful goodbye, our driver took us to the organization we were working for over there. Soon after, the whole  team loaded up in a bus. Ok, so I already admit that I'm weird, but I've just always had this dream of riding on a bus through rutty, dirty roads in a foreign country. I lived that to its fullest today, and I loved every second of it. The project we went to today was filled with beautiful children who are being sponsered. We played jump rope, swung on the swings, made beaded necklaces and bracelets, sang songs, and played duck duck goose and Red Rover. Some of the kids were absolute stinkers, but I loved every single chocolate child to death. The language barrier was frustrating sometimes, but we communicated with hand gestures and facial expressions. (Random: people across the street are listening to J-Lo and it's pretty loud!) Probably the saddest thing I saw while we were at the project was when we passed out anything. It was a mad dash and it didn't matter who was in the way. They wanted it and they wanted it FIRST. I was almost bowled over when I broke out the Dum Dums. I had already decided that each kid could only have one lollipop. Well, because it was so crazy, I couldn't keep track of who I had given suckers to. So kids would hide theirs and end up with 3 or 4 suckers. It just goes to show how dependent we, as humans, are on STUFF, and we shouldn't be. Even through being completely frustrated with the kids for lying and cheating me out of suckers, the bottom line was I just needed to love them like Jesus. We lie and cheat and yet God loves us anyways. And that's why we're here: to be an example of Jesus Christ and His love to anyone we come in contact with.

Love,

Katie :)

What Are You Living For?

Ethiopian pathway

I think most of us know the Sunday school answer to this question.
"Why, to live for God, of course!"
I don't want to take away from this "correct" answer, but how many of us actually live that way?
I know I don't.
My perspective on life and what I was living for was completely changed after my Ethiopia trip.
I was living for myself.
I would get upset if the smallest thing didn't go my way.
I don't think I even realized it.
I would get angry and upset (internally of course. I would never show it) if my favorite cereal was gone or if only two people "liked" or "commented" on my Google+ posts.
I would get irritated with my siblings as quick as wink if they did the slightest thing wrong.
I would get mad at my parents if they didn't give me what I wanted.
I would spend hundreds of dollars on clothes and Starbucks that I was so sure I needed.
me me me me me me me ME!
Now, this is not to hate on social networks or shopping or anything like that.
But, think about it?
WHAT is your motivation behind everything you do?
Is it to gratify yourself?
Or
Is it to glorify God?
I have seen starvation.
I have seen poverty.
I have seen extreme sickness and disease.
I have seen the homeless.
I have seen people with literally NOTHING.
And yet..........
They are happy.
I saw children's faces light up when they got anything they could call their own.
They were SO CONTENT.
They had Jesus.
They were incredibly happy with anything you gave them because you gave it in the name of Jesus.
I bawled at McDonald's last night when I saw how uncontent everyone was with even the large amounts of STUFF they were being given.
I was reminded that as Americans we are not happy with anything.
These beautiful Africans were happy with nothing.
Why?
Because they had JESUS!
Let's take a lesson from that.
Bow down to Jesus and cry out to Him to show us how we need to live our lives in order that we may honor the One who gives us every good thing.

Over the next few days I'll be blogging my journal entries I wrote over the past week.

Seek HIM.
Honor the One who saved you.

Love,
Katie :)

Say Cheese!

Lissie inspired me to post some random pictures because it's fun and easy and it keeps the blog alive.
This will probably be my last post before I leave for Africa on SUNDAY!!

How bout some pics of my crazy awesome siblings?!

Peaches is such a drama queen!

Eddie Joe has always got a smile!!!

T-bird, such a beast over there.

Bring out that smolder, Rye Bread.

There are no words to describe the coolness of The Big Fella

I LOVE MY PUPPY!!!!!

We have WAY too many of these at our house.

Miss Squishalicious was helping us pack for our big trip!

....melting....

Uh yeah....I have studly muffin bruthas.

The weather has been all over the place lately....

I miss my two older CP sisters!! (India (l) and Manda (r) )

My CP sister Melody who I miss TERRIBLY!

And my crazy awesome CP bruthas Josh (l) and Robbie (r) and my adopted CP daughter BEKA!!

Love,
Katie :)