Jewels in My Crown

It has been an amazing, busy weekend.

Our social worker called on Saturday morning and we set a date for our homestudy home visit! I thought this day would never come! Seriously, nothing happens fast enough for me. I get so impatient when I think of those sweet little boys waiting for us.

After a big buttermilk pancake breakfast, we loaded everyone up in the van to deliver lunches downtown. Ten families from our Sunday school class made 20 lunches each, consisting of a sandwich, fruit, cookies, chips and a bottle of water.

People start lining up before 11 am to get a sack lunch. I hesitate to call them homeless people. First of all, some of them may not be technically homeless, but still in need of a meal. Second, since Ralph came along I've become more sensitive to people-first language.

Using people first language means we refer to a child with Down Syndrome as a child with Down Syndrome, NOT a Down Syndrome child or worse, a Down's kid. First and foremost, my son Ralph is a person, a boy, a child. The DS is secondary to that.

So I was wondering the other day, how would I use people-first language when referring to other groups of people. Would I call a homeless person a person without a home? Is there a better way than to say "homeless person?"

Anyway, I'm guessing that the folks that showed up for the sack lunches were mostly homeless. But, individually they were more than that. They were someones baby boy or baby girl at one point in time. They have desires as well as needs. And, the God of the universe loves them each.

The kids were hungry by the time we headed home, but they had to wait. The lunches were not intended for them and had all been given out. It was a great little lesson in service. I hope we get to do this again soon.

After our own sandwiches at home, I got to go shopping at the Mall with James, Ruby and Ralph. I finally spent my birthday gift card on some much needed clothes! I was hoping to be buying some smaller pants by now, but a girl has to wear something.

I got home just in time to change and head out to church for the Crazy Love womens' event. What a great time we had eating scrumptious desserts from Leah, listening to a wonderful gifted speaker, and challenging each other to serve our Lord in ways that may be seem crazy. Crazy that is, until we realize how crazy is the love of God.

Sunday morning was my absolute favorite, though. I was finally free to share our adoption plans with my brothers and sisters at church. We brought some doughnuts to our Sunday school class, because that is the tradition when you are expecting a new child. What fun it was to share that we are essentially expecting twins. It was fitting, I think, to share this news on the heels of the Crazy Love event the night before. I'm sure some people think we have gone crazy!!

After church we did Leroy's birthday celebration. His birthday is on Tuesday, but dad will be out of town. He wanted pizza and grapes for lunch. Silly me, I forgot to buy grapes! After cake and ice cream the little kids played outside. I think spring may be on it's way!

I let the kids stay up a little too late to watch the Olympics closing ceremony. I'm sure I'll pay the price in the morning. But, it's the Olympics!

I've been fooling around with some photos for this blog for the past hour. I'm limping along on this dinosaur of a computer, trying to come up with a decent blog header. Perhaps I'll get some help this week and get some nice, pretty buttons posted.