A Little Christmas

All the kiddos had Christmas programs this week.  Peter's school program was Thursday night.  Of course my camera batteries died part way through, but I was able to get a complete video of his piano performance.

We're so proud of how well he is doing on the piano!  He genuinely enjoys it, which is a blessing.

Friday morning, Ruthie and Thomas had their preschool program.  Thomas was a cow at the manger, and Ruthie was a sheep.  For the past few weeks, Thomas has been belting out the Christmas carols he learned for the program.  But when the time came, he didn't sing a note!  The video isn't great, but it gives you the idea of how cute/hilarious it was to watch Thomas the cow not sing:

Finally, some pictures:

Can you find the cow?

Here come the sheep!

Slightly embarrassed cow

Post-production treats

No major updates on the adoption front other than a request for prayer.  The agency we are working through has just opened a new program in Hong Kong that looks like it may be a good fit for us.  Not that China isn't, it is just that we are still so early in the process, we could consider a switch at this point without there being a whole lot of extra work involved.  Please pray for clarity.  These decisions aren't easy and involve a lot of discussion and prayer.

We hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

Misconceptions, Part 2

We're continuing our series of posts where we address some misconceptions we worry people may have about what we believe or why we have chosen to adopt. 

Misconception: Those who adopt are somehow better people than those who do not; or, God loves you more if you adopt; or, you are being a better Christian if you adopt; or, (insert any other legalistic ways of looking at adoption here).

No, no, no, a thousand times, no. 

from the Heidelberg Catechism, Question and Answer 60 --

Question:    How are you right with God?

Answer:      Only by true faith in Jesus Christ.  Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God’s commandments and of never having kept any of them, and even though I am inclined toward all evil, nevertheless, without my deserving it at all, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, as if I had been perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me. All I need to do is to accept the gift of God with a believing heart.      

Such beautiful words!  It is finished.  We have God's favor, but only because of the work of Jesus, and we can do nothing to add to this work.  So how then do we view adoption as it relates to our faith (because for us it is very much tied to our identity as a son and daughter of God)?  Since we have been given this ultimate gift, we are now “freed to live truly missional and radically obedient lives in a broken world” (Dan Cruver).  Anything we do in this life is God working His plan through us (major emphasis on the God working part).  We are broken people who serve an amazing God.

Update on our adoption progress:
We had our second home study visit last Friday.  This time, we each had to meet individually with our social worker.  She asked lots of questions about our marriage relationship and our childhoods.  The interviews made us realize that we complement each other very well.  We were also reminded that we have wonderful parents (thank you, parents!).  We are hoping that the home study will be complete sometime in January or February.