from left to right (click to enlarge): Jeremiah, Aaliyah, Jorge, Maggie, Mario, Cathy, Nyelie, Isaac, Jorge
Introducing… (insert drumroll)
The new Najeras!!!
Yesterday my sister and brother-in-law have now become the proud parents of 7 kids. Yes, SEVEN!!
Three of the kids pictured above are now officially in the process of being adopted by Jorge and Maggie. As with any adoption story the process began in the Najera’s hearts long before the judge gave the official word yesterday. From what I understand though the catalyst really began last fall, November 8th, 2009 to be exact. That was the date of Orphan Sunday. Orphan Sunday is a simulcast that is sponsored the Christian Alliance of Orphans (a group of several orphan, adoption, and foster care ministries). We hosted this event at our church this past year, and probably will again this year. Mark your calendars, November 7, 2010.
But I’ll let Maggie write about her story in more detail herself. I’ll update this post with a link to her story, if and/or when she writes it.
As for my thoughts, I think it’s fantastic! I’m amazed at how “big” that family looks in the picture above. And I’m used to seeing big families, we have six of our own kids and are joining a ministry where many of the staff also havelarge families. I think it’s because of most of the kids above are literally “bigger” than ours so even though it’s really just one more person in the picture above than our own family, they “look” like a bigger family because they’re mostly older/bigger. It makes me wonder how “big” our family is gonna look like in a few years.
I’m also excited because adoption is something that Deborah and I have seriously talked about before so it’s nice to know someone personally (and so close to us) who has actually gone through the process. I will say that we have talked about it seriously, but don’t see a change in our family size any time soon. We’ll revisit the topic after we’ve finished raising our missionary support and are somewhat settled in Little Rock before pursuing that path.
For those who do not know my sister and brother-in-law, it may be hard for you to figure out which kids are theirs by birth and which have been added via adoption. And I purposely have left out that information. You see, as for Deborah and I, we see these newly adopted kids as always having been a part of our extended family. Although they have officially become our kid’s cousins yesterday. God has always known that they would become a part of our family, they were simply born to a different person than my sister, born in a different city and time that we weren’t aware of. But from the moment they were conceived they were part of us, we just didn’t know it yet. It’s not like my sister threw God a curve ball, instead it took time for Him to work on her and her husband.
These kids are in the process of being adopted. The first step of which was completed yesterday. Once this process is complete they will have been adopted. They aren’t going to be in a perpetual state of “adopted-ness”. Jorge and Maggie have now taken them as their own. They’re not going to play favorites between their kids by birth and the ones who were added later.
When you think about it, these kids will be a part of the family much, much longer from here on out than they were absent from it before. They areus now.
I know people have a curiosity in knowing, but I’m not going to satisfy it. Perhaps Maggie will in her own story telling. As for those of you who do know the Najera family, and already know which kids are the “grafted in” ones, will you join with me and welcome them to the family. Regardless of the issues that they bring with them because of the things they have gone through in their short but difficult lives, they are us now.
i wanna apologize to any of you that have recently tried to contact us using the contact link at the top of the page. i just realized that the plugin that i use to manage this changed the default email address to “you@example.com” the last time the plugin was updated. so unfortunately, we haven’t received any contact requests in who knows how long and we have no way of retrieving them.
really, we haven’t been purposefully ignoring you.
here’s a cute picture of us to make you feel better :) (click to enlarge)
abe: “i think i’m falling in love with you again.”
deb: “oh, really? what do you mean?”
abe: “i think it has to do with all the time we’re being forced to spend with each other through this process. and even though the time we’re spending together is spent doing the SAME thing over and over again. it’s just nice to be able to be with you.
we don’t have kids pulling on us, we’re having interactions with other adults and it’s just nice.
it’s nice to be able to be working on this project together”
deb: “that’s nice”
that was a snippet of conversation deb and i shared this past tuesday as we drove home from yakima.
we also happened to be driving separate cars home, and we talked on the phone the WHOLE way home. (45 min) we haven’t had a 1 on 1 uninterrupted conversation like that in years. i might even say since our college days when we’d go for long walks or talk on the phone for hours.
i’m looking forward to not having any appointments this weekend – our kids could use some dedicated uninterrupted “mom and dad” time.
we’re two weeks into this process, and from my post last week , you can tell it’s thrown our “normal” routine schedule into a tail spin. that particular tuesday, we had just gotten done with two appointments with great friends and i had been gone from home since 6:20am and returned home around 10:50pm.
but through this challenging/exhausting MPD* process, i’ve been pleasantly surprised to find myself falling in love with my wife all over again.
- – - – - – - – - - *MPD = Ministry Partner Development – that’s the name given to the process of us raising a team of supporters so we can report to Little Rock as fully funded staff missionaries with FamilyLife
it seems that anytime we go out in public with all our kids someone will inevitably ask us when we’re gonna get our own tv show. we don’t mind, we actually like the attention a little. and it’s fun to be able to show people that you can have a family larger than 2.2 kids and not be at each others throats or pulling our hair out. so with that in mind we’ve decided to give the site a little more attention.
if you saw deb’s devotional video yesterday you heard her mention during the end that we were giving this site a little more attention and we would both be contributing more often. we’ve even set up a schedule and themes for us to post on.
so here it is: Mon:: devos with deb (devotional insights from a mom/wife/princess) Tues::married life (thoughts on marriage from a guy/dad/husband/pastor) Wed::parenting life (hints/tips/encouragement on parenting from a mom of SIX kids) Thur::FamilyLife Update (all the news/updates on our progress to moving to Little Rock by abe) Fri::house to home (recipes, family fun activities, cleaning/organizing tips by deb) Sat::pic/video of the week (a look into the lives of the laras chosen by abe) Sun::theacousticlife.com podcast(every 1st & 3rd sunday we’ll have a new episode posted)
if you have any questions or comments or specific topics you’d like us to discuss, send us an email: feedback@theacousticlife.com.
we hope this site will encourage you (and sometimes challenge you) to become a better family, have a stronger marriage, and get to know us a little better (even though we don’t have our own tv show).
“if He raised Jesus from the dead, don’t you think he is powerful enough to bring new life back into your marriage?”
those words, from the story of a couple we met this past summer when visiting the campus of FamilyLife, have been ringing in my head since then as I see and hear about broken relationships all around me.
I recently listened to a podcast on FamilyLife that describes one story that seemed impossible to rescue. but with God all things are possible. click the link below to listen. and stay through till the very end where they share a letter from the husband to the wife.
ps. until Sunday, 8/16, when you sign up for a Weekend to Remember Conference at regular price you can get a certificate for another couple to join you free of charge. if you’re interested, go to familylife.com/weekend and enter the promo code: HOPE.
in our recent podcast (itunes link) we stated that divorce sucks, on the other end of the spectrum; weddings ROCK! i came across the video below via @youcanknowgod on twitter (great twitter name btw).
i love the fact that this couple took the time to be so fun, creative and original to begin their wedding. but more importantly to begin their marriage. my prayer for them is that they would continue to put that much time, effort, creativity and fun in their marriage in the days, months, and years to come. in fact this video even made me cry because i was so overwhelmed with joy for them.
