To The World From A Forgotten Place

Praise God! I am in Port au Prince as I write to make arrangements to pick up Eden Kristy and bring her home. I'm still playing the waiting game, but we really are closer than ever. Upon arrival, I was profoundly reminded of how rough and poor this place is. Let's put it this way, none of your cars would survive here. I don't know how they do it. The people are beautiful and if you close your eyes, you feel like you are in a tropical paradise, but opening them brings you back to reality quickly. Anyway, pray for this to finally get finished. Jimy's stuff is moving along too. Hopefully we won't have to return to this place for a while. Actually, forget that. We need to. We desperately need to.

Gone Fishin'

I'll never forget that fishin' trip. I went to Canada with my dad and grandad when I was about 8 or 9 years old. It was great! I caught a bunch of Walleye. I remember catching more than everyone else, but that's probably just what they said to gullable young kid like me. You know fishin' stories - they grow and grow. I have always wanted to take my son on a trip just like that. The trip for me was a "forever memory" and I want my sons to have (at least) one with their father too. So I've gone fishin'. Jackson, my dad and I are heading to a secluded spot about 400 miles north of Toronto. We leave on Thursday, June 5 and return Saturday, June 14. Praise God for "forever memories"! I can't wait to see the fishin' story that will grow out of this!

Maria Chapman (2003-2008)

As we so passionately pursue our children from Haiti, it is with deep sorrow that the Ellings offer our condolences to the Steven Curtis Chapman family. Their adopted daughter, Maria, was killed in an accident at their home this week. She was the youngest of their daughters from China. In the picture, Maria is the first from the left.

3,972,603 Movie Tickets

Every day, Americans buy an average of 3,972,603 movie tickets. We buy 1,683,835 songs online. We order 1,650,000 DVD's from Netflix. We pop 978,030 bags of Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet popcorn. We hit 568,764 Titleist golf balls. We eat 443,650 orders of large fries from Burger King. We buy 160,968 bottles of Absolut Vodka and 7,500 Samsung LCD tvs. Oh, and we buy 60 Ford Mustangs on ebay. What does that equation add up to in life? Sure sounds like a lot of junk (although I hope next year's average on tvs adds up to 7501-including mine).

I sure hope the equation of my day-in and day-out life adds up to more than junk! How about you? But the writer of Hebrews says that a lot of our daily life is junk. It just doesn't add up to much. Hebrews 13:9 says, "Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings...which are of no value..." So I guess the idea is that we are to add valuable things into the equation of life and subtract worthless things. What's worthless? Any daily practice, belief, habit, sin or obsession that stunts your spiritual growth and maturity would count since the goal of Hebrews is to teach us how to mature as disciples of Jesus Christ.

I don't know about you, but I am a sucker for Burger King french fries. I like a lot of things you don't read about in the Bible. No, Jesus did not ride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday in a convertable Ford Mustang! Sorry. That's not the point anyway so go ahead and get one. Here's the point: IF your life choices don't add up to the discipleship God expects, then it is time to change the equation.

Adoption Update: June 17th

We are cautiously thrilled in the Elling household this morning. We got word yesterday that things are about as "for sure" as they can be that Eden will be joining us here in the good ole' U.S.A. on June 17th. Our orphanage directors, Chris and Hal Nungester, will be flying home to Ohio for a visit with several children in tow. Lord willing, Eden Kristy DumeViard Elling will be on that flight.

It's been 3 years, 5 months and 6 days since we began this crazy process until now, but it will all be worth it soon. Please pray, pray, pray that June 17th will go like we hope. Obviously, we have been disappointed before so we won't be surprised if that happens again, but we all sure hope not. We've trusted God all along and we are not stopping now. What a journey!

Pray also for Jimy. We hope he is not too disappointed to have to wait longer, but we see no other choice in the matter. Pray that we can put the right spin on things to soften the blow. He will be coming home too, but we are not sure when. Thanks again for all your prayers and support. We need it all now more than ever.

Adoption Update: New Hope Rising

A recent email we received goes like this:
"Kristy's passport (that's our daughter Eden) could be ready by the end of this month (May 2008). Yesterday Junior brought her pictures to the Department de Interieur so they can make the passport." We got this message from Mr. Nahoum Acra's office in Port au Prince. Mr. Acra is the man helping us finally finish this process in conjunction with our attorney and orphanage directors. Apparently, Eden will be ready to come home fairly soon, but not Jimy. This means we could possibly go get Eden and bring her home without her brother for now. This would be overwhelming, joyful and heartbreaking at the same time. Please pray for us as we continue to muddle through this. Most likely, I would go myself with a friend to pick her up and bring her home. Don't forget, when they say, "by the end of the month", that could mean by the end of June, July or later. Who knows? At least it is a hint of good news. Praise God!

Oh yeah? There's a Part 3

One thing Jesus was pretty clear on was missions. If you call yourself a Christian, there is not much wiggle room here. If you are wondering what Jesus really would do (WWJD?), well this is it. Jesus did say, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:18-20). Oh, and he did say, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). There are plenty more so feel free to look them up.

Now with Acts 1:8, I have noticed that we are really good at, and enthusiastic about, the first two parts of that command. We have no problem going, or at least supporting the idea of going to our own towns for Jesus. We like the idea of going, or at least supporting the idea of going to places beyond our own towns for Jesus. We are willing to go to these places, at least when we have time, to serve the people in these places, to pray with them, or at least have someone else pray for them. Heck, we are even willing to "witness " to them, or at least have someone else do that too. But what about part 3 of Acts 1:8? Jesus did say "go... to all nations" and "to the ends of the earth". It is really not very convenient, but he did say it. Oh, we like the idea of going to "all nations" and "to the ends of the earth". We like it very much. Someone should definitely do it so we preach on it. We encourage others to go. We gladly throw in $5 at the car wash fundraiser. And then we rarely think another thing about it.

Pray for our congregation here at Cedarville United Presbyterian. We are trying to do more than throw in $5 at the car wash fundraiser. We are a small congregation, but have a big dream. We are going to Kosovo (former Yugoslavia) from June 30-July 11. We will be working with a Cedarville University group with Muslim orphans from the 1990's war. Our team will be running a day camp for kids. We will be serving them. We will be listening to their stories. We will be trying to learn. We will also be trying to represent Christ and say his words the best we can without bringing him up a whole lot. They kind of frown on that there. We will be visiting a missionary that we support while we are there too. Her name is Beth Cooley. For the team that is going, Kosovo really seems like the ends of the earth. Praise God for that!