The Proof Of Your Love

Whew! We spent 8 LONGGGG hours in the car yesterday so we could spend Dzintars final weekend with my family. Tomorrow we have a family reunion to go to where we'll get to hang out with all my aunts, uncles and cousins. It's going to be a great day!

Today was mostly spent swimming, with a birthday party in the middle. Since my parents have a pool I knew Dzintars would want to swim so I begged my dad to REALLY heat the pool for the weekend, normally he relies on the solar panels to heat it, but I just knew that wouldn't be enough for my cold blooded Latvian. Ya'll might think I'm kidding when I say he gets cold the second he gets wet. I'm not! We're talking full on goose bumps and visible shaking! The kid is cold! I was so happy when he stepped into the pool today and said "Stacey, pool hot!" and smiled, then proceeded to spend the next several hours working on his skills!! We spent quite a bit of our pool time practicing what he's learned in swim lessons, including many trips across the deep end:) The kid has a seriously good stroke when he's doing everything he's been taught and could probably do well in competitive swimming someday:)

And because there are some other cute boys in my life too, here's one of Brennan and Lukey today!

We took a break after lunch and made a quick jaunt over to a birthday party. It was a "Super Mario" themed party with fun decorations, water balloons and a bean bag toss. When we left he told me: "Stacey, mine birthday October. Mine Mario party. No mine Latvia. Mine America!"

He still has no serious prospects for a forever family. So if you want to make his dreams come true speak now people!!! You could be the answers to his prayers and so many others around the world who have been moved by his story and are praying!

One of my favorite blogs to read is Babe of My Heart. I've been reading Andrea's blog for a few years now and I just love her heart! She's a mama of four littles, and decided to tackle hosting a girl from the Ukraine as well this summer! She shoots straight and her words just resonate with my heart! Here's an excerpt from one of her posts this week:

"WHAT IF EVERY FAMILY JUST DECIDED TO HELP JUST ONE…JUST ONE…JUST ONE…THINK OF WHAT THAT WOULD DO? Why call me? We are crazy. But what if EVERY family just took care of ONE. They don’t have to adopt. They can host. They can foster. They can send a child that doesn’t have family to college and look after them across the world. What would the world look like if EVERY family just took care of ONE…JUST ONE?! Scripture calls us to care for orphans. That is for sure plural. But what if we decided to start with JUST ONE??? 

It is NOT just my calling. It is the calling of EVERY believer. It’s for sure plural. But what if we all just cared for ONE??? If we kept just one out of sex trafficking? Just one off of drugs? Just one from prostitution? Because these orphans–they become adults. And many of them…without wanting too will add to the orphan crisis. ONE FAMILY–ONE ORPHAN…just think of how the world would change!


Not every family can adopt. But every family CAN do something. What if every family loved an orphan deep and wide…and in their love…that child became no longer an orphan? Adoption will not be the plan for every child, but every child does need a family to love them and look after them in some capacity. Sure sponsoring a child through Compassion or Wiphan or this organization or that is great–but what might it look like to get REALLY involved in the life of a child who needs a family? What if the Lord wanted to use your family in the life of just ONE in a big, real, lasting way??? Will you pray about reaching out–being available–and for Him to show you just ONE??" To read her full post click here.

 Oh man! Can you imagine what the world would look like if that's how we all actually lived???

I once read a statistic that boggled my mind, it still does.

"There are 147 million orphans in the world, if only 7% of the 2 billion Christians in the world would care for a single orphan in distress, there would effectively be no more orphans." 

Those 147 million orphans have names and faces and stories similar to Dzintars!

If you've been reading my blog for awhile you know the Lord uses music to speak to me a lot. Today I heard another great song on the radio that I wanted to share with you. It's by a group called "For King & Country" and it's called "The Proof of Your Love". The chorus is SO good and fully expresses the reason we chose to host this summer. The bible says "faith without deeds is dead" (James 2:26) so we stepped out in faith and answered the call to host Dzintars because we want our lives to be the proof of His love!

 

"So let my life be the proof,
The proof of Your love
Let my love look like You and what You're made of
How You lived, how You died
Love is sacrifice
So let my life be the proof,
The proof of Your love"

 

When I first started this blog I figured my parents and a few close friends would read it as a way of keeping up with our hosting adventures but it's turned into far more than that. Somehow this little blog has reached people in multiple countries and is now read by people I do not even know. I assume you keep reading because you've been somehow moved by Dzintars story and the plight of other kids like him. So I'd like to ask all of you to consider what you can do to help because Andrea's right, we can all do SOMETHING! What are you going to do???