Click on the image to read Karin's story...
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Just10 - week 5
One of our Kidz Klub mums made the front page of the Just10 news sheet this week.
Click on the image to read Karin's story...
Click on the image to read Karin's story...
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Before adopting kids - 15 quick training sessions - Part 1
On our last assessment visit, our social worker left us with 15 quick training sessions to undertake....
I share the first of the sessions here with you...
Session 1
Go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
Go home.
Pick up a newspaper.
Read it for the last time.
Session 2
Before you adopt your children, find a couple who already are parents and advise them how to improve:
1. their methods of discipline
2. their lack of patience
3. their appalling low tolerance levels
4 their practice of allowing their children to run wild
5. their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behaviour
Enjoy it.
It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.
Session 3
To discover how nights will feel...
1. Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag of old lentil soup weighing 6kg, with a radio tuned to static playing loudly
2. At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep
3. Get up at midnight and walk the bag of lentil soup round the living room until 1am
4. Set the alarm for 3am.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea
6. Go to bed at 2.45am.
7. Sing songs in the dark until 4am.
8. Get up. Make breakfast.
Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.
Session 4
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
1. Buy a live octopus and a small bag made of loose mesh.
2 Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.
Time allowed for this - all morning.
Session 5
Forget the BMW and buy a practical 5-door saloon or people carrier. And don't think you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.
2. Get a coin. Insert it in the CD player.
3. Take a family-sized packet of chocolate biscuits and mash them into the back seat.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. Perfect!
Session 6
Get ready to go out.
1. Wait outside the bathroom for half an hour
2. Go out the front door
3. Come in again
4. Go out
5. Come back in
6. Go out again
7. Walk down the front driveway
8. Walk back up it
9. Walk down it again
10. Walk very slowly down the road for 5 minutes
11. Stop, inspect minutely, and ask at least 6 questions about, every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way
12. Retrace your steps
13. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you
14. Give up and go back into the house
You are just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.
Session 7
Repeat everything at least 100 times.
I share the first of the sessions here with you...
Session 1
Go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
Go home.
Pick up a newspaper.
Read it for the last time.
Session 2
Before you adopt your children, find a couple who already are parents and advise them how to improve:
1. their methods of discipline
2. their lack of patience
3. their appalling low tolerance levels
4 their practice of allowing their children to run wild
5. their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behaviour
Enjoy it.
It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.
Session 3
To discover how nights will feel...
1. Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag of old lentil soup weighing 6kg, with a radio tuned to static playing loudly
2. At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep
3. Get up at midnight and walk the bag of lentil soup round the living room until 1am
4. Set the alarm for 3am.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea
6. Go to bed at 2.45am.
7. Sing songs in the dark until 4am.
8. Get up. Make breakfast.
Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.
Session 4
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
1. Buy a live octopus and a small bag made of loose mesh.
2 Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.
Time allowed for this - all morning.
Session 5
Forget the BMW and buy a practical 5-door saloon or people carrier. And don't think you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.
2. Get a coin. Insert it in the CD player.
3. Take a family-sized packet of chocolate biscuits and mash them into the back seat.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. Perfect!
Session 6
Get ready to go out.
1. Wait outside the bathroom for half an hour
2. Go out the front door
3. Come in again
4. Go out
5. Come back in
6. Go out again
7. Walk down the front driveway
8. Walk back up it
9. Walk down it again
10. Walk very slowly down the road for 5 minutes
11. Stop, inspect minutely, and ask at least 6 questions about, every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way
12. Retrace your steps
13. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you
14. Give up and go back into the house
You are just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.
Session 7
Repeat everything at least 100 times.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Walk the path I've paved for you
My good friend, TheWeeScottie, has penned a poem...
‘Walk the path’, my saviour said,
‘The one I’ve paved for you
And you will see the wonderous things
I’ve laid in store for you’
You can read the rest here.
Inspired words, I feel, in these uncertain times.
‘Walk the path’, my saviour said,
‘The one I’ve paved for you
And you will see the wonderous things
I’ve laid in store for you’
You can read the rest here.
Inspired words, I feel, in these uncertain times.
Garry's coming to Just10
Garry Brotherston is coming to tell his story next week at Just10 in Gateshead and Stockton......a journey from imprisonment and condemnation to grace and freedom in Christ!
It should be another fantastic night - with J John explaining the 5th commandment - and talking about controlling our anger.
Let's pray that the many thousands attending would hear God speak to them in a new and powerful way through Garry's and J John's words...
Here's one of Garry's songs - powerful words.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Roll on 10 July
Hurrah!
Whooopee!
Woo-hoooo!
Much jumping up and down, waving of arms and shouting!
Our home assessment is complete!
We saw our social worker this evening for the last time (well, last time for a few weeks!). He's visited and spoken to all our referees. He's seen us on at least 12 occasions. Hours and hours. He's completed our assessment and just needs to write it all up now.
And he's so positive. He talks about there being no 'contra-indications' and of us having a very strong application... Mrs D thinks he means we're marvellous!
Our application will go to the adoption panel on 10 July, all being well.
We'll go too.
By 5pm on 10 July, we should be approved as adopters!
Then the matching begins. The social worker's already keeping his eye out and ear to the ground (sounds a bit painful to do both at the same time!), and he's even mentioned a family in the north-east that may be a possible match...
It's all starting to get very real and very scary!
We know that God knows our children, even though we don't - he knows who they are, where they are and how they are... he knows what they like and don't like... and he's looking after them, preparing them to come and live with us...
Amazing, perplexing, intriguing, and truly awesome, come to think about it!
Whooopee!
Woo-hoooo!
Much jumping up and down, waving of arms and shouting!
Our home assessment is complete!
We saw our social worker this evening for the last time (well, last time for a few weeks!). He's visited and spoken to all our referees. He's seen us on at least 12 occasions. Hours and hours. He's completed our assessment and just needs to write it all up now.
And he's so positive. He talks about there being no 'contra-indications' and of us having a very strong application... Mrs D thinks he means we're marvellous!
Our application will go to the adoption panel on 10 July, all being well.
We'll go too.
By 5pm on 10 July, we should be approved as adopters!
Then the matching begins. The social worker's already keeping his eye out and ear to the ground (sounds a bit painful to do both at the same time!), and he's even mentioned a family in the north-east that may be a possible match...
It's all starting to get very real and very scary!
We know that God knows our children, even though we don't - he knows who they are, where they are and how they are... he knows what they like and don't like... and he's looking after them, preparing them to come and live with us...
Amazing, perplexing, intriguing, and truly awesome, come to think about it!
I'm still here!
Apologies to all of you who thought I'd perhaps dropped off the face of the planet...
No, I'm still very much here, alive and well - there just doesn't seem to be enough time in each day for everything that needs to be done!
We had a fantastic week away in Derbyshire in the middle of April with a great friend of old, and his new wife (great friend of not-so-old!). The sun shone and then the hailstones came and then the sunshine again, followed by snow, then sun, then rain... you get the picture! But lots of good walks with the doglet, and lots of fun by the fire in the evenings with a glass of wine and some silly games!
Just10 has started now -taking up another of our evenings each week - but so worthwhile - J John is such an inspirational speaker - presenting the 10 commandments in such relevant ways for today... Along with the 5000 other people in the canvas cathedral each week, two of our KidzKlub mums have been coming along and both have made commitments - and we're only 3 weeks in!
Along with all of that, we've been meeting with our social worker once or twice a week to complete our home assessment...
I hope that things will calm down a bit for the next few weeks, so a more normal blogging service should be restored!
No, I'm still very much here, alive and well - there just doesn't seem to be enough time in each day for everything that needs to be done!
We had a fantastic week away in Derbyshire in the middle of April with a great friend of old, and his new wife (great friend of not-so-old!). The sun shone and then the hailstones came and then the sunshine again, followed by snow, then sun, then rain... you get the picture! But lots of good walks with the doglet, and lots of fun by the fire in the evenings with a glass of wine and some silly games!
Just10 has started now -taking up another of our evenings each week - but so worthwhile - J John is such an inspirational speaker - presenting the 10 commandments in such relevant ways for today... Along with the 5000 other people in the canvas cathedral each week, two of our KidzKlub mums have been coming along and both have made commitments - and we're only 3 weeks in!
Along with all of that, we've been meeting with our social worker once or twice a week to complete our home assessment...
I hope that things will calm down a bit for the next few weeks, so a more normal blogging service should be restored!
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