It's Official

On October 14th, I blogged about our struggle with conceiving a child and how that had led us to consider adoption and foster care in the future if God continues to close my womb. Well, we have officially made the decision to become licensed foster parents! God has taken us on this journey over the past couple of months and our desire to be foster parents has continued to grow.

The journey started when our friends Jeremy and Melissa visited us from Illinois. They are foster parents to 3 kids (one of whom is in the process of becoming theirs officially through adoption) and have 2 biological children. They talked to us about what foster care entails and what a blessing it has been to them. It was like a light bulb went off in our heads that day because we had never really considered foster care before. We found out from our friends that foster care can be a really great experience and it also can be a great way to adopt a child if you can't afford to adopt through an adoption agency.

After Jeremy and Melissa went back home, Shaun continued to bring up the possibility of doing foster care. That was a huge sign to me that God just might be leading us in that direction because Shaun had NEVER shown much passion or interest about regular adoption. Then, a couple of days later I was listening to the radio and heard a story about a woman who had been diagnosed as infertile by her doctors and now was going the route of foster care to hopefully welcome a forever child into their home whenever God brought the right one.

Our hearts were being moved! Shaun asked me if I'd be willing to do some research about foster care, so I did. I also spoke with a friend who has worked in the foster care system before. I found a Christian foster care agency online that immediately struck me as the agency we should use. I showed some video clips to Shaun about families who had been blessed by foster care. We both agreed that it seemed like a great agency that seems to truly care about everyone involved. We also kept thinking about how God has called us to care for orphans. James 1:27 kept ringing through my mind as a call to all Christians:

James 1:27, “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

We continued to pray because it seemed like a big step to become foster parents. We wanted a clear answer from the Lord that this was what He wanted for our family. One Sunday, we were sitting in our Sunday school class and a scripture verse popped up on the screen:

Galatians 4:4-7, “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a women, born under the Law, so that he might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘ABBA, Father!’ Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.”

When we got back in the car that day after church, we both commented about how that scripture verse spoke to our hearts individually. We both knew that Galatians 4 was an answer to prayer, so the next day we called the foster care agency to set up an appointment.

We are excited to see what God does in our lives as a result of foster care. We hope that we will have the privilege of adopting a child eventually but also realize that many of the children we will have in our home will only stay for a short time before returning to their biological parents. It will be difficult for me to bond with these kids and then lose them, but we know this is what God is calling us to and we look forward to showing these little ones the love of Christ.

It is about a 3-4 month process to become licensed and we begin our first classes on Dec. 7th. After that it will be 2 months of classes, a home study, and background checks before we can receive a child into our home. Stay posted for more updates.

November Eagle Lake Happenings

This month, Shaun has been hard at work on the staff housing project. He travels up to camp 3 days a week to help build. It's hard work and he usually comes home wiped each night! Check out the video below that shows the progress.

When Shaun is not up at camp helping build staff housing, he has spent much of his time over the past month working on the Excursions Bible Study for the upcoming summer. Bible Study creation is not something that is easy, so it's been a time consuming process, but it's coming along very well. We are excited about what God is going to do through His Word this summer.

Larae continues to help out in the office 3 days a week. She has been given the task of calling youth pastors in the Colorado Springs area to see if they would be intersted in learning more about what Eagle Lake could offer their churches and youth groups. It's actually been very encouraging to see how many youth pastors are interested in meeting with one of our directors personally to talk about Eagle Lake!

It's hard to believe that we will be starting our summer staff hiring in a little over a month from now! The fall has flown by and we know that once January hits, things are going to get even more busy and hectic. But, it's an exciting time because we get to see our prayers answered as the staff housing project progresses. We just continue to pray that it will be liveable by the time we all move up to camp for the summer.

Free Chick Fil A for a year

The Chick-Fil-A in our area celebrated their 1 year anniversary with a chance to win free Chick-Fil-A for a year if you were willing to skate all night long around the restaurant. You also had to be one of the first 100 to sign up. So, a couple of friends and I (Shaun) thought it would be kind of fun and definitely worth the free food!

First off, I want to clearify what "Free Chick-Fil-A for a year" means.  It means 52 free meals (so one free meal a week) but definitely still worth the 8 hours of all night skating.  Check-in was from 8 - 9:45pm on Thursday, November 11th and the official skating start time was at 10pm and did not end until 6am the following morning.  It was a brutal yet 100% worth while endeavor.  The bonding experience that I had with my two friends/coworkers was amazing.  There was tears of joy and tears of pain.  There were hilarious gut wrenching times of laughter and there were heated arguments.  I might have exaggerated with the tears part, but it was definately a challenging experience that we will never forget. 

About 2 hours into the skate-a-thon, Hanley (the brown bearded lad) could already feel hotspots from the rental skates on the bottom of his feet.  Andrew (the wispy haired blond) was embarking on a journy that was way above his skill level due to the fact that he had never been skating for more than 8 hours total and now he would be venturing into a world of 8 consecutive hours of skating.  Let's just say the 2 of them were  the slowest skaters there, but did we care?  Not the least bit. We knew what we were in it for and believed firmly that there is great truth in the saying, "slow and steady wins the race"  It was definitely slow, the steady part might have been a bit of a stretch seeing how their skill level wasn't quite what I would call advanced by any means, but none the less it made the experience even more hilarious. 

The weather conditions were nice for an event like this though it might have been a tad bit on the cold side with temperatures staying in the low 20s.  It really wasn't too bad until 4 AM rolled around and we hit a mental and pain threshold block.   The music was motivating and the cheerleaders on the sidelines were really friendly and encouraging which made all the difference.  Once we mustered through the 4 o'clock hour we were in the home stretch, walking/skating like we were on broken glass because our feet hurt so bad, but throwing caution to the wind because we could smell victory in the air.  Once the call came out that the skate-a-thon was officially over, we praised the Lord and did our best to be patient as pictures were taken and prizes were being handed out.  The standing around at the end was probably one of the worst parts out of the whole event because the cold final caught up to you then.  However, once the bounty (52 free meal tickets!) was in hand we fled as swift as angel's wings to Andrew's car. Once home, I took a shower and hit the pillow ultra hard for about and hour until I had to get back up and go to work.  It was one of the worst wake ups I think I have ever had. 

Thank you and may God bless all of you with such an amazing experience.  :)



Here is a picture progression of our fun and exhausting night.....

Standing in line to secure our spot in the top 100...I was #37

Eating our free meal before skating all night

Yum, a peppermint chocolate chip shake!

Eat more Chikin!

Our first try on the skates, we needed moral support

I don't know

Showing off some skills that I aquired as a youngster

Hanley and I being weird

Ready, set, skate.....for the next 8 hours!

Larae stuck around for about 10 minutes to get an action shot as we circled the store

Home improvements almost done...phew!

As most of you probably know, we purchased our first home last January. It's a townhome that was built in the 1980s. The previous owner did not really have an eye for detail and when we first moved in we realized that there were many home improvements we wanted to make. Now, almost 11 months later, we are almost done with those improvements!

We were extremely blessed to be able to get in on the first time homebuyers tax credit which put $8000 in our pocket. We decided to reinvest most of that back into our home. Here is the list of what we have purchased with that tax money:

1) Washer and dryer (off craigslist!)
2) Refrigerator (off craigslist!)
3) Deep freezer
4) Gas grill
5) Paint
6) New laminate floor for main level
7) New furniture (bookshelves, bedroom set, bench, cozy sac)
8) 2 new ceiling fans
9) Many sets of curtains
10) New light fixtures
11) Electrical wiring for our bedroom
12) Pantry shelving
13) Garbage disposal
14) Reverse osmosis system
15) New bathroom sinks and faucets for all bathrooms
16) Storage shelves


I think that about covers it! As you can see, we've done a lot in the past months and many of our weekends and evenings have been spent working on that stuff. Thankfully, we've reached the end of the list (and the end of the tax money:-) We've learned a lot of new skills in the process and just feel so blessed by the ability to be able to do these minor fixes without going into debt or dipping into our emergency fund.

One of our last projects has been to replace the bathroom sinks and faucets. Here is Shaun hard at work.