My 4 Take Aways From the A29 Pastors Retreat

Every year Vermon and I get to join the other lead Acts 29 pastors and their spouses from all over the country for a retreat. This year it was TRULY a retreat for me....lots of down time, beautiful weather, a great time of rest.  Here are my 4 take-aways from the A29 retreat:

(#1) Arizona has a great network of churches.

By far my favorite part of the retreat (if I don’t count all the refreshing, wonderful time I got with my husband) was talking with Arizona A29 pastors and their wives.

Growing up in churches and around pastors and their families, it was not uncommon for me to think that competition between churches was normal. As I came into my own faith and became an adult I always felt uncomfortable being around pastor x, y, or z while they shared their jealous feelings of pastor a, b, and c.  I always wondered why churches wasted so many resources competing against each other instead of working together. 

It has been refreshing the last 2 or 3 years to be a part of what is going on in Arizona among all sorts of churches.  I have been able to be a part of the Surge school, which brings together hundreds of people from many different churches (not just A29 guys, but includes A29) in the valley to train and equip believers for leadership. I really appreciate that this includes equipping women along with men and I have enjoyed making connections to churches all over the valley.

It has been so great to see churches partner together to put conferences on, to support events that other churches are doing, to pray for each other. I love when I hear a visitor tell my husband that they are driving from Tempe to go to Roosevelt and he encourages them to check out another one of our sister churches that is much closer to where they live. This feels so much closer to the body of Christ that God has called us to be…no competition, no self-promoting, just glorifying Jesus and begging God to change our city.

(#2) God is doing something with Arizona & Orphan Care

    The other extremely exciting thing that is happening among Arizona A29 churches is orphan care. 40% of the A29 Arizona pastors are adopting, fostering, or beginning the process.  This is unreal! As I heard story after story from couples who shared why they began this process I was moved beyond words. This isn’t a bunch of people who think adoption is the new tattoo or black-rimed glasses.  These couples aren’t fostering, adopting, or trying to walk along side birth families because it is the newest and latest way to be a hipster. These are couples who understand and GET what God has done for us through the Holy Spirit in Jesus. These are couples who want to walk alongside parents, caseworkers, and children and share the good news of Jesus Christ with them and intersect the gospel with their desperate situation.

   I’m not sure what to make of it all yet, but it is by not an accident that God has called and led SO MANY pastors within our Arizona network to adopt or foster. I am hopeful that this is another way that we can partner and make a great impact in our city.

(#3)  Its great that Matt Chandler is now president of the A29 network.

I can’t say how thankful I am for this leadership move.  I am prayerfully hopeful for the vision he has laid out and the 4 markers that he wants the network to be known for.  Which are:  (1) Plant churches that plant churches that plant churches (2) walk in humility (3) work hard and diligently to be diverse ethnically and (4) to be known for evangelism and conversions.  

I grew up in diverse churches. I have an AOG background and for the most part, worshiped in a diverse environment. When I began looking for a church that was more theologically aligned with what I was discovering in God’s word…I came across Roosevelt. Roosevelt is a wonderfully diverse church that had a really cute black pastor that I fell in love with and married.

Roosevelt & that cute pastor opened me up to the A29, PCA, Bible Church, Community Church world.  As I began to go to these conferences, visit their mega-church web sites,  check out the big name guys sermons, and look at their staff list…I was really shocked to see that it was almost 100% white. My first few A29 retreats were incredibly uncomfortable and awkward.  I know it was probably more so for my husband.  It just isn’t comfortable to be one of 6 black guys out of 400 pastors. It isn’t fun when well-intentioned white pastors imply that this reason is because black guys aren’t "there" theologically, or don’t have the education, etc, etc. A few other denominations/networks do it, Universities around our country do it…. goodness, McDonalds, Disneyland, and Starbucks figured out how to draw in all sorts of people into their leadership—why shouldn’t Christian networks and denominations?

Thankfully, again, the Arizona region has been good about this specific issue and I feel like this is something they have been talking about for a few years now.  I really had to fight back tears to hear Chandler say that this is the new direction. Just acknowledging it as a need is a big first step. I think it will take a lot of hard and painful work for them to get there, I am proud that our church is diverse and pray we can plant diverse churches, and I will be praying diligently for wisdom and humility as the A29 leadership seek to diversity their own churches and the A29 network. 

(#4) It is a gift to spend time uninterrupted with Vermon.

The best part of the retreat was just time with Vermon. These last six weeks of transitioning baby Vanessa to her forever home has been really hard physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I came to Orange County completely exaughsted and almost unable to finish my sentences. It was so special to have time to talk with Vermon, time to read, time to write, time to sleep…. I am so thankful for this life God has given me. 

Adopted by J. Miles

Would you guys do me a favor?

Help me promote "Adopted" from Slave Trade by J. Miles and our very own Jordan Jacques. It is about our Adoption by God and really, really powerful. 


So check it out on the Together for Adoption website and then post a link on your FB page. Thanks!

From the Diaries of a Foster Mom... part 1

Life has been crazy in the Pierre home this year… I can’t believe we are already 1/3rd of the way through 2012.  It is flying by.

I’m not gonna lie, adjusting to being a mama of 4 kids has been…an adjustment.  I’m pretty much tired all the time, waking up about twenty minutes after my first cup of coffee, and have a hard time remembering what day of the week it is. But all that being said…I am enjoying every minute of our precious little foster baby.  I love playing with her, watching her meet her developmental milestones, seeing my children interact with her, hearing them pray for her, seeing her thrive, watching Vermon deeply connect with her, talking to God about what he has in store for her, and developing a special friendship with her wonderful Grandma who is anxiously awaiting the many bureaucratic loop-holes that need to be jumped through so her grand-baby can move into her forever home several states away from here.

I have learned so much about myself, our family, and our calling to care for children.  It was easy for me to talk about how God’s word shows me how to love children who aren’t mine, but it has been another thing to actually walk through it.  I used to be easy for me to think and speak about how we are all the same before God, but to actually live that out as I interact with bio family and move toward them with a pursuing love was harder then I imagined.  It is easy to say we are called to suffer for Jesus and that knowing him makes this current affliction seem light & momentary…but it becomes easy to forget when I am working through the painful emotions that come up as our little one begins to transition from being our foster daughter to her wonderfully awaiting grandma. It was easy for me to say we are called to care for orphans, but it really isn’t easy unless you are Superwoman (I am not) and it is very, very consuming.

Having a baby that we will not be keeping forever has challenged all my beliefs about foster parenting and helped confirm in us why we are doing this. I am not sure if we will do this with two children or twenty…for six more months or six more years… but I do know that this journey has been amazing and that I am more passionate then ever about foster care….and so appreciative of the unfailing love of  Jesus.

I wrote this a few days ago and I am still unpacking all that it means to me...I am hoping to write more soon on all that I am learning through this journey:

"I can deeply love a child as though they are mine, even though they are only "mine" for a small portion of their life...because my maternal love was a free gift given to me by my gracious Father and therefore it doesn't belong to me. It belongs to whatever children God brings in my path and asks me to mother. 6 months or 60 years...from my body or another woman's...from the perspective of eternity, it will all seem the same-maybe even richer."

Differences between birthing and fostering…

Is there a difference between having had my biological son and fostering with the hopes to adopt? Or adoption in general? Yes, there are several differences. There are many, many more similarities, but the reality is there are some differences and I think it is important to be aware of them and talk about them. Some times I think the adoption world is too passionate about acting like things are 100% the same and I think this harms both the beauty of adoption and the beauty of birth. Both children are equally, 100% your children whether you adopt them or birth them, but how they come to be your children are very different experiences.

Differences (for me, of course others may have a different list!):

 #1) Energy Level. I have way more energy mothering a newborn child that I didn’t birth then I did with Judah. Lets be honest, for most women, childbirth is like getting hit by a truck (and for some of us...then having that truck reverse back over us).  It takes a month for our body to stop doing strange things (I’ll spare the details for those who have yet to experience this) and for the pain to subside, then several more months to be completely back to “normal”. If you nurse, your tired the entire first year of your child’s life (at least I was).

   So of course I am still very tired, still waking up throughout the night to comfort our precious baby. But even in my tiredness, it is much easier not having the physical pain to recoup from along with the chemical imbalance from hormones needed to produce milk.  

   Now this shouldn’t make adoptive moms feel any less “motherly” (trust me, you will be plenty tired if you are caring for a newborn…we don’t have to be the most tired possible to feel like we're doing our job as mamas) nor should it be a reason to only adopt, because mothering requires much greater sacrifice then a few months of pain.

#2) Nursing. Nursing was an amazing, wonderful experience and I am sad that I wasn’t able to experience nursing my older two children. If you have adopted children and been unable to have biological children, don’t feel guilty for feeling sad about the loss of nursing your child. It is natural and normal to desire to nurse. Being sad about this loss, does not mean that you  love your adopted child any less and either does wishing you could experience having biological children. Birth is the most natural thing in the world and that is why my children that I adopted tell me sometimes that they wish they could have come from my tummy. Because they love me and I am their mama. They know that the most natural way to come to us would have been through birth. But I tell them that while I also wish that was possible and would have been wonderful, that I would not trade the experience to adopt them for anything in the world. Because I didn’t get to choose my biological children, but I got to choose them. Also, I tell them they wouldn’t have the beautiful skin, eyes, nose, toes, or even process information the way they do had they come from my body. So it’s not that I love my children I adopted less because I didn’t get the experience of nursing and birthing them, it is that I love them so much that I wish I could spare them from every ounce of pain this world has to offer, including the loss of their biological family. However, I know that sparing your children from pain is impossible, so better to equip them for it.

    Sidenote: some adoptive mamas are able to nurse their children-it is expensive, challenging, and typically you still need to supplement…AND MANY moms who birth children and want to nurse are unable. So-again, this is not a good reason to adopt only or not to adopt at all.

#3) Exciement from loved ones.  This has been the hardest one for me emotionally. When I was pregnant with Judah everyone (EVERYONE) was ecstatic and talked non-stop about our coming baby.  Every week people asked me questions about how far along I was, what the gender was, etc, etc. This just wasn’t the same with deciding to foster baby #4.

    With fostering/adopting we have had to deal with a small group of people telling us we’re crazy, that we can’t save the whole world (duh!), that we have Savior-complexes, and stating their disagreement with our decision. Also, it has just been hard to have people in our inner circles who were excited about Judah being born, but were silent/asked no questions, showed no interest about the coming addition to our family. I am SO excited about what we are doing and naturally want people to be excited with me. But thankfully my husband, Vermon, is wonderful about pointing me to all the people who are excited and helping to remind me to love and overlook the offense I am tempted to take.  Not to mention, we do not live for the approval of man and after much prayer and processing, I am now thankful for a minority disapproval from people, because it shows me how easily I can put my trust in people, instead of the Lord. 

   All of that being said, MANY people were equally excited (and each of them now have a special place in my heart for that!) and people who I barely even know offered to help and serve us because they wanted to be a part of orphan care too. The blessings of those who have cared and surrounded our family with love and support far, far outweighs the few who haven’t. 

   

#4) Opportunity to Share the Gospel.  This is what MOST excites me. There are many, many more opportunities to share the gospel when you are fostering/adopting. Of course this happens in parenting, in general; however, I get asked ALL the time why we we are doing what we are doing.  I have been able to talk to my neighbors, starbucks employees,  family members, my children, the mailman, the grocery store clerk, and the guy sitting next to me on the airplane about WHY we decided to open our family to children who many people wouldn’t. It is more then just the great need, it is more then feeling sorry or trying to change the world or be a good person.  It is because Christ found me when I was on a path headed to destruction, rescued me from the pit of hell, and poured out his blood as a sacrifice to atone for my vast sins against God. Then, because of Christ’s blood, God adopted me and made me his child and a co-heir of Christ. I was dead, now I am alive. I was blind, now I see. I had a heart of stone, now a heart of flesh. I was an enemy of God, now a child. We do what we do out of an abundance of joy for the salvation offered to us in Christ Jesus!

#5) They aren't mine. :( This is different for those who get to adopt their children without fostering, but as a foster parent...these babies aren't "mine" legally and won't be anytime soon. It is really hard, painful, and sad to have a child leave that you love. I love each child as though they are mine, attach to each child as though they would be mine forever, and pray for each child as though they would be mine...but at any point the baby we are loving may get placed with a biological family member. This is hard, but it is worth it for many, many reasons (I'll save those reasons for another post). The reality is...even my oldest three don't belong to me and only the Lord knows the number of their days--so I just live obediently in the moment God's given me and try not to spend too much time thinking about what our family will look like a year from now!


Next post: Some of my favorite SIMILARITIES between birthing and fostering... 

Reading More in 2012

If I only had time for one thing besides mothering, that place would go to reading deep, thought provoking books—and lots of them. Thankfully, I don’t have to chose only one thing and one of the things I love most about not having a 9 to 5 job is the freedom to do many things besides parent…as well as many things along side parenting. But let’s just say that we are in an alternate universe and my time was packed with mothering and I could only chose one thing extra. That one thing would be reading and thinking about what matters most in this world.

I would rather give up bathing then reading…gross, I know.

Sadly, I find too many young moms accepting the fact that mothering & reading don’t go together. I think the joke I most often hear at baby showers is how challenging it will be to read a verse in the Bible, let alone a chapter. I find this very disconcerting and terrible advice.  It is interesting how many of us women find hours a week to exercise, do laundry, shop, etc but don’t find the time to read. But more then reading God’s word (which is a necessity, I don’t know how we can survive without at least this reading consistently)—I don’t think it is wise to go most of your early years of mothering without books by your nightstand that you are slowly working your way through (and I don’t mean parenting books)--keep one in your diaper bag too, I am surprised how much I have gotten to read just waiting in doctors offices, dentist appointments, etc.

I don’t say this to guilt trip already overwhelmed moms who find it hard to pick up their Bible’s, let alone a book. All of us are made differently. Some of my friends are extroverts and they need play dates and adult interaction with other moms to survive, but that is not me. I long for time to sit down and read, dissect, and think about something.  But even if you do not love reading, I can almost personally guarantee that a good book will help keep your eyes focused on eternity, your hand to the plow, and your feet busy going about God’s business.

Reading nourishes me and helps me be a better mom. I love talking to my kids about what I read early in the day by Jonathan Edwards, CS Lewis, or DA Carson. I had so much fun last year explaining Mextax’s Bonehoffer biography to my oldest son in words he could understand. But I still didn’t get to read in 2011 what I want to read in 2012…so that is what I want to do more of this next year (and hopefully I won’t have to sacrifice too many showers).

The Naked and Vulnerable God

Here is my newest post up at Together for Adoption: 

“And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”  Luke 2:4-7

    How man times do we read these words during the Christmas season? These few verses are the inspiration for the nativity sets around our homes and churches. It is the inspiration for the Christmas pageants that children are currently practicing for. But even with reminders all around me during this season, I do not reflect enough on the reality that Mary gave birth to her firstborn son, Jesus, and laid him in a manger.

    It is easier for me to picture Jesus, fully God and fully human, as the Christ who died on the cross. I picture Christ the God-man as the one who turned over the tables in the temple and drove out the money changers, or as the great teacher who gathered crowds by the thousands, or as the healer of sick. I picture Christ the God-man as the one who was powerful enough to stop the crucifixion, yet willingly chose to submit himself to God the Father and bear the weight of his wrath for our sins.

    But then there are these precious verses in Luke chapter two that describe Jesus, fully God and fully human, as a newborn child. Helpless. Weak. Completely dependent on his mother and father for warmth, food, touch, shelter, and soothing. It feels God-like to think about Christ’s ministry on this earth. But Christ as an infant? Christ nursing, crying, needing to be swaddled, it just feels so…human.  As much as I like to talk about Christ being fully God and fully man, I probably spend much more time thinking about Christ being fully God. It is when I reflect on God the Son being laid in a manger, fully dependent on human, sinful parents, that I realize how uncomfortable I can feel with Christ’s humanity.

    But this is a season to think and praise God for his willingness to become human.  One moment, Christ was sharing perfect, eternal, complete union with God the Father and the next he was growing within the womb of Mary. It is miraculous, mind-boggling, truly foolishness if we think about it through the world’s wisdom. But this wonderful miracle is exactly what allows us to now relate to Christ as brother. Christ has an earthly father that cared for him, held him, and loved him. When Christ talks about his heavenly Father, he is speaking fully understanding and knowing what it was like to have an earthly father. When Christ calls believers “brothers and sisters” he is speaking from a full understanding of what it was like to have an earthly family. In order for us to have been adopted by God spiritually, God had to become fully human…and so, two thousand years ago, God was born, naked, weak, needy, crying and completely vulnerable. And then, Thirty-three years later, he died a bloody, shameful death in the same condition.

    And the glorious reality that we have such a gracious God as this, who would make himself human, should make us sing:  

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!" Luke 2:14

Remembering Christ this Christmas...

    I love the holidays and I think it is such a special time to be together as a family, create good memories, and enjoy one another. But Christmas is so much more then that. This is a strategic time to teach our children about the gift of Christ and to re-focus our family in worship to our king. It is easy to forget the soft, quiet miracle that took place in a stable more then two thousand years ago when we are surrounded by a culture that wants to drown out this message with the noise of temporal things. I want to encourage you to enter this month with an intentional plan to help focus yourself and your family on the glory that we see in the birth of Christ.

   I have found it helpful to spend the last few days of November/ the beginning of December to plan our our calendar and think about why and what we are doing.  I want to spend as much time with my children as possible this month and help this season be something they look back on differently then their friends who are not being raised in a Christian home. Here are just a few things I try to do each year...I'd love to hear some of your traditions. :)

1)      I do as much of my shopping as possible for people the week after Christmas. We wrap all our presents and pack them away for next Christmas. The sales are great and this keeps me from getting sucked into the commercial madness the following year. I take all the gifts we packed away out thanksgiving weekend and write down the few remaining people I want (not have) to get presents for and buy them that weekend. After thanksgiving weekend I refuse to enter a store unless absolute necessity (like groceries). If I still want to get presents for people then we order them on Amazon or make them. I talk incessantly throughout the holidays with my children about the media, stores, and toy manufacturers agenda to make us feel like we need something and I tell them that I avoid stores because of my own temptation to get lured into the lie. Honestly, I have even prayed out-loud with my children a few times before going into the grocery store that the Lord would guard our eyes and hearts and keep us from coveting or desiring things that are temporary and passing away.

2)      I love having people over around the holidays, but I try to remind myself that this is not something I have to do and if I find myself putting too much pressure on myself or the kids, I try to make that my indicator not to have as many people over the following week. If I get stressed about dishes, I use paper plates the next time. All I have to do this month is glorify God and enjoy him…and help my family do the same, the rest is all extra.

3)      We do extra weekly family devotions…we use special Christmas coffee mugs and drink hot coco, eat cookies, and read Christmas devotions. One we do a daily devotion called “Countdown to the King”…we all love it J

4)      Christmas morning before we open presents we eat a special breakfast and do devotions, then we do a “scavenger hunt” for baby Jesus (we keep him out of one of our mangers all December and I hide him somewhere around the house Christmas morning. At each part of the scavenger hunt we read part of the Christmas story from Luke.)

 A successful holiday season for me is one where I wasn't constantly frustrated with my kids (by the grace of God), planned extra time into our schedule so I wasn't rushing or hurrying our family, didn’t spend too much money, created good memories, and helped my family enjoy worshiping God. I fail in this in many ways each year, but by God’s grace, each holiday is better then the last at achieving these goals. J 

Merry Christmas! May it be full of peace and joy as you reflect on the beautiful miracle that is Jesus the Christ-God becoming man!