"Take Care of the Widow and the Orphan..."

On December 23rd a man who truly carried the burden and heart of the Father for the orphans was in a tragic car accident and went home to be with the Lord.

Derek Loux was a worship leader at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. He also helped pioneer the Forerunner Music Academy. Derek and his wife, Renee, gave birth to a little boy named Josiah who was born with spina bifida in 1994. Josiah only lived for 2 1/2 years and his parents loved every moment they had with him and were filled with grief when he went to be with the Lord. This in itself moves my heart to tears, knowing that these incredible people gave birth to a child with severe handicap and yet valued the life of this child as if he were completely healthy and loved him with a deep love. This is a rare thing in a world that is screaming at us to snuff out the life that is handicapped, treating it as if it had no right to life because it might be inconvenient for him/her OR for the ones raising that life.

After Josiah passed away Derek and Renee had 2 little girls and years later decided to adopt 3 girls from the Marshall Islands. One of them having a severe spinal curve in her back that was rendered incurable but by the handiwork of the Lord was cured - and with an incredible story to go along with it. During the process of adopting these girls the Lord began to move on their hearts for the orphan, and not just those who were fatherless and motherless - but those who were handicap and had even less of a chance of being adopted. They began the Josiah fund - you can read more about this incredible vision on their website, click here to read more.

Since adopting the three girls from the Marshall Islands, they have adopted one more girl from the Marshall Islands and 3 boys from the Ukraine. Two of the boys have down syndrome and the other has spina bifida. The stories of these boys are heart wrenching and miraculous.

After adopting the 3 boys, this brought the total of their kids up to 10. And if you read their story, which I highly recommend you do, you'll see that they are wanting to adopt 30 needy and neglected children, not limited by location, and bring them to Kansas City to a rehabilitation home so to speak - to be cared for and loved.

Now that Derek has gone home to be with the Lord it has left Renee as a widow caring for the orphan.

I don't know about you, but this stirs my heart in a major way. I want to help her. I'm encouraging those of you who can and who feel moved by this story and this vision to give to Renee Loux and her vision to help see this come to pass. Jesus expected us, commanded us, to look after the widow and the orphan and here we have a great opportunity to do both.

When Derek and Renee set out on this journey, neither of them were expecting that Renee would have to continue carrying it out without him. I know that Renee's heart and vision haven't changed - but I know that she feels the pain of losing her greatest advocate and partner and love. I can't even imagine - she had already climbed up the ladder of incredible women I admire and respect because of these children that she was pouring her life into and the sacrifices that she was making and the message that her life was proclaiming to the masses - "EVERY life is VALUABLE, HAS WORTH, DESERVES A CHANCE TO LIVE AND BE LOVED." - but now - my goodness - she is my hero. God uphold her, give her strength and let her feel Your nearness, Your presence surrounding her and protecting her. Strengthen her with Your everlasting love and kindness. Give her peace and give her comfort.

I feel burdened to stand with her, fight for her and all the thousands of children that I believe will be impacted by this ripple in the water that will go far beyond the 30 children that she will adopt. Therefore I felt burdened to share this story with all that I can.

May the Lord bless this incredible family and meet them in their time of grief and need. Thank you Jesus for setting the lonely in families and for setting the Loux family in Kansas City where they have family that will love and care for them in their time of grief. Do something miraculous out of their suffering. Turn the eyes of a generation that is standing for death to this incredible light shining in the darkness and let them choose LIFE instead of death.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.



The Loux Family

For more information on how to give financially you can go to their personal blog site here.

Or you can go to their Josiah Fund website here.

Crawling Already???

That's right folks - it's time to start proofing the house because Isaiah is on the move! As I mentioned in a previous post - he is quite the over achiever and he decided 6 months was a fine age to begin crawling. :)

He's not quite there yet, but he will be in no time at all. He still hasn't even mastered sitting up on his own - I mean, he can do it, but he often nose dives into the ground when he loses his balance. We're workin' on it. :)

Nonetheless - he is determined to find a mode of transportation and he reckons scooting isn't efficient enough - so might as well start crawling!

Here's a sneak peak at what's to come - the behind the scenes training before his debut. :)

All About Isaiah

So this is a post all about Isaiah. It is amazing how we can just sit for hours and just stare at him - he is by far the most entertaining and most enjoyable way to spend our time. So I figured you all would feel the same way. :)

Big Boy Food:

It's true - about 2 weeks ago Isaiah started eating "solids". Which is really more like liquid than solids - but I guess the idea is that before they were liquid, they were solid. We started him off with the reccommended rice cereal. He didn't know what to think at first and fussed his way through most of it - but still - he did it! The second time, he knew what he was doing. He got straight into it and LOVED it. The third time, well, he just couldn't get enough. We quickly moved on to new flavors - I started him off with pear. I thought - fruit is nicer on the pallet than veggies so I'll start with that. He did not like the pear at all. He made the FUNNIEST faces and spit it out - but he did try - he was a champ. After a few tries he ended up liking it alright and now eats it without any fuss. The second flavor we tried was pumpkin and sweet corn - I thought for sure this was going to be a hard one and that he would put up a fight - boy was I wrong - he LOVED it! He practically inhaled the whole jar and was so sad when it was gone. I just gave him apples for the first time today and he had the same reaction to them as he did the pears - I guess babies taste buds are far different than adults - brand new and untainted.







Dalton had a cat named Buckwheat while growing up. Buckwheat LOVED to eat. Buckwheat had a small problem, he had no gauge for when he was full. Buckwheat ate A LOT. Buckwheat ate far more than he needed to, just because he liked it. I'm coming to find out - Isaiah is a lot like Buckwheat. :)


"Tummy Time":

When we first started tummy time, Isaiah hated it. He would cry, and fuss, and cry until we would turn him over to his back. Then he discovered the challenge of tummy time - it was his time to work his muscles. As soon as he was put onto his tummy, he knew it was workout time - it was all work and no play. He would struggle to lift his head up, making loud groans as if he was a man bench pressing 350 lbs, occasionally letting out a poot or too because of his intense straining. He would get frustrated when he started to lose energy - but he was no quitter. Eventually, he learned to rest in between workouts and started to enjoy just laying on his tummy. Now when I put him in his crib he rolls right over to his tummy. His tummy is one of his favorite places to be now. It's also a very messy place - he can't be on his tummy without spitting up his last meal - and now that he's on solid it's become quite colorful. :)

Isaiah loves his challenges, he's always pushing himself to the limit. He's pretty close to crawling I think. One of the new "workouts" he's taken up is "try to get the pacifier all by myself". He'll lay on his tummy, drop his pacifier, bring his head up to find calculate exactly where the pacifier is located and then go in for the kill. It's SO FUNNY to watch. He's usually unsuccessful because he just can't quite figure out that kicking his feet in the air won't actually move his body anywhere at all. We had a video to show you, but it's too big for here. :( We'll try and capture it later in shorter form. :) Here's a completely different video to make up for that one.



Giggles:

We love our baby's giggles. But he's camera shy - so we've had a lot of trouble trying to get it on tape. But today was a success - and this was what motivated me to update this blog again. His laugh is amazing and you just have to hear it. :)Ok, so I should probably figure out how big the files are before I write all about them - here's another understudy video for the original one I was going to post. But this one's pretty cute too. :)

I'm way worse at this than anticipated...

Okay, so I stink at this blog thing - SORRY!!!!

I'm not going to make any promises - because I've done that before on this blog and well - we all know how that turned out.

Instead, I'm just going to take one day at a time and pray that I get better at updating this thing and get better at a lot of other things I hope to get better at as well. :)

So here's a quick update on our life:

Oxford:

We just spent the week in a small town called Oxford in the South Island. Dalton was teaching on a Discipleship Training School while me and Isaiah just hung out. It was very exciting because I have never been to the south island so it was wonderful to finally get to go. It was just enough to wet my appetite for more. The weather was pretty bad all week long - rainy and cold. So Isaiah and I spent most of our time inside. However, the last two days we were there we had beautiful weather. On Friday when Dalton was done teaching we went to a place called Castle Hill. It's this crazy place with boulders and rock structures all over. That's what the pictures are of below. It was beautiful. We felt like we were back in Scotland. We spent our last day in Christ Church with a good friend of ours Mom - she showed us the sights, fed our tummies and inspired us with her love and devotion to Jesus. It was a good day. This was also the second flying trip for Isaiah and he did just as good this time as he did when we went to Australia. And we're just warming up for that big 12 hour flight, that we hope to be taking sooner rather than later, to America. :)











which leads me to our next portion of news...

Trip to America:

While we were hoping to come home for Christmas - we just couldn't come up with the dough we needed to make it happen. We did have some generous gifts given towards tickets and we have put them aside to purchase tickets for a later date. We're hoping to make a trip around April or May. So it looks like another hot Christmas for us which Dalton isn't too sad about, but I must admit - I was really, really, really hoping to get home for Christmas. But I am determined to make Isaiah's first Christmas a special one! Even though he won't know the difference from that day to any other day - it's more for me. :) We are approaching a 3 week break over the holiday's - which is a pretty long one! We're not sure what we're going to do yet - probably take a few short trips so Dalton can surf his brains out. But mostly we're just looking forward to resting and enjoying each other's company. As much as I wanted to be home for Christmas, this is New Zealand's most beautiful time of the year, so I am glad we get to be here for that.

ISAIAH:

He's growing up so fast I'm afraid I'm going to blink my eyes and he'll be marching off to the mission field somewhere to preach the gospel (haha, normally you would say "sending him off to college" in a sentence like that - but i thought mission field was more appropriate for our college dropout/high school dropout family. :)) When we went to Australia, he rolled over for the first time and got his first tooth. When we went to Oxford, he sat up by himself for the first time (meaning, balanced while sitting by himself, not actually "sat up" from laying down) and got his second tooth! He's getting stronger and stronger every day and cuter and cuter every day. His personality is starting to shine through more and more which is so fun to watch. He is a happy baby - only crying when he needs to (for the most part - he certainly has his grumpy days). He is very personal, likes lots of attention and is quite adventuras - always wanting to try to do more than his little body is able. We fall in love with him more and more every day - he is such a precious gift from Jesus for us. So excited to spend our lives together. :)













Ok - I'll leave it here for now and hopefully I'll update another one soon after we decorate our Christmas tree. I know, I know - why are we waiting so long to decorate our tree? I know my brother's thinking that - I'm sure they're house is already decorated top to bottom *sigh*. But we've been crunched for time lately - we're planning on decorating tonight.

I'll sign off until next time, and hopefully next time will be sooner than Isaiah's 16th birthday party!

War Within Me

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The "Oh face"

One of my favorite things about my beautiful niece is her "oh face" that she makes. We don't get to spend much time with Mary Kate and have never even met Ford (yet!)so we LOVE looking at pictures and getting to know them through still shots and an occasional short video.

So the "Oh face" has been one of my favorite things - always makes me laugh and cry at the same time - so cute! Well, I'm quite pleased that it runs in the family and that MK's little cousin Isaiah has the same face. It's nice to see family in family - this is for you MK - your little cousin is already taking after you!


Mary Kate


Isaiah - unfortunately I haven't captured the fullness of the "oh face" on film - this is my best shot - but believe me - he's got it down just like his cousin!

Isaiah's First Road Trip

We did it! On Friday - we all packed up and hit the road for the weekend. Dalton and I have been traveling to Hawks Bay every few months and connecting with some of the churches and prayer groups there. They have hosted three seminars on the book of Revelation that Dalton has been teaching on. The Hawks Bay guys are like family to us now and we LOVE going there.

However - this was a different trip altogether! Dalton still taught/preached - but this time there were so many different nuiances that made this trip so incredibly special.

First of all - we had Isaiah. Some thought I was crazy - including myself - for bringing our three week old son on a four hour journey (4 hours here is totally different to a 4 hour drive in america - no high ways - lots of curvey roads through mountains). It was a little crazy but it was either come along for the ride - or stay home alone without a car - both sounded incredibly scary to me but I chose to go where I knew I would have help and not be alone. So we packed up Isaiah's bags, bundled him up in his little seat (we call it the big jiggle chair) and away we went! It was VERY challenging for me - but we did it! And Isaiah was AMAZING! I'm still an anxious, insecure mommy learning to find her feet in parenthood - but coming home and looking back on the weekend - I'm SO GLAD I went. I feel much more confident and I had some really, really good mommy, son and Jesus time - it was sweet. I really could write an entire post on this - but I'll move on.

We also brought a big team up with us this time. We had a lot of our closest friends there with us leading worship for the seminar. It was so great to have them there and to be a part of what the Lord is doing in Hawks Bay. There's such a sweet connection spiritually that we have with Hawks Bay. Every time we go, even though it's chalk full of stuff to do and Dalton is SO BUSY with lots of speaking and lots of meeting with people - we always leave feeling refreshed and extremely privileged and humbled to be a part of what the Lord is doing there. We always leave with a joyous and sobering sense that the Lord truly is birthing this prayer movement and all we have to do is just jump in the current of the flowing river and be a part of what He is sovereignly doing. Anyway - all that to say that we are so, so excited to have been able to bring a bigger team this time around to be a part of it.

Part of the "bigger team" was that Aaron (director of Tauranga House of Prayer) came along and spoke about the Prayer Movement during two of the Saturday sessions. Aaron is originally from Hawks Bay so it's pretty special for him to come and speak into that town as someone who was once a troublesome boy who has now grown into a young man with such strong spiritual stature in the Lord and a profound leadership roll in the birthing of the prayer movement in, not just New Zealand, but the south pacific and Asia. Seeing him there (although I only saw him myself for about 15 minutes)just had the leadership of the Lord dripping all over it. It's hard to find words to articulate the sweetness that was felt throughout that whole weekend. I believe the Lord found great pleasure in it.

Also - Mary - Dalton's Mom - was able to come along for the weekend which was incredibly special for us and for her. It was so wonderful for Dalton to have his mom be able to sit and hear him teach - to see the incredibly gifted young man that he has grown to be. Dalton is Mary's inheritance - she prayed and prayed for him during those last years when he was far off from the Lord. To see where he is now is a profound testimony to the sovereignty and goodness of the Lord at work in Dalton's life. It was so wonderful for Mary to be able to see him in that ministerial context and to see him fully operating in his giftings - not just as a teacher/preacher - but as a husband and a father as well. What a blessing to have her come along with us.

I mostly stayed at home with Isaiah and missed out on most of the weekend physically - but the Lord was so, so faithful in keeping my heart and spirit knitted into the weekend. Although I did get lonely at times - I didn't feel I was missing out. I was still able to feel the significance of the weekend and was so keenly aware of the Lord's hand at work. I still felt humbled to be there and to be a part of it. I know having a child means I will "miss out" on other things - but the Lord proved, yet again, His faithfulness to me this weekend. There's not one ounce of bitterness that I feel in my heart - just gratefulness for what he's doing. I'm sure I'll have struggles up ahead - but He is so faithful to carry me through this season of life - just like He has all the others. He is so good.

Here are just a couple of pictures from the weekend - hope you enjoy!


Cinnamon rolls before we hit the road!


The beautiful scenery on the drive down


Worship at the seminar


Isaiah's kitchen!


Cutie Pie!


It was COLD! And we forgot his hat - oops. Oh well - he's super cute!