The Tyner Family: Better late than never

I know you're shocked to see our blog updated. Somewhere between Christmas and now, I've fallen off the blogging bandwagon. We're back and rolling now, until life happens again, and we take another 3 month hiatus.

Let me catch you up on the last 3 months. We celebrated Eli's 4th birthday on December 18. A Cat in the Hat birthday to be exact. We had 5 performances of the Living Christmas Tree and celebrated thousands of lives changed and 50,000 in attendance. I think Ben, Eli, and I counted for 15 of those since we saw all the performances. :) The little boys saw their first "snow" which lasted all of 5 minutes, but they were thrilled. We traveled home for a week with our family, and we were actually home on Christmas Day. I can't remember the last time that happened. Jack played basketball this year and was awesome! It's amazing how much better he is as a 7-year-old than a 6-year-old. Maybe it's all the practice with Ben in our driveway. Ben turned 5 on February 12. He's been planning his party ever since he found out what a birthday was. Construction started on our bonus room. Yay for extra space!! And for the insulation and sheetrock dust all over everything. :) Jon led worship for the Youth Evangelism Conference in Nashville and had a great time! And that brings us up-to-date.

Today, at 5:30 this morning, Jon boarded a plane headed back to Ethiopia. Bethany Christian Services, who we used for our adoption, is starting a new program called One Family. This program is similar to Compassion or World Vision, where you sponsor children for $30/month to allow these children to stay with their families instead of adoption being their only alternative. This will hopefully prevent the number of orphans, which is currently 6 million, SIX MILLION IN ETHIOPIA, from increasing at the out-of-control crazy rate that it is. Jon is helping to get the program up and running and get the word out about sponsorships. He'll be meeting with the Bethany staff there as well as some of the families currently receiving sponsorships.

When we adopted the little boys, we left with half our heart still in Ethiopia, and we've been praying for the opportunity to return one day. Not necessarily to bring home more kids, but for whatever God had for us. So we're MORE THAN GRATEFUL for this opportunity. It's what we've been praying for. We just didn't know it.

I just saw this on a friend's blog and I loved it, so I'm stealing and reposting it. :)

"If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money and talent are all you need in life. You'll always be a little too tired, a little too busy. But if, like Jesus, you realize you can't do life on your own, then no matter how busy, no matter how tired you are, you will find the time to pray."

SO TRUE.

I'll post more updates and pictures as I hear from Jon. Here are a few pictures of the last few months. :)