Month: September 2013

45 Days

Posted on by kimnjed

We leave on a jet plan in 45 days. Holy moly. How in the world? I can't believe it. Did I mention one-way tickets? Anywaysssss….

 

In honor of 45 days remaining here in the good ol' US of A, here are 45 thoughts.

1. It's pretty cold here in Montana. When we left for this road trip on September 13th it was kind of hard to guesstimate how the weather would change before our return to Oregon on October 6th. Let's just say that by not packing any long-sleeved shirts for my family I was less than successful at guesstimating correctly.

2.

Staying with Jed's fam is so fun. The kids and I get 10 whole days with Jed's sis Jessy and her fam. I love my sister. I am happy. 🙂

3. Last Thanksgiving we brought 6 boxes of books and keepsakes to Montana to store in a garage. Today we found the boxes and went through them and I found a box full of books I've been looking for!!! It was like Christmas! Those books were never supposed to come to MT. Oh happy day!!

4. We've eaten a whole heckofalotta ice cream on this trip. (and by “we”, I mostly mean “me”) My body is very, very angry with me. So are my jeans.

5.

When we left Great Falls we had to say goodbye to Jed's wonderful grandma. She is the biggest prayer warrior I know. She prays for us every.single.day. We are so blessed to be her kids. Sniff sniff…
6. I'm still curious how our visa situation is going to work out. I know God's got it, but it's a tad hard not to worry. If you want to pray about that it would be really awesome of you.
7. If you haven't seen the movie “The Way, Way Back” you are missing out. I think it might be one of my all time faves. I keep telling everyone about it. Go watch it, okay?
8. There's a vintage clothing store here in Billings that I adore. So many skirts, too little time.
9. I've been thinking a lot lately about what it will be like to raise our kids overseas. We've always wanted to raise our kids out of the US for at least part of their childhoods. I wonder what it will be like? I wonder how it will shape them? Exciting stuff!
10.
My kids are in cousin heaven right now. Just so ya know.
11. Jed leaves tomorrow for Colorado Springs to a Vineyard Missional Leaders Summit. He is so excited to build more relationship with missions peeps in the Vineyard. We are blessed he gets to go. Super coooool.
12. Yay for Fall!!! Yay for pumpkin goodness! Yay for afternoon coffee! Yay for gray skies and drizzling clouds! Yay for less sunshine beating down on my too white skin!
13. Another thing on my brain a lot lately is our family's evolving philosophy of education. I'm liking it A LOT.
14. I think I feel a home school post brewing!
15.
We miss our boys at Romaniv. Our hearts ache to get back to them.
16. The friends and supporters of Wide Awake are amazing. Thank you all for sharing the word, praying for us, loving us, and loving the children of Ukraine. We truly don't feel alone on this mission and are so giddy to be partnering with you.
17. Yesterday alone, three different friends from home texted me and included conversation about Dairy Queen in the texts. Does that mean I have a problem???
18. Only 45 days of Dairy Queen left. Hold me.
19. Twitter baffles me. I don't understand it, yet I feel like I'm a fairly bright person. Thanks goodness for my dearest Sarah who can tackle the twitter beast for me. I owe Sarah a blizzard.
20. Today Seth and I had our first real (for a 3-year -old) convo about adoption. We were looking at pics of when Havalah was born and when I put Seth down for his nap he said “Remember when I come out your tummy too Mommy?” I told him about when I came to the hospital and asked if he could be my baby. Precious, precious moments. We are so blessed to have our baby.
21. I love adoption. Beautiful.
22.
My mom's class sent us a Flat Stanley to take on the rest of our road trip. The kids are pretty excited!!
23. Running
24. Out
25. Of
26. Things
27. To
28. Say
29. Tonight we get to share Wide Awake at City Church of Billings. A group of people that love Jed and his sis are coming to hear what all the fuss is about. Yay for bringing Wide Awake into Montana territory!
30. Another thing mulling around in my brain: I wonder which friendships will survive and thrive when we move away, and which ones will kind of fall off the map? I wonder if we'll be surprised at which ones keep on keepin' on? I wonder if I'll do a good job at loving on my friends from far away? I hope I do well.
31. I never really knew what all the fuss was about concerning CS Lewis. I never thought I was smart enough or “deep” enough to read his works. I'm just now really discovering him for the first time and I get it.
32. Read this: http://www.inhisname.org/give-all.html
33.
I got to go on a date with this guy today. I'm the luckiest wife eva.
34. As of today I'm officially unemployed.
35. Jed's last day at work was the day before we left on this trip.
36. That means we're both unemployed. Scary. Weird. Relieving. Scary. Faith-building. Eek!
37. Salem Hospital was good to me. I worked there for all of the 12 years I've been an RN, minus a brief 9 month stint in Corvallis. My boss for the past several years was the BEST.
38. The girls in this family need serious hair-trimming attention. Good thing Jessy can do it for us.
39. I'm not sure Havalah's hair is capable of growing any longer than it is right now.
40. I'm not sure Havalah's body is capable of growing any bigger than it is right now. 😉
41. Speaking of hair. We just took a jaunt down memory lane, recalling the time when Addy got a mullet. Hahahahahaha! That's what you get when you go to Great Clips in Montana. Kidding, kidding! (sorta)
42. My view right now:
43. And now…
44. And now!
45. I'm surrounded by cuteness and life is gooooooood. 🙂

 

Along the Way

Posted on by kimnjed

Welp, we're in Montana now. 🙂

We arrived in Great Falls on Friday after a loooooong day of driving through nowheresville Idaho, a drive through part of Yellowstone, a stopover at a very cheap interesting motel, and another morning of driving. With all of us stuffed in a car, quarters are preeeeetty close and comfy. We've been listening to the audiobook of Pinocchio and it's so funny! I'd only ever seen the Disney cartoon and the book is of course so different and so weird. With Pinocchio, a steady stream of Pimsleur Russian, and our favorite albums we don't get too terribly bored. All that said, we are super happy to be out of the car and in Montana spending lots of quality time with the cousins and Jed's grandma. We are so blessed!

Here's some pics from along the way:

Seth calls this his Mickey Mouse pose. Hmmmm?

Havalah and her Playmobils. Inseparable.

Showin' off the faves.

Addy is my VERY close car companion... 🙂

We ate in a covered wagon! Note the creepy animals...only in good ol' Montana!

Ridin' a bear in West Yellowstone

Look! Elk! (Sorry about the stranger in the corner...I'm not in a photo editing mood)

BOYS!

GIRLS!

Listening to the accordion with the cousins at GG's

Girly cousins. Addy looks just a wee bit frightening!

The little boys. Cuteness!

 
 

Either on Tuesday or Wednesday we'll head to Jed's sister and her fam in Billings, MT. This trip has been super wonderful so far! Jed is feeling quite a bit better, so thanks for the prayers!

 

A Little Slice of Heaven

Posted on by kimnjed

Yesterday was perfection. Yesterday was one of those days where you look around and wonder how in the world you got to where you are and try really, really hard to take in every single moment so you can treasure it forever.

Yesterday we, and the couple who are hosting us spent the day waaaaaay out in the boonies of Idaho at Tri and Nancy Robinson’s ranch, Timber Butte. Tri was the founding pastor of Boise Vineyard back in 1989, and he had Nancy are ranchers extraordinaire. Tri is also the founder of I-61 ministries, a part of Vineyard Missions.

Homemade ice cream!

“The ministry of i-61 is a highway to do the ministry of Isaiah 61, fulfilling this commission to care for the broken, the oppressed, the captive and the extreme poor under the promised anointing of the Holy Spirit. It is an organized effort to train and send authentic disciples to those Jesus referred to as ‘the least of these’.”

Addy could have stayed in that little spot all day!

When I met Tri at the Vineyard Conference in Anaheim I quickly saw that I-61 is where Wide Awake International and the Johnson family fit within the Vineyard Missions family. These are our peeps. Tri and Nancy are all about justice, mercy, compassion, and going to the forgotten. Not only that, but they were homeschooling in California back in the day when some people didn’t even think it was legal, and started a homeschool co-op to try to help other parents, raised their kids an hour out of town with no electricity, packed their kids out on horses and homeschooled in tents. Oh man, I think I found my heroes. 🙂

We spent the day with great people, eating great food, and having great conversation. Not to mention my kids thought they’d died and gone to heaven. Thank you Tri, Nancy, Rand, Lori, Gary, and Lynette for such a perfect and special day! We will never forget our time together.

The Guest House

I big boy! I feed the sheep!

Road Trip! Yakima and Hermiston

Posted on by kimnjed

Road Trip Stats:

3 days

3 states

3 rounds of ice cream

3 delicious batches of homemade cookies

3 awesome times of sharing

2 church families we absolutely love

2 amazing host families spoiling us rotten

1 near-missed tornado warning

600 miles

countless hugs

countless welcoming smiles and open hearts

So as you can see, so far so good!

We had amazing times in Yakima and Hermiston. We seriously love those churches! It’s incredible how God can knit your hearts with people when you least expect it and when you really aren’t even looking for it. We feel such a great love for those 2 church families. The excitement, encouragement, and support they have showered on us has been so humbling and heart-filling. THANK YOU our dear friends! We left both places feeling loved and spoiled. 🙂

Don’t be judging the food choice…it’s a ROAD TRIP!

On Friday night in Yakima we led worship and then Jed shared about the goodness of God. After the talk we had a Q & A time with some medical professionals interested in how they can help. I can’t even tell you what it does to our hearts to see others grabbing this vision and running with it. To have someone come up and tell us they’ve been thinking about Ukraine ever since they last heard us speak and they know they just have to respond. “Wait, you thought about what was shared after we left??? YESSSSSSSS!!!!” 😉  We got to have breakfast with the fun and fantastic Lee Family and I forgot to take pictures.  Lame!  I guess you’ll have to use your imagination on that one.  Thanks friends!

In Hermiston we got to stay with the Douglass family and invade their space. It was the bessssst. Man we love those guys. Mark and Lois adopted their son Nik from Ukraine a couple years ago so we have a special bond there, plus they are just awesome, plus their boys are tons ‘o fun, plus they all love our kids, plus they fed us delicious food and let us jump on their trampoline and eat their ice cream and swim in their pool. We had a comfy cozy family time with them that we’ll always treasure. Thanks dear Dougli!

We got to share Wide Awake with Oasis Vineyard in Hermiston on Sunday morning and a good time was had by all. That probably had more to do with the delicious potluck than anything else. 🙂 Why does it all have to be about the food, you ask? Well, I just really like food…that’s why. Heeheeeee…

Now we’re in Boise at an awesome host home with such kind hosts, it’s just great! We shall see what good times await us here.

Thanks friends for praying and following along on our journey. If you could pray for Jed we would really appreciate it. He’s got a cold/cough that he just can’t seem to shake. That’s made speaking and leading worship a tad interesting! He really doesn’t want to be sick and I really want him to be able to fully engage in this trip without feeling sick and tired. Would you pray with us for his healing? Thanks!

Bye for now!

Questions and Answers!

Posted on by kimnjed

Hi friends!

So, our house is a mess- just in case you were wondering. You probably weren’t wondering, but since I’m literally surrounded by the mess, I can’t help but think everyone else is thinking about it as much as I am.

Why so messy? Well, we’re packing away! We leave on Friday for our big ‘ol Wide Awake road trip and we have to ship off some boxes to Ukraine before we hit the road. It will take about 6-8 weeks for the boxes to arrive in Zhitomir, and we won’t be back from our road trip till October, so we figured we better send those babies on there way. I think it will be really reassuring for our kids if some of there stuff is there to greet them when we arrive in our new home. 🙂

How do you decide what to pack?

Ummmm….well, that decision has been months in the making. We decided to only bring our books, toys (the good ones), and clothes. Books are an obvious choice since we homeschool and it’s not like we’ll have easy access to a library like we have in the past! We have 6 boxes of books we’re sending off tomorrow. Whew! You wouldn’t believe how many books we let go to get it down to only 6. Wowzers.

We decided to pack along toys because I know it will bring some comfort to the kiddos. We pared it down to the good toys that really get played with- (trains, legos, playmobiles, Polly Pockets…you know the sort).

Clothing isn’t really optional, so clothes made the cut too. 🙂

As it stands right now, and some of this is me estimating because we still need some books, toys, and clothes between now and November, this is what is coming along to Ukraine:

Shipped Boxes: 8 boxes of books, homeschool supplies, and other random (yet important) stuff like that

Suitcases/Checked Baggage: 3 for clothes, 4 for toys/kid stuff, 1 guitar, 1 for Christmas decorations/ornaments, and 2 or 3 for shoes, special blankets, and books we’re using till November

We get 12 checked pieces of luggage that can each weigh up to 50 pounds when we fly in November, so that gives us lots of wiggle room in our packing. Don’t ask me how we plan to get 11 suitcases, 1 guitar, 4 carry-ons, 5 backpacks and 4 children from the airport in Kiev to our house in Zhitomir. I haven’t thought that far ahead yet and the thought of it makes me kind of fidgety and sweaty. I’m deliberately ignoring that detail at this moment in time. (Kiev Vineyard- Please plan to bring a small army to the airport to assist with our what-is-sure-to-be-eye-catching ensemble of children and luggage. Thanks in advance!) 😉

Where are you going on your road-trip?

The Mother of all Roadtrips begins Friday and will encompass 5 states. We’ll start out heading to Yakima, WA where we’ll share with some medical professionals at Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Yakima. Then down and over to Hermiston, OR where we’ll spend time with Oasis Vineyard. Jed will be doing a workshop for their worship team and we’ll share Wide Awake on Sunday morning. After Hermiston we’ll head over to Boise, ID and spend several days checking out some awesome justice and mercy ministries of Vineyard, called Isaiah 61 Ministries. We’ll get to participate in the Vineyard College of Missions a bit as well. Sweeet. Then, it’s up to Montana to spend some quality time with Jed’s fam. We’ll be in Great Falls and Billings. Yippee!!! While we’re in Billings Jed will fly to Colorado Springs, CO to attend a Missional Leaders Summit for Vineyard Missions. The kids and I will chill with the fam while he’s gone. 🙂 After Montana it’s down to Seattle, WA to share Wide Awake with Shoreline Vineyard.

If you’ll be near any of those places between now and October 6th, let us know and we can share our schedule with you. We’d love to meet any of you along the way!

Seth came to you through fostering. Do you think you may adopt on the journey you are now?

I’d be lying if I said the thought hasn’t crossed my mind! Back in 2010 this journey began with the intent to adopt a little one from Ukraine. We are definitely open to whatever the Father has for our family. We won’t be intending to adopt anytime soon, but really feel like we are to focus heavily on the dream of medical homes and the vision God has given us for Wide Awake. But, if God puts the right kiddo in our lap at the right time…how could we say no? We are open to whatever He asks of us. 🙂

Can any of the children in the baby houses be sponsored? Many people can’t adopt but would love to do other things if they can.

Thank you for asking! Part of the dream of the medical homes is that the children in the homes would be available for sponsorship. That’s obviously a ways off, but stay tuned for that down the road! Some of the boys at Romaniv (where we’ll be volunteering with Mission to Ukraine) are available for sponsorship here. Cool, right? I love those faces too much.

Generic prayer is good, but how can we pray specifically for you?

THANK YOU FOR ASKING! We could really use specific prayer for our hearts. We are definitely in a grieving process right now and sometimes it’s down right ugly. My Addy just cried herself to sleep tonight because she is so sad to move and miss her baby cousin’s first steps and first birthday. The two older kids are struggling right now. They can’t really anticipate the joy we know is set before us. All they can see right now is what we are leaving behind. I honestly feel quite a bit of that right now as well. The reality of all the people we are leaving behind can be overwhelming, and the grief can be suffocating. BUT we know He is good. Our kids have yet to really grasp His goodness for themselves. So, prayer for their tender hearts would be greatly appreciated. We want them to be able to grieve, but also to find comfort in Jesus. Tough stuff.

How are finances shaping up and have you learned a basic understanding of the language?

Finances are shaping up really well! The generosity of our supporters has been humbling, encouraging, faith-building, and jumping-up-and-down inducing. 🙂

All our generous supporters have given $18,100 toward our one-time moving cost goal of $20,000.

At this time we have monthly giving commitments totaling $2,635.

Our cost of living goal is $3,000 per month and our total program goal is $10,000 per month.

The extra $7,000 will go toward funding the first Therapeutic Center.

If you are still deciding the perfect time to start giving, it’s now!

As far as language learning goes…well, slowly but surely we’re making progress! We can officially ask for directions, order food, find out if people want anything to eat…and basic things like that. Oy. We’ve got years to go when it comes to the Russian language. But, we’re trying our best! We have a Ukrainian friend who is searching for a tutor for us in Zhitomir as we speak.

That’s it for now! We’ll keep you posted along the way. Thank you SO MUCH for your love and support. Here we goooooooo!

Go here to donate to Wide Awake.  Thanks!