Cookies For Africa

Well, here are some wedding cookies that I was working on this afternoon. They’re awaiting final details…

I’m hoping to complete at least one large order (120 or more) a month while we’re moving through Joshua’s infant stage. I have an order lined up for September and am awaiting an order for October… let me know if you’re interested!

Although we didn’t adopt from Burkina Faso, the ease with which Joshua joined our family emphasized to me that America is a land of opportunity, provision, and health, especially compared to Burkina Faso. I only feel more strongly about doing what I can, no matter how little, to help a country that cannot get orphans into waiting families or provide mosquito nets to its vulnerable people.

I still have a lot of projects to show you that I just never had time to post before Joshua was born. As we’re easing back into a school routine and I’m picking back up with exercise and other disciplines, I’m also hopeful that I can begin posting again on a weekly basis or so.

Now, for what you really want to see… our 10 pounds of preciousness:

Oh, and the middle guy is pretty cute too. He was the only one up the other morning (for once!!!) and I asked him what he wanted to do with me. He wanted to do “school time”! So he’s working on an S worksheet here

In the state of Maryland, a birth mother has 30 days to reconsider her intention to place her child for adoption. Here’s Joshua on this very significant 30 day birthday.

She gave him life.

She gave him his name – Joshua Lee.

She gave him perfect features.

And now she has given us the responsibility, joy, and privilege of raising Joshua as our own precious son.

We give her, and will teach Joshua to give her, honor and thanks.

Tomorrow – the 31st day – we meet with a lawyer to begin the finalization process. If all goes smoothly, that will still take a minimum of six months.

Our third son was delivered on July 9, 2010

by a birth mother whom we hold in the highest honor and to whom we owe our deepest appreciation.

6lbs, 13oz, 20 inches

Named Joshua Lee

Home as a Hadeed July 11, 2010

Praise God!

I was standing hunched over my laptop when I received this request, too rushed to sit down for a quick Inbox check – skim, delete, skim, set aside to read more carefully, skim, quick response… Then I read the email containing this cookie request and stopped cold. Here is what it said:

“…I’m looking to place another order – a very special order. We have heart parents who sadly lost their little girl at 4 months of age and they are celebrating what would be her 1st birthday on Saturday, May 22nd.”

I panicked a little bit. In truth, every time I hear about the death of a child, I panic a little bit, because I know how easily it could be any child, Jack or Marcus in particular. I also panicked a bit because I didn’t think I could do justice to this event, and even if I could, would it be awkward? Would a gift of flowers and butterflies on such an sad occasion offend the grieving parents?

I was thinking about Carsyn’s parents and about this order while on a run one morning. From somewhere within my memory came the verse Psalm 116:15, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints”. The grief of a parent testifies to the pricelessness of a child. Carsyn was everything to her parents that my children are to me. And she is so special to God that even her death was precious in His sight. How foolish of me to imagine that a gift honoring her would offend her parents. Of course not! It makes perfect sense to, in the donor’s words, “celebrate” Carsyn and the very short months she had with her parents.

The donor shared more about Carsyn and I’d like to honor her by sharing it with you:

Carsyn Presley Buchmann was born on May 22nd, 2009 with a congenital heart defect called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrom. Carsyn was born with 1/2 of a heart. After Two open heart surgeries, Carsyn was listed for a heart transplant which she received on July 27th, 2009. After fighting for nearly four months, She passed away from complications of a stroke. Carsyn spent her entire life in the Cardiac ICU at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.

Please pray with me for comfort for Carsyn’s parents and for the donor too, who herself lost a child to congenital heart disease. Carsyn’s parents have set up a foundation named “The Wings of Angels”, which you can read about or donate to here.

Thanks, Stephanie, for the lesson you taught me, that it is always comforting for a parent to honor their child. And thank you for the donation, which purchased two nets that may save other children from malaria, and save their parents from the grief that Carsyn’s parents suffer.

This picture depicts a cute, quick little project doesn’t it? Ahh, my friends, if only that were true… I would have been a lot less tired at Jack’s preschool graduation.

The project started just like any other – an order of 80 cookies from an absolutely delightful and encouraging staff member at Chapelgate PCA, the church that graciously allows me to use their licensed, insured kitchen, and invited me to speak about malaria and Child Alive at a recent event. The order was for Sunday School teachers so we worked from a “sowing the word” theme – hence the watering cans and seeds.

If this were in a gallery, we would title it “World’s Most Impractical Cookie Cutter”. Can you imagine what happened when I attempted to lift cookie #1 of 80 onto the baking sheet? And consider the baking time differential between that skinny spout and the rest of the cookie. Even if I properly managed those difficulties, how in the world would I transport 80 of those ridiculously delicate cookies from Chapelgate to home for decoration, back to Chapelgate for the the donor, and eventually to the final recipients?? What was I thinking when I ordered it??? As we tell our kids sometimes – I was NOT thinking.

I really had no choice but to reshape each of the watering can cookies into the final shape above before transferring them to the baking sheet. Generally I can cut out 300-400 cookies in an evening at Chapelgate. This particular evening, I barely managed 120.

Believe it or not, the cookie cutter fiasco was my *second* major mistake on this project. The first was all too typical for me – I spoke before thinking. When brainstorming ideas, I mentioned that if we chose this theme, I could do 80 bags of two cookies each – seeds and watering cans together. “Wouldn’t that be cute?” I thought naively. For an order of a dozen or a couple dozen, doing a complementary cookie is not a big deal and I often do it. But that flippant offer turned an order of 80 cookies into an order of 160 cookies! To quote Dana Carvey quoting George Bush, “Not prudent”.

As I type this, it occurs to me that there is a third major mistake going here – I never got an invoice out on this order! But… when I get it out and the check comes back, we will have earned about 8 more nets for those who desperately need them. No matter how poorly a project goes, whenever I write that last paragraph, it all seems worth it. It is.

Bonus pictures that were mixed up in this batch of downloads: