Frank and Isaac’s Baby/Parent Dedication…

Sunday was SUCH a sweet day for our family!!! It was Isaac and Frank’s baby dedication TOGETHER!!! Our church recently changed the baby dedications from having them in service (where we could invite all our friends and family) to having them in BIG event where all the families dedicate their babies all at once. We could only invite 6-8 people–AND that included our own family…SOOO…we decided to instead invite on of our church’s pastors to our home along with friends and family and have the dedication here our selves.

I know many of you may be wondering, “What is a baby/parent dedication any way???” A baby dedication is where a child’s parents come before their friends and family…those they will be raising their children before and with…and commiting to do everything they can to raise their little one up in the Lord…to hopefully one day know the Lord personally—and Lord willing one day follow Jesus in believers baptism (Acts 2:38, Romans 6:3-4). Baby/parent dedication does not save your child–only Jesus can do that…but it does invite your friends and family into joining you to raise them in His care and it gives them permission to help you, point you to truth and love you as brothers and sisters in Christ throughout this journey of parenting. There will be times that our children simply do not want to come to us–but it is our prayer that they will feel comfortable coming to these other friends and family who also love them and who are committed to helping us raise them in His love.

And ONE sweet day–I hope and pray they, too, accept Christ as their personal savior. And I have a sweet dream that we’ll have BIG celebrations when they do!!! I’ve always scratched my head why we make such big investments in some things our children do…yet for their conversion to faith you don’t always see BIG celebrations. There are a couple of days I have always dreamed about making big deals of…one being the baby dedication where we tell those we love how much they mean to us and how much we need them…and how we want to raise our children—and publically make that promise to the Lord. Another is when the fruit of that promise and days and nights of planting reap and we, Lord willing, one day hear our children say they want to follow Him deeply and truly. There is nothing more profound to me than following Him in believers baptism…when I became a believer at 18 years old and was baptized…the old was washed away and I was raised with Christ to a new life of following Him. AND on THAT day…you will find tents in our backyard…there will be dancing and rejoicing…and I hope there will be lots of these same friends and family sharing from their hearts once again!!! Yesterdays sweet dedication was everything I dreamed it would be (and I only cried a handful of times;). Here are just a few pictures of Isaac and Frank’s special day…

Maury, Blaire and Emily & baby Charlie…so thankful for cousins

Frank with his sweet cousins

My sweet sistas…Aunt April and Aunt Nisia

Tammy, Tricia and Kelly…my precious friends

Cousin Maury, me and Alison

Richard shared his heart, his love for his boys and Bible verses to bless them and speak over them…

Then it was momma’s turn…but oh my—I cried through the whole thing!The night before I handstamped their verses from me on fabric and sewed it on burlap. I hung their verses over the door ways…and I wanted them to be a keep-sake of truth they could keep and that could hang in their rooms as reminders of our blessings over them.

Because Frank’s name means “arrow”…I am praying that he is like an arrow in the hand of a warrior…that he will go through this life making change…pierces hearts for the gospel and being a brave, courageous man after God’s own heart…

Aunt Nisia told the sweetest stories about her son Drake—one being how he has lots of light-skinned friends and when he was little he would ask why he couldn’t be “lellow” too. She shared that there would always be times when our children feel different…but it’s THE HEART that God cares about…it’s the HEART that matters…it’s the HEART that is going to change the world…and it’s the HEART that empower you through God to be anything you want to be. This story fit in perfectly with our prayer for Isaac. My prayer for Isaac is that although he will grow up seeing he is a part of a family that looks different than most around us, I want him to know that when God created Him in His mother’s womb–he had planned for him to ultimately be in our family…and God has a plan for him through our family to grow up in Him…and our prayer is that one day Isaac will impact his world…and possibly even Southern Ethiopia for the gospel…

There were other verses through out our home that I want to always be written on our children’s hearts…

Just as scripture teaches us to teach the commandments to our children and write them on our doorposts…it was so sweet to hang these above the door frames and read them as friends and family walked through our home on Sunday. I was especially touched when friends and family shared their own blessings over our boys…The Lord has truly blessed us with so many amazing friends and such sweet family–we feel so blessed they would come and love on us on Sunday and agree with us to love our children in the Lord.

The funniest part of the day is when Frank decided he had ENOUGH of the dress up clothes. He ran upstairs and picked out his own outfit. ONLY the shirt belonged to Isaac so it was a little TIGHT. THEN he decided he wanted a lollypop and he and Uncle Harris had so much fun eating one like this…


ALL that hard work for a pop…it was time for a cool down!!! And if you haven’t tried IZZE Sparkling Juice…oh my–you must! (How fun is it that our choice of IZZE drinks helped support Kenyan orphans!!!) It was QUITE the hit among the kids AND adults!

We also showed a tear-jerker slideshow…which I’ve had several folks ask me to upload and I’m TRYING…but it was so big (file size) that it’s taking FOREVER so I might have to come back and load later!!! I have a adoption momma retreat volunteer meeting to get ready for and it’s been a crazy day of doctors for our little one (pray for a CLEAR ultrasound on ITY’s behalf today!!!) Thank you to those of you who prayed for us on Sunday. We felt your prayers and the Lord’s presence!!! It was such a sweet day…and how I wish YOU ALL who have prayed for us and loved us could have been there!!! I promise I’ll try and load the video when it’s done on YouTube…Love to you all and have a great week!