Almost a year?!

I cannot believe it has been almost a year since my last post! Again, a lot has happened.

We moved to WA in Dec. of last year (this is our home and church in the picture). We love it here. (But that doesn't mean we don't miss ALL our Ca. friends!) Our church family is such a blessing and we love WA. It is beautiful! We are enjoying the cooler summers too. I have some lovely Christian sisters here that encourage me often. If you want to see some videos of us check out vimeo.com and type in: katie lapierre in the search. You can also check out the church page: woodlandchristianchurch.net or look us up on facebook!

Scott's wonderful parents moved here a few months ago and the foundation for their new home is being laid. It is so nice to have family around. We are with them a lot and so thankful for them!

My dad met a woman that he is very in love with and we are hoping to brainwash them into moving here... permanently! We figure our kids are cute enough to win them over. :)

My sister is pregnant with her second boy and due in mid Dec. It stinks real bad not being near her and I hate that we don't get to share life together. I can't wait to meet my new nephew Brody!

My brother is doing well and about to get his A.A. and we are also trying to get him to move here :)

My kids are growing in many ways. Johnny gave us a real scare at the beginning with his failure to gain weight. All the sudden he just started gaining for no rhyme or reason (maybe all the prayer?!) and is doing very well. He lights up our world with his contagious laugh and smile!

Ricky is going to be three in December! I can't believe it. He has a real tender/sweet side to him and loves imitating his sister. They play together all the time! In fact, they are in their room (they just started sharing one until Johnny is old enough to share one with Ricky) playing right now.

Rhea turned 4 this summer and is one of my closest little friends. I love being her mom. We have many good conversations about the Lord and she really seems to have a heart for Him!

Scott is loving his job as a senior pastor and he is excelling in many ways. It has been really neat as his wife to watch the Lord use him over and over.

We live right next to the church and really enjoy that! It's so nice to just run over there and go back and forth as needed (especially as a mom of three little people).

We are in a great season of life. I am enjoying every minute of it.

More adoption stats...

Planned Parenthood preformed 250,000 abortions in 2004 and made a profit of $35 million. (Family News in Focus, 12/22/04)

"What we know from research is that the longer a child stays in foster care the worse the child's outcomes." (US Health and Human Services Undersecretary Wade Horn, Focus on the Family web site, May 20, 2004.)

Each year November is designated National Adoption Month by the President of the United States. This was first declared in 1990. (US Census Bureau web site.)

21,616 immigrant visas were issued to orphans coming to the United States for adoption in 2003, up from 7,377 a decade earlier. (US Census Bureau web site.)

1.7 million households contain adopted children. These households comprise 4 percent of all households in which children reside. (US Census Bureau web site.)

Average age of parents with adopted children is 43 or about 5 years older than the average age of parents with biological children. (US Census Bureau web site.)

Median income of adoptive parents is approximately $5,000 more than the median income of biological parents. (US Census Bureau web site.)

There are over 40 references to orphans in the Old Testament found in 12 of the Old Testament books!

China released 6,859 children for adoption to the United States in 2003 (US Dept. of State web site).There are approximately 8,000,000 children in orphanages in China.

"About four in ten Americans have considered adopting a child at one time in their lives. This equates to about 81.5 million adults. Considering there are 134,000 children in foster care awaiting families, these children would all have a home today is just 0.2% (1 in 500) of these adults actually pursued and completed the adoption process." (National Adoption Attitudes Survey, June 2002).

78% of Americans think the country should be doing more to encourage adoption. (National Adoption Attitudes Survey, June 2002).

Americans have a very positive opinion about adoptive parents. They are seen as lucky by 94% of Americans. (National Adoption Attitudes Survey, June 2002)

More foster care stuff

I read these stats and it made me want to get involved with foster care even more:

Did you know: there are over 800,000 foster children in the US . Annually 20,000 kids age out of foster care nationwide, an increase of 41 percent since 1998. One third of them didn’t have a high school diploma and about 20 percent become homeless. Nearly half of the young women who have been in foster care become pregnant at least once by age 19. The need is great.

The need is definitely great. Reminds me of that verse: the harvest is great but the laborers are few. The need for adoption is huge but those willing to adopt are so few! I read some where that only 2% of people end up ever adopting!

Scott and I would like to adopt children younger then ours. This will be a while but I am praying for and about the children the Lord has in store for us.

So many hurting little ones. Oh Lord, please give us as your people a heart for the orphans!

Foster Parenting

My heart breaks for the thousands of orphans/abused children in america. I admire those who have chosen to be foster parents. Scott and I continue to discuss and pray about God's plan for our family.

Here is a short video on foster care.