Julie Gumm - Author

Together for Adoption Conference comes to Phoenix

by //

Since it’s a bazillion degrees outside (okay, maybe just 113), I’m trying to keep my mind off the heat by thinking about the fun and exciting things happening this fall. A major one is the annual Together for Adoption Conference being held HERE in Phoenix, October 21-22nd. Yay!

First, just to clear it up, this is NOT just about what most people think of when they hear the word “adoption”. It’s about the gospel and what it says about God as our Redeemer and adoptive father. It’s about how we answer the call to care for the orphan (and that can take MANY different forms). It’s about facing fears and overcoming them with knowledge.

And it’s about people. One of the most incredible things about these gatherings is the people. It’s electrifying to be in a building with over a thousand like-minded people who want to make a difference in the global orphan crisis.

I’ll be live blogging the conference as one of their featured bloggers, conducting my breakout on Creative Fundraising for Your Adoption, and attending as many great breakout sessions as I can.

Hopefully I’ll also be catching up with some online peeps. Looking forward to connecting again with some of the amazing women I got to meet and hang with last year – Kristen, Jody, Jamie, Angel…Mary are you coming? I hope some of my readers are there – if you plan on coming let me know so we can be sure to meet.

If you’re beginning to hear the cry of the orphan but just aren’t sure where you fit in, come and ask God to show you his place for you in this battle.

My post about last year’s T4A Conference:

First World Problems

by //

Last week I stumbled on a twitter hash tag #firstworldproblems. The tweets sound like this:

Just heard a woman complain for a good 5 minutes that a restaurant only had roast turkey, not baked.

The central air doesn’t cool the third floor of my house very well.

do you ever look at your visa and wonder if it might suddenly catch fire?

Some of them are retweets w/ the hashtag added by others, some are supposed to be parody. Then I found this:

First world problems, for sure.

What first world problems do you have?

“So, are you going to adopt again?”

by //

You know how six months after you’re married everyone starts asking, “So when are you having kids?”

Same type of thing happens once you adopt.

“So, are you going to adopt again?”

And quite honestly it seems like most families who adopt once, adopt again. And sometimes again, and again, and again.

So it’s a fair question.

And I always react with this really pronounced pause.

Then, “Well, we don’t currently have plans to.”

Because I’ve learned not to say “No” to God. That’s basically like telling an eight-year-old boy “I double-dog dare you”.

You know, because I told him we were not having more kids 6 years. Two was good.

And he laughed at me. Probably hysterically. In a loving sort of way, of course 🙂

So I will say that we currently do not have plans to adopt again. Mark and I are both passionate about orphans but are focused, mostly through our work with World Orphans, on the millions of kids who will never be adopted internationally. How we can we keep, or place, them in families? How can we show them the love of Christ?

And of course, there’s the book – my own little crusade to help as many OTHER people adopt as possible.

But, I won’t say never. I’m too smart for that.