Feet That Jesus Loves!

I had mentioned yesterday about my friend Melanie.  She and her husband and family are such huge blessings to me!  I love being over with them and just living life in their house.  They have three kids of their own and they had been expecting a fourth about a year or so ago and she lost it.  So, they had felt led to maybe look at adoption by way of fostering.  They're licensed with DCFS as foster parents but they also work with the Safe Families program which is not through the state, but almost more of a mentoring program for families that may have problems but no one to help them figure things out.  Safe Families is a Christian organization that works through churches so when children need temporary placement they call on these certified families (I'm actually certified with them myself as of the beginning of this year, but I would only be acting as an aid to help a "foster" family with errands or babysitting).  The intent of Safe Families is to help parents fix their issues, then reunite the children with their families, then use the certified Safe Family that helped to kind if mentor and walk with them.  Erick and Melanie have done this for a few families and they're currently still involved with one in particular.

But, the two little girls Melanie has this week are foster.  The parents have 8 kids total, none of them with them.  I'm not sure how long the girls have been taken from them but this is like their 4th home and its just temporary because they had to remove them short notice from another home.  Melanie probably would keep them but she has a trip home to Boston for two weeks.  The little girl (shoes pictured) is 3 and her sister is 5.  They were dropped off on Friday night and immediately started calling Melanie "mama".   They're absolutely adorable and you can tell they're just confused and even angry at some points and it hurts so much to see two little children already having to deal with such yuck in life.  BUT - that they came to Melanie and Erik and that they have already felt love from our church, you can only pray that God will protect them and that He puts them someplace special soon.  And, from what I was told, pray that they just find an adoptive family to take them permanently - the state of IL is supposedly horrid on taking parental rights away when it's more than obvious they should be terminated.  And praying even more that maybe Melanie and Erik would even be able to take them!:)

I got to spend the afternoon with the girls.  I got to buy them Happy Meals and play with them while Melanie finished decorating for Vacation Bible School this up coming week.  They really are adorable girls and the little 3 year old is obssessed with college.  It's kind of funny - she's always saying she goes to college and asking if we're at college and will she be able to go college soon?  I don't know where she learned about it, but its the most adorable thing!

And you can spot a coffee addict when you see this.....

First thing in the morning once I entered my classroom - my tumbler lid had popped off and I didn't realize until I'd put it up to my mouth and felt something trickling down... Needless to say, it was a bit more than a trickle.  I spent all morning and until almost 3pm smelling like the back room at a coffeehouse, and looking like I WAS the back room of a coffeehouse.