SEATTLE!

Well, we survived our week with 16 high schoolers! YAY! No, but, in all seriousness, it was a fantastic trip to Seattle! I won't give a day by day synopsis, because that could get kind of boring. However, we learned alot, grew in our relationship with Christ and our group grew closer together as well! Some of the "highlights" include:

-working at a community garden
-cleaning up some trash under a high-way overpass (where people live in their cars)
-a 11:00 p.m-3:00 a.m. visit to the ER for Hefty to find out that he has gull-stones (and will need surgery eventually)
-a visit to a Center for Spiritual Living (where the students had an opportunity to grow in their faith, while learning about a different world-view)
-a evening with some family who are from Lynden, WA (Thanks Bonnie and Ted!)

It was a great week!! If you want to know more, visit www.hhcrcedge.blogspot.com
Then after that, we were off to Lansing for a wedding of good friends, Matt and Katie.
Congrats guys! Hefty was in the wedding, and it went wonderfully and it was beautiful!

Now, hopefully we will have some time to relax for the rest of the summer. We haven't heard anything on the house or the adoption yet. God is teaching us patience that's for sure!

Hope everyone is having a fantastic day!!!

Megan

A waiting family....

That's what we are....
A WAITING FAMILY!
YAY! Our home-study was approved, and we are now officially a waiting family through Bethany Christian Services. This makes us excited and nervous at the same time! We are excited because we feel that this is where God is calling to be in our lives, and we have seen his re-assurance by the way that we have been blessed with financial support, and things have gone smoothly for us also. I have no doubt that we will be great parents, but it's still a bit crazy to think that in a few months, we could be parents! We covet your prayers for patience as we wait. This could be a long, hard process so we are going to need patience and God's grace to flow over us. So, that's about all there is to update now.

Home Study

Well, I haven't been doing a very good job at keeping this blog up-dated. Hefty and I both had individual meeting this past week for Part 1 of our Home Study. It was a bit nerve-raking, but it went well, and we answered the questions as honestly as we could. Now, this Thursday, June 4, we have our house-visit. Our case-worker will come into our home and make sure that it's safe for a little baby. So, last week we went and bought new Carbon Monoxide detectors and a new fire extinghuiser, because ours were alittle out dated. On Sunday, we spent most of the night cleaning our bedroom and living room and then tonight it's on to the kitchen and bathroom. Fun, fun. Once she has our home-study written up, we will go on the Bethany website for birthmoms to look at and pick us, hopefully. We also have to put together a Shutterfly book with all sorts of pictures of us in it that our case workers will show a birth-mom. Seems like a lot of work, right? Our case-worker said that it will take about a year, on average, for us to get chosen, however, it could go a little faster, or slower.

Enough on the adoption though. On Memorial Day, we bought a new couch! We decided that it was time to get a new one, and Art Van was having a good sale, so we went and bought one. It is so nice and comfortable! It is bigger than our older one, so that's nice. We also planted our flowers that day, and spent time outside. It was such a nice day to spend with the two of us. We also took our god-daughter, Lyvi, to Crazy Bounce last week. I thought that she would love going down the slides and stuff, but she didn't care for it at all. I think that she was alittle scared of all the big inflatables.

We are off to Washington DC in about 2 weeks and then Seattle, WA after that. It's going to be a busy, yet fun, summer! Youth Group is done for the summer, which is sad and relaxing at the same time.

Hope everything is well with everyone :)
Megan

"...Life keeps rolling on..."

Well, let's see--what's been happening in our lives. First of all, a few weeks ago, we went to a march in downtown Grand Rapids for the Invisible Children of Uganda. There is a rebel leader in Uganda who is abducting little kids (8-9 years old) for his rebel army. It's a terrible injustice that is going on, that not many people know about. To learn more, go to www.invisiblechildren.com. Anyways, we went to this march/rally thing in Grand Rapids. It was pouring rain. We were cold. We were wet. We marched on. We went with a few of our youth groupies. Our main purpose was to create awareness for this problem. This whole thing was a really cool experience, however, I felt very in-adequate. I felt very small compared to this large problem! What can I, a 25 year old female in Holland, MI do to help these kids in Uganda? Well, I have learned that I must do something because God calls us to care for the widows and the orphans. So, even though I feel small, what we did was important.

We are almost done with EDGE for this year. It will be nice to have a small break from it. Don't get me wrong, we love Youth Group, but a break will be nice too. Then we have the summer trip to Seattle...YEAH! It will be a great trip! I can't wait to see what God is going to do within the lives of the kids in our group! I think that's all for now...

Megan

Wow! God is awesome!

Wow! That's all we can say is wow! We had our garage sale today, and we made $1,600 in donations and sales for our adoption! God is good--all the time, all the time--God is good! This is such an affirmation to us! This is such a step of faith, but by this, God is telling us that He is behind us too, and that this is what He is calling us to do. We had a gorgeous day, a great neighborhood (thanks Walburgs :) and just an over-all good turn out today. We want to say a special thank you to all the people who donated, either monetarily or with items to sell :) We love you all! Your support means the world to us! We still ask for your prayers as we embrak on this journey!

An up-date on the adoption so far. Megan has had her physical, blood work and drug test (which she passed--suprise suprise j/k :). Daniel has his scheduled for this coming week. We both got finger-printed. Our referal letters have been sent out, and some returned. Once Laurie (our case-worker) gets those, she will call us for our "house-visit." This is making me a bit nervous. I know my house is clean, but is it good enough to pass an inspection??? We shall see. I think we will be ok though. Then, we will create a profile for birth-moms to look at, to decide if they want us to parent their child. This is where the waiting begins. It could go very fast, or it could take a year or so. Pray for patcience for us too, as we wait and also pray for the birthmom, that she may feel confident with her choice. Well, that's enough for now.

Thanks Thanks Thanks!
The Hellenthals

Sunday sermon

Well, I forgot to blog about this, but at church on Sunday, we heard an AWESOME sermon! George talked about the trial of Jesus, particularly the flogging of our Savior. He talked about how, in those days, there were usually two Roman soilders standing on either side of the victim taking turns flogging them. As the prophet Isaiah says, "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." (Isaiah 53) This means that the two "soilders" who were flogging Jesus was really ME and God! To listen to more of the sermon, go to our church website...http://www.hhcrc.org. I hope that you take the time to listen to it, and that it impacts you as much as it did Hefty and I! We love our church family, and our so blessed to be a part of HHCRC.

What's been going on....

Well, I figured that it was about time to blog again :) We recently re-painted our kitchen! It had an awful border, and so we thought it time to up-date it a bit. It's now a redish color and I really like it! We have been really busy getting stuff ready for our garage sale for our adoption! It's been such a blessing to see people donate things to us for us to sell for our adoption :) We really appreciate all the support and prayers for us about the adoption. This is something that we feel so passionate about! We are starting an Orphan Ministry at our church. It's sad to think that there are 6,000 orphans in MI alone! Well, let's see we offically turned in our application this Wednesday. It was kindda crazy to think that we are on our way to becoming parents. We are both so excited about it! We are both going to get finger-printed tomorrow. I have to get my blood-work done yet and Hefty has to have his physical yet, which is at the end of the month. We have a break from Youth Group this and next week since it's Spring Break. We are both busy working and doing stuff with church. We are getting a new website at church that I will be keeping up-dated. It's a little scary for me because I have never done anything w/ websites. I think once I get the hang of it, I'll be fine. I think that's about it for now.
Have a blessed week!