two for two

On October 3rd we celebrated our two year anniversary!  Two whole years of marriage and we have learned so much and yet have so much left to learn.  

Because we are in East Texas right now, we were able to go back to Elmwood Gardens where we got married to celebrate.  It was fun strolling through the gardens and reminiscing.  

In honor of two years, I decided to tell about the two main(or most important) things I have learned by being married to James Ryan Hartsfield.

1.  Being honest is hard, but oh so good.  

To know someone's strengths, weaknesses, joys, quirks, and brokenness and let them know yours is an extremely sanctifying process.  

I used to (and still do...) want people to think I am a strong, smart, independent woman.  The one thing I never heard from Ryan when we got married was, "you are such a strong person."  At first I didn't think he admired me the way I thought he should....I'm so dumb.  The truth is that I am not any of those things on my own and he never expected me to be.  He dropped those expectations and helped me to drop them and see myself the way God really sees me.  Yeah, I am needy, over-analytical, dependent,  AND extremely loved and accepted by God.  It was really freeing.  

In no way do I think you have to get married to learn this, but God used Ryan in that way for me.  I long for us all to feel the freedom to drop our masks and pretenses and actually lived with each other like this, it would be AWESOME.  I am pretty sure the kingdom of God will be like that, lets be kingdom bringers now!

2.  Covenants are based on a promise, not a feeling

This past year we moved to Pennsylvania and it was hard. We had been married less than a year and weren't close to family and our group of friends was very small.   There were many days that I did not feel like being there.  There were even days when Ryan and I sat on the couch together and wondered why we felt so lonely and wondered if this was some sign, or horrible point in our marriage.  It was those days that we learned to trust in the covenant that we made, because someone greater made an even stronger, more lasting covenant with us.  God strengthened our trust in him which in turn strengthened our trust in each other.  

Andrew Peterson says it better than I ever could in part of his son "Dancing in the Minefields":

And we're dancing in the minefields
We're sailing in the storms
And it was harder than we dreamed
But I believe that's what the promise is for
That's what the promise is for


So when I lose my way, find me
When I lose loves chains, bind me
At the end of all my faith to the end of all my days
when I forget my name, remind me

'Cause we bear the light of the Son of man
So there's nothing left to fear
So I'll walk with you in the shadow lands
Till the shadows disappear
'Cause He promised not to leave us
And his promises are true
So in the face of this chaos baby,
I can dance with you

I love you Ryan Hartsfield!  Let's continue to dance :)

We tried to recreate.....

 This awesome pic....hmmm ....we failed haha

Another reason I love Chik-fil-a....

Yesterday, Ryan and I were leaving College Station on our way to celebrate our 2nd anniversary so we decided to stop at Chik-fil-a.  Yes, we have reached that point where we are leaving in a month and so we are trying to eat at all of our favorite places WAY to much!  It's almost gross...

Anyways, we were sitting there enjoying our chicken sandwiches, waffle fries, and sweet tea when a really cute, blonde, very pregnant girl with a toddler on her hip walked over to our table.

She introduced herself as Ashley and said she saw us and felt like God wanted her to come tell us something.  (Honestly, at this point I started feeling a little nervous of what she might say...)

Ashley-  I just wanted to come encourage the two of you.  I, mean I love Jesus and I saw yall and God gave me this picture for yall.  It was a picture of a rock and ...are yall married?

Me- Yes.

Ashley-  I just saw that you are building your marriage on a strong rock and wanted to tell you to keep doing that.  God also told me that there are some really big things coming up in your lives, but that you can trust him in the midst of these big things because He is that rock.

Me(and Ryan)-  Wow....(sat there a little awkwardly)

Ashley-  And I just wanted to encourage you to trust God in the things that you want, the desires of your heart.  You can trust God to give you the things you are praying for right now.   So, I wanted to encourage yall with those things.

Me(and Ryan)  - (still getting over that I have never had a stranger share something like this with me in the context of chik-fil-a)  Well, today is our wedding anniversary and we are about to move to India and we are praying about adopting a baby......



Crazy, huh?  God is faithful and continues to surprise and stretch me.
Have you ever had any experiences like this??

Last 2 months in Pictures

The last two months of our lives in pictures :)

Ryan's first time to Sea World with his parents

riverwalk with Ryan's parents

discussing Ryan's paper with his Mom and Dad

Shady Grove with Ryan's parents and Jessica(R's sister)

Ryan's Mom and Sister after our dance party :)

Ryan and Rhett(R's brother) hanging out

Coffee with Amber(friend from journeyman training).
Love this girl, miss her sweet smile.

Went to Galveston with my (Kristin) family.

Train at Kemah.

Catching up with Amber(friend from college) and met Mercy!

Amy Marks!!  Woohoo.  Our matchmaker :)

Ryan went to a business training in Indiana

Mom and I went to San Fran for a girls trip together

celebrated Memee's birthday

Jessica Hall (friend from college) came to visit.  This girl, what can I even say, I am unexplainably thankful for her!

she lets me dye her hair

r                 Brandon's 33rd(K's brother) birthday

Bess(friend pretty much my entire life) had her first baby!

Cannon Walker Ray, so precious :)

Spent the day with Tory Vey(friend from middle school) and Kristen Hornback(friend and roommate from college).  I loved time with these girls.  Wish we all lived together like in college..umm except we are all married and Kristen has little Addie now.  Wish we could at least spend more time together ;)

• Also celebrated my (Kristin's birthday)
• Ryan's friends Nick and Sheridan got engaged
• Rhett had his 21st birthday
• Whew, so much!!  :)

  Only a little over a month until we head to India, CRAZY!

PS  I fought with the pictures on this post for about two hours and could not get them where I wanted them.  Uggghhh, sorry it looks kinda disorganized.  I am not so savy at all this....  :)

Adoption

A few days ago, I made a comment about adoption and have heard a few of you were curious about that comment. So here is the scoop:

WHY?

All through out scripture we read that God is very concerned with the orphan and the fatherless. The truth is that we are all orphans who are living in an "in between place." This world we live in is full of pain, sickness, loneliness, and fatherlessness. We were created for true one-ness with our father, God. In Genesis, we read about Eden. This is the place where everything was right and good. Man and God were together, fully known, fully loved, fully vulnerable. However, all this changed. Man's disobedience led to a separation from our true father, our true family.

So what does all this have to do with adoption/orphans, you ask? Well, our disobedience has plunged the world into brokenness and death. The orphan crisis that we now see is a direct result of this. The really great news is that God didn't want things to stay this way. He sent Jesus to bring us out of this brokenness and death. Through Jesus' life, death and power over death he began to initiate a new way of life, a new kingdom, and it is SO GOOD! Because of Jesus our sonship (daughter-ship) has been and continues to be completely restored. (Wow, I had no intention to be so theological about all that!)

Anyways that is the underlying motivation for us wanting to adopt...mainly, Jesus. I

(Kristin) also had an experience while I was living in Greece where I believe God really began to break my heart for refugees and that led to him breaking my heart for orphans. (maybe that will be another blog post, bc I am already getting pretty wordy :)

WHEN?

This is a tricky question. If we could do things in our timing we would love to have a baby in our arms in about 1.5- 2 years. However, adoption(just like trying to plan for a bio baby does not always happen in our own timing). We will be coming back to America around the winter holiday season 2013 and would love to bring our son/daughter back. That is what we are praying for and would love for you to join us in praying for this.

FROM?

We strongly desire to adopt a baby from India since we will be living there. However, we do believe we will adopt more than one child so we are trying to figure out if we will adopt our first baby from India or from somewhere else. We really want to adopt an infant for our first child. Later we would like to adopt an older child. From our research so far it looks like most of the time in India older children are available for foreigners to adopt, but we are still looking into that. We would really, really love your prayers. If only older children can be adopted from India, we will probably wait a few years before starting that process which means we are pretty open to other countries where infants are able to be adopted. I would love any thoughts/input from those of you who have adopted about this....

The good news is that since we will be living in India, it looks like after we live there a year the process of adoption may be a little easier for us than for Americans living in America who want to adopt from India. Right now, India is changing laws and so some American agencies have stopped accepting applications for Americans living in America to adopt from India for now. So sad!

So that is kinda where we are at right now. Very thankful that we are fully adopted sons and daughters into God's family and longing to adopt a son or daughter into our family :) Thanks for your prayers and love!!

The Help

I am currently over half way thru reading "The Help" and I am counting down the days until the movie comes out. Here is the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbuKgzgeUIU

If you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it. It blows me away that our country was like this not long ago. I know it sounds stupid and arrogant, but I just keep thinking "my Mom and Dad were alive when all this happened" so crazy. I pray that God continues to heal and break down racial barriers.

READ THIS BOOK! Can't wait til August 10th!!

Jesus and Women

I love to read. I have loved to read for as long as I have known how to read. Sometimes I read to learn, sometimes to enjoy, and sometimes hoping something within me is stirred and changed. I unexpectedly came upon a book that did the latter. I started reading "Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes" by Kenneth Bailey hoping to gain a better intellectual understanding of how Jesus viewed and interacted with women. What I did not expect was that through this book my love for Jesus would be expanded and enlightened as I became a spectator to his interactions with women in the scriptures.

Unfortunately, as a Westerner, I have grown up to read and understand scripture through a lens that is very well...Western. I honestly love the West. I love the freedom that has been fought for and established in Western countries. I love that(as a woman) I can write a blog and express anything I want to say because of this freedom. However, I often forget that Jesus was not a Westerner and the culture he lived in was nothing close to the Western culture I take for granted every day.

That is why this book has been so eye opening for me. I started in the middle of the book where he explores some of Jesus meetings with women. Jesus ushered in a radical new view of women that was in direct contrast of the view of women of his day. The book starts with his interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well.(John 4:1-42) Jewish men didn't even interact with other Jewish women they didn't know, much less a Samaritan half-breed, woman who had been married many times and was currently living with a man...radical, appalling!!) Jesus saw her and spoke to her need and she left a changed woman. Then there is the Canaanite woman of great faith,(Matthew 15:21-28), the woman caught in adultery(John 7:53-8:11), the woman who washed Jesus feet with her tears and anointed his feet with ointment(Luke 7:36-50). Jesus challenged men in their view of these women and in doing so helped seal his fate of taking the punishment for these women. Many of their lifestyles and reputations demanded punishment or excluded them in some way. Jesus, however, would not allow this so in speaking for them, he ultimately ended up taking their place and their punishment. AWESOME! There is no way I could go into everything that is said in the book about women(and that would be plagiarism ;0 ), so I highly, highly recommend this book for anyone who follows Jesus, is curious about Jesus, or doesn't understand Jesus. I think it will rock your world, it has rocked mine.

Along with learning and trying to absorb all this, I am also very aware of how many women in the world today are so far from knowing these truths. They have never seen it, experienced it, or even tasted it. Check out these pictures:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/07/worlds_most_dangerous_countrie.html

I don't think Jesus has been teaching me all this just to feel better about myself or be happy that he loves me so much. Those things do happen of course, but I think there is more. I think his kingdom is much, much bigger than me.

I keep trying to imagine if I could speak directly with Jesus, what he would say about this. What would he say about these women? I think he would have much to say and I think he would have different things to say to each of us about our response to this and what our role is. Maybe it is advocacy, adoption, education, moving to these countries, prayer..... ect. As we get ready to move to India, I am praying God would answer my questions about my role and my response to this.

Sometimes when we see pictures like this or read things like this we can be overcome with guilt of how easy our lives are. My point is not in any way to say we should respond out of duty or guilt or with some crazy thought that we can repay God for what he has done for us, that would be impossible. Instead, I feel that God has been nudging me and reminding me of who he is and what he has done and it is out of this joy and thankfulness that I am moved to respond.

May we bravely and boldly(even when we feel scared) embrace the role God has for us in this great story of restoration and hope for men and women throughout the world.

Artist

Our friend ,Haidar, was able to show his art at the same cafe Ryan worked at in Lancaster. The local news channel came out and interviewed Haidar!! So EXCITING, we are so proud of Haidar! He is an extremely talented artist and great friend. If you watch closely you can even spot Ryan and me.

click here:

http://www.wgal.com/r/28128614/detail.html

We are back in Texas and would love to connect with many of you!! We are in Austin until August then will be in Tyler from August thru October.