Still Alive and Busier than Ever!

I know I haven't been around much over the last month, but I promise I have a good reason. I have been working hard at Cornerstone (including preparing for 2 of my own groups and 5 VBS's this summer!), starting a new job, having kids in the house and writing a devotional book for Teen Club. Of course, a lot of these things have not only added to my weekly work hours, but also my emotional stress. I am going to update you on everything (at least as much as I can remember!) today. I will be dating posts from when they actually happened, so hopefully you will be all caught up if you just keep scrolling down.

Thanks for being patient with me, and especially for continuing to pray!!

Shopping!

I HATE shopping! I hate shopping almost as much as I hate camping, which is saying a lot. Hell for me would probably be eternal shopping during the day, camping at night constantly surrounded by people chomping on gum and/or whistling. Oh, and I would probably have the hiccups forever too. (I have a lot of pet peeves, haha). Unfortunately, sometimes shopping is necessary and my new job at CASA has created that need.

Pretty much my entire wardrobe consists of jeans, Cornerstone t-shirts, some Virginia Tech sweatshirts and a few bridesmaid dresses. Not exactly proper courtroom attire, haha. Over the last year as a CASA volunteer I was able to borrow clothes from Ashley whenever I needed to go to court, which was only once every 3-4 months. Now that I have to go to court at least once a week (sometimes more than that), I don't think Ashley would appreciate me borrowing that many outfits, haha. Plus, I do occasionally have meetings at the office as well, so a "professional" wardrobe has become necessary.

My mom (because she is AWESOME!) ordered me several suits on line. Unfortunately, not one of them fit me. So, I decided to take them back to the store and make a shopping day out of it. And thankfully, Ashley and Shera agreed to go with me! (They have great fashion sense! Me.. not so much). So, we loaded up with the suits to return, some President's Day sale fliers, a few coupons and a gift card to Bahama Breeze (so we could have a yummy lunch!) and headed out for a day of horror shopping.

It ended up being a kind of crazy day, but I have to admit that it was pretty fun. We had hoped to eat lunch first, but the restaurant actually lost power just before we got there. We didn't mind, though, because they gave us a $10 gift card and told us to come back later. So, while we waited for their power to come back on, we did some shopping. Thanks to all the sales and clearance racks, I was able to get a lot for very little!

We went back to Bahama Breeze around 2:30 and they said they should be up and running in about 30 minutes. So, we hit another store and found more great deals! We went back to Bahama Breeze at 3:30, and by this time there was a wait. We decided to wait; it was basically free food thanks to our gift cards! We finally got to eat around 4:30, and it was worth the wait! We started with an appetizer, then each ordered fancy drinks and entrees and only spent $1.62 of our own money!

We made one more stop at another store having a great sale before we finally got home around 7:30. It was a LONG, but VERY successful day! Thanks to returning the suits my mom bought and combining that with coupons and sales; and shopping exclusively from clearance racks, I was was able to basically get an entire wardrobe (4 pairs of dress pants, 4 pairs of shoes, 7 new shirts, 3 new sweaters, and several new pairs of earrings and dress socks) while spending only $15 of my own money!!!

I went from a completely empty closet to this:

I'm still not a fan of shopping, at all, But, thanks to today, I won't have to do it again any time soon!

New Job!!!

I have just been hired as a supervisor for CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), and I don't think I could be more excited!! (I am NOT leaving Cornerstone!) I will be working full time at Cornerstone and then part-time (15-20 hours a week) at CASA. I know it sounds like a lot, but its actually less hours than when I worked for AIM and Cornerstone (I was working 30 ours a week at AIM), and I am VERY passionate about my work at CASA and it goes hand in hand with my passion at Cornerstone. I can't wait!!!

I actually applied for the job back in August when they were looking for a new supervisor because my supervisor was leaving. I was interviewed and the director told me that they already had someone in mind for the position they were hiring for, but that they would be hiring another supervisor within a month or so and they would like to hire me for that position. So, she told me that she would be in touch.

Over the next few months, the director stayed in close contact with me, constantly telling me that they did still want to hire me, but they had to wait for the finding to come in. (CASA is a non-profit organization). CASA gets about 1/3 of their budget from the Department of Human Services (they have a contract with DHS), but DHS was about 6 months behind in paying them. The other 2/3 of the budget comes from private donations and those were way down for the year. So, I was basically in a waiting game.

In January I once again talked to the director and she said she was hoping to have the money to hire me by April. However, about 5 days later I got another phone call asking me if I could start in February!! It turns out that one of the other supervisors was leaving CASA and they needed to replace him immediately. So, a week after I got the phone call, I started my new part time job!

To say that I am passionate about CASA would be a HUGE understatement, and the more involved I become, the more passionate I become. If you don't remember exactly what CASA is all about, you can refer to my first post about it here.

As a supervisor I will be overseeing volunteers who are working on cases. I will attend all their court hearings, help them write court reports and provide support, advice, and whatever else they may need in order to advocate for the kids they are working with. I currently have 14 cases with 13 volunteers and a total of 26 kids.

I am kinda jumping right into the deep end, but I have a lot of support (another supervisor, Cynthia, actually took over the work of the guy who left CASA and then I took over Cynthia's caseload. So, she is still around whenever I have questions!) and everyone seems to have a lot of confidence in me; I hope they're right!

I'm just getting started, but I am sure you will be hearing more about all of this soon. In the meantime, PLEASE be praying for the kids who are in foster care in Philadelphia. Just reading through the case files on my cases brought me to my knees, crying uncontrollably and pleading for God to move in each of their lives. The blinders are off my eyes and my heart is broken; now use me for your glory, Lord.

More Kids!

February started off with more kids! I got a call on Wednesday asking if I was interested in respite foster care for the weekend. (Respite foster care is short term, no more than 2 weeks. Usually kids go into respite care because their foster parents either need a break or are going out of town and can't take the kids with them). Kids in foster care can't just go to a friend's house for the weekend. Any home they stay in has to be an approved foster home, so the phone call I got was not uncommon. :)

In this case, the foster parents were going away for the weekend and couldn't take the kids. I figured I could handle anything for a weekend, so I said yes! It turned out to be A LOT of fun, but also A LOT of work, haha.

"A" and "L" arrived on Friday night, and despite being only about an hour away from their bed time, they were FULL of energy. "A" is a 6 year old girl and "L" is a 3 year old boy. I had originally said that I would only take 5-10 year olds, but I okayed a 3 year old since it was just for a weekend. I don't think I will be doing that again any time soon. :)

Of course, the kids immediately fell in love with Gizmo and enjoyed talking to him (he's not exactly playful, haha). "A" even drew a picture of him (yes, I WILL be framing this):

Friday we just played with the kids and finally got them to bed close to 9:30. I had hoped that would mean they would sleep in the next morning, but that didn't happen. They were up and ready for the day at 7:00 a.m.! Ashley and I were NOT prepared for that, haha.

On Saturday we had a pretty fun day. We went to see the movie "Tangled" in the afternoon and then to my friend Shera's birthday party that night. Shera's party was Circus themed, so we all dressed up. Ashley and I were eccentric tiger trainers (a la Sigfried and Roy) and the kids were our tigers, haha. (We got the outfits from a thrift store!).

Once again, we had a pretty late night so I once again hoped that maybe they would sleep in the next morning... and once again, they did NOT! They were up and ready to go at 7 again, but we didn't need to be at church until 9:30!

Church was really fun and they seemed to enjoy it. (They mentioned that their church doesn't have toys, haha). They were kind of shy, but had already met some people from church, so they warmed up to everyone pretty quickly.

After church we decided to take a trip to the aquarium (yay for memberships!), and that was a BLAST! "A" really enjoyed getting to touch so many of the animals, and "L" really liked living vicariously through "A", haha. He wouldn't touch anything except the jellyfish, because they were squishy, haha. The best part was "L" constantly yelling either "I want to eat that!" or, "Can I go swimming with him?". He made us laugh a lot! (He was very insistent that he could swim with the hippos, he just needed to take his shirt off, haha).








I was actually able to get them to sleep at a decent hour on Sunday night because we had to get "A" to school on Monday morning. (The foster parents picked "L" up in the afternoon). Of course, the morning I actually needed them to get up early, they were both zombies! I was able to get them both up and ready to go and we drive the hour to "A"'s school. Then we had another hour drive home, during which "L" started to feel sick. We stopped to get some children's Tylenol and he seemed to feel a little better after that and a little nap in his car seat.

I had hoped that "L" would be picked up around noon (that's what I was told), but his foster parents didn't come until 4. THANK GOODNESS I own a Wii!! Otherwise, that poor kid would have been SO bored!! We did go to Chick Fil A for lunch and he played in the play area for a while, which gave me a bit of a break. (He wasn't so good at playing by himself. He CONSTANTLY needed my attention). Otherwise, he and I spent most of the day playing Disney Princess (which is actually pretty educational, haha).

Overall, it was a really fun weekend and they were really great kids. But, I definitely realized that I am NOT ready for toddlers in my house full time. I think I will stick with older kids for now!

Of course, it wasn't all fun and games. They had a few melt downs, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get "L" to stop calling me "mommy". (I promise I was nice about it, just constantly reminding him that I am not mommy, I am Trish). I knew I would likely not see him again, so I wanted to be as careful as possible about any attachments forming. I don't know anything about their situation other than that they are so young and right now can't live with their parents. So, I hope they felt special and loved had a really fun weekend away. And I hope I will continue to pray for these most precious of creations.

("A" doesn't actually were glasses. She found these at our house and wore them all day, haha)


(And once again, THANK YOU AUNT PATTY for buying me a Wii!! We would NOT have survived this weekend without it!!) :)

Email Update

My friend Elizabeth, a fellow missionary here in Philadelphia, just sent this update out to her supporters. I LOVED it, so I decided to share it with you guys as well!! (Please note: I do NOT see myself as a "super-star missionary". Those are her words, definitely not mine!)

So, here is Elizabeth's Update:

Hello from the winter wonderland of Philadelphia!

I hate it when the weather man gets it wrong, tells us there is snow on the way, and it turns out to be a cold drizzle. On the other hand, when they call for 5ish inches, and you end up with over a foot instead, this Ohio girl couldn't be more thrilled! We've had fun in the past two days playing in the snow, shoveling alongside neighbors, and enjoying the company of friends who got a snow day off of work.

While the snow brings out some of the worst in our city and it's people (I wouldn't give many a Philadelphia an A+ in snow-driving skills) it a joy to see some of the grime and litter blanketed in fluffy white and to see neighbors help each other out. I'm not sure that I would have picked 12:30AM - 3AM as the ideal time slot for my boisterous neighbors to express their love by shoveling the sidewalk, but I am humbled by their kind intentions and servanthood toward us. (Besides, I'm pretty sure I woke up at 3 AM once last winter wondering, "Who is that psycho out there shoveling at 3AM?" only to realize that my husband was no longer in the bed with me.)

I've been thinking for the past couple of weeks about what to share in this update and two stories with a common theme keep coming to mind. Bear with me until you see where these stories are going ...

In moving to Philadelphia, it didn't take me long to catch sports fever. Philadelphia is well-known for having some of the most passionate sports fans on earth. (They even booed Santa Clause!) Philly fans are no joke, and I have proudly joined their ranks!

Baseball is quickly emerging as the favored sport in the Varaso household. We watched our Phitin' Phils every chance we got this last season, traveling to Florida to catch a Spring Training game in March all the way through to the bitter end on October 23rd when they were denied a chance to appear in the World Series by the San Francisco Giants.

Football probably comes in at a close second for us Varasos, but probably takes first place for our good friend Trish. She and her housemate Ashley and joined us as we watched the Phillies' fateful playoff game in October, and again a few weeks ago when the Eagles' playoff game ended in disappointment.

I'm not gonna lie - I think I cried in 2008 when the Phillies won the World Series and again is 2009 when they lost. I'm pretty sure I cried again this past year on October 23rd, but for a much more sobering reason. While we were watching the game, we got a knock on the door that our next door neighbor Priscilla thought she may be in labor, and needed a ride to the hospital. Her plan was to have her 12 year old cousin accompany her, so it took a while to figure out an execute a more reasonable plan.

While we were waiting in the van for Priscilla's mother to get ready to come with us, suddenly someone else came out of their house crying hysterically, screaming for someone to call an ambulance. Not knowing what was wrong, I called 911, and found out a few minutes later that 17 year old Gage had taken some pills, passed out and wasn't breathing. When we left for the hospital he had begun to breathe again, but the ambulance still had not arrived. While we were gone the EMTs showed up and took him to the hospital where he was seen and later released.

I saw him the next day, and if I had not witnessed it all for myself, I never would have guessed any of it happened. Same ol' same ol ... no lesson learned. Gage was always one of those kids who ended up being a the favorite of one of our visiting mission-trippers. If any kid on Fletcher Street has had a wealth of love, prayer and attention lavished on him, it's been Gage. Even so, I've watched him spiral into dumber and more costly choices with each passing year, and it breaks my heart.

Fast forward a few months to January 9th of this new year. We watched in frustration as our Eagles embarrassed themselves on the field in a loss to the Packers. In the last quarter, things looked pretty bleak. This time there was no knock on the door to disturb our sports-induced depression, but Trish got a notification on her phone that made our hearts sink.

About 7 years ago when Trish took four siblings into her home who were being removed out of their own. They lived with her for a couple months then, and last year, the two sisters Bonita & Linda moved back in with Trish again for the better part of the year. I don't think I've seen anyone pour themselves out for anyone in a way that compares with how I've watched Trish pour herself out for these girls. She's cared for their physical needs, taken them on their first vacation, shown and taught them who Jesus is, and loved them far beyond the love of a mother. They ended up choosing reckless freedom and chaos over the support and structure that Trish's home offered them, and their lives have become a pretty big mess since then. The message that Trish got during the 4th quarter was from 14 year-old Bonita who has all but dropped out of school, telling her that 15 year-old Linda is pregnant.

Nothing puts a disappointing end to your favorite team's season in perspective quite the way that these events did. Philadelphia is an awesome place to live, to cheer, to minister. It is also a place full of broken lives and desperate need. It's a place where sports heroes lose championships, and super-star missionaries like my friend Trish do most everything right and still see people choose a broken way instead of Jesus.

When I talked with Trish about my idea to share these stories, she shared how she has really been challenged to not look at any apparent victory or defeat in ministry as the end. Often, well-meaning folks can say, "Wow, you have really made a difference in those people's lives! Way to go!" as if the story were over. We can't accept praise, we can't accept criticism for any end result, because the story is still playing out. Please pray for Gage. Please pray for Linda and Bonita. Please pray for us, as we are a part of their continuing story. As with our sports teams, we hold on with hope for these young people's lives .... there's always next season!

With blessings and hope,

Frank, Elizabeth & Selah (and Trish!) :)

Twin Babies!!!

Meet Baby T!

And Baby C!

I had my first foster children in my home, and it was not at all what I expected!! Ashley called me on Sunday and told me that they had a very unusual situation at her work (she works for Adoptions from the Heart). Twin boys had been adopted by a family on Friday and that family called Ashley on Sunday to say that they no longer wanted to keep the babies. (so sad!!). So, Ashley and her boss had to go and pick up the boys and needed to find a place for them to stay until a new family could be found. As Ashley and her boss were trying to think of how in the world they were going to find someone on a Sunday afternoon, Ashley mentioned that I was just certified as a foster parent. So, they called me.

I was just leaving church when my phone rang. I picked it up and heard, "So..how do you feel about babies?" I knew immediately what Ashley was talking about (she had texted me earlier asking me to pray that the adopted parents would decide to keep the babies), and immediately said, "I'll take them". There was NO WAY I was going to let these poor boys be passed around more than they already had!

So, I quickly left church to head home and prepare my house for babies! (I will remind you that I am the girl that is usually scared to hold babies until they are at least 6 months old!). Thankfully, the parents already had a lot of stuff so I just needed to find beds (I borrowed pak n plays from some friends) and then drive to Ashley's office to pick up the babies. Talk about a crazy day! And it only got crazier, haha.

So, from Sunday night until earlier tonight, I had 4 month old twin boys in my house. It was AMAZING (and not easy! hehe)

Sunday night, the boys were clearly having a hard time adjusting to a new house, and one or both of them were awake at some point almost all night. I think we got about 2 hours of sleep total. Thankfully, Ashley had Monday off from work and Lindsay stayed to help out, so we managed pretty well with a 3 on 2 ratio. :) It also helped that both boys took a 2.5 hour nap; so we did too!

T was the laid back baby, pretty much just chillen most of the time. :)

This is usually what C usually looked like, haha.

But every once in a while, we would get this cute face. :)

Monday night they were a little more settled, but did get up several times. We probably got about 4 hours of sleep, haha. Unfortunately, Ashley had to go to work on Tuesday, so it was just be and Lindsay with the babies. Also, VERY unfortunately, I caught some sort of stomach bug and was SO SICK! Poor Lindsay had to do so much of the work! I had also agreed to make a meal for a family in our church, so that also had to be done during the day. Thankfully, I was able to do some things, just very slowly with lots of breaks. And, the babies were very cooperative; taking plenty of naps and overall being pretty happy. Somehow, Lindsay and I managed to survive, keep the babies alive and even get the meal made!

The boys seemed to have been pretty settled in by Tuesday night and each of them only woke up once, so we got a good amount of sleep! I was also feeling better, so today was a pretty easy day (as easy as it can be with twins!). Thankfully, Lindsay agreed to stay with us until the babies went home, so I had some great help.

We had to get a little creative sometimes, haha. We didn't always have enough hands! ;)

We originally thought the boys would be going home on Monday. Then we were told it was going to be more like Thursday or Friday (which I was not really happy about. Not because I wanted them to go away, but because I could see that they were starting to bond with us and I really didn't want that to happen. They needed to be at home with their parents!!). However, Ashley called me at about 1:00 today and said that they boys had a family and were going home today! We were so excited!! So, Lindsay and I quickly fed them, bathed them, changed them and got them dressed to meet their parents!

Gizmo did not know what to do with the babies, so he just kinda watched everything from a distance. :)

I have to say, walking into the room and handing the boys over to their parents has to be one of the most amazing experiences of my life!!! They were SO excited! They have been trying to adopt for years and had several birth mothers change their minds, so this was a HUGE day for them. What a blessing!!! The dad was really funny. He looked at me and said, "This is crazy. I went to work this morning thinking it was just a normal day, and now I'm going home with twins! We are so blessed". The new grandparents were also there, and the look on grandpa's face is something I will never forget. He was completely in love the minute he saw the boys and was beaming the entire time! I LOVED IT!

C in his going home outfit. :)

T in his going home outfit! :)

So, now the boys are at home with their family and my house is back to normal. It's really weird! I do miss them, but I am SO SO excited that they are with a wonderful family. They will likely never know anything about me, but I feel SO blessed to have been a tiny part of their lives. I know it isn't always going to be such a happy ending, but I really think I am going to like being a foster parent. :)