I spent some time recently with my friend  Rachael .

She has been an incredible friend to me, and always seems to show up at times when I need her most.

We started the path of adoption together, both separately reaching the same conclusion that Ethiopia was the country we were both going to adopt from.

Her and her husband Jon amaze me. Jon was a pastoral intern, and she was a teacher...everyone knows that teachers do not make a lot.  Jon's income paid for living expenses and Rachael's income went 100% towards the adoption.  During the year that they waited for the adoption to be finalized, she worked towards finishing her Master's and Jon finished Seminary. They both live in such a determined way.

I was just reading this morning in Oswald Chambers,

"Loyalty to Jesus means I have to step out where I do not see anything (Matt 14:29).  Loyalty to my notions means I clear the ground first by my intelligence. Faith is not intelligent understanding, faith is deliberate commitment to a person where I see no way.

Are you debating whether to take a step in faith in Jesus or to wait until you can see how to do the thing yourself?

Obey Him with glad reckless joy!"

Rachael and Jon are beautiful because they have always set an example for others what it is like to live a life of obedience, and for them it is wrapped up in glad reckless joy!  They have "trimmed the fat" in every single area of their life and are so focused on spending themselves for God.  Right now they are working on getting overseas to become missionaries.  Recently they came back from a short term trip to Zambia.

Often she has been on the other side waving me over saying, "Come on, come on what are you waiting for?!"

The paperwork (called the dossier) was very daunting for me and one of the emails she sent to me still cracks me up every time I read it.  She became an accountability person for me. 

"JO,

This is the point during the show Intervention where you are kicked off the show and out of therapy because you will not cooperate with the intervention put into play for your own good!  I never heard back from you!  Are you finished with your dossier? PPPPPLLLEEEEEEEAAASSEE tell me you are!"

It worked! There were days when I would say to Steve, "We have to get this form notarized TODAY, so I can tell Rachael we did this!"  I laugh now thinking how at the end of an incredibly busy summer when Steve and I were both dragging, she came behind me and prodded and poked until I got the job done!

Meeting their son was like peeking into a dream for me.  It really happened for them! Little Mekonnen is really home, I can hold him and hear him, he is real!

I asked her what was her reason, why did she decide to adopt, and she said "Oh, I can answer that in one word..."

"Jesus"

"It is about understanding Jesus and what He has done for us.  If you really understand that you would ask 'Why shouldn't we?'"

"I know His heart for us, and His heart for the orphans."

"Jon and I studied the passage in James.  In the original language it talks about visiting the orphans, that means literally skin to skin, face to face.  For Jon and I we decided the best way to "visit" the orphan was to take a child into our home and raise him."

"So far more than anything it has taught me that God lends us our kids.  I understand more fully now that our children are not ours to begin with."

It is interesting that I am putting this under the file of beautiful people.  Rachael and I were talking about Mekonnen and Chloe and my boys and what it is like to see  talent or beauty in them.  Rachael said something that really stuck with her was something a professor said at her college.  He taught his children "You are only as beautiful or as talented as God made you to be."  I like it because it is humble and sends all the credit right back to God.  Rachael lives her life that way.  Everything she does is excellent, but she is humble and knows the source from Whom it flows.