BERRYTRIBE IS GOING TRIBAL

Well, as many of you who read this blog already know, we went to Uganda this summer as a family to work with an orphanage and the people in the some surrounding villages. You also know that we took 11 students and 4 adults from my youth ministry with us. You also know that we stayed for a few weeks after that team left and had some family vacation.

You may also know that we visited our World Vision sponsor child while there. We got to meet Geoffrey face to face, hang out with him for an hour or so, and bring he and his family some much needed supplies.



However, what you may not know is that while in Jinja one morning, the following conversation took place.

Shannon on her way out of the shower one morning: "Brian, God gave me two names."

Me: "Um, ok."

Wife: "Becky and Billy."

Me: "Ok."

Then I went to breakfast.

I then arrive at breakfast to the following conversation like 5 minutes later.

My students are now talking to Mandy- the director of the orphanage we're working in. They ask, "Hey Mandy, which of the kids in the orphanage are adoptable right now?"

Mandy: "Well we have so and so and so and so and so and so and so and so. And that's all right now."

Mandy pauses.

Mandy continues: "But, I have a few others I think I'm going to try and see if we can get permission to have someone adopt them. There is one set of true twins who are the last of the children in the orphanage since the day I took it over some 5 years ago. I have not seen their father in 4 years and have never met their mom. Their names are Becky and Billy."

My heart stops.

Wife looks at me across the room both looking a little freaked and a little excited.

............

Now, fast forward 6 weeks.

...........

After much prayer, counsel, struggle, stress, fear facing, encouragement, research, and gut checking, we as a couple and a family with our boys have agreed to follow God's leading into adoption.

So, it's official, we are now in the full swings of the process of adopting 2 more kids. They are a boy/girl set of twins who are 6 months younger than jake (or 5 and 1/2). Her name is Becky. His name is Billy.

That's right, the "B.B." initial count is about to triple in the berry family.

So now, perhaps you have some questions. What follows are a series of "FAQ's" people have asked or wondered about:

Q: ARE YOU CRAZY?
A: No... ok, well maybe. Um... fine. Yes. It's nuts.

Q: ARE YOU SURE GOD GAVE SHANNON THOSE NAMES?
A: Believe me, I drilled my wife on if she'd had some previous conversation with Mandy and what not. God is whispering kid names to my wife in the shower. I'm not sure if that's ok, but God seems to not be too concerned about it.

Q: DID YOU JUST GET SOME CRAZY EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT WORKING AT THE ORPHANAGE AND NOW YOU ARE FOLLOWING THROUGH ON THIS?
A: Nope. No emotional attachment in this story. No great memory that we had that tugged our heart strings for weeks. Just simply God's call, though the heart strings are coming as time goes on and as we pray more about this.

Q: IS THIS OUT OF THE BLUE?
A: Yes and No. Yes, cuz we didn't plan this or even seek it out. No, because we have talked about the possibility of adopting a daughter ever since we decided to be done having kids the old fashioned way after Jake. Yes, because we never thougtht it would be 2 more kids. No, because God is opening too many doors to be coincidence.

Q: DID YOU MEET BECKY AND BILLY?
A: Yep, we did. But never as the, "hey, these people are going to adopt you people." Just casually like we did with all the other kids.

Q: ARE YOU AWARE THEY WILL BE CALLED THE "BLACK BERRIES"
A: Yep. Kinda cute now. I'm sure they'll need to know Karate to keep it from being a regular part of their Middle School years.

Q: DO YOU HAVE A PICTURE?
A: Yep, here it is. We did take a "family" picture with lots of sibling sets so as not to tip them off as to our process or mindset in case things changed as we returned home. We had shared the story with Mandy and she suggested this step as it was going to be needed as a piece of the adoption process if we continued along this path.



Q: WHAT DOES THIS COST?
A: Um a bunch. Like thousands. Less than 50G, more than 10G. God has so far already shown us he's going to provide for this need. We have had about 1/3 of our money come in already through some very Holy Spirit led ways and this blog post is the "first official notice" of this life transition.

Q: WHEN WILL THIS HAPPEN?
A: We're shooting to leave January 7, 2009. We'll be in Uganda for for up to 5 weeks, returning to the states in early February.

Q: HOW CAN I HELP?
A: 3 ways:

1. If you're in the area, we're gonna need more baby sitters :)
   
2. Um, we could always use lots of prayer, now more than ever.
   
3. Also, if you'd like to join us with the financial part of this, we'd welcome any support you feel led to offer. Shoot me an e-mail and I'll send you an address where you can send a tax deductible check if you are in that boat.

Lots more blog posts to come I'm sure. Hold on, we're going for a ride.