Lazzara Life

Rich has been trying to persuade me into coming over and serving with him in the Youth Department at our church for several years. After 3 years of begging, I finally agreed to leave the Preschool Department & make my switch to High School. One of the main reasons I was not ready to come over was my fear of high school girls. I had a horrible time in middle school and high school as far as girls were concerned, most of them were just plain mean! Another reason was to get my “baby fix”. My first 2 years n Preschool were in the 2 and 3-year-old classes & my last year was in the nursery. I just loved being around all of those babies! The non-crying ones that is.

We started the school year late August & that’s when our new classes began. I’ve gone from 1-year-old babies who wear diapers, don’t speak and are sooo adorable to 14 year old girls! Yikes! What a difference, but you know what??? I LOVE IT! I love my teenage girls just as much as I loved my babies and they are great girls.

So about my new project… Pastor Victor approached me a few months ago & asked if I would be interested in being the “go to” person and start planning and organizing mission projects for our High Schoolers. He is my FB friend & saw all of my posts for mission projects I’m passionate about along with my journal from my experience in Uganda this summer. He thought for some reason I’d be a good person to help get this thing off the ground. I was up for the challenge & things are going very well!!

We are dividing the kids up by grade and I have assigned them a local charity/organization to partner with for this year. The 9th graders are going to work with Metropolitan Ministries in Tampa, the 10th graders are going to work with Lifecare of Brandon, the 11th grade is working with A Kids’ Place in Brandon and 12th grade is working with Good Samaritan in Wimaumau. We are going to introduce these projects to the kids in 2 weeks at Straight Up Weekend and get them excited about serving!! As of now, I am going to plan the projects with my contact person at each place, but then, the directors of each grade along with the teachers & students will be able to take off together and really get this moving!! Our goal is to complete a service project for each organization every quarter & over the next few years, make them completely student driven.

Take a look at these organizations & see if there are ways you can help too!

A Kid’s Place http://www.akidsplacetb.org/
Metropolitan Ministries http://www.metromin.org/
Lifecare of Brandon http://www.lifecareofbrandon.com/
Good Samaritan http://www.gsmission.org/joomla/

~Melissa

We’ve all been glued to the TV and internet wondering what we can do for the people of Haiti. There have been so many scams going around, and I wanted to share something that a dear friend just emailed to me that we can participate in to help in the relief effort for Haiti…

Love a Child Ministriy feeds and educates children in Haiti. They also have a clinic with a staff that functions year round. And they are just 45 minutes from Port au Prince. This ministry has been inundated with people showing up at their clinic in Haiti. They are quickly running out of medical supplies and various needs. So Rad sent us a list of items which Love a Child is collecting to take to Haiti very soon. The warehouse for Love a Child is listed on the attached sheet should you want to go by and take the items yourself, or I can meet you or you can drop things at my house for me to take… Naturally, financial support is number one – it’s just so much easier to liquidate in these third world countries since there are so many needs. If you would like to know more about Love a Child, you can go to their website at: http://www.loveachild.com/. You can also easily make a donation to Love a Child for the earthquake online at this location.

Listed below are the items which are given on the list sent to me by Rad. These items will probably be shipped out in the next week or so – your diligence is needed!

We have no idea what race Micah will be and we don’t care. We want the son God has chosen for us… bottom line. Most likely he will not be caucasian, but whatever race he is, he will be ours.

This is a great video on transracial adoption I found on a friends’ website….

This year is going to be a prayerful year at BSBC. Pastor is going to be doing a series on prayer, the youth is going to follow Pastor Rummage’s book “Praying with a Purpose” http://www.amazon.com/Praying-Purpose-28-day-Journey-Empowered/dp/0825436516, amp; we have lessons each week to help apply what we’ve taught, and also the Women’s ministry and Heart to Heart classes are doing a study, “My Heart’s Cry”, focusing on prayer. With all of this said, I KNOW that this year God is going to move and do miraculous works within our church and our family.

After this week’s Tuesday morning Bible study, I wanted to share a few things… We focused on, The View of God, The View of Prayer and The View of My Preparation. We view God in 2 ways, Vast & Relational. He is Vast, He is our conquering King, Holy God, our Protector, Authority over ALL things, He is the ONLY Wise God, Eternal and He is Righteous! He is also Relational. He wants closeness with you, it’s His hearts desire!! We wants openness with us, He is understanding, He is the peacemaker, He is loyal, ever faithful, steadfast. He treasures ME (and YOU) above all else in creation. How awesome is that?

We also looked at the View of prayer, what is IS and what it is NOT. What it’s not, is for instant gratification, I think we all know that praying for something we want or need isn’t going to happen on our time. It’s all on His time & it has nothing to do with His ability, it has to do with His sovereignty. It’s really easy to look at our circumstances and say, “God, please help me in this situation, I know what you want for me & my life & here it is, so go ahead and fix it, pretty please”. That’s not how it works at all. Sometimes He will chose to heal whatever is broken in our lives, but more often than not, we are going through a trial to learn something. We have to fall to our knees, pour out our hearts & know that He alone is God. God of our lives, God over our circumstances, God over our children, our families & we need to realize that without Him being in the center, it’s just not going to work. So until we give ourselves fully to Him, we can’t expect things to just “work out”. Now, that doesn’t mean that we will get everything we want, but it does mean that we will be okay with whatever He gives us, because we trust Him completely.

Enough about what prayer is NOT, what prayer IS, is entering into the presence of God. Having an ongoing conversation with Him!! prayer is not getting on your knees in the morning or at night, airing all of our grievances and asking Him for guidance, what He longs for is a relationship!!! An ongoing conversation like you have with your best friend or your mom, or your grandma throughout the day. I learned a lot about prayer from reading “The Shack”. This book was pretty controversial because the way the author portrayed God (I won’t ruin the book for you if you haven’t read it). Bottom line, talk to God as if you are talking to someone you are really close to, it doesn’t have to be a formal, ritualistic prayer. I still get so nervous when I’m asked to pray out loud because for many years I have heard great women say these eloquent, beautiful prayers, using words I have never heard. That’s not what God is after. He wants what’s in your heart, He wants to know you enjoy how beautiful He made the sky this morning, He wants you to thank Him for the blessings of your children as you interact with them, He wants to know that you are thankful every day for the husband/wife He gave you, He wants to know that you know that He is near. Prayer is also a time to develop intimacy with God. He desires for you to love Him, but he’s not going to force you into it. He longs to spend time with us openly & honestly. There’s no use in trying to sugar coat your prayers for God, because He knows your thoughts and He knows us better than we know ourselves. This is so silly, but I’ve tried to lie to God in prayer. Yep, I will be repenting for something I should be repenting about, like, “I’m sorry I said this about this person, I didn’t mean it”, when really, I did & He knows I did! So in those times when I want to lie to Him, instead now, I ask Him to help me change the way I feel about that situation. Prayer also helps us to know who He is.

The View of My Preparation. This one is a toughy. Be still, be silent and wait patiently. Ha! These are not things I believe are in my vocabulary!! So THIS is the challenge for this week. This is part of my homework & I encourage you to do this with me. Keep a journal & for the next 2 weeks, join me in fasting one or more things that generate “noise” in your life, the kids don’t count… The goal is to do without some of these things & use the time instead in silence, in stillness, in prayer, waiting for God.

*Radio
*Television
*Facebook or other social networking sites
*Books or magazines other than the Bible

Journal each day:
*What you fasted
*What was the silence like for you?
How was it difficult?
How was it refreshing?
*What you heard the Lord saying.

Good Luck!!
~M

When I went back into my notes and was reading of His love for me and my view of him, it reminded me of a new song that I love. It’s by Addison Road & it’s called, “What do I know of Holy?”

Mimi is what the girls call Rich’s mom, my mother-in-law. Rich can add his own gush to this post if he wants, but since I’m posting, I ‘ll do mine now. Many times, you hear horror stories about “the mother-in-law”, but you’ll never hear it from me. I completely lucked out on getting incredible in-laws when I married Rich. Even my friends tell me how lucky I am & they wished she were their mother-in-law, I’M NOT KIDDING!! A few have decided to “adopt” her as theirs. So when I say she’s the best, it’s true. She is loving, caring, thoughtful, easy to talk to, encouraging, supportive, extremely generous & best of all, she’s FUN! We always go away as a family, us, Mimi, and Rich’s brothers & their families for 4th of July. It’s a jam packed, fun filled few days and Mimi’s has events, games & the annual treasure hunt all mapped out. She tries to do games at every family event, sometimes we don’t have time for it, but games are her thing! She is a blessing to us also in the fact that she keeps all 3 of our girls 2 Friday’s a month overnight (and has since Haley & Lorin were 6 weeks old) so Rich & I can spend time together without the kids. Yes, our friends are completely JEALOUS!!! She is also crazy enough to take them for days at a time, and kept them for 1 week while we were in Uganda this summer! She also drives 45 minutes to every school program, dance recital and to see Haley for 30 seconds in her Nutcracker performance.

So, Saturday was Mimi’s birthday & we celebrated on Sunday, a small family party at her house. We brought the salad & bread, Ally made baked ziti, Joey was in charge of appetizers (he brought McDonald’s chicken nuggets & fries, which were a huge hit!) and Tony bought everything in the Publix bakery for dessert!

It was a low key, relaxed evening with yummy food, kids playing (nicely I might add), and hanging out with family. After dinner, Mimi blew out her makeshift candle. Rich brought out a cupcake with a match sticking in as the candle. We sang happy birthday very quickly because we didn’t know how long the wooden match would burn… It was a lot longer than I thought. Why is it that they burn very quickly when you are trying to light something, almost burning your fingers, but when placed upright in a cupcake, it lasts a very long time?? There’s a thought to ponder…

Happy Birthday Mimi!! I just about had a mini meltdown when I realized I left my camera at home when we were 1/2 way into our 45 minute drive to Mimi’s house, I will just have to post “non-birthday” pictures, so here are some of my favorite pix over the years.

Yesterday we had our home study visit with Dr. Ken & Lynne Brown with Hope for Families Adoptions. They made it so much fun & were very easy to talk to, it was a wonderful experience all around! Haley, Lorin & Avery stayed for a while & played while we answered some of their questions. We got a huge compliment when they said that they could approve us based on observing the girls, since they were so well behaved, social & adjusted, it’s a good reflection on us as parents. Now,I’m sure they wouldn’t really approve us only by watching the girls play & interact, but still, what a compliment! Now, they should have seen the huge fight they got into later on!

So we have an APPROVED home study & the final draft should be ready next week. We have enrolled in the “Lost Children” program of Florida. What this is by definition is…

“Adopting an infant or toddler in what we call the “lost children” program of Florida:
Our Hope for the Lost Children of Florida adoption program will facilitate you in adopting an infant or toddler, or even sibling group who have been recently taken into protective custody and placed into the foster care system in Florida. In the best interests of children finding permanent healthy families and not being lost in the foster care system, new Florida regulations permit an adoption intervention by Child Placing Agencies who have the birth families choose a Home Study ready, approved adopting family, and sign an adoption consent to the agency. There is a very short adoption waiting list and most of these adoptions occur in about 8-12 months. You also have an opportunity to see pictures and to review the medical reports. Our referral process is respectful of your concerns and the birth parents’ preferences.”

Some of the cases that were explained to us is that typically, the birth parents are very young and make mistakes in parenting, such as leaving the child in the car when they go into Wal-Mart for a few minutes, or leaving a child at home alone, etc… Neglect is often the reason the children are removed from their parents, or if they have a drug problem & have not completed the necessary steps with the state to ensure they can keep their child. The parents are then arrested for child neglect & their children are put in a temporary foster home or more commonly, with a relative until an adoptive family is found. These children are often in foster care for only a few days if at all. So, the birth parents relinquish their parental rights & all charges are dropped, since the state doesn’t see them as a repeat offender AND they know the child is in a loving family and not floating around the foster system. This is a closed/semi-closed adoption. We are open to sending updates & photographs of the child to the agency to pass along to the birth parents if they wish, with no personal information attached.

So, since we want a boy, are open to a child up to 2 years old and have no racial preference, they said that we should have Micah by this summer! AHH!!! We are so excited about what God has planned for us & can’t wait to meet the son He has chosen for us.

The next step is for the agency to match us with a child and then we will go to court & he will officially be ours! We will keep you updated on any news we have, thank you so much for your continued support & prayers on our behalf. We have paid half of our fees, but still have a pretty good chunk of money due when we get our match, so we are still taking donations towards our adoption fund & you can make a donation by clicking on the “Donations” link at the top of this page. Thank you so much & a huge thank you to those of you who have already made a donation that allowed us to pay half of our fees already!!

~Melissa & Rich

Poppe’s birthday is December 26th, but we celebrated it this Saturday out at the Ranch. We had an awesome dinner of ribs, Tracey’s famous cole slaw, corn on the cob, fresh picked green beans & finished off with roasting marshmallows on the fire pit.

Our sweet Sissy isn’t doing so good in the health department, so the girls wanted to take a picture with her… Kind of morbid, but they wanted a picture in case it was their last…


Rocky was feeling left out, so he came over for his close up! Isn’t he hilarious!!

After playing with the bullies, we went outside for some running around. Joey took the girls on a golf cart ride, and they all got a turn driving. Avery wanted to go next all be herself. This child is absolutely nuts! Check out Joey’s expression during their, “you can not drive this golf cart by yourself” conversation…

So she just pretended instead…

We had a wonderful time just being outside in this cooler weather, the boys played soccer & the girls sat around & talked to everyone, played with the dogs & then went to help Tracey bring the horses in & feed them.

Tracey took the girls to the barn & showed them how to groom Belle & then the baby, Monster came out to show off his smile.

Happy Birthday Poppe!!

We just got back from NC, unpacked everything, took down the Christmas tree & then headed over to my parents house to celebrate New Years. We had a simple dinner of hot dogs, baked beans, salad & carrot cake. My brother, Anthony always goes and gets a set of fireworks for the kids to do in the driveway. It’s easy and the kids love it. We set everything out on a table & they come up and chose what they want & then someone helps them light it & there you go!

This was the first time we had gotten 3 foot sparklers!

Well, that’s about all we did for 2010. We didn’t even stay up to watch the ball drop. Oh well, there’s always 2011. Happy New Year to everyone!!