Bringin Mez Back! This was shocking!

For many of you, you are fully aware of my families decision this past January to adopt into our tribe a third son/brother from Ethiopia. His name is Mez, he's 5 years old and he's from Ethiopia. This past weekend during Transit, we were blindsided with one of the most generous and thoughtful gestures our family has received since arriving here in Charlotte in 2005. For the past several months, Taryn Hofert has been covertly putting together a campaign to help generate resources to offset the $20,000 it's going to take to bring our adoption in for a landing.

This is the third time we've adopted and God seems to always creatively generate enough resources to see these endeavors through. Paying for them have NEVER made sense on paper. Yet when it's all said and done, it just happens. I have been praying like crazy for the past 6 months asking God for direction on how we can generate enough resources to make this become a reality. And so on Sunday morning when the video below started playing and I realized I had been tricked, that this WASN'T a greenhouse promo video, I couldn't help but think how God seems to delight in surprises. Words like shocked, floored, humbled, moved, inspired, appreciative, loved and awe struck, can't even begin to describe how we felt. I was nearly speechless. I think I've watched this video about 10 times since yesterday. Each time, I vacillate from laughing hysterically at things I didn't notice before to being moved by the warmth and generous gestures of so many friends.

So on behalf of the O'Neil tribe, I want to thank Taryn and her entourage for the hours of hard work and passion they put into this project. Thanks Larissa for shooting and editing the video. Thanks Cheale for the sweet graphics and the kick butt website. (www.bringinmezback.com) To Matt, Billy, Jessie, Rachelle, Tracy, Joya, Brittany, Lindsey and Ryan, thanks for dancing and and acting silly on our behalf. I'd like to think that as much as this video and project were committed to helping us do something really incredible in bringing our future son home, I'd like to think this is also just one more meaningful expression of this communities passion to dance and celebrate the life we all continue to discover together in Jesus. I think God laughed and celebrated along with us this Sunday. Especially at you Taryn Hofert on the keyboards. God definitely split a side on that one!

Thanks again to you guys and all those who bought t-shirts this Sunday. If you were not at Transit and you'd like to be a part of TEAM MEZ and purchase a T-Shirt, check out (www.bringinmezback.com). In the meantime, check this out. You'll split a side laughing.