Growing by 3 Beards

Dave Scott

Freddy Lorick

Jacob Richardson

Does A Food Beard Count?

My son Liam wants to help Beard For The Blanchards, just look at this majestic prune beard!  I'm sure if he could talk he'd tell us he's looking forward to growing up with Baby Blanchard.

News9 Story

News9 came out this weekend and did a story on Beard for the Blanchards. The video is embedded below. If you don't see it or you're on a mobile device, watch it here on News9's website.

News9.com - Oklahoma City, OK - News, Weather, Video and Sports |

From a Father-In-Waiting

I’ve wanted to be a dad for as long as I can remember. About a week ago, in fact, my mother reminded me that at five years old I’d named my future twins—a boy and a girl, as I recall. Sadly, I don’t remember their names, but I do remember the sense I had, even then, that I was meant to be a father.

My wife would tell you a similar story. Something in her bones just cries out “you’re a mom!” And, if you’ve met her, you know she is a mom. There isn’t a runny nose, a grubby face, a hungry grumble, or a sad gaze that escapes her. She’s not one to snatch babies up and carry them around, but you better believe she loves on and watches out for every kiddo she meets. I’m biased, sure, but she’s pretty incredible.

You can understand our confusion, then, when we struggled to have a baby. Why would a ready (if perhaps modestly equipped) father and a born mother not be able to conceive? We aren’t naive to biological processes, of course. We know there’s science to having a baby; but we believe in powers bigger than science. Surely God wouldn’t have wired us for parenthood if we weren’t meant to have a family.

Over the years, confusion led to frustration. Frustration led to sorrow. And, well, sorrow brought on a host of painful emotions. Bitterness. Anger. Doubt. Envy. I’m too ashamed to write them all…

But then a funny thing happened. At the height of our pain, when we felt most like God had abandoned the life story he’d set us on, we started to encounter (and entertain) a new opportunity: adoption.

You know that feeling when you buy a “unique” car and, suddenly, it seems like that same model is everywhere? That’s how it was for us with adoption. God knew we’d be slow to get His ultimate plan, but when the pain started to fade and our hearts started to soften, man, He beat us over the head with it. James 1:27—“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”—rang in our ears almost everywhere we went. Scary statistics about needy children found their way to my desk. There was a church fundraiser for an adoption agency. Then a boys’ home dinner. Then friends started working with a children’s home. We met adoptive parents. We met adopted kids.

We weren’t seeking these experiences. They were finding us—all while I rather obliviously prayed for a “clear sign” about our future. Slowly we began to think that perhaps our life story hadn’t been abandoned. Maybe we just misunderstood what God’s next chapter was all about.

It wasn’t about us.

That little phrase changed my whole world. And, laugh if you want, it finally hit me in a song. At the height of God’s adoption chorus, an old friend shot me a link to Audio Adrenaline’s new single, Kings and Queens. In the song (which you should definitely give a listen), Kevin Max sings:

Break our hearts once again.
Help us to remember when
We were only children hoping for a friend.
Won't you look around--
These are the lives that the world has forgotten,
Waiting for doors of our hearts and our homes to open.

Boys become kings, girls will be queens
Wrapped in Your majesty
When we love, when we love the least of these.

…

If not us, who will be

Like Jesus to the least of these?

I listened to the song three or four times that day… and I cried. Not a manly eye-watering, either, but a full on happy weeping. (At work, no less.) I finally understood. Little kings and queens were waiting all around us—special souls, with infinite opportunities, just needing a heart and a home to open. And we had an extra room.

I’d misunderstood fatherhood. Being a dad’s not about fulfilling my needs. It’s about meeting someone else’s—about pouring out self and being like Jesus.

Our incredible friends have dubbed this effort “Beard for the Blanchards,” and, if you saw us on the news, there was a lot of focus on me and Amy. (And we are so humbled by all the support; all of you are simply amazing.) But this isn’t about us. There’s a little somebody out there—a royal in waiting—whose life, whose God-given story, you are unlocking. We’re ready to bring that little somebody home, and, through your beards and your support, we’re going to wrap him or her (or them!) in the love and majesty of our Savior.

--From the Blanchards Soon-to-be-Three:  We love you. Thanks for being Jesus to our family.

More Additions

Adam Laughlin

Adam Setliff

Jeremy Moya

They have all heard the word and decided to grow.

The stages of growing a beard

There are stages to growing a beard.  Some I expected, like the itchy stage, but others came as moments of discovery.  

It's been years since I let my lack-luster facial hair grow out far enough to see what DNA-based challenges I was working with.  I seldom go past three or four days on a vacation or perhaps a long weekend.  I don't think I've had even a goatee since my last peach fuzz cultivation in college.  Before that I may or may not have cheated in high school with a little Just For Men Gel.  (I wish that was made up, but it's not.)  All that to say, this beard thing is a new experience for me.

First stage for me was "I promise I didn't forget to shave."  My job doesn't have any regulations about facial hair that I know of, but we do make an effort to look professional, and scruffy isn't the sharpest look I can come up with.  Next came the "itchy" stage, right around day five or six.  I'm now probably a good month in and I'll let you know when the itching stops.  It's better, but I'm still very, very aware of the hair on my face.  While not unexpected, it was also a strange feeling the first time a leaned in for a quick kiss and my wife winced.  She's very supportive and powered through the "poky" stage, but it was an adjustment for both of us.

Then the unexpected stages started.  While eating lunch one day, I looked down to select my next french fry (I'm a super healthy eater) and noticed I could see my mustache as I was chewing.  I think I laughed out loud.  It's just such a foreign experience. 

My latest experience may not seem like much compared to Jake's snow beard, but I did have an ice-cold, wet mustache when we went snow tubing in downtown Oklahoma City.  I was toasty warm with gloves, ear warmers and too many layers, but my pitiful excuse for a mustache was a cold mess.  New experiences!

Thanks for reading and if you have the means and the motivation, thanks for helping our friends with the unfortunately high cost of adoption.

-Todd

New Additions and Attempts.

Phil Klutts

Todd Fraser

Stephen Fletcher 

All growing for the Blanchards. Now we are five strong.  There are others to be added as soon as I get a picture.