More Beanie's

A sweet friend of our family's donated another 58 Beanie Babies. That brings our total up to 120!!!! Collecting the Beanie's has been great for getting the boys involved! They are so excited when we get more & love to sit down together & look through them. It spurs on lots of conversations about Vietnam, the children in the orphanages, & showing God's love to the world through good deeds.

Prayer Request for this Week

Please be especially in prayer this week as a US delegation is traveling this week to Vietnam to work on issues surrounding the renewal of the MOU. We are still praying that things will be worked out & the agreement will be renewed. However, in the case that it is not renewed, they are also hoping to get a definative statement from the IAD regarding the completion of "in process adoptions". Thank you for your prayers!

A Lesson from the boys

As I was tucking the boys into bed last night, R asked, "Who is taking care of our sister while she doesn't have a family?". This took me by surprise since we had not even been talking about her. Before I could begin my explanation which would have included the orphanage workers, etc., L responded. He said, "God is her Father even now when she doesn't have a family & He is holding her in His arms until He brings her to our family". Wow! What a response! Oh, to have the faith of a child & always be mindful of whose hands hold us all!

Beanies!!!!

Look at all the Beanies that our sweet friends have donated for the children of SE Asia....62 & counting! Ya'll are the best! Keep them coming :-)

Our Tet Celebration

Last night our family celebrated Tet for the first time. N's parents, grandfather,

cousin Katelyn (who is from Vietnam), & her friend, PJ, came to help us celebrate.

Kate made us an authentic Vietnamese dinner that was delicious.

After dinner, we made dragon puppets!
In Vietnam, everyone celebrates their birthday during Tet. No matter when during the

year a child is born, they turn 1 on their first Tet, & so on. We threw an American

twist in on our celebration & sang "Happy Birthday" & ate birthday cake to

celebrate Kate's Vietnamese birthday! Then we headed outside for a dragon parade with our homemade dragon & to celebrate with fireworks & sparklers.
We had a great time celebrating the Vietnamese heritage that already exists in our family

(via Katelyn & her two sisters) & hopefully the heritage of our soon-to-be daughter!

We are already looking forward to growing our Tet celebration in the years to come &

to including more Vietnamese traditions & more of our family & friends. Happy New Year! May the year of the "Rat" bring lots of blessings & our daughter!!!

Happy New Year!

Today marks the beginning of Tet in Vietnam. It is the Vietnamese New Year celebration & it last three days (it corresponds with the begining of the new lunar year). We are just begining to learn about Tet, but our family is going to have our 1st Tet celebration tomorrow night (we'll let you know how that goes!). Happy New Year!!!!!!

My Sweet Sister-in-law

We still have a long ways to go on our adoption journey & I know there will be many weeks & months that will go by without any news. So, during those times I'm going to share a little about how God got us going on this wonderful journey & how He has guided us along the way. My sister-in-law, Lauren, is one of the amazing people that God placed in our lives at just the right time & used to show us a glimpse of His plan. She married N's brother, Justin, this past summer. She is adopted. She has always been very open about her adoption, always speaking highly of her experience. When we traveled to Pennsylvania for the wedding, we were able to see first hand how special she is, how much she is loved by her family, & how wonderful her family is. Seeing her family interact throughout the wedding weekend, was definately one of those "God things"....she is the only girl & she has four older brothers. Many of the questions that we were pondering as far as what our family would be like with a little girl, were answered as we watched them! At one point, during the rehersal dinner, her mother leaned over to me & said something like, "I always wondered why God gave me 4 boys & then I realized that there was a little girl who needed us as much as we needed her"...I knew exactly what she meant...God had been saying the same thing to me! Lauren has been so good to us throughout the past year...putting up with all of my questions, writing a heart-felt reference for us, & more! When we celebrated Christmas with them, she gave our daughter her 1st Christmas present..."The Mulbery Bird", a sweet adoption story that her parents read to her when she was a child. I am so thankful that God brought her into my life. I'm thankful that I have her as a sister-in-law & that our daughter will have her for an aunt...a very special aunt who is special just like her!

A Tough 24 Hours in Adoption Land

Well, yesterday was a tough day at our house...L woke up throwing up & I felt like I had the flu & often wished I would just throw up & get it over with. It was one of those days that Satan has a hay day because we all know how hard he tries to get us when we're already feeling down. When I was trying to make it through the day taking care of 2 well children, 1 sick child, & our sweet, darling PUPPY, Satan kept throwing our adoption in my face..."how are you going to take care of one more???", etc.. Anyways, that's how the day went. Things got better when I was in bed with the boys & almost asleep for the night, when N came in & said there was an e-mail from Kate (our casemanager with AGCI). It was regarding the renewal of the adoption agreement between the U.S. & Vietnam. The statement that stood our to him was this, "For families with their dossiers registered this should not affect you at all. The DIA has stated that even if this agreement is not signed in by its expiration date in September they will still honor the families and complete the adoptions for registered dossiers. READ THIS SENTENCE TWICE". We rejoiced! It seemed to answer all of our wonderings about whether we would get our daughter from Vietnam. However, this morning, when I woke up to read the email for myself I read it a little more closely than N & went on to read the link that Kate had included to the "warning concerning adoptions in Vietnam" on the US Embassy website....ick! It was very disheartening. It seems that the renegotiation process has taken a downward turn over the past couple of weeks. It is not looking like the MOU is going to be renewed by the deadline. Families who are working on their dossier are being told to get it completed & turned in quickly so it can get registered with the IAD before May 1st (which is the now the date that the agreement needs to be renewed by). Since our dossier has been registered since December (well before the May 1st deadline), we are very hopeful that our adoption will be completed. Please continue praying with us about this situation. We truly feel that our heart is in Vietnam. The need there is so great, not only in the hearts of so many children who need forever families but in the hearts of all the Vietnamese people who need a Savior.