37 Months

We have been marking every month from LID to referral, so I suppose it would be silly to stop now...although it seems silly to be marking the months when it has been over three years...

I know, I know, we are so close. We are cautiously optimistic that we will be in the next batch, but we are no fools! What is that saying, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 37 times, shame on me?" We longer hold our breath in anticipation.

(I could have chosen a different picture to mark "37", but this one's for Adam and Tracy)

This post from our agency is from April 3 - with so much going on with the trip to Haiti and posting pictures from the trip, I forgot to post it. Ahhh, thank you, Lord, for the distraction. I have often said that Patricia and Philippe have helped us through the last year to Olivia, and Olivia will help us through the last year to them...God is good.

America World is pleased to announce that we received 5 healthy female referrals today! Families receiving referrals were logged into the China Center of Adoption Affairs on March 7, 2006 (group 251). The little girls are currently located in the Guangdong Province and range in age from 6 to 29 months. Please join us in congratulating these families, and in praying for them as they prepare to travel.

Ok, folks, we are GROUP 252!!! Hang on!!!!

New Connections, New Blessings!

Here is my current post from the Flip Flop Fleet:

I don't believe in coincidences. We met some amazing people in Haiti and made some great connections with people who are excited to get flip flops to those in great need. Here is one of the wonderful women we met at the Port-au-Prince airport on our way home. Her name is Michelle Lacourciere and she is the Director for the Sirona Cares Foundation. If you click HERE you can see what Sirona Fuels is doing for countries like Haiti. She was kind enough to do a post about the Flip Flop Fleet on her blog and she is excited about taking flip flops with her when she heads to Haiti in May! Here is a quote from her email that put a smile on my face from EAR TO EAR!! "I will gladly accept whatever you can send to me and will happily put them on the feet of beautiful children."

Another interesting point is that Sirona Fuels partners with C3 Missions, who we donated flips to after the flooding last fall. We plan to continue to work with C3 in the future as well.

Thank you, Lord, for blessing us with partnerships like this one. We know that meeting Michelle and her lovely family was not an accident.

Haiti, Day Three

Morning Snuggle - she would climb in early and then we would fall back asleep.

I like this smile...but you can't read what she wrote...

She was always writing sweet little things!

Philippe LOVED the Legos his Papa picked out!

Guess who likes to take pictures...
Guess who else...

She took this one, too.

She's ready for the pool!While the younger kids were taking naps, we went to the pool!

They enjoyed splashing around with their friends Angela and Angelo.

Oh, I love this handsome face!

Enjoying playing with the airplane he built (and took apart, and built, and took apart...)

After dinner we went back to our room and did some crafts

Philippe spelled out his name with foam letters

Now, on to the building the truck. Again. It isn't bedtime yeeeet.

More to come!

China Adoption Update

China processed two days again so they are now through Wednesday, March 8th, 2006. Our paperwork is logged in on Monday, March 13, 2006. SOOOOOOO.....if they process three days in May, we are in. If they process 1-2, then we wait a smidge longer...

A Link to a Great Post...

on the Flip Flop Fleet!

Haiti, Day Two

The kids started their day by climbing in to bed with us -- it was a special time for all of us

Then they made their bed. We told them it was ok, they didn't have to and they responded by moving to our bed and making ours!

Here are the kids with the bins we brought down with their things and donations for the orphanage from us, a few friends and the women at my friend Margie's church.

A cool way to wait - ready to go to the orphanage for the day

Lee and I worked hard all day at the orphanage. We had a tough job cleaning out a storage unit. We hope our efforts helped! While we did this, the kids were in school. You can maybe see that Patricia is not very happy about being there. They both kind of clammed up when we first got back there, but later warmed up again. I am sure it was hard and confusing for them.

Lee says, "the orphanage is equipped with a clothes dryer that runs on wind and solar energy" hee hee

A typical meal at the orphanage of rice with beans and a small piece of fish

We brought down 200 pairs of flip flops for the kids and staff. Here they are lined up, waiting for their new shoes!

We were so blessed to put new shoes on these little feet

This face makes me want to buy more shoes!!!

The nannies and staff getting new shoes

A small group of those with new sandals or flip flops!

Ah, the kids finally get to swim! They were so patient but they did ask a few times, "When can we go swim?" (sounds like sweem with their little accents!)

They got in so fast I missed capturing Patricia's expression...

...but it was an ever bigger version of this!

ummm, we LOVE our kids!!!

Philippe eating in style

Every month the orphanage has one celebration for all the birthdays in that month. We thought since we were there so close to Patricia's 9th birthday, that we would have a party for her. The director of the orphanage picked up a cake for us at a french bakery

Here are the kids who came to her impromptu party

They played, "Pin the candle on the cupcake"

Philippe was about a foot off!

The kids got a big kick out of this game!

Bedtime. LONG DAY. I am tired just thinking about everything that was packed in!

more to come!

All Clear!

My Mama's last doctor appt was good news again! The "inoperable, incurable" cancer seems to be staying away! Thank you, Lord!

Shoes to Haiti!

Check out the Flip Flop Fleet!!

Haiti, Day One

Arriving in Haiti

Loading our luggage into a tap-tap

Following our luggage to the hotel

Then we got a tour of Cite Soleil, inappropriately named "The City of Sun",

There is a strong UN presence here

It is called the most dangerous place on earth by the UN. The average home in this area is 5x5 or 8x8.

After the tour of Cite Soleil, we went to the orphanage. The kids were all singing to greet us when we arrived and Patricia and I both saw each other right away, smiled and gave each other a small, simultaneous nod. It was an instant connection and the fact that we both had the same reaction made me smile even bigger. We were told we had to wait to go to them until the other kids were removed, so they both came up to the porch wall of wrought iron and were looking at us and we were looking at them and it was so hard to wait with them reaching their arms through the openings of the wall. Well, the chaos of removing the other kids took too long for some and kids were coming out to their parents. Patricia was first to come to us because Philippe was also told to wait and he didn't even see her come out. She hugged us both right away and then called to him. A minute later we got this picture, from the other post:

This picture was taken right after our first family photo. We were only there a few minutes! We sat down on the porch and the first thing Patricia did was grab my camera and she took this picture herself!

Thanks to our pal Kathy, we have a shot of us looking at this picture on the camera!

Patricia also took this photo:


Of course our hearts melted when she showed us this!

Philippe took this picture

They wanted us to meet their nanny

As you can see she immediately took to her Daddy! And you can see that she is playing with his hair! They LOVED playing with our hair. She didn't like it when Lee's hair was spiked up and was always mashing it down. If you know anything about him, he does NOT like people touching his hair, but he didn't care about that with them!

This is Lee's favorite picture. You can see that they are both so proud! Patricia is looking over at her friends!

Can't remember who took this, but I think it was one of the other kids

Philippe showing us where he sleeps - on the top bunk. I worried that he didn't have a mattress, but we were told that all the kids have mattresses, but that they often take them off the beds during the day

Patricia showing us her bed. If you look, you can see that there is a top sheet on the bed - it stretches over three or four beds

They ran into the room and jumped on the hotel bed within seconds!

We didn't bring out any toys the first day, just books and coloring books.

Patricia fell asleep on Lee's lap at the devotional time.

This is a great sign of trust!

Our first family dinner - Patricia is hamming it up with her spaghetti hanging out of her mouth!

Sweet perfection

We could not believe we were looking at our kids sleeping!

What good humor this is! He slept 10 hours this night and we still had to wake him!

More to come!