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Showing posts from April, 2012

Celebrating Lasts

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We always celebrate firsts.  First tooth, first word, first smile, first time walking, first day of school and on and on it goes.  But what about the lasts.  When the boys were infants it hit me that many times they would do something for the last time and I would totally miss it.  Sometime days, maybe even weeks later, I would realize that they were just no longer doing whatever it was.  And while this is still true, I also try to capture the "lasts" as often as I can. Birthdays around here are a big deal.  But we don't just celebrate the birthday, we also celebrate the last day.  On Tuesday, Faith will turn 3.  So tomorrow we will celebrate her last day of 2.  I guess that is why this is on my mind today.  Tomorrow we will say good bye to the baby years and look forward to her becoming a preschooler.  Our last day celebrations usually involve some favorite activities and foods ending with a movie night watching that child's favorite movie.  The next day will

LOA

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Three beautiful letters :  L O A.  or our Letter of Acceptance from  China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption.  What does it mean?  China has said Yes!   The most exciting thing for us, we will now be allowed to send our little girl a small package.  Hopefully it will be given to her and she can begin to learn about her new family.  Please join us in praying that it will be received well and her heart will understand the love we have for her.   The next step is through the U. S. side of immigration.  Once we receive all the approvals needed they will be forwarded on to China and we will then get our travel dates.  If all goes well, we should be in China in about 4 months.  Our hearts are set towards spending August in China with our precious Elie.  One more step towards getting our little girl home.    

New rules make no sense

The state of Virginia has passed new requirements for families wishing to adopt which will go into effect on May 1st.  We received our list of new requirements to assure that our home meets these  new standards.  Some of them I understand, but many seem a little unnecessary.  My favorite new rule is their standards for the temperature of the house. According to the new regulations, our home must always be between 65 and 80 degrees.  I thought that the government wanted us to be more energy efficient???  We live in Virginia, not San Diego.  It gets cold in the winter and hot in the summer time and somehow people have survived for hundreds of years in this environment without their homes being in this temperature range.  We don't want our children to freeze or have heat stroke while sleeping at night, but these rules go way beyond that. Many of the other rules pertain to how much space a child is required to have.  Each child must have their own closet space, personal bedding, a ro

Sacrifice of Love

Do you ever think about what it would have been like to have lived in the time period when Jesus walked on the earth?  Easter weekend, now a time of great celebration for followers of Christ, was the greatest moment of grief and confusion.  Those who had walked closest with Jesus watched in helplessness as the Romans guards nailed him to a cross and sentenced him to die a gruesome death.  How upside down and backwards their whole world must have seemed.  For though they had walked so intimately with Him on earth, they still did not comprehend God's plan of salvation.  Jesus's body, beaten and bruised, devoid of any life, was wrapped and placed in a stone tomb.  The rock sealing the tomb tightly so no robber would steal his body.  Guards placed to further assure that no one would take His body or cause any more chaos.  And just when all seemed hopeless, God revealed His  plan for humanity.  Jesus had not been taken from them, He had laid His life down willingly.  A sacrifice of