Please pray

They have still not signed our papers out of the "extra step" because something was "too old". Please pray.

Nothing new under the moon

We have heard nothing about the adoption process. We have no idea if the papers were received Friday or not. I think it's sort of ironic that my first post this month was titled "Pessimistically optimistic". That was when we were told that the papers for the extra step were finished. Ha! Here we are nearly a month later and still waiting on corrections for those papers. I'm not pessimistically optimistic any more. Now I'm just kind of pessimistic again, or leaning that way. Sigh...pray for us, please.

Some big decisions are going on in our lives and those we love. Keep us in prayer, please.

I'm teaching abstinence again tomorrow. We're covering puberty for 6th grade and STD's for 7th and 8th. Woo hoo. I love it when those classes are over. Pray for me, please?

Stellan ( http://www.mycharmingkids.net/ ) has been released from the Boston hospital. Good for him. Baby Rose Shirley was released from the hospital as there was nothing more they could do for her. Not so good for her. Please pray for both of these babies.

That's a lot of prayer requests. Not exactly what I had intended but that's how it came out.

Friday evening R's bf went outside and stood under the light and this moth landed on his arm.
He kept saying that it was biting him or laying eggs on his arm and I told him that he was going to turn into Mothman, like Spiderman. He was like, oh that would be cool except people would probably touch his wings and knock the dust off and he wouldn't be able to fly. Yeah, whatever.

I feel like I should do a thankful list. I haven't done one in a while. Let's see, I'm still thankful for dark chocolate (have I mentioned that before?). I'm thankful for jobs. All 4 of us have some sort of job and that's very good at this point in time. I'm thankful that we're all relatively healthy. I'm thankful for the weather we've been having. I'm thankful for a hair from J's head that I found this morning embedded in my clothes that I wore while I was in Haiti. It was a little piece of my boy and I was thankful.

Happy Anniversary...

...to us. 22 years. Is that possible? I feel old. We went out to eat and talked all the way there, all the time there, and all the way home. That was nice. Then we came home and entertained my mom's high school friends who are visiting. A bunch of us played guitars, banjo, canjo, dulcimer and keyboard and a bunch of us sang. Misty also got in her stroller and drank from her sippy cup. Most people are quite taken by that one. Also, Happy Birthday to our niece, T, who was born on our wedding day.

Evening walk

We might get the last corrected paper today. They promised it today. I'm not holding my breath.
We can pray though.

Rose Shirley continues to go down hill. She has been in the hospital for over a week now. Stellan (www.mycharmingkids.net ) was easily flipped back into SVT. Keep praying for them too.

It's supposed to be really nice here the next few days. 80's and sunny. We took a walk last night and took the camera with us. Everything is so green right now. This is the beginning of our walk.
Here are the horses a little further down in our walk.

Bridget always has to come and see us and lick our hands and stick her nose in our business. She eats up the attention. She's a hoot.

My horse, Lady. She's not so big on attention. She is very food motivated though.

Some wildflowers.

Tree at the end of the driveway. I think it's a buckeye tree. Or it could be some sort of walnut or hickory.

I love all the different shades of green that you can see right now.

Back up towards the house. Love this pic that T took.

We sat in the gazebo and watched the sun set.
I caught this pic of Sano yesterday morning. I came into the office for something and there she was in my chair all sprawled out and licking her belly. I had to snap a pic and I got so involved with her that I forgot what I came in there for.

She's saying, "What? Doesn't everyone sit like this?"

Back in the saddle

I taught Abstinence today for the first time this school year. It was ... interesting. I really enjoyed my break from doing it. I did enjoy most of the classes today though, too. I taught 5 classes.

Speaking of back in the saddle, Dad fell off his horse twice today. Oops. Was I supposed to tell that, Dad? Apparently his horse took a quick jump over a creek which ended in a quick stop on the other side. He wasn't prepared for the quick stop so he kept going. He did stop quickly when he hit the ground though. I'm not sure what happened the second time.

Haven't heard anything new on the adoption papers. Are you surprised? Sigh...

Prayers

Update; Nephew's girlfriend's surgery went really well and she got great news. Thanks for praying.

Sanomae and I are wearing orange for Stellan today. Well, Sano is always wearing orange as part of her colors. As far as I know Stellan is in surgery right now.

Please also keep Rose Shirley in your prayers as well as my nephew's girlfriend who is having surgery today. Prayers for our family and the adoption process are always appreciated. We are still waiting on a corrected paper from the "extra step" in MOI. Sigh...

Please pray for these babies

Things seem to have gone haywire for Stellan. www.mycharmingkids.net Please keep him in your prayers. Also, please pray for Rose Shirley www.davisinhaiti.blogspot.com Both of these babies have very sick hearts.

A is feeling puny too so I'm taking her to the Dr. tomorrow.

No news on the adoption. Sigh...

Sanomae

It's been a little while since I posted pics of the cats. They just keep doing the same things, over and over. Dexter still stares at the treat cabinet door and Sano still LOVES laundry. Here's a pic of Sano sleeping in the office chair. How do they curl up into little circles?
A dragged her laundry out today and Sano got into it before I could get to it. I hated to interupt her so I washed some other stuff first.

Okay, the clean stuff, still warm from the dryer, is what she really likes.

She roots all through it to find just the right place.

See her foot sticking out? The entire rest of her body is covered with clean sheets. Before she got settled she was completely covered, and purring. It was a little strange for the pile of laundry to be purring. Too funny.
We peeled a little of the sheet back and her little face popped out.

I'll try to get a short video of Misty getting into the stroller and drinking from her sippy cup. Yes, she really does do that.

Stellan

Hey y'all. Please pray for Stellan. His heart continues to have problems. www.mycharmingkids.net I wouldn't mind if you prayed for us too :-)

Couple of pics

Okay, I got a couple of pics from my dad. This is the front/side of the church.

This happened about 5 or 5:30 so it was still dark when he took the pics. This is view from the front. It was the back side of the roof that landed in the parking lot. This is what it did to the front.

This is the roof from the back of the church laying in the parking lot.

We were truly blessed to be able to have services in our church Friday night and Sunday morning.

Easter 2009

Well, this was our 4th Easter without J here. The first one I thought, maybe next year. The second one I thought, surely next year. The third one I thought, this is the last one without J here. Not long after that I stopped thinking, surely next year. I just don't do it anymore. It hurts a lot less that way. This year I thought, I wonder if J will ever be here to celebrate a holiday with us. Will he ever get to color Easter eggs with us? Will he ever get to hold sparklers on the 4th of July? Will he ever get to see what's in his stocking? Will he ever get to have Christmas with us? Only God knows the answer to that, and He's not telling.

We were thankful to be able to have our Sunday service in our church building. I'm still trying to get a few pics of the storm damage to the church. I'll post them when I get them.

A and her friend colored eggs. I'm glad that they still like to do that at 15/16 years old. They are fun kids. I hope they'll still like to do it if J ever gets home. A kept making funny faces and probably won't like this pic, but here it is.

This is their finished product. We had a "traditional" color kit and a "tie dye" kit.

I put together little Easter buckets for the girls. A knew right away which one was hers. She is the pink flowers and R is the green stripes.

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter time. He is risen. He is risen indeed!

What a wild day

We are still here, alive and well, if not a little sore. This has been a really wild day and we have worked really hard. We got a call early this morning that the roof had blown off of our church in a storm. It's still not clear if it was a tornado or straight line winds. Whatever it was it literally picked up the roof from one side, decking and all, and blew it over the church and landed it in the parking lot and road. There was metal and styrofoam from the roof high in the trees across the road. We had to get it covered up quick and the debris picked up because another line of storms was heading our way.

We got things picked up and covered up somewhat when the second line came through. There were multiple tornadoes on the ground at one time. The plastic didn't get blown off but it was not enough to keep the torrential rains out of the building. What a mess. We had wet/dry vacs going and made a "redneck funnel" in the worst hit room which consisted of salvaged boards holding up plastic which funneled the water out the door. We still managed to have our Passover demonstration service tonight so we are grateful for that. There will be no Sunday School because of the damage to the rooms but the Sunday worship service is still on.

At one point today T was at the church and the girls and I were here at the house. I was watching the TV and they were gathering up cats and heading to the master bath. I watched and then called and gave reports to T and to a friend until it got bad enough that I sat out the rest of the storm in the tub with the cats and kids. We are all fine though.

The adoption papers did in fact have a "minor error" which is waiting to be corrected. Now they're saying they might be back in MOI by Thursday. Are you surprised? Please keep praying for us. Thanks.

43 months and counting...

Yes, it really is 43 months that we've been waiting for J. We made the decision to adopt in Aug. '05 and began the homestudy and paperchase in Sept. '05. We were matched with J in Dec. '05. He was 7, just about 8, when we started the homestudy. Now he's 11.

Our dossier was in Haiti in Jan. '06. We were in MAFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) March-May of '06 and in IBESR (Haitian social services) July of '06. In Jan. '07 there was a mistake discovered on the birth certificate and that was corrected and we were signed out in March '07.

We got out of Parquet (legal system) in May '07 and entered MOI (Ministry of Interior). It's not clear what happened here. Our file was declared lost in April of '08 and we've been in the "do over" process since then. Plus there were mistakes on papers that took time to fix. But our file did make it back to MOI the end of Dec. '08. I was in Haiti for the month of Jan. and while I was there they added another step to the MOI process. Now, after waiting 2 months for that extra step, our lawyer has the papers back and they will return to MOI on Monday. Prayers are appreciated.

So much has changed here in that time. R got her driver's license, graduated from high school and started college. A started high school and has her learner's permit. I remember hoping that J would get home before A started high school so she could be at the same school with him for a little while. Ha! Countless holidays and family vacations have come and gone without him here. He has had a room in our house all ready for him for 2 years. A room that we built just for him. He has a closet full of clothes that he may never wear. I spent a month with him and I miss him terribly, plus I know what he's missing. It breaks my heart but I still have peace. On most days anyway.

I got to talk to him this afternoon. I read him a book that I read to him often in January. We played an "I love you" game that we played in January. I asked him if he remembers our car's name and he said, "Big Momma" with a silly grin on his face. I really miss him. Please storm the gates of Heaven with your prayers for our family. Thanks.

And while y'all are at it, please pray for healing for Stellan. You can read about him here; www.mycharmingkids.net

Pessimistically optimistic

Friday morning; Ok, this is why we're pessimistically optimistic. I got an email saying that they would not have time to take the papers to MOI today, it will be Monday before they can take them. Keep praying.

I talked to our lawyer today and she said that she had the papers back and would call the O for them to be picked up. These are the papers from the "extra step" that we've been waiting for for 2 months. I talked to a worker at the O and he is picking up the papers and taking them back to MOI tomorrow, barring any complications. We've not gotten through much in this process without complications and that's why we're pessimistically optimistic. We've had too much bad news to get excited about the good news. So, be happy if you want to but please keep praying.

My elbow is still very sore from my abrupt landing Sunday morning. The bruising is turning greenish, yellow so it's pretty ugly.

It's raining quite a bit and there's been some severe weather too.

Dexter and Sanomae like to get sink drinks in the mornings. The water has to be running to make them happy. Dexter won't drink if Sano is there but she has no problems pushing him out of the way. I'm not even sure who was where this morning but one jumped up and one jumped down and I got a whiff of something. I flipped Sano's tail up and there was nothing there so I figured one of them must have pooted. A little later Dexter was getting ready to jump up again and he's 11 now and doesn't always make it up so we "spot" him. When I "spotted" him, I felt something. Eww! I yelled, "It's you!" He had a huge dingleberry. Ugh. So I had to clean him up and go see if he left any skid marks anywhere. Sigh...thankfully, no skid marks. Just thought you'd like to know about my day.