Just Hang'in

A typical Thursday evening...

A picnic kinda day!

It is a beautiful day here! So beautiful we decided to have a picnic dinner complete with grilled corn on the cob and fresh fruit!


Jonathan LOVES corn on the cob. It is "better than dumplings" according to him!

Amanda and Jordan have been sick so we were not able to get any great Easter pictures of everyone all dressed up, but I am hoping maybe next Sunday we can pretend it is Easter and get all fancy.

Last Saturday we went downtown to the book and science fair. Ben was so excited to
see the mouse from the famous book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie".

A picture of our funny dog who prefers the shoe bin to her comfy blanket in the corner.

Jordan just asked Jeremy "Is Leo still a possibility?" His reply -"yes". We are hoping to see some movement in this situation by the end of the week. Please continue to pray for Leo and his birthmom. I love that Jordan is so willing to open up his heart and home to a child who needs a family.

We are so thankful for those of you who have emailed about donating to the laptop for Zambia. There is still time to be part of blessing this missionary and God's ministry in Zambia.

If you have no idea what I am talking about go back and read yesterday's post!

A laptop for Zambia

There's no easy, gentle way to begin this post. I'll just have to come right to the point. It's come to my attention that there is a missionary in Zambia who could really use a new laptop.

No, this isn't something I read in a suspicous email from a "wealthy Nigerian banker" ... this is real. The situation is that there is this missionary affiliated with my church who is stationed in Kasempa, Zambia along with his wife and children. There, he and his wife run an orphanage, a leper colony, and a radio station. The one laptop this man uses does it all -- all the normal activity you might expect PLUS it actually functions as a kind of server that runs the radio station!

You can just imagine the impact of something like ... a reboot! So what to do? Well, I'm gonna go get me a laptop! There's a team headed out from Philadelphia to Zambia in June, and I'd like to get a laptop, install the requisit software and send it along with them to Zambia.

It'll cost me a couple hundred bucks and, honestly, I could use some help.

Would you consider helping me in this worhty endeavor? If you would like to make a financial gift towards this goal ... please send me a message at laptop4zambia@gmail.com



I'm not asking any one person to make a huge gift ... but even a few modest sized gifts of $30, $40 or $50 dollars would go a long way towards this goal.

Anyway ... you get the idea. Drop me a line, let me know if you can help. Thanks.

Spring has Sprung

We are still here! Life has been full. We've been busy with activities like:

• Friends visiting from Buffalo, NY.
• Trying to end the school year strong.
• Our first year having a baseball player.
• Orchestra Concerts.
  
• Jordan learning how to ride his bike without training wheels!

The list goes on and on! In the midst of all of our crazy lives, God has been working and moving mountains and unfolding His plan for our family.

I am going to try and give an abbreviated version of what we are currently wrestling with. If you remember, since we began the adoption process again, we have struggled with domestic vs. international. We both have felt that God was pulling us toward domestic, but we were not sure if our family would be a good fit for the domestic program. We began the international process and hit a wall. We needed more money. We struggle, we prayed, we questioned whether this was God closing the international door and leading us back to domestic. Fast forward. God provided a grant to be used for international adoption, but we weren't sure we wanted it. We had the opportunity to talk with the domestic older child/special needs social worker and after that conversation, we felt like domestic was a realistic option for our family.

Fast forward to last Wednesday night, when we basically decide to go domestic. My prayer Wednesday night and Thursday morning- God please show us in a big way today that we are on the right track- open or slam shut doors-please just confirm our decision. Thursday morning- the phone rings- I notice it is Bethany (we have not told them our decision yet), I answer and it is the domestic worker saying they just got a call about a little boy.

Then there is such a lot of information to absorb in 24 hours ... all day I am in conversation with social workers. At one point I call our international worker and inform her of our decision and give her permission to give all of our paperwork to the domestic social worker. If you are still reading and completely confused- you now know how we feel!

This situation is still unfolding. It's not a done deal. But it feels like a "God thing." It's looks like a God thing. We are still finding out details. This is not an easy decision as this little one's needs are quite extensive. As of this moment he is not legally free for adoption, but most likely will be in the next few months. God answered my prayer last Wednesday and regardless of the outcome of this situation, we know we are on God's track for our family. Please pray for us as we make decisions that will affect our entire family and change its make-up forever. Please pray for this little boy and for his mom who is making life changing decisions. We will keep you posted as we can. God is working and even though we have more questions than answers at the moment- we have a peace that God is working and doing something big.