The battle is now

Please take a minute & read the most recent post over at The Blessing of Verity,  if you are not familiar with the back story of the orphanage & it's former director.  Institution-wide apathy and neglect is what brought the children many of us know and love (Katie, Tommy, Garnet, Penny, Chad, Anna, Beacon, Lana, Sarah, Peyton, and many others) to the condition they were/are presently in. And cost the lives of more than a dozen more.  Within hours (This country being about 7 hrs ahead of eastern time) the courts will meet to make a decision regarding the termination of the former director.

I am all about a fair trial and due process, let's be clear.

However, I think that any reasonable person would argue Res ipsa loquitur should carry the day here (rusty on your Latin? Loosely translated: The thing speaks for itself.)  But will they? Because they should have spoken for themselves 10+ years and a dozen or more dead children ago.

Ultimately though, this isn't, per say, a legal battle. This is a spiritual battle. This is a battle for souls and of worldviews. Don't hold to a spiritual warfare in the here & now persuasion, that's fine. But you can not look at these children's broken, cachectic bodies and tell me worldview doesn't matter.  The Enemy's been broken though, and is ultimately doomed. Each child rescued, each family grown, each staff member impacted, each heart changed delivers a mighty blow. This is not a hopeless battle. The battle is the Lord's, but it is a battle nonetheless.  To this end I challenge each of you: Pray. Pray as you have never prayed before. Pray as though lives depend on it; they do. Pray as though souls and people's very salvation depends on it, because it does. Pray protection over those children, over the new director, over the staff, over the judges. Pray for hearts to be attuned to mercy & to justice.

And if I may be so bold as to suggest it-Pray for the former director. Pray for her to be brought to a place a fully grasping the magnitude of what has been done, so that she can repent, turn from this, come to know Jesus, and be saved. A sinner in need of grace and Christ's mercy no less than you or me.

The battle is here & now. But the war has been won & we can pray with CONFIDENCE to this end.

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:16 (NKJV)

GOT IT

Bouncing around my living room like Tiger and scaring my poor dog near to death, because......

OUR I-800a APPROVAL CAME IN THE MAIL TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

 

Outside of the Scriptures themselves, I am not sure I've read any words sweeter than "You have been approved..." in a good long while!

Dossier flies tomorrow (and yeah, someone else is mailing...should reduce the opportunities for it to get forgotten between home & the DHL office ;-p)

More than luck required...

So The Drop Off day began reasonably well, though breakfast was chaotic. I don't generally allow short order cooking. But when a certain adorable 4 year old presented with tears lamenting the instant oatmeal as being (and I quote) DISGUSTING, I caved &; gave him the last of the yummy, not THM approved by any means, oatmeal bars. I also view dino-egg oatmeal as being at best, disgusting, so I figured I'd make something when I got home from 1111.

*ahem*

Bad plan. WAY bad plan.

Grey had intercepted his bowl of oatmeal; he apparently liked it, and had proudly managed to get a few bites in & more than a few bites on himself. Cleaned up, apostilling directions clarified (thanks, Susanna,) and 6 kiddos shepherded into the Great White Hype, and we set off. We made reasonable time, as the bulk of the stop & go was on the northbound side.  I made no effort to try to park anywhere but the VCU deck and scored the primo 30 minute top spot.

Park
Turn off car, unbuckle, turn to grab forms. This day is rolling along fabulously......
.
.
.

Uhmmm....where are the forms?  No one has the forms.

May I cry now? There is no one to blame but myself, as I can see them in my mind's eye, sitting neatly in a pile STILL ON MY DINING ROOM TABLE.

Turn car back on
Buckle up
Leave the paid for spot less than 2 minutes after pulling into it :(

En route, I called Mr. P. to whine beg plead inquire if he could please just drive me by, drop me off, circle around until I'm finished.  Once he finished laughing, he thoughtfully cleared his schedule, and once we had forms safely in hand and IN THE VAN, he drove us downtown once again. After dropping me off (and apparently hearing the lousy breakfast saga) he snagged some Lee's fried chicken for lunch & coffee for the nerves.  The gang at 1111 never fails though, I wasn't first in line and I was still in & out in 30 minutes flat.

Now, if they just had some parking. *sigh*

English Funnies

Sarah's English lesson involved comparative adjectives. Much like verb conjugation, it's basically easiest to run through the forms. Positive form, comparative form, superlative form. For those of you who are as far out from your last grammar class as I am, let me help you. These are -er & -est, more... & most....

Example:
Happy
Happier
Happiest

Favourable
More favourable
Most favourable


Next word: Nervous

According to my perceptive child, that's-

Nervous
.
.
.
Nervous break
.
.
.
Nervous wreck

:-D Ain't it the truth??

Wish Me Luck....

Tomorrow I once again brave downtown to visit 1111 East Broad to get our dossier apsotilled. I still twitch thinking about my last fun adventure down there.  But we *do* have all of our documents ready, save for the I-800a (not as though that's an important one...) This will allow these to get a head start on processing. I finally got brave enough to call the USCIS folks who handle the I-800s (and presumably I-600s, the adoption folks) who were super-duper nice & didn't seem the least bit put off by nervous (arguably impatient, though I was on my very best behaviour) folks calling to check their status.

Other news around the home front; soccer season is in full swing. This means I am in crisis mode trying to get dinner made/eaten/cleared 2 days out of every week. :-) As one of those crazy weekend working folks, I don't actually get so see all the games, but I take time off to catch a few. Mr. P. none too subtly suggested (*cough*) Picture day.  Can do! 

We seem to have gone from winter to summer with about a 3 day window of spring. The ground is moist, the sock feet are BLACK, and the clothes line is in use again. With this too, comes the cage match for the lone dryer dried (also known as 'not crispy') towel for a shower. If you line dry, you know what I mean. If you don't...loofah is as close a comparison as I can draw! I think the underlying grumbling tonight was something about steel wool though, but I could have been wrong. They do smell nice tho....

And speaking of smelling nice, these line the patio area at my job:

And they are pretty. I also managed to catch the flag nearly thoroughly open. Not bad considering my phone screen was basically not visible from the sunlight!

Maybe Thursday I can sneak out to the garden...until then!

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Iain!!! You are a great 8 years old! Daddy & Mommy love you and are so proud of the young man you are growing into. Your birthday is special to us because it was our first home birth. I remember visiting Miss Nancy for a check up, going for a walk, putz'ing around Lowes with Daddy, and getting an entirely irrational idea to change all the sheets in the house that afternoon (this served to be the final key in the 'go into real labour' saga!)  It's hard to believe my little Mushie baby is this great big boy!

Have a wonderful birthday, Iain, & we pray you continue to grow into a man whose delight is the Lord.

For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition which I asked of Him. 1 Samuel, 1:27 (NKJV)

No Foolin'

I am not doing any blog-foolery, April 1 or not. We've been fairly busy since our last post, hence the quietness online.  I was able to get up to Lancaster for Temple's semi-annual family practice review. A week of 10 hr days, but you do walk away with over 52 credit hours. (53+ if you don't fail to correctly set your alarm and miss the first hour of Monday.) I was able to catch up with my friend Susanna and see how big Katie & Verity are getting first hand!! I managed to avoid all but the worst of the Friday afternoon commuter traffic (that would be 2.5 hrs to drive 75 miles of Quantico to Richmond...you can't appreciate how painfully slow the traffic waves are if you haven't tackled them personally.) But I arrived home in time for bedtime hugs, plunking in a load of laundry, & hitting the sack myself, so we could head out to VA beach the next day (life of suffering, let me tell you ;-p )  Mr. P. had a class to oversee out there, so we took a little home school spring break. Baby Grey enjoyed his first trip to the beach, we took in some swimming (the outdoor pool was heated more than the indoor one, like swimming in a moderately warm hot tub, sans bubbles), and hiked the better part of 40 blocks round trip for some Planet Pizza. Paul surprised us with a trip up to Chincoteague, where we went for our honeymoon and several anniversaries.  Our room was on the 8th floor and we saw multiple helicopters flying the length of the beach, seemingly on the level of our room. My boys quite convinced the the Navy did these purely for their enjoyment! Best of all, our USCIS biometrics (aka finger prints) appointment *just happened* to be scheduled that Monday and *just happened* to be at the Norfolk office, all of a half hour (no tunnels involved) from our hotel. And, if you think this all *just happened*, please email me, and we'll work on your doctrine, lol!!!  We made it home by 10:30 PM Thursday & I was back on my way to work by 5:30 AM Friday. I was just a tiny bit cross eyed tired. :-p We all trekked out Sunday morning to enjoy the early (but not the sunrise.....another bed at midnight, up at 4:45 night was not happening) service together, but opted to do "Easter dinner" tonight, rather than rush last night (or eat at 9 pm, the more likely scenario!)
Some photos:

Grey taking in the beach. World's largest sandbox, in his estimation. And *this* close to catching one of those crazy beach birdies...

 Sunrise from my balcony

 Cool man Josh, lounging at the pool side....

Cheers!!! 

This photo wins awards in that everyone is basically facing the camera, smiling, and no bunny ears. And the poor kids were facing into the 35* and 35 mph wind too. Apparently all family photos are easier to muster compliance in an Arctic environment....who knew??

Now for a couple of shout outs & prayer requests.

The Trio of Heroes auction is live today!!! Please, if you can, pop by and bid on some neat goodies to help support the Unroe Family bring their 3 precious children home (from Princess P's same locale.) Many thanks to Amy Rainey & crew for their tireless efforts to bring children home!

Another little one from Penny's location is being adopted by the Rosencrants' family, named Anna ("Marsha" if you saw her profile on Reece's Rainbow) and her family is there to pick her up. Unfortunately, she's not doing well and is admitted to a hospital in the capital city.  Please keep Lydia, Anna, and the rest of the family, as well as her caregivers in the hospital, lifted in prayer. You can follow the family's adoption journey here.

Finally, Patti over at A Perfect Lily plans to begin a fundraiser to help us bring Penny home in the next week or so. We are still stunned at this outpouring of generosity for our little girl!!

We officially have all of our documents for our dossier & are just waiting for our USCIS approval. Waiting on pins & needles.... :) In the meanwhile, I am just about ready to get out in the garden.....  Until next time.

"But he said to them, 'Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen!"  

(Mark 16:6, NKJV)