Amazing Gifts

Some of you might remember that the end of last year we were awarded a grant through Lifesong for Orphans.  It was a matching grant.  They would match dollar for dollar what people gave to us up to $2,500.  Well, I put the information out on my blog, but haven't really done a whole lot else with it.  Within the first month of us receiving the grant, we had received $1,500 and were thrilled with the way God was providing.  We had checked the account a few times this year, but the balance remained at $1,500.  Earlier this month, we decided to check it again as we are working to get together the remaining balance of our adoption fee and much to our surprise we had exactly $2,500 in our account.  Which means we will receive the full matching grant of $2,500.  We needed a random amount, $939 and some change, and that was exactly what someone anonymously gave to us!  Wow!  Friends, God is so faithful to provide! 

Another really cool thing about this gift is when we found out about it.  The person actually gave the gift in April, but we didn't see it until just a couple of weeks ago, the same day we later found out our car needs a new transmission.  God knew that on that very day we would need a reminder of His provision and that nothing catches Him off guard. 

And while we are talking about matching grants, I don't think I've mentioned on this blog yet, that we were told about another matching grant that we should apply for through Brittany's Hope Foundation.  We were thrilled to learn that we received a $2,000 matching grant through this organization and even more thrilled to learn that some very dear people in our lives wanted to give to match the whole grant, $2,000.  We didn't even have a chance to say anything about this grant because it was matched as fast as we received it! 

I don't know where you are at in your journey, but if you are reading this and finances are keeping you from stepping out and pursuing adoption, please know that where God guides, He provides!  He is the one with the biggest heart for the fatherless.  He is the One who wants to set the lonely in families (Psalm 68:5-6).

His Birthday

Less than three weeks after our little girl turned three, our little boy turned four.  They are just over 11 months apart.  What a fun June we are going to have next year and every year after that!! 

This year for his birthday, the hubs and I went out for Thai food. Imagine that, us going out for Thai food!  And what would a blog post of mine be without pictures of some delicious Thai food!  I had some amazing mango curry and the hubs had chicken with peanut sauce that was okay.

 

After dinner, we decided since it was his birthday we better get some ice cream, or more accurately Italian ice. We want him to know someday that we celebrated his life even when he wasn't with us.

Two places that we can't wait to take our kids when they are home.  We dreamed about what it will be like to have him home. What will he like to eat?  What is his personality like?  Is he friendly, shy, quiet? Does he like ice cream?  Has he ever had ice cream?

We decided to send him some little construction trucks.  What little boy doesn't like trucks?  We also sent him an outfit, maybe more for his foster mom than for him.

 

We are longing for him to be home with us driving these little trucks through our backyard, digging up dirt and making roads for them out of sticks and stones. Until then, we hope that he is having fun with them in Thailand.  Someday little man, someday soon we are coming for you.  We love you more than you could possibly know and we are longing for you to be home with us.

Her Birthday

Last month our little girl had a birthday, she turned three-years-old.  In May we sent care packages over, so we went ahead and sent a few small things as birthday presents.  Its a tricky thing to only buy items that will fit in a gallon Ziploc bag, weigh no more than a pound, and are relatively flat.  We actually bought each of the kids something that was too much for the bags, so we had to scale back and find things that would fit what is allowed.  

We found this sweet little baby doll with an extra outfit.

And decided to send clothes for the first time.

 

We also got a few birthday blower things and a camera to include and managed to fit it all in.

 

We found a sweet card with stickers and wrote a little note. 

Sometimes it feels like a dream.  There are two kids on the other side of the world, that call us Mommy and Daddy.  Two kids on the other side of the world that we long to call Son and Daughter. Someday our dream will come true.  We hold on to this hope.  Someday, hopefully next year, we will celebrate birthdays with her in our laps, we will be able to tell her face to face how very much we love her.  Until then, our care packages, pictures, and little notes will have to do.

 

 

We love you baby girl, and we are coming for you soon!

 

Thai Tuesday

Its been a little while since I've written. It is difficult to put into words all that has gone on in my heart this past month. June was quite a full month for us with lots of traveling. There was a fingerprinting trip, funeral trip, new baby trip, an anniversary trip.....oh how I long for the day I can tell you about our adoption trip.  I have a feeling that is going to be one of the best trips of my life!!

Both of our children also had birthdays in the month of June.  Last year, when we first found out about them, we thought there was a pretty good chance that they would be with us by their birthdays, but their birthdays have come and gone and still no word of travel. This was hard.  This is hard. They are not two and three years old anymore, they are three and four.  Three and four.  They are learning and growing.  Without us.  This is hard.

Today is Tuesday.  Tuesday night in America means that it is Wednesday morning in Thailand. And this Wednesday morning in Thailand there is a group of people called the Thai Adoption Board that are meeting and reviewing cases of children and families. It is at one of these meetings that our children's files and our file will be reviewed and we will be given official approval to adopt them.  We are praying earnestly that at this meeting lots of families will get approval and that we would be one of them.

All of our traveling has left our refrigerator empty so, for Thai Tuesday tonight, we picked up a rotisserie chicken and made rice and corn to go with it.  In Chiang Mai, they sell these chickens at little stands along the side of the road along with sticky rice, it was one of my favorite quick dinners to stop and pick up.  They were SO good.  One of the things that makes this meal for us is the chicken dipping sauce, you can buy it in the Asian isle of most grocery stores and even Wal-Mart. So, next time you don't know what to have for dinner, and especially if it is a Tuesday, grab a bottle of sauce and a chicken and say a prayer for our kids and that they would be able to come home soon.

I have several posts stirring in my heart that I hope to type up soon....what we sent our kids for their birthdays, a challenging John Piper sermon I read on the beach during our anniversary trip, and an amazing gift we received, to name a few.  Thanks for journeying along with us, especially on Thai Tuesdays. 

Thai Tuesday-Masman Curry and Lots of Prayers

Please, if you are reading this, stop and say and prayer for the Thai government and the military. Today, the Thai people woke to the military chief declaring martial law across the country.  There has been ongoing political unrest in Thailand for over six months now as the opposing parties argue over who should be prime minister.  I don't pretend to understand all that is going on in Thailand, but I am praying for peaceful resolution, and soon.

If you want to read more about what is going on in Thailand, you can click here. It is definitely discouraging to read of the ongoing unrest in Thailand.  We are told that adoptions are still being processed, but it certainly seems to have slowed things down. We are praying that many first approvals are granted tonight (Wednesday morning in Thailand) at the board meeting.

Well, it wouldn't be Tuesday around here if we didn't have a little Thai food.  I have to say, I took a shortcut tonight and used a packaged curry. Not my favorite, but it worked!

First, I started with these two ingredients. 

Next, I diced up some chicken and potatoes.

 

After cooking the chicken in the sauce, I added the potatoes and some peanuts and that was it.  Masman Curry. 

Not nearly as good as the curry you can get in Thailand, but it was edible!

Bittersweet Update Time

As I have mentioned before, we receive an update on our kids every four months or so.  When we know it is update time, we wait expectantly for an email to come saying the update is here. We get a little giddy with excitement wondering how our kids will have changed, what they will look like, what we will learn about them. 

This is our third update since we have been matched with our kids and wow, is it such a bittersweet thing. 

Bitter because we are watching our kids grow up though pictures.  They are growing and changing, and we are sad that we are missing so much of their little lives.  They change SO much in between every update, they get a little bigger and they are going through phases without us.  They are no longer drinking from bottles (Thai kids generally take a bottle until age 3-4). They are toilet trained.  Now I know, some of you are thinking, that's amazing!  Not really, it means we missed another stage. 

Sweet because we get to see their precious faces and they are beautiful!!  I wish I could share them with you, but we have been asked not to share them publically.  Trust me though, they are beautiful!  It is also sweet because we can tell they are being well taken care of.  They have smiles on their faces and they are sitting close to their foster mom.  They are wearing clean clothes and their hair is being taken care of (our little girl has the most adorable pig tails!), all the little things.  And trust me, we notice every little detail of these pictures.

This update was especially sweet because we finally know (we had just been told to assume) that they know about us.  In the pictures we received, they were each holding the bears we sent them, and the reports said that they enjoy looking through the album of pictures we sent and they point to us and call us "Mommy" and "Daddy".  Marc and I agree, it is kind of a crazy thing to think that there are two little kids on the other side of the world calling us "Mommy" and "Daddy".  Crazy amazing!! 

We are in love with them.  We don't know exactly how we can love two little people who we have never met so very much, but we do.  We love them. And we cannot wait to get a call saying that we have first approval and can travel to bring them home. 

Will you pray with us?  The Thai Adoption Board will not be meeting this Wednesday morning like they normally do, they will be meeting on Thursday morning, May 8th, so our Wednesday night, May 7th.  So, we will be having "Thai Wednesday" instead. At any one of these meetings they could grant us first approval.

Speaking of bittersweet, I am reading an excellent book right now with that very word as its title.  It is true of so many things in life, not just our updates, so many things are bittersweet.  But that is a whole other blog post for another time!

Thai Tuesday-Kai Phat Met Muang

The Thai Adoption Board is meeting again tonight, well, morning over there. They are meeting right now. They are visiting with families who are in country to pick up their children and they will be reviewing files of families, families like ours, who are waiting for First Approval.  There are families who have been waiting for First Approval for many more months than us....we are asking God to intervene and that many approvals will be granted at this meeting.

Tonight we made a Chicken and Cashew Nut dish for dinner and we thought about and prayed for our kids even more than we normally do....after all, it is Thai Tuesday!

For those of you who are interested you can find the recipe below:


First, mix in a bowl and set aside:

1 tablespoon fish sauce
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
3 tablespoons chicken broth
1 teaspoon sugar

I usually double this for extra sauce.










Next, cut an onion in wedges and thinly slice a red (or yellow or orange) pepper and set aside.

Third, brown about 1/2 cup of cashew nuts over medium high heat in a tablespoon or so of vegetable oil.  They will brown very quickly, so keep a close eye on them. Once brown, set aside in a bowl.

Forth, take a handful of dried chili peppers and snip the ends off of them. Discard the seeds or keep some of the seeds to give the dish some spice.   Brown the chilies for a minute or two and then set aside in the bowl with the cashew nuts.

Fifth, brown the onions and set aside in a bowl. Now you have all of these items prepped.

 

Sixth, stir-fry a tablespoon or so of minced garlic until light brown in the same oil used for the nuts and chilies.  Then add a pound or so of chicken that has been thinly sliced. And stir-fry on medium high heat. 

 

Finally, add the red pepper and cook for 2-3 minutes.  Then, add the onion, sauce mixture, cashew nuts, and dried chilies and heat for 1-2 minutes.  I also usually like to add a couple of green onions cut into one inch pieces, but I didn't have any tonight so we left them out. 

 

And there it is, Kai Phat Met Muang!  Serve over jasmine rice and enjoy!