Blessings Abound

Well, Saturday was our celebration of Matthew and Ivanna. We had an absolute wonderful time and so enjoyed seeing everyone who came to help us celebrate. We had great food, fellowship and fun. The boyscout troop 1535 came and helped us serve food. Julie Mandery graciously allowed for her students to be apart and play piano. We ate crab, salmon and shrimp and sipped iced tea on my sweet sister n law's lawn: thank you Donna and Kris! ;) My husband, Phillip, gave a tremendous testimony relating God's love toward us to that of adoption. He showed the anniversary video from Reece's Rainbow and a few compelling images. We were treated with a very special piano piece from Kristin, a woman in her thirties with Ds. The evening finished with announcement of the silent auction winners and dessert.
I think the fellowship was so sweet, and count the evening a success because of it. That was the most important goal for us: a time to bring honor and glory to our Lord as well as share the need and our burden of providing for the fatherless.
We were also so blessed in that nearly $7,000 was raised with the silent auction and donations combined. Praise the Lord! What a TREMENDOUS blessing. To that ~ we want to express our most sincere gratitude! For all who helped prepare, brought food, provided music, helped with sound, took pictures, donated to the silent auction, bid on the silent auction, bought hair pretties, made hair pretties, allowed the use of your home, set up and took down, prayed and came ~ THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH! You helped make the evening memorable and it could not have been done without you.

Next blessing: a sick and screaming baby. Yes, those are blessings too. You see, we received our USCIS fingerprinting appointment last week. It was scheduled for September 21st. This was cause for concern, because of the delay with USCIS in processing approvals. We are trying very hard to have our paperwork (dossier) in to the country by October 1st. The scheduled appointment was pushing it too close, because even after fingerprinting there is a wait for approval.

So, we were able to schedule an appointment with our local USCIS field office in HOPES that they would allow us to be fingerprinted. We went in EARLY this morning. On the way there, Justus throws up and looks miserable - a terrible virus is abrewin'. We press on. After waiting in the lobby for nearly two hours, we finally decide that perhaps this is not the day and go up to the window and state that we may need to come back. Our baby was quite fussy, and is now feverish. She says there is no guarantee but that we should wait around and try to be fitted in. She says that the month is just going to get busier. We reluctantly wait. Knowing that Phillip is becoming MORE tardy for work, and my sweet Justus is working himself into a fit. I think I bounced, and rocked that baby in every which way ~ hoping to quiet him into sleep. Just when I wanted to turn and burn, Phillip taps me on the shoulder and says they called our name!!!
THEY CALLED OUR NAME! OHHHH ... it was as if the trumpet sounded itself! We piled into a tiny room filled with waiting people ... and my screaming baby! He was not happy. He was done ... and loud. We had five people ahead of us, and I wanted sooo badly to be done. I was sweating now. He was soooo very loud. Well, the USCIS workers must have had pity upon us. They whisked me in next to take my prints. All the while I heard Justus' maddening screams and a dear old Asian woman yelling at my husband to put milk in his mouth! All he could muster to say is ... "I'm sorry, I don't understand you. He just wants his Mom!"
*sigh*
As soon as my worker said I was done, I split! I ran, grabbed the baby and flew out of the building. I'm sure applause followed behind me! Well, it's all fine now. It is because of that screaming little baby that we got our fingerprints .... DONE! The workers had pity on us and got us through. I praise the Lord ... even for screaming babies.