Referrals

Well....it is November and time once again for Referrals. They have made it through May 23rd (2006) Which means that they have matched 5 days. We are almost finished updating our paperwork....we have to send our paperwork to immigration to have everything updated. In the mean time.....Mark and I are preparing for a concert next week. We are singing Beatus Vir by Vivaldi with the University of Delaware's Schola Cantorum. Then in a month we will be singing Rutter's Gloria. We are also in the process of refinancing our house--so that we can save lots and lots of money.

Well--it is time for the Oktober Fiesta. This is the 6th annual Oktober Fiesta, and it gets crazier every year. The Spanish Teacher and I dreamed this up 6 years ago, thinking that it would be fun to have a gathering with all of the German and Spanish students along with their families. It has now become legendary (if that can happen in just 6 years.) This year we have the Delaware Saengerbund Dancers coming. We will also have a mariachi Band playing. This year, we are expecting almost 300 people!

As far as adoption news, Mark and I are working on updating all of our information. We had our fingerprints taken (yes, once again) We have had our medical physicals, and next week we will meet with our social worker to update our homestudy. Lord willing, this will be the last time that we have to update our paperwork. They have placed children with people who have LID's through May 18. We should be hearing more in a few weeks about the next batch. We are hoping for a big one!

Fall

This has been a very interesting week. I don't have any news regarding China, but I did start school this week. I have very nice classes. I love my students, and I am looking forward to a great year with them. We only had 2 1/2 days of school (you have to ease into it, you know!) but they were good days. It is always weird to go back, but then walking through the halls it feels like I never left for the summer.

On a sadder note, My uncle Gerald went to be with the Lord on August 27 (It is hard to believe that it was a week ago) What can I say about him? I have so many fond memories of him. He used to tease all of us mercilessly, but we had plenty of opportunities to get back at him. The funeral was on Tuesday in Michigan, and my heart was there with my family.

One of my many favorite memories of Uncle Gerald was when he along with Aunt Onetta, Aunt Olive and Uncle Eugene came to visit me in Hamburg, Germany. (Actually there are many memories from that visit). They were upset because they couldn't get a Hamburger at the Hamburger Sparkasse (a bank:-), so I guess I should have given them a language lesson. I had a great time translating for them while they had dinner with my Host family in Hamburg. After a while I was speaking German to my aunts and uncles, and English to my host family. Everyone was confused and we had a great time. Then there was the laundry incident. Let's just say that pink underwear and my uncles were two things that would never meet!

I will miss him, but I know that he is having a great time in Heaven, and there is no more pain or sorrow!

We should be hearing some news (of the general informatin variety--not specifically about our baby) in the next week or so. We are praying for another huge jump through these LIDs!

July Referrals

July Referrals came out last week. And believe it or not they actually progressed 14 days up to May 10. I can't remember the last time they progressed more than 7 days and into double digits. So-----we were able to remove 14 red stones from our jar. There were even enough stones to "write" out that big number.

In the meantime I was very busy last week with VBS. The theme was "The Race is On" and we learned that we must press forward to the goal that Christ has for us in Christ Jesus. I find it very difficult some days to press on--especially because I feel like we are in this holding pattern, and we have been circling for years. But as we were reminded last week, God, in Christ Jesus, has goals for us, and we must keep our eyes on the prize. Our prize isn't anything in this world (like a daughter from China) Our prize is in heaven with our Lord and Saviour. So while we wait, I press on and I look for the day when I can rejoice with the angels in the presence of my Lord. I also know that my strength comes from Him--and he will help me wait if I wait on Him!

On Saturday we will be heading to Michigan to see the family. We are looking forward to seeing everyone!

Romans concert

Romans writeup

Here is an article of the Romans Oratorio concert. Such fun!

June Referrals

June Referrals came out today (June 8, 2010) They have now reached April 26th (Mark's Birthday!) That is only a 5 day advancement, but that is OK, because God is in control, and as our website address points out, God does indeed know the time.

In the meantime, Mark and I have had a very busy few weeks. We sang a new Oratorio this past weekend. It was amazing! There were over 50 people in the chorus, and I got to sing a Solo (the other soloists were Professional Opera singers from New York City! The Oratorio (for you non music types, an Oratorio is scripture put to music--the most famous one being The Messiah by Handel) is based on the book of Romans. We sang songs like Men love darkness rather than light, I am Persuaded, and There is No One Righteous (a few of my favorites) The soloists sang songs like The Under Conviction Blues and Enemy. My solo was called A Lovely Day and it was anything but lovely! It is a song about how sin at first looks really great, but in the end we are left wondering, "Who will rescue me? How will I be saved? Of course, those of us who have Jesus as our Savior and Lord know that He is the answer. My solo was followed by the Chorus singing Thank God. Anyway--that is a lot of rambling about what we have been up to! We performed it at our church and also at Trinity OPC in Hatboro, PA.

This week also marks the end of another school year! It was a very good year, but I am looking forward to summer. We have some summer projects planned--so that should keep us out of trouble!

When you think of it, please keep us in your prayers. Even though we are keeping very busy, the wait is very hard--we sometimes wonder if this adoption will ever happen, and yet we know that God is in control, and that we need to wait patiently on him.

April Referrals

It is nice to see some movement. They have progressed to April 17! Woo hoo! We had a very busy before Easter season (We sang in two different places on Good Friday) Then we had Easter dinner at our house. It is good to keep busy. This week is Spring Break, so I will be spending it with some friends (getting together for lunch) and Mark and I will be getting some things done around the house. I love to-do lists:-) We have a very busy spring, so that will make the time fly by.

March Referrals

Well finally a bigger progression of days. We get to take 7 stones out of the jar this month as the CCAA completed April 6-11. We know the progress is slow, but there is indeed progress. We did have to get our fingerprints redone in February, and so far we have not heard that I have to go back. (The guy at Homeland Security told me that my fingerprints were bad, and that I would probably have to come back!) So Praise God for bad fingerprints that are not rejected!

February Referrals

OK--it has been a while since I last posted. That is because there has not been much movement on the referral front. The CCAA has now progressed through April 5th, 2006. At least they are finally out of March. We did have to update our fingerprints for USCIS through homeland security. That is always an adventure. Mark and I went down to Dover on Monday, Feb 1st. We then took a road trip to Rehoboth Beach--to see all the snow that they got down there last weekend. It was a fun day.