Baby Olivia Marie and Other Updates

Last week, my good friend Fiona C. had a baby girl, Olivia Marie. Fiona was with me in the hospital during the whole day I spent in labor with Javen, and I had the honor of returning that favor for her. It was a very special day with a VERY special ending, and it was a joy to help her through her labor. She did great!

At the hospital during early labor

Beautiful baby girl

Visiting baby Olivia and her proud new Mama at home


Javen kept kissing Olivia. He was so sweet with her - he knows a pretty girl when he sees one!


Aside from welcoming a sweet new life into the world, here are some of our favorite ways we have been spending our summer days . . .

Feeding the new duckings at our pond


Running errands in the car


Family trips to the zoo


And keeping cool with all of our cute little neighborhood friends





Still no new updates on the adoption front - we are STILL waiting to hear back from the USCIS. We are, however, making progress on the foster parenting license, and we have been told to expect a foster baby to join our family in the next few days. More later!

Fun With Cousins

Javen has gotten to spend lots of time with his five cousins over the last few weeks - it is so fun having all of his cousins living within a couple of hours of us.

He loves playing with older kids (especially boys!), and his rough and tough older cousins Hayden and Logan are so sweet to play with him and share their toys.




Overcome with excitement at meeting his newest cousin Piper for the first time last month


Playing with his sweet little cousin Finley



We love our cousins - and are so excited to have two more on the way before the end of the year! Scott's sister Becky is due with a little girl in August, and my sister-in-law Paige is due at the end of December. We look forward to making many more memories with cousins in the years to come!

Updates

A few quick family updates . . .

Javen is doing great. He is into EVERYTHING these days now that he is mobile and is keeping us on our toes - and constantly laughing - with his curiosity and his attempts to mimic everything we do.


Like unloading the dishwasher . . .


Climbing the stairs . . .



Flushing the potty (he is not using it yet, though!) . . .


Reorganizing (or rather "disorganizing") my kitchen cabinets . . .


And just being silly (what you see in the following pictures is NOT something he has seen us do!)





Other Updates:

Adoption - no updates, just waiting to hear back from the USCIS (it's taking a long time!), at which point we are ready to send our paperwork to Tallahassee . . . and then to Washington D.C., and then to Rwanda. We are trying to be patient with all the delays we have had and are still hoping to have our dossier in Rwanda by the end of the summer.

Foster baby - We thought our home study was submitted 4 weeks ago, but we just learned from our social worker this week that there has been a problem with their new online paperwork submission process and that our paperwork didn't go through and had to be re-submitted (hard copies submitted by hand this time!) yesterday. So now we know why we haven't heard anything yet - it's because our "you will have a baby within 2-3 weeks" started yesterday instead of 4 weeks ago. We are glad for an update and are confident that God already knows which child he will place in our home and will time everything accordingly!

Water Baby

Despite the heat of a Florida summer, this has always been my favorite part of the year. I think it is Javen's favorite, too - we have found lots of fun ways and places to cool off!

Collecting School Supplies for Orphans in Kenya

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. ~James 1:27


Tumaini Miles of Smiles is a school and orphanage in a very rural and extremely impoverished part of Kenya. We learned about Tumaini through a from college friend who spent several months volunteering and teaching there in 2008. After hearing about this great ministry/school/orphanage, Scott and I became supporters of this orphanage and began to sponsor Clifford, a little boy there who is now 9 years old.

This cute little guy is Clifford.


This past October, Rose Bugusu, the amazing woman whose vision and faithfulness started Tumaini several years ago, was in the United States along with the oldest orphan from her orphanage, 12-year-old Vivian. During their stay in Tampa, we had the privilege and honor of having Rose and Vivian stay in our home.
Her wisdom in spiritual and earthly matters and her love for the Lord are so evident in every conversation, and I wish I had recorded on video the story of her vision and struggles and God’s provision and faithfulness as her vision became a reality. Through Tumaini Miles of Smiles, Rose literally gives orphans physical life through meeting their basic needs for protection, shelter, food, and medical attention while also pointing them toward Eternal Life by teaching them how much Jesus loves them. In a country with so much darkness and hopelessness, Rose is raising up a little army of children who are receiving an excellent education, who love God and desire to serve Him, and who will have the opportunity to be bringers of Light and agents of change in their country.

So anyway . . . why am I going on and on about Rose and Tumaini?

Well, there is a group going over there to serve this summer (I wish I was saying that I was going, but I’m not), and we are collecting school supplies for them to take for the children - pencils, paper, markers, crayons, rulers, etc. It may not sound like much to send a few school supplies, but such items are rare in such an impoverished and rural part of the world, and these small things we take for granted like markers and paper are priceless treasures to these children and their teachers.

If you or your church group, school group, friend group, etc. would like to collect and/or contribute school supplies for the Tumaini children, please leave a comment or get in touch with me via phone or e-mail, and I will arrange a time to pick them up from you! We will be collecting these items until July 1st.

This is Vivian. She is at the head of her class and wants to be a doctor.

If you are interested in learning more about other ways to support Rose in caring for Clifford, Vivian, and the other children at Tumaini, you can get in touch with me or look at the Tumaini website.

The staff and children of Tumaini Miles of Smiles

Since our adoption will require us to spend about 7-10 days in Kenya (the U.S. Embassy in Rwanda doesn’t provide the visas we need to bring our kids home), we will hopefully get to see Rose again and meet our little Clifford next year!!!