Yeah for visitors!

June has been great with all of our visitors! We've had Emily's family, the Harris family here visiting Paulo, and Felicia Huff and Bonnie here visiting Otoniel. Jodi Bales is here on a medical mission trip and I hope to see her this afternoon. We've celebrated 3 birthday parties in the last few weeks--Paulo turned 1, Otoniel turned 4, and Emma turned 7.

That's a whole other praise, too, that Paula and Emma are flying HOME TO THE U.S. today for good!! Paula has been in Guatemala for seven years on missions, five of which were for her adoption process of Emma. It's been great getting to know them and, although they will probably settle down in the south, we definitely plan to see each other in KC sometime.

We have 2 new housemates, Alice and little Isabella, and in July will have 3 foster moms across the street with their little kiddos. So, lots of activity here! Best of all, Pat is coming in one week :)

We have heard good news on the adoption homefront as it sounds like cases are moving and being released more quickly. One article said 800 have been released in the last month. We want to believe this, but still have to be cautiously optomistic. Our good friend, Kimberly with her Aeson, got out of PGN last week which is wonderful and means progress! It seems like one of the hurdles lately has been the birth mother interview which we still need. Some birth mothers have been difficult to find and a few (very few) have changed their minds due to coersion from the interviewers. I am not too worried about this, though, and feel our interview will be fine. I absolutely feel Erick is the little boy God has given us to care for and am confident this will be allowed.

With the rains starting in the afternoon and evenings, our internet is often spotty at night. I check it once and if I don't have a connection at that time, I usually don't attempt it again so my blogging has drastically slacked off! I'll admit it's a freeing feeling, though, not to be on the computer and to read or do something else at night! I'll have to try to blog in the mornings....

Rainy days are here

We kept wondering when the rainy season would hit. It has! The past 3 days have been solid rain. Not always hard, just steady. The picture of town is of a rainy outing with Erick. It just started here, so isn't a true representation of the rain, but you get the picture. I finally got to RUN with my jogging stroller as we headed home! The other is just Erick playing in the puddle in our courtyard.

I took the close-up of Erick trying to show his face and ear. He got tagged by a mosquito over nignt several times on his face and ear and had a swollen Dumbo ear for most of the day. I try to keep Skin-So-Soft on him as repellent and keep our bedroom door closed, but the mosquitos still get inside.

Angie, our housemate, insisted we have a futbol match with the boys. Erick is the only one who can walk, so it kind of looked like a foosball game with us all swinging little babies back and forth trying to get them to kick a ball. Lasted all of 2 minutes then the crying began.

Our adoption process continues to be slow but we're trying not to complain. We've known girls who have had their babies taken back to orphanages or foster care, at least temporarily while this government mess is going on. One girl needs to have a birth mother interview and they cannot located the birth mom.

I truly can't imagine going through this without having huge faith in our sovereign God. What would you put your hope in? A positive attitude to get through this? Yourself? The government?

This month my passage has been Psalm 121 that says the Lord is my maker and helper, He does not sleep, He watches over me day and night and always will. This adoption may take longer than expected, cost more than expected, cause grief and anxiety, but if it pulls us closer to the Lord, and it will, "it's gonna be worth it all...and I believe this!"