The orphanage director sent me this e-mail today:
"Did you write the embassy to find out about the dossier? If you didn't please try. Vivine told me me yesterday mom and dad signed now. It's like she wants to know the next step."
By "mom and dad signed now," Vivine was referring to the appointment at the embassy last Monday, which went well. We're just waiting to hear back that our case has been approved so we can proceed with applying for her visa. Hang in there, Vivine! Mom and Dad are coming soon!
To everyone else, just keep praying. We're close, but not home yet.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Birthday surprise and advice
This weekend we decided to drive up to St. Joseph to surprise PC's little sis for her birthday. We wanted to see her new house, but didn't want to sneak in without her having the opportunity to show it to us. So we went in her garage and waited for her to get home from work.
Note to self: must go to hairdresser. Dark roots visible from across the garage.
I insisted on standing right next to the wall to minimize my chances of getting runned over. PC had no fear. He stayed right in the middle of the garage and jumped out in front of sister's car as she pulled in.
Yay!!!
She was happy and did not run over PC, which made me happy, too.
The S-I-Ls.
We had a short but lovely visit. Despite my fears, Jenni and her husband really were happy to see us. I typically would not give my mere presence to someone as a birthday gift in fear that they would rather just have a scarf. We got Jenni a scarf, too, though, so it all worked out.
Jenni and husband.
That's my "Honey, don't you think you've taken enough pictures?" look.
As a side note to Kathy K.'s comment on my last post, I AM looking youthful as always, thanks to the great advice that Kathy K. gave me when we were in Russia, wasting away from lack of sun. We were in Petersburg, and I was lamenting the fresh new wrinkles on my neck. "Moisturize!!!" she told me. So I did, and I have every day since then. Thanks to her advice, I have only four wrinkles, all of which developed in Russia prior to my moisture-mania. To all my little sisters, including Jenni, remember this advice. You will thank me and Kathy K. someday.
Note to self: must go to hairdresser. Dark roots visible from across the garage.
I insisted on standing right next to the wall to minimize my chances of getting runned over. PC had no fear. He stayed right in the middle of the garage and jumped out in front of sister's car as she pulled in.
Yay!!!
She was happy and did not run over PC, which made me happy, too.
The S-I-Ls.
We had a short but lovely visit. Despite my fears, Jenni and her husband really were happy to see us. I typically would not give my mere presence to someone as a birthday gift in fear that they would rather just have a scarf. We got Jenni a scarf, too, though, so it all worked out.
Jenni and husband.
That's my "Honey, don't you think you've taken enough pictures?" look.
As a side note to Kathy K.'s comment on my last post, I AM looking youthful as always, thanks to the great advice that Kathy K. gave me when we were in Russia, wasting away from lack of sun. We were in Petersburg, and I was lamenting the fresh new wrinkles on my neck. "Moisturize!!!" she told me. So I did, and I have every day since then. Thanks to her advice, I have only four wrinkles, all of which developed in Russia prior to my moisture-mania. To all my little sisters, including Jenni, remember this advice. You will thank me and Kathy K. someday.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Weekend warriors (lite)
PC and I continue plugging along on the slowest kitchen renovation ever. To fit the project into our busy schedules, we have broken it down into the smallest possible steps. We do one step every other weekend or so. This weekend, we replaced the countertop. (Yes, we only have one. I never appreciated having a teensy-weensy kitchen until it came time to renovate. Now, I love it!)
Before picture:
PC discovers that the garbage disposal is permanently stuck to the sink. Won't budge an inch. We ended up disconnecting all the pipes and wires and just taking out the sink with with the disposal still attached.
Between "Before" and "After":
Naked cabinets.
Disembodied sink
Artsy photo of naked cabinets
Help! I'm in a sink-hole! Yuk-yuk-yuk.
And finally, the after:
Isn't she lovely?
Next up: The backsplash, scheduled for sometime between now and 2010.
On the topic of home-beautification, I wanted to share photos of the beautiful wreath I made last weekend. Can it already be Fall? Where did the time go?
Welcome, friends!
This is the wreath before it got smushed against the outside storm door. It is decidedly less alive-looking now.
Before picture:
PC discovers that the garbage disposal is permanently stuck to the sink. Won't budge an inch. We ended up disconnecting all the pipes and wires and just taking out the sink with with the disposal still attached.
Between "Before" and "After":
Naked cabinets.
Disembodied sink
Artsy photo of naked cabinets
Help! I'm in a sink-hole! Yuk-yuk-yuk.
And finally, the after:
Isn't she lovely?
Next up: The backsplash, scheduled for sometime between now and 2010.
On the topic of home-beautification, I wanted to share photos of the beautiful wreath I made last weekend. Can it already be Fall? Where did the time go?
Welcome, friends!
This is the wreath before it got smushed against the outside storm door. It is decidedly less alive-looking now.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Preachin'
A great moment happened at work today. I work for a Catholic health care system. We're supposed to begin every meeting with a prayer. Half the time we don't do it, and the other half of the time someone reads some trite proverb from a One-A-Day calendar and calls it a prayer. At this morning's meeting the designated leader forgot their prefabbed prayer, so I volunteered to pray. Everyone was mightily impressed by how readily I could call up the old Almighty and ask his blessing with no advance warning. I told them, "Me and God, we're like this," then I held up my crossed fingers.
It's true. I talk to God ALL the time. It starts first thing when I wake up. Before I even open my eyes, I say in my head, "God, I am really gonna need you today. There is no way I'm gonna make it without you." I start the day by reading a little scripture, and I keep a New Testament at my desk for emergencies throughout the day. (I have at least one personality crisis per day at work - I guess it's not really an emergency if it happens all the time.) The point is, I've never felt quite so connected to God in my life as I do right now, during this darkest of dark struggle to finally bring my child home.
I have thought a lot lately about how the heck I got to this point of dire need and utmost faith. I have followed Jesus since about age three, when my mom told me that the nice guy they taught about in Sunday School could come live in my heart. I always had imaginary friends, so it wasn't much of a stretch to imagine a benevolent, loving, invisible adult following me around and looking out for me. And I always talked to myself, so prayer came naturally - like talking to myself with someone actually listening.
My mom led me to Jesus first, and then my dad taught me about following Jesus. Dad always tried to make decisions based on what God wanted, not what he wanted. When I finally got old enough to make decisions that mattered, I did the same thing. And it was great! Whenever I was following Jesus, things worked out. I followed Jesus to Mizzou, instead of my dream school of NYU. I had the time of my life there, and I met the love of my life. I prayed hard over which job to take out of college. I did what I thought God wanted, and I excelled as a cub reporter at the Asheville Citizen-Times. PC and I prayed over his job placement out of seminary, and we landed the perfect congregation.
Then, little by little, things stopped working out the way I wanted. I didn't get exactly the job I hoped for when we moved here. I stayed positive, though, because I had a fall-back plan. I would become a mother, which had truly been my dream job my whole life. Well, here I am, years later, drowning in sorrows and longings, very unsure of how things got so desperate. Sometimes I want to curse God and turn away, but I can't. My whole life is structured around the premise that Jesus loves me and saved me. If I stop believing, I don't just lose my faith. I lose my marriage, my home, my friends, my career - everything that brought me to this place would be meaningless.
I have come to a deep understanding of a story from the Bible where Jesus is doing some hard core, in-your-face preaching. Lots of people didn't like what he had to say and walked out on his sermon. When Jesus finished, he looked over at his 12 disciples and said, "You do not want to leave to, do you?" These disciples were the guys who left their jobs, their churches, their money and their families to go on the road with Jesus. And maybe they did want to leave. But Peter put it this way, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." When I was talking with PC the other night, I explained it like this: "I have followed Jesus so long that I have no place left to go except forward into his loving arms."
God has given me two great gifts. First, when I was very young, he made it possible for me to believe in him. Then, later on, he made it impossible for me not to believe. The harder things get, the more I talk it out with God. The harder things get, the more time I spend reading the Bible, learning and studying and understanding what it all means. The harder things get, the more I flock to church, sometimes three times on Sunday. If following Jesus has brought me all this pain, then why do I keep going back for more? The only answer I can come up with is because he is real. Jesus is as real as my own flesh. And when the world has broken all its promises to you, when words have lost their comfort and you can't believe what anyone says, you would rather have something real to hold onto than something happy. At least, I would. And I'm so thankful that God has given me a real Savior and a real faith to get me through to the next thing, which might turn out to be even worse than this present trial, to be honest. But it will be real - as real as I'll be forever and ever when I'm finally with Jesus for good.
I don't preach that often on the blog, but here are some of my greatest hits:
On Easter
And Christmas
It's true. I talk to God ALL the time. It starts first thing when I wake up. Before I even open my eyes, I say in my head, "God, I am really gonna need you today. There is no way I'm gonna make it without you." I start the day by reading a little scripture, and I keep a New Testament at my desk for emergencies throughout the day. (I have at least one personality crisis per day at work - I guess it's not really an emergency if it happens all the time.) The point is, I've never felt quite so connected to God in my life as I do right now, during this darkest of dark struggle to finally bring my child home.
I have thought a lot lately about how the heck I got to this point of dire need and utmost faith. I have followed Jesus since about age three, when my mom told me that the nice guy they taught about in Sunday School could come live in my heart. I always had imaginary friends, so it wasn't much of a stretch to imagine a benevolent, loving, invisible adult following me around and looking out for me. And I always talked to myself, so prayer came naturally - like talking to myself with someone actually listening.
My mom led me to Jesus first, and then my dad taught me about following Jesus. Dad always tried to make decisions based on what God wanted, not what he wanted. When I finally got old enough to make decisions that mattered, I did the same thing. And it was great! Whenever I was following Jesus, things worked out. I followed Jesus to Mizzou, instead of my dream school of NYU. I had the time of my life there, and I met the love of my life. I prayed hard over which job to take out of college. I did what I thought God wanted, and I excelled as a cub reporter at the Asheville Citizen-Times. PC and I prayed over his job placement out of seminary, and we landed the perfect congregation.
Then, little by little, things stopped working out the way I wanted. I didn't get exactly the job I hoped for when we moved here. I stayed positive, though, because I had a fall-back plan. I would become a mother, which had truly been my dream job my whole life. Well, here I am, years later, drowning in sorrows and longings, very unsure of how things got so desperate. Sometimes I want to curse God and turn away, but I can't. My whole life is structured around the premise that Jesus loves me and saved me. If I stop believing, I don't just lose my faith. I lose my marriage, my home, my friends, my career - everything that brought me to this place would be meaningless.
I have come to a deep understanding of a story from the Bible where Jesus is doing some hard core, in-your-face preaching. Lots of people didn't like what he had to say and walked out on his sermon. When Jesus finished, he looked over at his 12 disciples and said, "You do not want to leave to, do you?" These disciples were the guys who left their jobs, their churches, their money and their families to go on the road with Jesus. And maybe they did want to leave. But Peter put it this way, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." When I was talking with PC the other night, I explained it like this: "I have followed Jesus so long that I have no place left to go except forward into his loving arms."
God has given me two great gifts. First, when I was very young, he made it possible for me to believe in him. Then, later on, he made it impossible for me not to believe. The harder things get, the more I talk it out with God. The harder things get, the more time I spend reading the Bible, learning and studying and understanding what it all means. The harder things get, the more I flock to church, sometimes three times on Sunday. If following Jesus has brought me all this pain, then why do I keep going back for more? The only answer I can come up with is because he is real. Jesus is as real as my own flesh. And when the world has broken all its promises to you, when words have lost their comfort and you can't believe what anyone says, you would rather have something real to hold onto than something happy. At least, I would. And I'm so thankful that God has given me a real Savior and a real faith to get me through to the next thing, which might turn out to be even worse than this present trial, to be honest. But it will be real - as real as I'll be forever and ever when I'm finally with Jesus for good.
I don't preach that often on the blog, but here are some of my greatest hits:
On Easter
And Christmas
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
beans plus rice equals love
Rice is about 80 percent of Vivine's diet right now. I plan to ease her into American food by cooking beans and rice all the time when she comes. No out-of-the-box crap, either! To practice, I have been making beans and rice at least once a week for the past six weeks. Finally, last week, I made a batch worth bragging over. Tonight I'm trying to repeat the job. Here's the annotated recipe I have devised from trial and error. I have no idea if this is how "Beans and Rice" with capital letters is made, but it's good enough in my house.
Mama Lynde's uncapitalized beans and rice
- One cup brown rice
- Two and three-quarters cups of water (it has to be the right amount of water. Too much and you end up with porridge, too little and you have undercooked grits)
Boil the water and add the rice. Cook, covered, for 45 minutes, stirring only when you get close to the end. Leave the lid on the pot as much as possible. At the end, the rice should look kind of shiny but not mushy, and all the water should be absorbed.
Other (very important) ingredients:
- Half an onion, chopped up in the food processor
- A teaspoon or two of minced garlic
- A can of red beans. Cook my own beans? Lord, have mercy, I'm not Martha Stewart.
- A cup or so of chopped tomato
- Loads of black pepper
- Two teaspoons (at least) of paprika
- A teaspoon of cumin
In a big ol' pan (Wok? Skillet? Whatever), saute the chopped onion and garlic in two tablespoons of cooking oil. Get them good and soft because PC HATES crunchy onions in stuff. Add the tomatoes and cook 'em up. If you don't have tomatoes, you can use a splash of spaghetti sauce, but it will give your beans and rice an orange hue. Tastes the same, tho, shoot. Then, add the cooked rice. Drain the can of beans, but leave a little of the gooey bean water in the bottom of the can. I can't be sure, but I think the small amount of gooey bean water is key to giving the beans and rice that "We belong together" texture. Add it in with the beans. Stir vigorously, adding the spices and saying, "Voila!" For fun, you can add chicken, sausage (yum), or hot peppers. But this is your basic beans and rice that will hopefully satisfy an international four-year-old. We'll see...
Mama Lynde's uncapitalized beans and rice
- One cup brown rice
- Two and three-quarters cups of water (it has to be the right amount of water. Too much and you end up with porridge, too little and you have undercooked grits)
Boil the water and add the rice. Cook, covered, for 45 minutes, stirring only when you get close to the end. Leave the lid on the pot as much as possible. At the end, the rice should look kind of shiny but not mushy, and all the water should be absorbed.
Other (very important) ingredients:
- Half an onion, chopped up in the food processor
- A teaspoon or two of minced garlic
- A can of red beans. Cook my own beans? Lord, have mercy, I'm not Martha Stewart.
- A cup or so of chopped tomato
- Loads of black pepper
- Two teaspoons (at least) of paprika
- A teaspoon of cumin
In a big ol' pan (Wok? Skillet? Whatever), saute the chopped onion and garlic in two tablespoons of cooking oil. Get them good and soft because PC HATES crunchy onions in stuff. Add the tomatoes and cook 'em up. If you don't have tomatoes, you can use a splash of spaghetti sauce, but it will give your beans and rice an orange hue. Tastes the same, tho, shoot. Then, add the cooked rice. Drain the can of beans, but leave a little of the gooey bean water in the bottom of the can. I can't be sure, but I think the small amount of gooey bean water is key to giving the beans and rice that "We belong together" texture. Add it in with the beans. Stir vigorously, adding the spices and saying, "Voila!" For fun, you can add chicken, sausage (yum), or hot peppers. But this is your basic beans and rice that will hopefully satisfy an international four-year-old. We'll see...
Saturday, September 5, 2009
More drama
This week we have been getting used to the idea that it will be a while before Vivine comes home. There was an appointment at the U.S. Embassy on our case this week, and while it didn't go badly, it didn't go well enough for us to get a quick pass home. It will take at least another month, but probably longer.
We need lots of encouragement and positivity right now. Sometimes when we tell people about the delays in the process, they decide to express anger, sadness or frustration to us. They say things like, "Why is it taking so long? Don't they want these children to have happy homes? That is just wrong!" While it's kind of nice to know that people have sympathy for our situation, it puts us in a very uncomfortable position. We feel like we have to justify this thing that is causing us so much pain or even comfort someone else for our sorrows. A co-worker yesterday said the perfect thing when I told her what was going on with the adoption: "Well, it doesn't mean she's not coming home, it just means it's going to take a little longer. But she IS coming home." Yeah! Her faith gave me strength, instead of dragging me down even further.
So, we have to wait a little longer. Fortunately, we are pretty dang good at it. We are in the very slow process of making over the kitchen. We're doing things that parents with young children can't do - watching lots of rated-R movies, making late-night trips to Dairy Queen and cursing loudly whenever we feel like it. Earlier this week we went to the Rams-Chiefs game, and today we're going to the Mizzou-Illinois game. PC and I are very much in love, even through all the adoption drama, and I think we have it about as good as a married couple with no kids can have.
We need lots of encouragement and positivity right now. Sometimes when we tell people about the delays in the process, they decide to express anger, sadness or frustration to us. They say things like, "Why is it taking so long? Don't they want these children to have happy homes? That is just wrong!" While it's kind of nice to know that people have sympathy for our situation, it puts us in a very uncomfortable position. We feel like we have to justify this thing that is causing us so much pain or even comfort someone else for our sorrows. A co-worker yesterday said the perfect thing when I told her what was going on with the adoption: "Well, it doesn't mean she's not coming home, it just means it's going to take a little longer. But she IS coming home." Yeah! Her faith gave me strength, instead of dragging me down even further.
So, we have to wait a little longer. Fortunately, we are pretty dang good at it. We are in the very slow process of making over the kitchen. We're doing things that parents with young children can't do - watching lots of rated-R movies, making late-night trips to Dairy Queen and cursing loudly whenever we feel like it. Earlier this week we went to the Rams-Chiefs game, and today we're going to the Mizzou-Illinois game. PC and I are very much in love, even through all the adoption drama, and I think we have it about as good as a married couple with no kids can have.
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