and a new week starts

I am excited! The young woman who will most assuredly be my daughter -in-law within the next few years, lives in Cambodia. She and my son Malachi have been hoping and praying and planning for her to visit us here in the USA since Malachi arrived back from Cambodia a year ago. We have been working on all the detials of her trip, including her having to apply for, and be approved for, a visitor visa to enter the USA. To that end, we contacted a US Senator who has helped us with several immigration issues over the years and for whom we have enthusiastically campaigned; we asked if he would write a letter to USCIS on her behalf and in favor of Pat being granted a visa for the summer. He was very happy to help with this request!!We (well I, Linda...Charlie delegates and approves and supports )wrote a letter to the Embassy asking that she be granted a visa, promising, guaranteeing and pledging that we will support her financially and make sure that she returns when her visa is up, showing evidence of ability to financially care for her is something should happen to her, etc etc...........another family whose daughter met Pat in Cambodia last year also wrote a letter for me to submit with our letter and the Senator's letter. Today all those things went via USPS super fast service on their way to Pat so she may schedule her visa appointment.We are hoping for her to arrive on about June 12!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This week is also the Christian Orphan Summit at Irving Bible Church in Dallas/Fort Worth on Thursday and Friday. I am so excited to be attending and to be meeting several dear sisters with whom I have been priveleged to be part of an online praise and prayer fellowship for several years!! My friends are flying in and we will meet face to face when I pick them up at the DFW airport. There will be many great sessions on how to help establish orphan and foster care ministries and support groups within our churches, how to be a part of the adoption ministry as a parent, an advocate for orphans, how to help connect with established ministries............a lot of what promises to be challenging and very useful information way beyond what I know as a veteran adoptive mom and advocate for orphans and ministries which support them. We have been coordinating for quite a while to make sure that all the home fires are tended to while I am gone: you know, things like farm chores, hungry animals, barn supplies, SCHOOL, getting Jael to and from the high school, making sure the 'fridge is full of things that the older girls will indeed prepare, all the necessary soap products for all the possibilities, insurance cards in all the right places, lots of details. OH, and getting the window fixed on the Suburban so I can drive it...
Still praying over Baby Secret, but we do have the assurances of our insurance company that there is absolutley NO pre-existing condition clause which might preclude any of Secret's necessary care once he comes home. I verified that Friday.
We were given a combined interest-free loan by two different foundations to help with some of the upcoming and already incurred, expenses of our Liberia plans and trip; those checks will arrive this week. The LIFESONG Matching grant fund is due to close its books on our account in a few days and we are trusting that God has moved upon people's hearts to come along side of us in that project. They have pledged to match up to $3000 of donations.........I have no idea what has come in thus far. I know that God will continue to provide as needs arise. If you are feeling led to help with that fund raising ministry, please contact me OR contact LIFESONG FOR ORPHANS http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/ . You can make a donation to SMITH #763 and it will be credited to our account. They will provide me with a ledger sheet so that I can thank each an every person who helped to bless our adoption journey .
I continue to read HEAVENLY MAN and it is an amazing biography! I love to read how God works in people's lives! That Brother Yun was cured of hemophilia shortly after he gave his life to the Lord is actually a "small" morsel of the story.....does that give you a hint how much BIGGER God gets as the story keeps unfolding???????????????????????
CRAZY LOVE was a wonderful book too and now Charlie is listening to the CD version as he drives.I am sure he is going to be blessed! I whole heartedly recommend both books to supplement your Scripture reading and to encourage your faith!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My grand son-to- be is almost 20 weeks along in Hannah'as pregnancy!! Is it a strange comparison to make that he will be born just about the time the veggies I planted this weekend are also finishing up their growing season ?? The last cucumbers are usually picked in late September, and so are the tomoatos! Truly to every thing there IS a season!
Thank you for your prayers for our Liberian journey, for our children, for the Kingdom!!!
Blessed be the Name of the Lord!