Delayed

Sadly, we are delayed in Ho Chi Minh City for yet another week. We enjoy it here immensely; the people, the culture and the experiences we've had have been rich and wonderful. But, we had been told by our adoption agency that this process would take around 3 weeks, and 3 weeks into it we've accomplished very little as far as the actual process goes. This is not of our chosing, which is why it is frustrating. We wait on the province to process our paperwork and hope they will mercifully allow us to legally make Lucy our daughter as soon as possible. In the mean time, John and Mason have had a bout of scarlet fever, and Lucy continues to acclimate to life with two parents and one brother in a hotel room.

We know this will not take forever, we know we will someday be home with our children, hollering down the stairs for them to come for dinner, or asking one of them to put away their toys or do their homework. We know that in the end this will be a family story, about the time we had to be seperated so Lucy could come home. We hang on to that future time, and we try to patiently wait.

We are thankful for the constant efforts of our friend and facilitator Lien. She is tirelessly working to help the process along wherever she can, and we thank her for all she does for our family. We feel it a great privilege to have her as our friend, and we are eternally grateful to have met her.

We appreciate all of your support and prayers. It has been truly touching to read the comments you've made and, frankly, to hear that you are reading this blog at all. We hope you know through these posts that we love the people of Vietnam and are thankful that this is the place of Lucy's birth, we have no malice toward the country or it's leaders. Only a longing for promises to be kept and for our family to be together again.

We invite you to lend your faith continually to this process. We feel your prayers and good thoughts. We especially now pray that our family at home will be sustained. It is so much to ask of such little children that they be separated from their parents for so long. Still, they make their way as happily as they can-and our parents and siblings and friends continually love and help them. Thanks to all of you at home who are making it possible for us to be here!

We hope we soon have great news to share, of meetings with kind officials and the aquisition of Lucy's first passport. Until then we head out for a walk. I hope we can share with you what we see when we come back to the hotel room here in Ho Chi Minh City.