Faithful is He Who Promised!

Both of my devotions for my birthday (yesterday) quoted Hebrews 10:23 and I spent the day expecting a miracle (wouldn't you?). But after tears ran down my face off and on during the day and the NVC said they had not received his packet 3 (visa app) yet, I tried desperately to remember that my God was in control. Indeed He is!! Let me just say that our "Tree of Life" is just about to bloom!!

Stephen Isaiah JaeHo Lucas...mommy and daddy are on their way to bring you home.

Land of the morning calm...Here we come!!

Stay tuned for updates as we find out more. For now, we are flying out of Jacksonville Friday morning and landing in Seoul Saturday afternoon...That means we will meet Stephen on Monday morning!!

By the way, it was still my birthday in the US when all of this came to be...

What a mighty God we serve!

A REEL man and his family day

Cast your cares...

Most of you know that my honey is a fisherman and I have always been his best catch (LOL). Well, since we moved to the coast, he has been in his own private promise land. He loves to fish. He loves the surf, he loves the pier and he loves to just cast his net and catch live bait. He plans his whole week/weekend around whether the drum or pompano are running (fish lingo for "they are everywhere").

"Catch of the Day"

Here is the old salty dog posing with the biggest puppy drum caught this season at the Bogue Inlet Pier...impressive, eh? Jon and Davonne (fishing buddy from work) posed for the customary photo. The pier has a website in which all of the big fish are pictured and it features a live cam to view the surfers and/or the volume of fisherman on the pier. I think Jon has it favorited on his work computer :-)

Today we decided to tag along with dad and make a family outing out of his fishing day. I am sure he was thinking "lucky me". We fished, we threw the frisbee, we watched a pod of dolphins, we flew a kite and the kids built tons of castles in the sand. Who knew you could have this much fun and NOT swim (ok-Wilson was soaked..go figure)? Here, the kids found a dead puffer fish and were entertained for a spell.

Did you ever see the Wife swap episode when they had the pirate family on and they swapped with a totally OCD family? Well, this is "piratitude" personified....arrggh! (If you didn't see the show..you totally won't get that..its okay, it is sort of family joke for us).

I love to capture the love moments of this love/dislike relationship. Sisters...such a treasure. Two seconds after this photo was taken they were slinging sand at each other..*sigh*

It was a wonderful day for sun, fun and just being together. Hopefully the next time we venture off to the beach as a family we will be taking one more Lucas.....

Speaking of adoption..

November is National Adoption month and so I thought it fitting to feature a few aspects of adoption here in the blog. Last weekend Austyn and I attended a fundraising dinner for some dear friends of mine who are in the process of adoption through CAS in the domestic program (newborn baby from US). It was so much fun to share in their excitement and get to visit with some very dear friends. We are soooo excited for them, and I promised them that I would post a photo of their family online so that both people who read the blog (hee hee) could pray for them and for their whole adoption process.

*Warning: If you begin to pray about adoption..it WILL take hold of you and could get down in your heart and your family could realistically expand in the very near future*

Mandy, Brian and sweet Avery

Mandy and Brian just completed the home study process and are well on their way to a precious son named Seth Isaac. He is sure to be a blessing and has already been promised to them by the Lord himself. It is just a matter of time. They have already witnessed the master at work in the areas of fundraising and in the paperwork process. God is so good!!

Austyn and Avery had a blast catching up and pretending to be the adoption social worker and then the next American Idol. Lets see...the Idol definitely pays more, girls.

Joanie, Marilyn, Me and Mandy

Girl, Bye! It's always wonderful and feels like being home again when I get to see dear friends. Marilyn and I have been friends for over thirty years (don't say a word!) and her whole family has been dear to me for just that long. It was wonderful to catch up and reminisce about our shenanigans as teens. We laughed that night because our kids are now at the age that we were when we should have been confined to our rooms! That's how you know you are not a spring chicken anymore...

I simply can not wait to post another photo of the complete family with one small new member!

Mandy and Brian..delight yourselves in the Lord..I know He will give you the desires of your heart!!

Its a girl!!

Congratulations to my dear friends Jeff and Dana on the referral of their brand new daughter Lan Thi. She is three months old and living in Hanoi, Vietnam. She is BEAUTIFUL and we CAN NOT wait for her to be home and in their arms. They have waited soooooooo long to bring home a daughter! What an answer to prayer.!!! Her photo may be posted on their website...not sure. The link is in the sidebar.

Pray for her safe arrival and a speedy travel call!!!

Those that wait upon the Lord....

God must have known it would be awfully hard for us humans to wait or He wouldn't have written so many scriptures pertaining to waiting and timing. I haven't posted in about two weeks for one very good reason. I am NOT doing so well with this "any day now" aspect of the adoption process. I am not anxious, just very distracted. It is much like being past your due date with a pregnancy..everyone asks the same type of questions. "Have you heard anything? When do you think you'll travel?..."

I am just plain ready to meet our new son and bring him home, so our family can finally be complete.

His bag is packed and we are sitting on "go".

The National Visa Center says his package (hard copy approval) was sent to Seoul on November 7th. I takes a little over a week to get there and get logged in...and then.....

"Po-Po" is waiting to meet Stephen at the airport. This is the bear the children made for their new little brother at the Build A Bear workshop this weekend. He is soft and cuddly and plays Brahm's lullaby when you squeeze his foot. Austyn, Landon and Wilson each kissed the little red heart that goes inside and spoke a wish for their brother into it. They will give it to him when they meet him for the first time. We gave him a Korean name (means "kiss") and an American flag. Sure hope Stephen loves him, too ;-)

Soon the waiting will be over....come on Embassy issue that visa!

We have visa approval!

It was a blessing to receive some much anticipated mail from the Department of Homeland Security. Our visa approval. One step closer to bringing home our son! The visa approval is sent to Seoul via the NVC (National Visa Center) in NH. Once Seoul receives the legal documents, they schedule an exit visa appointment for Stephen and we will get the travel call soon after that. It could be within days!! The beauty of it is now that it has been sent to the NVC, we can track the process day by day. Yay! No more guessing. We can just call the NVC and see where he is in the process.

It appears that we will have one more reason to be thankful this season. He that promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23).

I am off to call the NVC and repack Stephen's suitcase, again.