Camp

I haven't had much time to post, nor read my dose of others blogs since we have been at camp.I direct 3 weeks of elementary camps as well as provide backup and support for some of the youth camps. The camp we serve in, is by no means a luxury resort...the picture above is of an outhouse...ours aren't anywhere as good as this one, and there is no running hot water showers, just a big wading pool with a tap on it suspended on a structure...it does wake you up in the morning!

These are not complaints however, as I *LOVE* camp ministry. I never attended a camp as a child but started counseling at one when I was 17. I had an 18 year run of doing camp, and then had a 3 year absence when we were serving at a church in Winnipeg. But with my current position it included directing camp. It is awesome. The last 2 years I have directed here, we have had fantastic staff. And this year Cara was down there with me for the 3 weeks, which was great. It was great to serve with her, it was also good for her to experience camp so hands on...now she understands why I come home from camp excited about what God is doing,while at the same time being completely fried and barely able to stay awake. It is non stop work, but so worth it, to see kids experience God in new and profound ways, to worship Him in a beautiful nature setting, and see staff and volunteers be used by God in amazing ways.

Cara and I are hopeful, although with the looming "WAIT" who knows what the time line will be, that by next camp season we will be trying to figure out how to do this camp thing with Julia with us.

In September we will need to finish off the last of the immunizations and at that point I will step out in faith and fill out the sponsorship papers we got 15 months earlier for the Canadian government end of things.

Nov 21 polished off

From the CCAA Site:
The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents registered with our office before June 30, 2006.
The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered with our office before November 21, 2005.


Well they whipped through the June review room stuff really quick this time, but the important room for us, now, the matching room putts along...Just under 6 months of files for them to match before they get to us.

I haven't had time to post much due to summer church commitments to camp, but in another week will look forward to catching up and catching folks up...

Number 14- LID

"14 is considered to be one of the unluckiest numbers in Chinese culture. Although 14 is usually said as "shi si," which sounds like "ten die", it can also be said as "yi si" or "yao si", literally "one four". Thus, 14 can also be said as "yao si," literally "one four," but it also means "want to die" (要死 pinyin yào sǐ). In Cantonese, 14 sounds like "sap6 sei3", which sounds like "sat6 sei2" meaning "certainly die" (實死)."

Well, we don't believe in that kinda thing, and although it is a few days early, thought I would post about the 14th month since LID.

Wanted to take this post to reply to some of the replies to posts made here...so here we go...
Anita- we had for supper General Tso Chicken Balls, rice, sweet and sour pork, and a beef stir fry mix. We went out shopping to find "fortune" cookies, but didn't find any at the store :(.


Charlotte- Thanks for your constant prayers and encouragements from the Word! AND thanks for clarifying about the wedding shower story, folks could have started thinking I am alot weirder than I already am! Even though I think I have great legs ;)


Janet- Paul Brandt is awesome! Thanks for following along our journey, we are enjoying following yours, we have to find some way as families to connect, I think we would have a hoot together! We can't wait for you to be out of the Review Room either!

Carala and Terence- We need to connect,summer is insane for us with bible camp, but we will look forward to connecting after that!


We appreciate each person who lurks and who posts and I have enjoyed being able to express stuff on this blog, I enjoy writing, never get enough time to do it, or do it as well as I would like, so this is a fun way to connect and express.

14 down, who knows how many to go, but we celebrate 14 months CLOSER to holding our Julia!

How we celebrated getting out of the Review Room

Upon passing this milestone, we decided to celebrate. So we prepared a Chinese food feast, sat down in front of the tv at a small, lower table, pulled out the chopsticks, and ate while watching Lost Girls of China again, the documentary done(and reviewed early on after I started this blog) on the process of Gotcha day.

It is wonderful to know we are no longer under review in this area of our life, that our file has been accepted, and now the only barrier to our gotcha day is time.

Matching room

Okay, we moved out of room two and into room three, the final room. We still have a tremendous wait ahead, but here is the process that will eventually happen(you really want me to try to predict a time line? 'Tis nearly impossible, at least 9 months from now, hopefully no longer than a year from now), this is snagged from another site...

How the Matching Room works(snagged form the Rumor Queen site)

First, they review the baby dossiers and make sure there are no issues with them. We are told that they then count up all of the baby dossiers that are eligible for matching that month and then look to see how far this stack will go in the parent dossiers without sending out a partial day, and they pull all of those parent files. That is the likely cut-off date. Sometimes something happens and they don’t get this far. Sometimes something happens and they get farther.

Next they match orphanages up with agencies. This orphanage has six babies, this agency has six families. These two orphanages are in the same province and have a total of 12 babies, this agency has 12 families. When they are through with this is when (I believe) some agencies start to get information about the cut-off date. Or at least it is when they used to start getting information.

And then they start matching individual babies to individual families. At some point during this part of the process most agencies used to hear from their person in the matching room to let them know how many referrals they will be receiving and from what province(s). Some agencies shared this information with their clients. Some chose not to. Recently I’ve gotten the feeling that many agencies are still getting this information but they are being given orders by the CCAA to not share this information with the families.

Just as in the review room, each matcher is assigned certain agencies and is responsible for communicating with their agencies. Some matchers tell their agency the cut-off date, some matchers tell their agency “you have X number of referrals arriving”, some matchers give their agency a list of that agency’s families that will be receiving a referral. And some matchers don’t say anything at all to their agencies.

The next question that comes up is generally how the matchers match families and babies. I’ve heard from several people who have had the opportunity to speak with someone who works in the matching room. The various conversations seem to all agree that they first look for something that stands out: a matching birthday, a baby who looks a lot like a parent, or a baby who likes music and a parent who teaches music. Several matching people have stated they match by bone structure of the baby’s face and the parent’s faces (this is why they need our passport photos, so they can compare our mug shot with the baby’s mug shot). Some have stated that they used Chinese astrology, also. Once they’ve matched the obvious matches they then start to look at things like age of child requested. The age requested is not a priority for them, they feel they are matching families and not filling orders.

We are out of the review room!!!!!!!

The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents registered with our office before May 31, 2006.
The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered with our office before November 7, 2005.

PTL,this means there are no problems with our file, nothing we need to update and that we have moved into the matching room.

Matching room is still taking tons of time, no new news there, rumors have it that they have done up to November 14 of 2005, we are May 19 2006. November and March(2006) are huge months, with the other months being average(whatever that means).

What does this mean timeline wise... again, hard to say, 2008 is as accurate as I can be, then you have the Olympics in the summer of 2008, and who knows how that will impact stuff, but the good news is, it is for sure gonna happen, THAT is worth celebrating, and is news that can't help but brighten the day!

Dust

shot gun everybody getting for the long run
dont know where we're going
but the out come comes with a little bit of trust
lets go following whatever where the wind blows
flying with our hands out of the window
we didnt even see the dust

see how far we get
driving straight ahead
getting lost
didnt seem to matter much
all we had was time
and a yellow line
looking back we didnt even see the dust

chorus: shot gun everybody getting for the long run
dont know where we're going
but the out come comes with a little bit of trust
lets go following whatever where the wind blows
flying with our hands out of the window
we didnt even see the dust

ohhhh yeah
didnt even see it

we had ups and downs
we got spun around
we held on when the going got a little tough
it took love and faith
and some give and take
and grace
no we didnt even see the dust

shot gun everybody getting for the

chorus: shot gun everybody getting for the long run
dont know where we're going
but the out come comes with a little bit of trust (ohhhhh)
lets go following whatever where the wind blows
flying with our hands out of the window
we didnt even see the dust

come on now!

lets go following whatever where the wind blows
flying with our hands out of the window
we didnt even see the dust
Paul Brandt Video Dust


I love Paul Brandts music, this is his new song/video.He is a Christian, and although this song/video focusses on a human relationship, it is speaking to a current situation we are experiencing. I will blog a bit more about it in time...until then just going with the direction the wind blows and trusting...

Review room updates and misc stuff

In a yahoo group adoption list I am on it was reported that some folks with an early May LID, from outside the US and Canada,have been asked some immigration type questions from the CCAA(they were expecting it due to some moving or something they did), so further proof more May files are being looked at. That is encouraging. The other reports I have seen have had them asking for not too threatening stuff, lessening the worry of many that the new medical/ finacial/ social regs they enacted for files logged in from May 2007 on are being applied to current files in the system.

Hopefully we will see some updates on the CCAA site for the review room as it has seemed like ages since that date has moved.

Fathers Day Part 2

PUP TENT-PUP NOT INCLUDED

No, we didn't go camping on Father's Day. In fact, neither of us likes camping in tents. I want 4 solid walls around me. We both love nature, but want a bit of protection from some of the meaner or less comfortable aspects it brings to life :) .

Sunday afternoon Cara and I are sitting in the back yard in the gazebo enjoying the nice weather, there is a light breeze, that helps keep the mosquitos down, and we see it is a nice wind to dry out the neighbors pup tent.

Then, out of no where there is an INCREDIBLE burst of wind, it felt like it was trying to lift the gazebo off the concrete block pad it was on. Papers started swirling around in the yards, and it grabs this pup tent, whips it around and up in the air, AND it starts to fill it up, like a balloon.

You guessed it, one pup tent balloon floating up, up and away!



Any one remember the cartoon Underdog? Could HE rescue the PUP tent? I used to watch the cartoon all the time :)




Okay back to the story...

So I tear off in my sandals after this thing, it just kept getting higher and blowing further away. Cara went to try to alert the neighbor about it.

I tracked that thing like 10-12 blocks, people were thinking maybe there was a UFO sighting seeing this odd thing in the air..then asking me, "Is it your tent?"

"Nope, just trying to save it for my neighbor."

I really wanted to rip off my shirt, pull out my blue cape, and fly up and get it...but wisely, I refrained, one must keep a secret identity!

At this point we are at the far edge of the city and open fields with new construction, and there is a huge excavated pit, like 12 feet deep,and several hundred feet wide and long. The wind died down and it started to descend into the pit. Undaunted I jumped in to try to get it, only to discover, the pit was muddy

The suction from the mud yanked both my sandals off my feet, I quickly pulled them free and ran, bare foot, tender tootsies and all to the tent. About 35 feet from getting it the wind gusted again, filled it up, and carried it out of the pit.

At this point the neighbor actually was in visual range to see what was happening,but alas he had no super powers and was useless.

Here is some info you need to know, I am around 5 foot 6 and a bit...go back and read how deep I said the pit was....I'll wait...
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Yup, pit is 12 feet deep...How to get out... with a crowd now gathered, watching the adventure, it was impossible for me to engage my super powers and leap out of the pit.

Relying on my smarts I found a way out(it was muddy solution, but it convinced the people I looked normal enough, so my secret identity remained secure and I continued in pursuit of the pup tent!)

It finally came down and I was able to retrieve it. The neighbor caught up to me at that point and we walked out of the field, past the pit, back into the subdivision to his car where he drove me home. Mission accomplished!

Fathers Day Part 1

Saturday night we wanted to unwind and watch a movie. I had bought "I am Sam" a month or so ago, so we popped it in. As soon as it started I realized, "UGH,this was a good choice so soon to Fathers Day!" Let me unpack that statement a bit. The movie is fantastic, amazing acting by Sean Penn and the little girl(name escapes me and I don't feel like Googling for her info right now). He is disabled, gets a girl pregnant and she leaves him and the baby, then when his daughter is still a young child she is taken away from him,and he fights to get her back. I was really proud of myself, I only let one tear flow, it was a doozy, but only one. Could have cried through half of it easily.An emotional movie close to what can be an emotional holiday.

I see myself as an expectant Father, but I didn't want any big focus on me on this day, for this year(you better bet I expect a huge event the first time it rolls around when I have Julia in my arms). Part of it, is it is hard to deal with the reality I am close to being a Father, but it still not be a tangible reality at this point, so I didn't want to embrace this day. It would spoil it for me, I think, because I will feel like celebrating it when I can actually, physically, do the role of Father, and until then I just want to hold that "holiday event" off until it can be reality. It is kinda like anticipating the presents under the tree for Christmas, but then opening them up early December, then come the 25th,it is a let down...

So those are some belated thoughts, but present feelings on this day. Things have been so insane at work that I have simply been too overwhelmed to focus on putting this stuff down. So on my day off(finally) I can do that :).