Monday, July 28, 2008

The Children

Yesterday I was saddened to learn of the senseless shooting that occured during the worship services of the Tennessee Valley Uniatarion Unviersalist Church in Knoxville, TN. I am saddened by any such tragedy - any such violence - as are most. I cried over Columbine, the shooting of the children in an Amish school, and of course 911. This struck me in a different way, however. This was an attack on a Unitarian Universalist church. So, it really hit home.

Tonight, after returning home from a mournful gathering at my own UU church, I have these thoughts to share.

I prayed today for the congregants of the church. I prayed today for those shot and injured, but who survived the shooting. I prayed today for the friends and family members who lost two beloved souls - one at least who stepped in front of the gunman. I prayed today, yes, for the gunman, whose tortured life drove him to this desperate act. I prayed for each of us, Unitarian Universalist, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and more, who know that these things can occur in place of worship, though we pray they do not.

But, mostly, my thoughts and prayers are on the children. You see, the children were putting on a long awaited production of a musical for the congregation. The children were present. They saw the gunman and the shootings. My heart breaks for them - the children who were in what should be the safest place on Earth outside of their own homes have had that safety forever shattered.

Please pray with me for these people today.

Thank you.

www.uua.org for more info.

Friday, July 18, 2008

The Flowers

Well, I won't go into too many details as I do not want the children identified on my blog but this is a great story with a happy ending.

We have these two friends, the Flowers, who also have a little girl who is Noah's age. Tasha, the mom, and I met at homeschool PE at the Y and became friends. Noah and their little girl hit it off and became friends as well. Tasha and I realized that we were both in the adoption process which further cemented our friendship. We later found out that her husband works with Nathan. Amazing!

Nearly two years ago this great couple applied to adopt two little boys from foster care. Though there were many roadblocks (mainly due to the ineptitude of the US Foster Care System), it took that long for them to be approved and receive the boys into their home. One boy has been in foster care since age 2 and the other since birth. They are two of many siblings who are all also in foster care due to the birth Mother's inability to care for them. In fact, she voluntarily relinquished custody of at least two of the children. (That's really beside the point but I like to put that in there for those folks out there who may have stumbled across this and think that adoption is never a good choice).

Anyhoo....our friends were able to bring their boys home this week at last and have now added these two little lights into their homes. We are so thrilled for them and their happy ending and pray for a quick and smooth transition for the entire family.

In Review

Good morning all. Well, I can report that I have been up since 4AM. One of our hundreds of cats (just kidding, one of our four cats) woke us up at 4AM crying. This went on for 15 or 20 minutes until I put her in the garage. Upon returning to bed I heard Noah fussing in the next room. I went to check on him and found a child with a very high fever, headache and upset stomach. Oh no. Other than the obvious, which is I feel so sad when he is sick, I have a noon hair appointment, we have an afternoon playdate with our friends who just returned with their new sons (see next post) and we have dinner plans with the Matuseks at Fulin's. So, I was looking for a bright point for my day and was reminded that we are in The Review Room!

What is The Review Room? The review room is the office within the CCAA where our dossier is gone over with a fine tooth comb to be determined if we are qualified to proceed to the next stage of the the adoption process. If we are okayed our file will be moved on to another office where someday it will be matched with an orphan child waiting for a forever family. Or, hopefully, in our case, it will be moved on to be matched soon with a special need or waiting child. This is good news. If we are matched by our agency with a WC, then it is good that we are out of review so we can have our file quickly moved through the rest of the process.

I am very excited about this! This is a good thing. Now, let's cross our fingers and make a wish that our dossier is moved through without any problems. Happy Friday to you.