Thai fact

"Thailand is roughly the size of France and shaped like a tall tree leaning to the right.  Thai school children are taught to describe the shape of their country as an elephant's head with a long dangling trunk."

fashion cents

I love this project.  It's from Feed the Children and it's a pretty basic concept.  You buy one of these supercool reversible totes for around $60 and the money is used to feed a hungry child for a year. Now that's smart fashion.  

To read more about the project (of which I have no affiliation, just admiration, click here.

Thai fact

We have recently started reading the book "Culture Smart! Thailand" and it is full  of all sorts of interesting facts on Thailand and Thai culture.  I thought it would be fun to share some of them on this blog. 

here goes... 

The Kingdom of Thailand was known as Siam until 1939, when it was changed to Muang Thai or Prathet Thai, which both mean "Land of the Free".

whiplash

here's how it went down:

-we decided on Thailand.

-we decided on Holt.

-we signed on with Holt.

-Holt closes their Thai program.  Estimated re-opening of December 2008.

-We sign on with WACAP.

-We begin the home study process with one of WACAP's Texas home study agencies.  

-We are fully pleased with WACAP as an agency, but I remain unsettled because I prefer that Holt primarily cares for their children through foster care while WACAP cares for their children in orphanages.  (Different things are priorities to different people and this apparently is a priority of mine as I could not get past it.

- A couple of weeks ago I call Holt to check the status of their Thai program.  It has still not reopened but a spot has just become open as a family switched from the thailand to the Ethiopia Program.

-We are offered their spot.

-Much home study agency drama ensues as we are not working presently with an agency that Holt works with. 

-I think (and hope and pray) that all is going to work out as we head back to Holt.  Though the home study process will be a bit more complicated, I think that it will be worth it for our family.

Ultimately we are really excited as we continue to try to navigate God's weird and wacky ways.  

we have a home study date

Our home study agency just sent us the itinerary and our social worker will be arriving at 7:45 on July 10th.  Yikes! This feels exciting and scary and very official.  It's nice to be moving forward.  

  photo of Pataya, Thailand 

back from Sabbatical

I haven't written for a couple months but we had what felt like a big day yesterday.  We finally got all our documents in the mail to our home study agency.  Once they receive them we can book a date for our home study.  It was nice to actually make some progress.  Truth be told I have been pretty discouraged the last couple months.  Seeing how long of a process this is, it's discouraging to be discouraged so early on.  The process is really long if you can afford to just move straight through it, but when you have to keep pausing to save up for the next step - it becomes a very loooong journey.  Ultimately though, God is in control.  He is faithful and He is extravagant with His gifts.  And He loves our new baby even more then we do.  

God grant me grace for this journey.  Amen.