Photo Perspective

The team going to Ecuador with us has set up a blog to journal our trip. Please follow us there, and thank you so much for praying for us.

I've been feeling much better after my collision with Remicade (an I.V. med for Crohn's disease) that landed me in the hospital for a few days. The medicines I was on after the hospitalization made me terribly tired, emotional, and all out-of-sorts. It was so bad that I earned a new t-shirt that states, "I am confused . . . no wait, maybe not."

So in light of all of that, I was hesitant to get very excited about our trip just in case God was making it clear that we shouldn't be going. But now, I'm off all the yucky medicines. I've got energy and motivation to DO things. And I'm letting myself get excited that our trip is only 4 days away!!

We've prepared crafts for our VBS, tie dyed our team shirts, split up all the supplies we are taking down, and been handed our final itineraries. Tomorrow we have our send-off during church - wearing our tie dye shirts. :-)

In an attempt to be able to do some off-line editing of the blog for the Ecuador trip, I'm testing out MarsEdit. This is just a test . . .

We had a special visitor tonight. I'm torn at what to call him since none of the typical names seem to fit exactly. He is Meister's biological dad, but he was also there for his birth. He is Meister's birth dad, but he was there for him more than just birth. He is Meister's first dad, but that implies that now that there is a second dad, he isn't his dad at all anymore. Our other kids call him Uncle K*, so Meister has taken to calling him Uncle K, too.

Uncle K came to visit for the first time since Meister was adopted 2.5 years ago. The first picture below brings tears to my eyes. I love both of these guys. One as a brother, and one as a son. I desperately want the best for both of them, and yet we had to make a tough choice 2.5 years ago. I never dreamed that reconciliation after that choice would be made so quickly. I imagined Meister going through life wondering what ever happened to Uncle K, wondering if he ever thought about him, wondering if he ever cared, and basically feeling abandoned.

And, yet, here we are while Meister is still fairly young and amazingly Uncle K is back in his life. Meister responded so appropriately - little timid at first, but warmed up and obviously held some tenderness in his heart for Uncle K. He was deliberately re-anchoring himself in our family unit by coming back to Pete and I for cuddles and by intentionally using our names (Mom and Dad) often.

So now Meister doesn't have to wonder if Uncle K ever cared. I can put pictures like these in his scrapbook, and he can know that he is special and cared for.


Not that this visit changes anything for Meister on a daily basis - Uncle K will probably not be around much, and life will go on as normal for Meister. But at the same time, visits like this will make a huge difference for Meister as he grows up.

Isn't he handsome? We've been having a really good day with V today. He's been so sweet - not at all self-centered like you'd imagine a kid to be on his birthday. He was thrilled with his technical drawing tools (compass, protractor, triangles), portable desk (basically a clipboard with a compartment to hold all his drawing stuff), and a book on how to draw race cars. Due to busy schedules, we'll be having the birthday supper tomorrow. His request was steak, salad with croutons, red beet eggs, and ice cream sandwiches for dessert. We'll be having the grandparents over for cake and ice cream on Sunday, so we kinda spread the birthday celebrations out over several days.