Mother and Daughter Getaway

Hello everyone!!!

Just last weekend, my mom kidnapped me and took me on a mother and daughter getaway to an island off the west coast! (No, actually, I was looking forward to it for weeks!!) We went through the 'Passport2Purity' material that some really good friends gave to us. (Thank you Gledhills!) You basically listen to CDs and do work in the workbook. It walked me through what I'll probably face in my teenage years, what to expect, and how to get through it. I'm so glad we did that material! I'm also very excited to choose, with God's help, to live a life of purity, and to honor Him.

It was sooooo much fun! Like I said, we went to to a retreat centre on an island (which was very nicely organized by some other very close friends who volunteer there).......It worked out perfectly!!!! Aside from the material, we went out for lunch, built two Thomas Kinkade puzzles, and walked in and around the town. We loved looking in the shops, and even went to a Chocolatier (a chocolate cafe that makes their own unique and organic chocolate, yummmmmm)! Again, It was so much fun!!!!!

I am so thankful that I have parents who have taught me about God, and how to live His way. Again, I was thinking about Bing, and how he is so blessed with a Christian family that will be able to guide him throughout his life, and teach Him about God's love for him. Every child should have someone to turn to, and God intended that to be parents. Every single child is loved by God. God's design is for children to grow up in loving families. I am so glad that Bing will soon have one.

A Birthday Party

Just about two weeks ago, my youngest brother, Brennan, had his 4th birthday! We threw a monkey party with our extended family (he has this thing with monkeys.... and yes, I mean he loves them:). We decorated our dining room with green streamers, monkey pictures that the boys drew, and a palm tree with coconuts that my mom created. We printed out monkey colouring sheets, coloured them and cut them out. And last but not least, we printed out the letters: BRENNAN IS 4. (We had his party the day after his birthday.) We had his favourite supper, chicken drumsticks! (We also had my dad's famous Pad Thai). Brennan was really excited to 'decorate' his own cake. It was my mom's first attempt to make a gluten, egg and dairy-free cake. (Darn allergies ): Actually, it wasn't that bad.....the peanut butter icing helped :) Everything was so yummy, and so much fun! Even though, it was a pretty simple party, I could tell that Brennan felt loved, and enjoyed every second of it.

The party made me think of Bing. I am so happy for him, that he will get to celebrate all his birthdays, for the rest of his life, with a wonderful, loving family - the Berzenjis! I am going to start praying for Bing though, because it will probably be very traumatic for him when he is adopted. Being taken away from his foster family, the only family he has probably ever known, and taken in the arms of a family he has never met. It will probably be scary and hard at first for Bing, but I am going to pray that God will give him peace in his heart and let know how much his forever family loves him!

I think it is great that Bing is living in a foster family, because that means he knows what it is like to live in a family, rather than an institution. The difficult part is that he is too little to understand what is about to happen. There is no way he can understand that the family he's living with, is not able to be his forever family. Leaving them will probably be very hard and frightening. I just read a blog post yesterday by Tara Livesay. She said something that really jumped out at me. You can read the post here (and watch the beautiful music video!), but I am just going to quote a sentence from it. She says: “I wish it was a perfect happy world where the need for adoption did not exist, but we all know that we're a long way from that world.” It's not fair that any child should have to lose two families before he finally meets his/her forever family. So please pray for Baby Bing. Pray that he will not be scared, and that the adjustment to his new family will be easy for him. I know that his story has a happy ending because the Berzenji's are such a great family. I can't wait until Bing knows how very much they love him.