Palm Sunday

Today is one of my favorite Sundays. I have always been interested by Palm Sunday and the fact that Jesus allowed the worship for the first and last time in his ministry. How he states that the rocks would cry out if the people did not, or how he weeps over Jerusalem and say that even you could have come to me.

Andreas preached on how the crowd went from adoration on this day to condemnation 5 days later. How they had an image of what they wanted Jesus to be, not what he actual was. That is what we do so often now. We have "our" Jesus. The one we want him to be and not who he actually is. Andreas challenged the congregation to meet the real Jesus and not what we try to make him. I think that is a great point and one that I have been looking at lately. Just thought I would share.

Samuel sang a little song for the church today during the children's time. That is pretty easy seeing that we have only two children currently. He has been waking up in the mornings saying he wants to go to church to worship. I think that is awesome. On Sundays he says that he wants to preach. Maybe one of these days he will. I know I am his mom, but I think he is great and amazing.

I hope that you all have a wonderful, worshipful Holy week. Wednesday is a deadline in our adoption. Please be praying. I am emotionally exhausted at this point and not as patient as I should be. I need to do better.

I wanted to let you all know that God's Littlest Angels in Haiti has posted a video of some of the babies they are caring for. It is an adorable video and a great blog: www.godslittlesangelsinhaiti.org/andlifegoeson They do an amazing ministry in Haiti and have saved many children's lives. I encourage you to check it out and pray for them.

Blessings,

Laurie

Post Placement Adventures

When you adopt from Nepal you promise to do post placement reports twice a year until your child is 16. I have held true to my end of the bargin (and believe it very necessary to do so), but it has not been easy.

For the first couple of years we would send it to our agency and they would send it on to Nepal. Well, the agency no longer exsist! Then we sent it to the lawyer our agency used, but he moved buildings and that post placement got sent back to us. Now we send it to a good friend in Nepal and he is gracious enough to help out by submitting them to the Ministry. However, the one I sent in January had the wrong address on it and I just got it back (thank you to the person who did receive it in Nepal and was kind enough to mail it back to me)! Okay, now we are two months late.... got the corrected address will be posting it again tomorrow. We will try this again.

Just a word of encouragement to those with children from Nepal and doing post placement reports....keep doing them. It is very important no matter how difficult it is.

Please keep praying for Nepal, the children and the Ministry. Please also keep all the adoptive parents in prayer. The Lord is good.....all the time.

Blessings,

Laurie

Barnbarn och Barnbarns Barn (Grandchildren and Great Grandchild)

On my birthday we went to see Mormor and Morfar. We love being with them and they love seeing their grandkids and great grandkids anytime they can. I took some sweet pics of Morfar and Sam looking at old pictures and stamps together. At one point Sam reached up and put his arm around Morfar, but I didn't get a pic. It was precious. I pray that Sam will remember these wonderful people before they step into eternity. They have certainly impacted my life by their faith and kindness.

Sam knows he is the center of attention! This was also right before I gave him a haircut, he is my little hippy with his cloud shirt.

Looking intently at old pictures.

Morfar doesn't have much of any short term memory left, but he sure can tell you about his life, where he grew up and all of his siblings and friends. I love that he can still tell all this to Sam.

My Favorite Lake

These pics are a few weeks old, but wanted to get them up. The Saturday before my birthday I wanted to go to our favorite lake, which is still frozen solid, but beautiful non the less. We took a little "fika" (good Swedish word to know, means snack) and sat for a while in the quite beauty of this lake (Tinnsjon).

Kelty relaxing in the snow. Here is one animal the perfers the winter.

The ice was still at least a foot deep where we were sitting (the is after you dig through the foot of snow).

Fika time!

Just beautiful.

We are Swedish explorers going to the great unknown.... not really, but it's fun to pretend.

Birthday #36

Hello All,

Yes, this is my 36th birthday. I have one huge birthday wish. I bet most of you can guess what that is! My husband and son have been very sweet to me today and I appreciate that. My mother and father in law cooked me dinner and I had the priviledge of watching Samuel and Viktor run around together tonight. So sweet to watch. Viktor mimics all that Sam does and Sam loves the attention (that might be an understatement). Thank you family for being so kind.

Also, I wanted to thank all my friends for the birthday wishes. I appreciate them.

I found out through a friend adopting form Albania that they are having meetings tomorrow. So please pray that they match more families and allow more children to go to forever families! Also, continue to pray for Nepal and their adoption process.

Blessings,

Laurie

Update On A Few Things

Hello All,

I wanted to put some updates on here. First about the petition in the USA for Nepal. Fellow bloggers the Robinsons gave me a link so that you can still sign the petition. The update is as follows: The Nepal Families/Supporters petition is currently at 2,702 signatures. If you haven’t had a chance to sign it yet, here is the link: http://www.gopetition.com/online/34404.html. And please forward this link to friends and family members. We really need more signatures.

Also, I wanted to ask everyone to PRAY. There are some crucial things happening and we are daring to hope. Please join us in praying for Nepal, the children, and adoption. We thank you for all of your messages and support.

We are praying for you all,

Blessings,

laurie

My Smart and Very Funny Son

Hello All, I have been quiet for a little while. Nothing much out of the ordinary to tell and haven't had my camera out much. However, Samuel continues to thrill us with his growing and learning. He is really enjoying school and his teacher has said that he is doing really well. We set up a few goals for him to work towards (more social learning steps) and have praised him constantly. He is extremely interessed in numbers and letters now. The other night he started writing on the whiteboard we have for him and you can see the results in the picture below. First time he has written all the numbers out to 10. This was without us, all on his own. We were very proud.

The picture below needs a little explanation. In school they are talking about body parts. Now as you notice Sam has drawn a few more body parts than they are studying (very cute). Sam says this is a picture of him. Then he has also mind mapped the whole body (those are the lines with the bubbles on the end of them). They have been doing the mind mapping in school and he has totally taken it in. I love his innocense in asking about all the body parts that we have and we have had some pretty candid conversations lately (my boy is growing up). He asked me the other day if I would have a baby come out my penis (he did this with hand motions also, it was really hard not to laugh). So we talked about where a baby does come out. Then of course he had to ask how it gets in there! Before I answered that one I asked if they were talking about this in school. He innocently said, "no, I found a book in the library about babies." So without any details I told him that mommies and daddies put the babies in there. I was not prepared for that question yet. So now Andreas and I need to think of exactly how to explain it all. I have always been straight forward with him before about the body, but I don't know if I am ready for this one. With his little inquisitive mind I better get ready soon.

May we all be given the correct answers for our children.

Blessings,

Laurie

Haiti, Chile, Japan, Nepal, etc.....

The earth is moving everywhere it seems... missionaries to Chile from our church back home in the US are doing well. They are safe and housing other pastors and missionaries that are in need of shelter right now. Praise Jesus that many of Chile's buildings were built with earthquakes in mind. Again I ask all to pray for the country and the families that have lost loved ones. I do not know as much about Japan, but please pray for the people. Also, Nepal has experienced a small quake. I know that they happen a lot and we just don't hear about them but since it is in the news it seems like more than ever. Chile's was the second stronges ever on record and the missionaries said it lasted for 3 minutes (don't know if that is true or not). However, that would be very long minutes!

So as a reminder, please pray for these countries. That the earth would stop moving and that they would know the comfort of the Lord.

Thanx,

laurie

Keeping Your Chin Up

To all,

I am praying for you all today. I hope you feel the presence of the Lord and know his peace and comfort today. If you do not know his comfort today remember this, he knows where you are and will meet you there (no matter where that is).

To the Robinsons, thanks for putting the letter to the State Dept. on your blog. You are getting more help than you know. I would love to leave you a message, but your blog won't let me. So you get a public one. Blessings to you.

For all of you who haven't contacted your State Rep. yet, please do (even if you are not adopting), you can make a world of difference for a child that needs a family.

Blessings,

Laurie