Maylynn's International Cafe - A Magical Night

Lance Vickerman - Guest Blogger

My wife is on the road so I am your guest blogger today.

Last night was nothing short of magical. Jeff and Bonnie Brown (awesome friends from church) hosted "Maylynn's International Cafe" at their house -- an evening of dining, friendship...and love. I'm telling you that it was a night right up there with our wedding and the birth of our children.

Funds were raised for Maylynn's adoption. We were still a little short and now we nearly have our travel expenses coverered.

Things have been happening VERY fast this week. It's amazing to see the Lord at work. The really great part about the adoption journey...is the journey. That's where the growth occurs. We learned alot about faith, patience, and the Lord's timing when we adopted Hayliegh. Now we get to put that growth to use. There ave been some scary moments, but it's been fun to see the Lord working prety much the same way. He's so great :)

We have the most amazing friends and church. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who came and/or supported in other ways. We even had kids of all ages pitching in and helping. I know I would not have done that when I was their age and it was so inspiring to see. People were cooking, washing dishes, serving the customers. It was humbling. James 1:27 talks about helping orphans in their distress. You guys have done just that.

There is a little girl in China right now that is waiting to come home to our family. Last night took us one huge step closer to bringing her home. And, praise the Lord, she will be raised in a Christian home and will know Jesus.

This morning, Kirsten said she woke up in the middle of the night and thought it was all a dream. I would agree.

God Bless You All!

More paperwork for our I-800

Holy Cow! I thought we were done with the paperwork but i guess not! Yesterday i spent at least 3 hours doing paperwork and i still need to do more for Lance's Visa. Yes you heard it - Lance is going with me! Such a relief to have made that decision - i am so happy -it brings tears to my eyes. We thought that we wouldn't have to make that determination until after we got our I-800 approval (the extra step that Hague requires now - and we are the first family from our agency to do it - lucky us! )- our agency has been great and on top of things so far:) But in order to fill out the I-800 you have to decide now! In my heart, i feel that it is the right decision and we are hoping that our loved one's will be okay at home without us... so, it's been really hard to focus on other things - I've been trying to get things going for the orphan conference that we are doing in the fall, getting our website going for that and several other things that have to do with our orphan ministry, but all i want to do now is get ready for bringing Maylynn home. I need to figure out if i should get her a matching dresser like Hayleigh's or just use the rubbermaid drawers that she used for the past 3 years - how i should rearrange the toys and stuff in their room - what size of clothes i should pull out and evaluate (although, i am waiting to hear her update height and weight) - start packing the toys we want to bring to China - start thinking about what we need to pack - i should probably print off some chinese phrases to catch up on... My brain is just going and going and i have 3 other children at home that i need to tend to - yikes! No wonder my brain hurt last night and i went to bed before they did!!

If you can't tell, we are so excited! A year ago, i wouldn't have thought that i'd be going to China to bring home another precious daughter! It is amazing what God can do is such a short amount of time -you just need to have your heart and mind open to what he's telling you to do:)

POST LOA TIP: Go online and fill out your I-800, DS-230 & I-864W form NOW!!! :)

LOA!!!

We are so happy that after 80 long days of waiting that we finally received word that we have received our LOA (Letter of Acceptance) from China. I have to admit the past 30 days have been hard but the past 10 days have been extremely hard. I know it is God's timing and i need to be okay with that - this is a hard patience enduring process. I thought that i had learned about patience and perserverance enough with Hayleigh's process but i guess the Lord knew that i had more to learn...

What now??? Well, now we sign our LOA and return that back to our agency. Our agency then sends our LOA and some additional paperwork to the Dept. of State to get their approval (another LOA from them). They then send (cable) their approval to the Chinese Consulate who then sends approval (or something) to our agency. Then we wait for our Travel Approval from China - then we can make our Consulate Appt. and make reservations! So, i'm not sure of timing for all of this. We are praying that God's timing will be that we are in China the last 2 weeks of July... I'm not too sure that's going to be possible - but "all things are possible with God."

Your invited...

Some friends are planning on putting together a dinner fundraiser to help us with some adoption expenses.

You’re invited to come have dinner or “just dessert” at
Maylynn’s International Café
Open-air seating with great food & friends
Friday May 29th
5:30-9:00pm
1304 Haupt, Richland
(overflow parking available at “Up town”)

Lance & Kirsten vickerman will be going to
China soon to bring home their new baby
Maylynn. DONATIONS given at this
Event will help them with expenses.

Please call in advance
(509)946-4249
Leave message of requested reservation time, no# in party, name & phone number

We’ll look forward to seeing you!
Jeff & Bonnie Brown & “Staff”

Patience...

We are trying really, really hard to be patient. We know that God's timing is perfect but we'd really like to know what that is :) We have been waiting 70 days now for our LOA. Timing for this step in the process varies from 30-90 days. Our China liason mentioned last week that we should be hearing something this week. So please pray for us!