coming around again: happy july 4th

Today, the local Families With Children from Viet Nam group had a picnic at a park not too far from our house. There is a water park there also (water spouts coming out of the sidewalk and other fixtures). My friend, Paula, invited us to join them. She just completed her second adoption from Vietnam for Reecey, another daughter.

Reecey and another baby, Noah, that is in this group, were both adopted at the same time in Vietnam. When Paula was in Vietnam this last time, she e-mailed me a photo of Noah and Reecey taking a nap in the same crib. There is another quite amazing story in all this! There 'happened to be' a student named Britney from Knoxville who had once worked in the Vietnam orphanages as
part of a mission trip with her church.
She decided to stay for awhile and was working in the same orphanage that Reecey and Noah were from. Amazingly, she was at the orphanage when Reecey was first brought there. She had many photos and video of Noah and Reecey when they were tiny babies in the orphanage and gave the video of Reecey to Paula (Paula did not know of Britney before any of this; you can imagine that this is very unusual/special to receive as a mom who adopts internationally. Vietnam is like China in that the government 'matches' the baby to the family/parent.). Britney and a Vietnamese friend, who also worked in this orphanage, took special care of Reecey and Noah. It's difficult to get photos of babies sometimes - so I didn't get a photo of Noah when he had a big smile on his face. He is the cutest thing!! Reecey too (she loves to 'jump')!

It was fun to be there today. I didn't get any photos of Nia (Paula's other daughter) though she was there. I was busy getting in the water with Reecey and feeding her etc. I love going to these things as it makes this waiting more bearable and the process more real. Encouraging.