Communion & Adoption
After taking somewhat of a summer hiatus I decided it’s time to get creative again and return to writing down some thoughts.A couple of weeks ago we celebrated Communion at church. Of course I was deep in thought as usual when it hit me – something I’d been thinking about for a while suddenly had a new twist. The subject was about how adoption here on earth is a visual picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact Steven Curtis Chapman calls adoption the “visual gospel”. It’s a miracle.As we were taken communion it hit me how much God must love us. The bible says that we...
Read MoreSurprise Pictures
We got a great surprise the other day when I received an email with the picture above attached. It’s an early picture of Anna, David and Bennett right after Bennett’s arrival at the orphanage. They’d been separated for almost a year and are just getting to know each other again here in this picture. Bennett was left at the hospital after having some problems with his umbilical cord and so was sent to an orphanage for babies. Here in this picture he is about 1 year old and because he was in an orphanage where they really just left him in a crib most of the day he didn’t develop...
Read MoreDaddy’s Day
I have to share some thoughts about Daddy’s day with Anna. It was absolutely an amazing time to be there with my daughter and make a mother’s day present together with her. I showed up at around 9:30am and we worked together to create a book of all the reasons that we love Mommy. It was really special because I remember the time when we were living with the children in Latvia. We did all the same things we do here – we’d get up, make breakfast, take them to school in the morning, pick them up in the afternoons. All those good things. I remember particularly having a...
Read MoreDavid’s progress with writing
Well, David continues to amaze us in many ways. We worry about him constantly about whether he’ll ever be able to read well, to write, to graduate from high school some day, or hope beyond hope to be able to go to university some day. We worry so much because David was the most affected by the neglect that he and his siblings suffered. Many of you may know that David could not speak any word except for “machina” (Latvian for car) when he came to the orphanage at 3 years old. We’re told that his caregiver Sarmita worked with him dilligently to try and get him to say her name over...
Read MoreBennett Artyoma Vaughn
The funniest thing happened this morning as we were all getting ready for school. A few days before we’d been watching some old videos from when the kids were in Latvia at the orphanage and we were talking about their Latvian names. In the videos of course the boys heard themselves talking in Latvian and also heard the caregivers at the orphanage calling them by their Latvian names. David was of course “Dema” (short for Dmitri) and Bennett was called “Toma” (short for Artjoma). David, of course, was the last one left eating his breakfast and called out to Bennett but instead...
Read Morereflections on amazing grace
So while I’m on a role I thought I’d go ahead and write about something that’s been on my mind for a few days now. Georgia and I recently watched the movie Amazing Grace the story of William Wilberforce. If you’re not aware, William Wilberforce was a major force (slight pun intended) in the abolution of the British slave trade. His conversion to Christianity and his involvement in the abolition movement was heavily influenced by John Newton a former slave trader turned Christian and writer of the hymn “Amazing Grace”. Anyway, I thought it was interesting in the movie shortly...
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