From Isabella Faye's Daddy!

This Article is from the local newpaper for which Hubby is the editor. (One of his many hats!) Hubby writes a column called Beech Tree Banter. After Isabella Faye's case was approved, he wrote this column.
Before reading it, you need to know some back-story. Hubby's way of dealing with the adoption, if he'd had his choice, would have been to remain silent until we suprised everyone with a precious baby girl! Not that Hubby hasn't been excited...trust me, he has! It's just harder for Hubby to deal when the issue is constantly in the forefront. But, knowing that in order to deal, I would need to be surrounded by family and friends, supporting me through, Hubby lovingly watched as I spread the word to all who would listen!So, needless to say, when Hubby handed me the newspaper and suggested I read his column, I was delighted and so very moved!Hubby is the best Dad! I don't have to have IF home to know that! He loves her unconditionally, without reservation. He may not always say it, but he doesn't have to. If you could see the twinkle in his eye, the smile on his face when he sees a new picture of our sweet girl...if you could watch him when I come home from a visit as he hangs on every word as I describe IF.Please pray for John too! I don't mention him very often-probobly much less than I should-but he is a gift from God to me and Isabella Faye and we are so blessed!

One Step Closer From Guatemala

For the longest time my wife was about half convinced that I wasn't too excited about our ongoing efforts to adopt a little girl from Guatemala. I didn't talk much about it, she'd say, and I wrote nothing about it, which to her was proof enough of my less-than-enthusiastic approach. I explained to her, in my best teaching voice, that we just happen to deal with things differently. For her, coping with the many struggles associated with international adoption meant talking about it, blogging about it (http://www.isabellafaye.blogspot.com/), praying about it, talking about it some more, reading about it, and generally making sure that the adoption of our baby girl, Isabella Faye, was always front and center. I guess that's a mother's prerogative.I take a somewhat different approach, one that probably most men can relate to easier. I like to bottle everything up. For me, out of sight, out of mind. Of course, this doesn't mean that I ever forget about our baby and our efforts to get her. But, it is my nature to minimize things and to try not to dwell on a particular subject too much - especially something like international adoption where there are literally a myriad of things that can go wrong on a weekly basis.In the adoption world, we received some really good news this week as wife Beth was in the throes of planning for her third visit trip to Guatemala. It was Wednesday afternoon and hot. For some reason I had decided to mow my yard at high noon - not sure why I made that decision. Then, I went over to my Dad's bait shop and became convinced that he was trying to work me to near exhaustion in the garden as we tilled and made plans for our fall garden. Long story short, I had worked hard and sweated almost continuously for several hours. I was beat. That's when I saw Beth peeling around the corner of the old store building. She was moving fast, which concerned me. Either something had happened to one of our cats or our baby was coming home. Fortunately, it was the latter. Our adoption case, she had just learned, was officially out of PGN. Don't ask me what PGN actually is because I couldn't tell you. However, I do know that it is the last big legal hurdle separating us from our baby. Beth and Big Will Amos made the trek to Aberdeen on Wednesday to tell me that we had finally jumped that last hurdle. Beth did the talking, of course, since Big Will is only a few months old. Beth baby-sits Big Will, son of Josh and Terri - I added the "Big" part; it just seems to fit. However, I don't think Will was as excited as we were as I got the feeling that our PGN announcement may have messed up his nap schedule.Barring a natural disaster, a military coup, civil war, or foreign invasion, our baby, Isabella Faye, should be home in about eight weeks but there are simply no guarantees when it comes to international adoption. She will be one-year old on August 14. We continue to hope. We continue to pray. Our baby is not home yet but we do believe she is one step closer from Guatemala.