13 months

That's right, today A turns 13 months. We love you more and more every day!!! Hold on tight - pretty soon, we will be together and loving on you more and more every day!

Soon, soon, soon!!!

Mommy and daddy love you very much!

Prayers

I don't have any real news from Kyrgyzstan. All of the pending families had another conference call with the US Dept. of State on Tuesday this week. They still don't know anything and don't know when they will know. The call was focused on what's being done to get the 65 matched, waiting children home, and we stayed very much on point. This is the Embassy's priority at the moment. The Embassy currently seems to be in education mode - educating the public and officials as to why Americans want to adopt Kyrgyz children - yes, it's that basic. They are using the Kyrgyz media to present our side of the adoption argument. They are sharing the stories that all the adoptive families sent in with officials. All this appears to be working to open minds and hearts, but it's slow going. The US Ambassador is meeting with key decision makers, and at every opportunity, brings up the adoption issue.

There are currently 9 criminal cases of past adoptions under investigation, all having to do with alleged corruption on the orphanage director/MOE/judicial level. None of these cases involve children who were wrongfully removed from their families. But still, they have to be investigated, and those who were responsible need to be prosecuted.

We talked about our next steps, and it looks like another round of stories will be collected and sent over to Kyrgyzstan. This batch, from the waiting families.

More on the prayer tree...

When I got home from work last Tuesday night I was watering my plants and bringing them outside on the deck for some nice spring weather sunshine. While outside, the Boys and Girls Club van pulled up and a bunch of kids came running up to our prayer tree holding big brown ribbons! They were so excited to add them to our tree!! When they left, I got the ladder out and moved the ribbons up on the tree. It is a very old tree and it's on a hill so most of the branches are hard to reach. Most of the kids tied the ribbon to the end of very tiny branches and I was afraid we'd lose the ribbons once the tree started blooming. While I was moving the ribbons higher up, I noticed they all had little messages on them. Here's what some of them said: Can't wait to see you!

Can't wait to see you!

I'll pray for you every day

Come home soon

Can't wait to see your family grow!!

Stay strong - soon you'll be Ryan, Jes AND Arsin Scheel

Praying!!

I don't know, but I think that is just about the cutest thing ever! These teenage kids really do have good hearts :)

I also got a letter in the mail from Shelley Nelson. In the letter, they expressed that it would have taken a long time to drive to our house, so they mailed a ribbon and wrote a little prayer. Thank you Shelley!! Anyone else, feel free to mail your ribbons and prayers and I will pull out my ladder and tie them suckers on!

Prayer Tree continued...

The other day when I got home, there was an envelope on my counter that just said 'Jes and Ryan'. Inside was a letter from good friends of ours, Jon and Angela. They started a prayer tree in our yard! How awesome is that??? Here's the letter that was left on the counter ...



Angela and Jon - thank you so much. This prayer tree really means a lot to us!!

If you're in the neighborhood, please stop by, say a prayer and tie a piece of string, yarn, ribbon or fabric to our very own prayer tree :)