Prayers for the Kids

It's amazing the connections we have made with other adoptive families through the internet. We were part of an online group through Yahoo that introduced us to many families who were adopting at the same time we were. It's a place to ask questions, but mostly to give one another support.

There were 4 families who adopted kids from Luohe the same day we adopted Michelle. One other family was in our group, with our agency, and 2 of the other families were with another agency. We saw them several times in our hotel and at various places along the way.

Of those 4 children, 3 of them were cleft kids. I met Ben and Stacie in our hotel one morning and they seemed like such a sweet family. Ben had his cleft palate repair surgery done about 10 days ago, and we just read last night on the Yahoo group that it is not going well. He has an infection in the tissue, and most likely some of the tissue inside his mouth will be lost. It means he will have to stay on a liquid diet for at least another month, and most likely he will have to go through this same surgery again at some point down the road.

Please keep Ben and Stacie in your prayers. I know she must be discouraged and sad, seeing her child who has already gone through so much having to endure yet another difficult time.

Please also pray for Michelle as she prepares for her surgery next week. I'm looking forward to having this next part of our journey behind us and I'm excited because I believe this will greatly improve her quality of life. However, I realize it may be a rough few weeks getting to that point and that these things always involve risks.

We are praying for a smooth and successful outcome for Michelle, and we continue to pray for healing and comfort for little Ben.