Help!!!

I would like to have that gift of writing very nice and eloquent prose as many of you bloggers do. So, since I feel this writer’s block, I’ll just post a couple of pictures and maybe I should go fishing like my little guy is doing here…


If anybody out there has some tips for me please let me know I would like to read your comments.
 God bless everyone!!!

Life is like a river...

Now therefore stand and see this great thing, which the LORD will do before your eyes. 1 Samuel 12:16

Have a happy Sunday!!!

Weekend

Last week we spent a weekend out at Hot Springs, AR.  We wanted to enjoy the fall before it got colder.

Who doesn't love the colors of fall?

My wonderful wife, the reason for all this to happen, couldn't get to far without her. Thank you God for a giving me such a great woman. I Love you baby!

...And such a wonderful son!!!

Thank you Lord!

I never thought that buying a bicycle for my son would create such contrasting feelings. Is this the yin-yang of life? Is it simply my conscience? Is it random guilty feeling? Or is it that God doesn’t want me to forget what his word wants us to do.

Well, whatever you want to call it, the truth is that many faces of little children with much higher needs, like some food, clean water, shelter; flashed in my mind. How many of these children could be fed with the price of this bicycle?

I don’t mean to say that buying a toy for our child is wrong; as you can see we got his bike, he is enjoying it and we are happy about it. Nevertheless I thank God that he makes my heart receptive to his word, thank you Lord!

Please pray

Yesterday, on our way to church, we stopped to have a quick snack/dinner. After ordering some "healthy" fast food, picked a table and started eating before it got late for church. We were on our second bite when suddenly our son stopped us, "you forgot" he says with a very concerned tone of voice "you didn't pray for the food" So after swallowing that un-chewed second bite (how can you keep chewing after that?), proceeded to thank the Lord for our meal including our everyday pray for our son Adiel’s sisters and all the children who don't have a meal. Right after that "Amen" our son added in a very "by the way" but serious tone of voice; "and for all the children who don't have arms or legs"... It was so impromptu, that I couldn't restrain the picture from flashing in my mind: children missing limbs!!! So we "amen" his addendum and had to put that image aside for the moment so we could finish our meal.

I later tried to think on the "why?" but the answer wasn't hidden; you know the reasons, the main one is called man, you know! "Adults" I was going to say mankind but somehow the "kind" part didn't really fit in this context. So, if a six year old can bring this up on prayer, I am convinced that we, as parents and adults need to keep it as part of our everyday prayer.
Would you pray with us? Can you include those children in your prayers? Thank you

What can you do?

Ethiopian Orphans from Simon Scionka on Vimeo.

Some recent pictures

Just updating with some pictures. No news about our adoption yet.

Letter to my girl.

To my daughter,

Hello my little girl! I want you to know that we love you, yes… we already love you and are waiting for you. As a dad, I find amazing and painfully rewarding that I can love you this much without even knowing you yet, --thank you lord Jesus for the Love--. Then again, maybe I do know you, just maybe, that tear that I shed sometimes thinking of you, is actually you… coming close to me and with a soft kiss in my cheek saying I’ll be there soon!!!

I don’t know what you do every day, I wonder if you are happy or cry yourself to sleep… longing for loving arms to hold you, and a voice to tell you “everything is fine”; I wonder if you are being fed enough, if you are sick, if somebody takes the time to fix your hair. If you play with other children; but then, I breath and trust that God is taking care of you and keeping you safe… and then I wonder again, how does your smile looks like?, how does your laugh sounds like?

You know, this is going to be a really big change in your life, your brother’s life (who prays for you every night), your mom’s life and I would like to say, especially my life.

I hope I’m wrong and you don’t cry yourself to sleep… because that is what I do when I go to bed thinking of you…

I love you, your dad.

Just keep waiting

Well it’s been close to 4 years since we traveled to Manila, Philippines. We have seen our son grow from a shy toddler (ok, at least for the first 3 days), to a strong and very active and loving boy. We are so thankful to God for allowing us to complete our family through adoption.

Now, we are back on the adoption road. This time that road will take us to Ethiopia. I wish I could write here why we chose Ethiopia, there are many reasons why anyone would choose this country but, why did we?? The answer is very deep in mine and my wife’s heart. When we try to put it on paper for our agency, it took 5 revisions and I still wasn’t fully pleased with it. Sometimes is hard to explain your deeper feelings…

Our dossier was completed and we were added to that famous “waiting list” by the end of March “09 and from there, that’s what we’ve been doing; waiting, waiting and waiting. All this while we try to continue with our life as “normal” as possible.

How much longer??? Well, I wish we knew… all we can do is pray for our daughter and yes… wait. Stay in touch!

Catching up!

Only a few pictures from '08

Smile!!!

Carlito's first year

The first year with our son Adiel Carlito was full of new experiences (duh!). It has been so much fun to see him grow and learn a new language, --actually two, he speaks English and Spanish-- even though he had to forget his native Tagalog.

He is active, fun, loving, smart, active, inquisitive, did I mention active? Well let's say I finally understand the phrase "he is all boy"

I'll give you just a few pictures of his first year with us.

Philippines adoption

This was his first laugh, a special day.

Flying home...

Philippines adoption

After 15 years of marriage, or should I say honeymoon? The seed in our hearts about completing our family had grown to be something that we couldn’t hold inside for much longer.

We had talked about adoption for some time but not seriously enough to consider acting on it. But now, (that’s 2003) we finally noticed that we were not getting any younger and if we wanted to expand our family we needed to do something, either medical treatment or adoption.
It didn’t take much research to get us hooked (especially me, “dad”) on the idea of adoption. Medical treatment was still a promising option and we entertained the idea for some time, but once we asked ourselves, why not adoption? No answer was found that would make a good argument against adoption.

So in July 2003; after we prayed to God for guidance, we embarked on this metaphorical adoption boat. [We were unaware that our son had been born at about the same time that the “family seed" was germinating in our hearts] I’ll spare you the details of the 3+ months of paper chasing, the gathering of financial resources, the educating our families about adoption (that wasn’t too bad), the waiting, and waiting, the trip arrangement and a few other “details” needed to complete this process; did I mention the waiting?
So, after that long wait for our “infant girl” as we had requested --God has some sense of humor! -- Here’s the punch line: we receive the referral for this awesome 2 and a half years old BOY! Needless to say, our Lord really knew what we needed. Adiel (Carlito) has been quite a blessing for our family, thank you Jesus!
These are pictures from the trip in Sep 2005 to bring our son from The Philippines to Arkansas.

Be Patient

The Lopez Family. Just getting ready, this will be a slow launch of this blog so be patient. We'll talk about our adoption from The Philippines and the coming adoption from Ethiopia. God bless the children!