New Pictures and prayer request!

We received new pictures from the sweet family that delivered care package #3. Sam is growing fast and from his serious look you can tell he is ready to come home:) It is such a blessing to have families take goodies to your child and even more a blessing to receive photos and see that he is doing well. We sent care package #4 today....of course I was hoping that we would be delivering this one ourselves but that was not the plan.

I received an email from our family coordinator today and Sam is sick again. He has an upper respiratory infection and pink eye. Apparently there are several children in the transition home that are sick. Please pray for healing and strength ...and yes that his momma will get to nurse him back to health soon, soon, soon.

I also spoke with the travel coordinator today and there has not been one bit of new information on our case. Frustration x 100!! She is hoping that by this time next week they will have at least gotten an update on our case but there is no guarantee. My emotions seem to go from being at peace with the process to wanting to just fly over there, bring Sam home and deal with the "stuff" later. Just not positive that forgiveness over permission is an option.

There has been lots going on in our family to keep me from focusing just on our travel. My sweet son Cole turned 10. Yes, I have two children in the double digits. The kids have started their two week spring break and we just got back from Wilderness at the Smokies which is an indoor water park. There were 19 of us and only 8 of those were adults. We are headed to the beach this coming Sunday and will stay through the following Thursday. All of this is so much fun and I am so thankful for the fun times but of course we thought we would be in Ethiopia this week so it is still a bit hard.

We have also spent some time at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. My niece Blake who was born one week before we received our referral was hospitalized with bronchiolitis. She was in the hospital for 10 days and although she was an absolute angel and perfect patient it did cause quite a bit of worry for all of us. Her mom is incredible and honestly hardly left her side which left daddy to care for Jax which included a stomach bug in the middle of one of the nights. I ask for your prayers for her too....it is likely that she is going to have heart surgery sometime in the next 6-8 weeks. We want her well but sure would like a miracle to happen and her not to have to have the surgery. If she does, we pray for her, the surgeons and the recovery.

That is a brief recap of things going on in the wacky world of the Connelly's. We thank God for each day we have, each person we have been given the opportunity to love and look forward to serving Him every day.