A Frustrating Week

Well, I've finally figured out how to make a post on this blog. Matt has done all the posting until now. I wish my first post could contain better news however. We've had a very long and frustrating week. Multiple work issues were compounded by some frustrating news that the paperwork we sent to Uganda in January was just now being processed. We were told that this paperwork was what started our process for adopting from Uganda. We were under the impression that the orphanage had received it in January and we were using this as our start date for counting down until we can bring Micah home. Now it looks like April is our new start date and therefore we are looking at not being able to bring our son home until next spring. This of course was disappointing news. Throughout this whole week however, the Lord has been an ever present help and encouragement. It has been amazing that every time I got really down this week, the Lord brought a verse, a song or a word of encouragement to gently remind me that He is still in control. He knows the desires of our hearts and wants to lavish us with better gifts then we can ever imagine. Sometimes its just so hard to wait for those gifts even though we know the waiting makes the end result that much sweeter.

The Micah Box

Now we are waiting. We’ve done all that we can do at this point, and now we wait. The most tangible evidence of our waiting right now is a little cardboard box that is sitting in our guest bedroom (soon to be known as Micah’s bedroom). You see, there have been some people who have already been passing stuff to us that they couldn’t resist getting, and we have taken advantage of a couple of good deals that we couldn’t pass up. So this small collection of toys, books, and clothes has found its way into the “Micah box”. We often find ourselves roaming into the toy section at Wal-Mart to look at all the cool stuff that we - I mean, Micah - will get to play with someday. But for now we are exercising purchase restraint and trying to be patient as we wait until they tell us we can go to Uganda and bring our son home. And for those things we just can’t resist, there’s always the Micah box.

Recording Update

This week we were excited to get some sample tracks from Matt's album to approve. It seems like we are close to getting a finished product. The producer tells us he has a few more instrumental bits to add and some more balancing to do, then we will be done. He is targeting April 20 (about two weeks later than we had thought) for the studio portion to be done. After that, he sends us the master and we go to reproduction. (Picture is of Matt, our producer Steve, our drummer Sam, our bass guitarist Junior, and our acoustic guitarist Roy, working on instrumental arrangments in the studio.)

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow....

Do you know this man? This week I am pretty sure that my hair was as long as it has ever been in my life...until today, when it became the shortest it has been since I was an infant. My buddy Paul Niswander said, "Seriously, Kinnell. It's time for a haircut." So he cut it. (To ¼" if anyone is counting.) Caesar didn't know what to think at first...he barked when I walked around the corner. Amy is non-committal, but she says, "It's soft." I guess that's better than, "Oh, gross!"