No News is Good News . . . Er, Right?

I have absolutely no excuse for the lack of updates during the month of July. Well, I have one really flaky excuse: a distinct lack of stuff to report. I spent most of my days in the office talking about my dissertation -- to my resource material. Meanwhile, Sandi went to work at the bank at a somewhat higher clip, since her teller supervisor is currently on maternity leave. We started playing a new (old) video game over the weekends, but few of you would consider that noteworthy. Beyond that, there is a dearth of information for me to impart. I suppose our current fascination with NCIS might be exciting, if you happen to work for CBS or something.

As usual, we went to Knoxville on the last Tuesday of the month for a waiting families meeting. Our guest speaker for the evening, who was to have been our guest speaker previously, was a birthmother with a fascinating story. Cammy's journey to an adoption plan actually led her back to Christ. She hails from the great white north of Minnesota, which made for a wacky twist accent-wise. It was nice to hear a different birthmother perspective, as the only birthmother we have heard speak has a wildly open (and slightly frightening) relationship with her adoptive family. Cammy started working with Bethany after moving to Tennessee, despite the fact that her adoption was conducted privately rather than through a Bethany office. She is extremely personable; she playfully slapped my foot early in the meeting, for a reason neither Sandi nor I could remember later. That sounds more like life in the South . . .

Okay, now on to this month. Bethany was doing its quarterly thang in the Tri-Cities area tonight, so we had a picnic at Warriors' Path State Park in Kingsport. The park itself is really nice and surprisingly massive. As one would expect in a picnic environment, families were tasked with supplying foodstuffs, whilst the Bethany folks brought various tasty beverages and eating paraphernalia. Sandi and I opted to make a dish of banana pudding (complete with store brand vanilla wafers) and a hefty bowl of ham salad. Needless to say, plenty of other quality victuals were available; I had some excellent chicken casserole, a nice pasta salad, and these awesome 'dessert burgers' made with a peppermint patty, colored frosting, and vanilla wafers. Of course, we never gather for a Bethany function without some sort of edifying speaker, and tonight we got to talk with Wes Patten, who founded local charity Hope House. Wes has a great ministry working with crisis pregnancies in the Tri-Cities area, and some of the women have placed children for adoption with Bethany. The entire discussion was excellent, and I am jazzed to hear that they work with birthmothers past placement (or postnatal for women who choose to parent). However, the thing that sticks out most in my mind is a story that makes me glad for adopting through an agency. One of Hope House's young women had decided to place her child for private adoption. As a result of collaboration between attorneys in Tennessee, California, and Germany, this young woman went to Missouri to deliver her baby, who was placed with a German family. Umm . . . yeah.

Updates should be more frequent as this month progresses. Take care, folks!