Our Treasures from Afar

We had to take SaraGrace up to the University of Michigan for her bi-annual heart echocardiogram yesterday (she is doing great!!). Since we were about 45 minutes from Detroit, we thought we would take the risk of going to the BCIS fingerprinting office and see if they would permit us to be fingerprinted a few days early. We prayed for mercy and to our relief, we saw that they were not busy. We stepped up to the desk, explained our situation and asked to be printed. The guy said, 'No. You can't do that." Jeff said, 'But it's a three hour round trip for us to come back in a few days." The guy leaned back in his chair, stretched his arms behind his back and said, "Well, we're very busy today. That would really mess us up." Hmmm.... A quick survey of the room would quickly negate that statement...but all we could do was leave in disappointment.

So....we will return on Tuesday for them to spend 10 minutes taking our fingerprints.

Enough of that.... I'm sure that Jacob would not mind sharing his blog with another little one in need of some prayers. She is a baby girl in Vietnam who has a very serious heart condition. When I saw her picture, it reminded me so much of how SaraGrace looked before her surgery. The wonderful doctor in Singapore who operated on SaraGrace has already looked at this baby's medical records, and wanted an Echocardiogram done on a CD so that he can view it before he decides if she would be able to have surgery. Things look pretty grim for this little girl. We were able to get two doctors at U of M to look at the medicals and both thought that this baby had probably waited too long and had suffered irreversible heart damage. But as the wonderful women who saved SaraGrace's life (Amy and Joyce!!!) always say..."we will not give up until she draws her last breath." God has been moving in some very amazing ways to put people in place to help this little one but she still needs some extra prayer warriors! I wish I had time to type out the whole story, (and maybe at some point I will), but the "Reader's Digest" version is that a month ago, this little girl was in an orphanage with no hope. No one in the US knew she existed--but God did. Today--one month later, He has arranged:
--an adoption agency to help her
--a wonderful Vietnamese man that is helping her get the medical testing she needs
--a pediatric heart surgeon willing to operate on her at no expense
--a hospital willing to consider donating their costs
--a caregiver from the U.S. to go get her, take her to Singapore, and stay with her for surgery. (This caregiver has lived in Singapore, traveled previously to Vietnam, and has worked for an organization that arranges surgeries for children overseas)

All she needs now is a visa, a plane ticket, and a plane ticket for her caregiver. Amazing!!! The biggest obstacle, though, is whether or not she is even operable. So if you want to pray for her, please pray that she can have surgery. :) Here is her picture...she is precious.