Journey to Julia Video


James 1:27 – “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction”

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Quick adoption update

So the good news is, we have the final, notarized home study in our hands. That will be express mailed to USCIS on Monday to get that process jump started. While that percolates through the US government, we will need to visit the Dutchess County Clerk and NY state capital in Albany this week to get the remainder of the dossier documents county and then state certified.

Next stop will be one more set of fingerprints (we've had three done so far for this adoption, not to mention the 6-8 sets we had done for the last two adoptions).  Then we'll just be waiting on our 171-H approval letter so that we can get the final dossier off to Ukraine for translating and review, hopefully by Oct. 1st at the latest.

Keep praying for us.  We've gotta get over these last few hurdles soon.

She came home a rapper

In our last post we wrote about how we much we were missing our two oldest young adults. Well - they're back! Our young lady Elizabeth who went away with former talents and experience in ballet, step dance, acting and singing came home a gangster rapper. ;-) All that time spent with the kids at camp from the Bronx have corrupted her small town background. Just kidding - no offense to our neighbors from the south.

The girls did a talent show act the last night of camp. For those of you immersed in "Camp Rock" hoopla this summer, you can think of it as their "Final Jam". Their performance included 4-part harmonies and hip-hop versions of Salve Regina ("Hail Holy Queen") and a chant about prayer and praise to Jesus.

It was actually really creative and well done. Here is a video that will give you a sense of it.  Elizabeth is right in the foreground in the black/yellow checked sweatshirt.



Audio quality is not that great.  We are looking for a better video from any of the other campers that were there (about 175 kids total attended).  Since you can't hear the words real clearly, here is a transcript of the song lyrics.


Hey Veritas,
God can transform you;
Christ is our king
and he came to save ya.

He died on the cross
to save us from sin;
evil may come,
but in the end we'll win.

He can change your life,
make you soul new,
make you never wanna go back
to the old you.


The camp director Ryan Young said their performance was amazing and that their vocals were outstanding.

On a more serious note, the camp ended with a wonderful mass celebration by Archibishop of New York, Timothy Dolan


From Camp Veritas 2010

He even stuck around to talk and shoot photos with many people present including our own Caleb Joseph.


From Camp Veritas 2010
It seems a good week was had by all, and everyone came home refreshed in their faith and renewed for the journey ahead.