We adopted Evan Binh Minh from Bac Ninh, Vietnam on June 17th, 2010 at the age of 6 months. Like most orphans, he was listless and quiet. But within only a month with 2 parents, his development was rapid, and he changed dramatically. Just look:

Here’s a link to the video if you want to share it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W04FnjG5TZA

This is a great example of the importance of children having a proper family care for them.

Over a relentless 5 year process trying to adopt an infant, I’ve learned that politicians, institutions, and even non profit organizations like Unicef around the world feel that it’s best children stay left abandoned in orphanages or foster care in their own countries rather than be adopted internationally.
That is no kind of life, and I think children deserve better!

But the diseased world we live in has much higher priorities right now than children… things like the stock market, military, and politics.

We’ve been on quite a roller coaster ride over the last 4 years in our attempt to adopt a baby. Things have not gone so well, but recently, we were proposed a baby from Vietnam. We debated whether or not to go through the pain of completing huge amounts of paperwork and preparations, not knowing if anything would come out of it, but thought we should take advantage of this opportunity and give it one more try.

We were told to expect the process to complete next year some time in Feb or March, but got the news last week that the baby is ready and we need to go to Vietnam on Dec 7th, 2009 to receive! We’re extremely excited and frantically making preparations that couples often have 9 months to do in one month (we didn’t feel able to prepare properly in the past not knowing what would happen with our previous attempts at adopting from Canada, China, and Korea…)

He is a boy and his name is Ut, but we will also give him the Western name Evan. He will be four months old when we get him and we expect to stay in Hanoi, Vietnam for at least 3 weeks to complete legal and immigration paperwork once we receive him.

At this point, any number of things could happen to change this adoption or prevent it from happening, and until the baby is back home in Canada, it is in no way official. So please keep us in your prayers.

More info to follow, just check back here soon.