Levi video take 2

Levi from Tracy Senior on Vimeo.

Thanks to my friend Sarah who I was blessed to meet at a Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman concert, you can now see the video that I tried to post the other day. Enjoy! I can't get enough of watching my precious son! Check out the two front teeth and the way he pushes himself with those feet.

Levi video

I have this really great video of Levi that I would like to post but can't get it to go on blogger. If anyone has some help they can offer, please send it my way. Otherwise, if you would like to see it, just let me know and I'll try to email it. Hopefully you'll be able to open it.

Chuc Mung Nam Moi

Happy Lunar New Year to everyone! I found out too late about a Tet celebration nearby that I would have liked to attend. Perhaps next year we will get there. Then we will have Levi with us! I can't wait! I wish I had received a gift for Tet, like pictures or news about DNA testing being complete but that was not the case. There's always hope for tomorrow.

I have to send some congratulations out to my daughter and my nephew Jadin. Rachel got a part in the play our church is doing for Easter this year. It is called The Carpenter. She plays a 12-year old girl who is crippled. She loves to act and this is her first big part in any play. Last year she had some small parts in several school plays. I think she is pretty excited! Since coming home yesterday from practice, she has been seen walking around the house with her script quite often.

My nephew Jadin participated in a regional free throw shoot contest sponsored by the Elks Club. After missing 5, he made 14 baskets in a row to win the contest for his age group. He now moves onto the state competition. We are very proud of him! He is quite the athlete! Way to go Jadin!

Family Description

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, He leads forth the prisoners with singing;

Psalm 68:5,6
I am always so thankful that my daughter received Jesus as her Savior and Lord at a young age and has continued to be more and more open to the Spirit's leading in her life. Often she will share things that she feels God has showed her during her quiet times with Him. The other night, Rachel and I were preparing to have our prayer time before bed and she shared that she had read this verse in her devotional time and that this verse described our family well. She said that in this verse, she is the fatherless, I am the widow, Levi is the lonely who is being set in our family, and the people in our family that have never repented of their sins and confessed Jesus as their Savior and Lord are the prisoners that God longs to lead forth with singing. Wow! She is exactly right. It is our prayer that everyone reading this blog would not just recognize God in their heads but would experience the freedom that comes of living their lives completely sold out for Him. I know that a lot of people think that if you give your lives completely over to Christ, that you won't have any fun. But they are so wrong! All around me I see people who are living their lives for themselves and acknowledging God only when they are in desperate need. They are living in bondage and are so unhappy. They may not think they are but if you really look at them, they are. Then I see the people who have decided to give their lives completely over to Christ and I see a joy and a peace coming from them that nothing in the world can give. I am learning that the more I give my life over to Christ, the richer my life becomes. I pray that the same is true for all of you today.

Birthday Party Pictures

On Monday we were off of school for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day so we had Rachel's 16th birthday party. I finally got around to downloading the pictures. I think they had a great time!

Prayers

Tonight I have a special prayer request, not for me but for some friends of my family. This morning my mom called me to tell me that her good friend's daughter-in-law had a baby girl this morning that was born with Epidrmolysis Bullosa. This is a rare genetic disease that is characterized by the presence of extremely fragile skin and recurrent blister formation, resulting from minor mechanical friction or trauma. Only an estimated 1 out of every 50,000 live births are affected with some type of Epidermolysis Bullosa. She has it on her hands, feet and one thigh. She will need to stay in the hospital for at least 5 days. They have the affected parts covered with bandages so that she will not get an infection. Please pray that she doesn't get any infection. Please pray for the parents and grandparents as they come to terms with the implications of this disease. Pray that God's peace will flood over them tonight and that they will be able to leave this precious baby girl in the hands of her Creator God who is able to cuddle her in His loving arms. He is Jehovah Rophe, the God our Healer so pray that He will heal her completely. He is a miracle-working God!!

Thank you in advance for your prayers!

DNA Samples Have Arrived...

at the lab that is. We got the update this afternoon from Dillon that they had heard from the lab and they had received the DNA samples. Praise God! I was hoping they would get there by tomorrow. Let's hope that it keeps moving quickly! I might get my birthday wish after all. Maybe it will happen before then!