Inching towards the flash.

I always want to use medical analogies but think it would take to long to explain or be to gross or whatever. Tonight though I will take a "stab" at one.........
There is a procedure that I always think is fun to do and that is a "central line". A central line is just a really big IV (that is intravenous line not 4) that goes in a really big vein in your body. That vein can be in your neck, your groin or under your collar bone.....
Most of the time this goes pretty well. It is more straight forward for me when the person is mostly dead because those people tend not to complain when large sharp objects come their way and I do not have to worry about them feeling a lot of pain.
To actually put the line in you hold this big syringe with a big needle attached and stick it into a body part and as you are pushing the needle in you pull back on the syringe. The idea is that as you are making this negative pressure you will see a "flash" of blood in the syringe (hopefully a lot but not to much and the color is red but not bright red). Sometimes when things aren't going so well you point the needle in different directions and angles and depths to hit the vein your are looking for. All the while muttering something like "c'mon, I know you're there, C'mon almost got it" This tends to make the pt a little nervous by the way......

I guess you see why I don't let myself use medical analogies to much uh?
The point is Anna and I are looking for that "flash" right now to know we are in the right spot.
We keep thinking we are getting closer but we aren't there yet.

On the good news side we shared at Havre recently and hooked up with some old friends. I even got to do a little impromptu video show in their house.

Other good news is that it looks like things are going well with the Certificate of Authorization for us. One of the good people at Parole De Vie looked into things for us and we need one more thing for us and then a little bit more for Ian but that would not hold us up getting into Canada

The thing that will hold us up is that our issues with the 4 yo Kathleen we want to adopt. The lawyer we retained now is telling us we have to not only terminate her mom's rights in Missouri but should file for adoption there as well. This is a little disheartening to us and we want to move in the overall direction that God has planned for us but do not want to miss His will in this as well.
Our current plan B or plan d or F or whatever is to terminate the mom's rights and have Jason sign custody over to us. We are checking with an immigration lawyer to see if that will satisfy border guards.

Please continue to pray for us to have wisdom in this and surrender to God's will.

Thanks for praying.

Stephen

PS any non-medical person who actually understood the analogy gets a free greeting card from my wife.