"Any news?"

This seems to be the question everyone has been greeting us with this past month. Not Hi! How are you? How are the dogs? How is the weather? How's work? Nope.....it's pretty much...."any news?" So I thought I might just write a little something to let you know what is going on right now with us. And just to let all of you know who have been asking.....that's fine, we appreciate your thoughts and concern. I have never encountered anything in my life that has grabbed the attention of so many people. Thanks you for asking and truly being concerned and loving us through this, we need it!!

Well, we were told that we do have tentative travel dates. The dates at this point are March 11-14. We will go and meet the child that they have referred to us. The trip will at this point, be very much just like the trip we took last October. So all of you that LOVED Coby's blogs....get ready, were going again and so we will try and make those updates even better!

So I know you are all sitting there going, "Wait! Did you just say you are making another first trip??" Yes, you are correct. Coby and I will be making two more trips.

Now....before you all go off the deep end...as Coby and I already have.....there are many reasons why we are going to have to return 2 more times. At this point, writing out the reasons and taking the time to explain why, will not do any good. Coby and I are having a very rough time and this past week has been the hardest yet. I know you all have heard me say this before....but truly this has been the hardest.

So we hope and I continue to pray for peace in our waiting to confirm these travel dates and to get a medical and pictures of the child. Please continue to pray for us, and specifically for our endurance to the end! Coming to a realization that our child will probably not come home until the end of spring, or even summer is trying on us.

I can't help but to be reminded of Peter in Matthew 14 where he walked on water out to the Lord. He saw the Lord walking on the water and so wanted to be out there with Him. As we so love Peter's excitement of faith and enthusiasm....he jumps out of the boat and walkes to His friend. His eyes fixed on Jesus and his thoughts not even on the rough water under him. But with time, he looks around and sees the immediate potential of death and fear engulfs him and doubt fades his view of his Savior. So he begins to sink and then cries out to Jesus, who does not hesitate or wait, but instantly pulls Peter out of his despair and sinking. Jesus did not allow Peter to go under the water and be overcome with death. He saved him!! When we call out on the Lord, He saves us immediately!

I know that God will continue to pull me out of my daily sinkings...when I call on Him. I also must remember that just because Jesus has reached down and pulled me out once, doesn't mean I have been freed of all future trials. It just shows me that He will never fail me. He is there with me as He says in Isaiah 43:1-2 "Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, You are Mine! When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you."

This is encouraging to me, and I hope to all of you! No trial we go through is bigger then any trial Jesus went through for us! I can't sit down and reason why we continue to walk through these trials, but I must continue to walk the path that has been laid before me with my eyes fixed on the prize before me! Thanks you guys for loving us as we go down our path. It is one thing that fuels us to endure another day!

Bam Bam Is Ready!

So we got our car seat in the mail yesterday and guess who found it to be a perfect resting place? This is Bam Bam our cat. We thought it would be a little humor for everyone while we wait for more news. So we hope you get a little laugh from the picture.

We have nothing new to report. Maybe tomorrow....

No news is good news.....

My mom told me this the other day.....so I hope she is right!

Coby and I have not been given any updates as of today. We are still waiting and seeing what the Lord will do. We were told that we might have updates by tomorrow and if we do, we will let you all know.

We ask for your continued prayers and thoughts with us. I do believe that we will have our little guy home as soon as he is ready to come home! Not a day too soon or a day too late.

A REFERRAL!!!!!

We just wanted to let everyone know that we got a call from our agency on Monday morning who informed us they had another referral for us.

It was actually quite amusing because Brandy and I were on our way to the doctor, in separate cars, to update our medicals for our paperwork, because they are expiring.

So there we were on a conference call, Brandy in her car, on her cell phone...me in my car, on my cell phone, getting the news.

We don't have many particulars yet. We do know it's a boy but we're waiting for more information from our agency. We don't know about travel yet either but we're hopeful for the first part of March.

Thank you to everyone who has been encouraging and offering prayer to us through this wild and crazy time. We truly appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts.

We'll keep y'all posted but just wanted to let you know it looks like we're on our way....again. :-)

Please keep praying for smooth sailing.

Love,
Brandy and Coby

What Can Be Done For Andrey?

First of all....thank you to everyone for all you support with Andrey and asking about him and wanting to help out with his situation. It is because of all of you that we continue to push and ask how we can help Andrey.

First wanted to let you all know that Andrey is the little boy that we met when we went to Russia on our first visit in October. Since our trip we have been told that he has developed AIDS and that he is Hepatitis B positive. Andrey is 19 months old today! His name means STRONG and HANDSOME and that he is!!

Because of his illness, we have been told by Russia that he is not adoptable and that is why we are awaiting another referral and another trip to Russia. BUT we have asked CHI how we can help and ALL of you have asked too....so here is where we are at this point.

We are trying to find out what hospital that he has been moved to. He is no longer at the orphanage that we meet him in because of his illness. Usually once a family turns down a referral, they are given no more information on that child. Well, because of his situation, Coby and I want to help. That was one of our first questions that we asked our agency after they gave us the news about his health....we want to help, we feel led to help we can't NOT help.

One of our Russian reps from our agency is going over to Russia this week to establish possible new regions and we are hoping that he will be able to get some answers to our questions about helping Andrey. We have sent him a list of questions and we are praying and hoping that he will be able to get direct answers to our questions and get them quickly.

Coby and I were hoping that this process of helping Andrey would of been faster. When we were given the news of his health, we thought time was of the essence. But it seams again that God's time is not our own. It looks like because this has never been done before, (turing a referal into a sponsorship) everyone is a little unsure of where to start. So at this point we ask for prayer. That is really what we need at this point. We have asked the questions, voiced our help, told them that you all are behind us and CHI is very welcoming of all of this....but if we are going to help in the right area...we need to make sure we are doing this correctly.

When Coby and I decided to adopt 2 years ago this past week we said that we wanted to help a child in need FIRST and add a child to our family. Who would of know that when we made that decision, God had Andrey in mind as the child to help. Little did we know that helping a child wouldn't involve bringing him home with us.

We will update you all when we have our answers and we would love as much help as possible for Andrey, the hospital he is at and other children with him suffering from the same illness. Coby and I are also hoping to help other families not have to go through what we have gone through. We don't know how that looks....but putting awareness out there about the second PCR test and making sure that the test is done BEFORE you even accept the child as a referral is also a way we want to help. We have also decided to post some pictures of our visit with Andrey so you all can see the sweet angel that we love.... and you all have loved through us!

Thanks for your prayers and thoughts and words. Let me encourage you all with the words of Isaiah the prophet:

Have you not known?

Have you not heard?

The everlasting God, the Lord,

The creator of the ends of the earth,

Neither faints nor is weary.

His understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the weak,

And to those who have no might He increases strength.

Even the youth shall faint and be weary,

And the young man shall utterly fall,

But those who wait on the LORDShall renew their strength;

They shall mount up with wings like eagles,

They shall run and not be weary,

They shall walk and not faint.

Maybe Wednesday

Happy New Year to y'all. Hope you had a great holiday season. We just wanted to give a quick update to let you know what's going on with us.

The short of it is, we've been in talks with our agency the last few days and they think we could hear something a early as Wednesday. This will be the first day the country goes back to work after the Russian Orthodox holiday break.

So, they think we could hear something then. They've told us we're at the front of the line in our region so that's encouraging. They also mentioned us thinking about switching regions but we're not at that point and our rep in St. Louis wants us to hold off on that for a few days.

If we do get a call, they think it may be a month before we go because a lot will have to be done to combine two trips into one.

We're doing fine. Waiting as patiently as we can. Please keep us in your prayers.

Coby and Brandy

Christmas Morning at the Ginsberg's

Christmas Day at our House.....

Our Tree and gifts

Coby and his gift from Brandy

Brandy and her gift from her mom

Could it be?

Yup!! Tickle Me Elmo...and it's Coby's!!

Trot is ready to eat it!!!