I will never forget holding Carl in my arms the day after he was born. He had some kind of apnea episode and was limp and blue. We didn't know if he was going to make it. I was standing outside the hospital thinking about his adoptive parents. It's a terrible thing to be caring for one of GOD's children and to feel them slipping away from you. We knew that God had special plans for him (Jeremiah 29:11), but we didn't know if he was even going to live to see the day his parents would see him for the first time.

We didn't know yet that they were going to be Americans (and not French or Norweg- ian), from the Philippines (and not from India or Ireland), that their names were going to be Joey and Beth.

It was an awful moment, and I prayed the way you do in a panic.





He came through that time, and he's a handsome, winsome one-year- old now. Spending part of this week with Beth and Joey has been a miracle. They are very lucky and very happy.

Beth is a nurse and Joey works with the Homeland Security office in an airport. They're on their way, Saturday, down to visit her family on another island here in the Philippines. We had a very nice time with them and things are going very well with the transition.