Tonight, my bride gets on the plane, headed for Kenya! I'm so thrilled for her...first she gets to spend a couple of days in London with her mother, then they meet up with the rest of the team heading to East Africa. She has worked so hard, teaching Tori, raising 4 kids, cleaning up after me, and hosting guests....she deserves this break!

It's not always easy to get a family picture....but we sure love it when we get to see a picture of all of us together. Kelly and I are absolutely crazy about our 4 kids. They are so much fun! Daddy Boot Camp 2007 starts this week...check back for lots of fun stories and a whole bunch of pics!

Happy Belated Birthdays TYLER, BRADY & AUNT EMILLE!

Tyler's says: "Happy SUPEREST Birthday ever Tyler" (his cousin knows he loves Superman!)
Thought Brady's was a cute rendition of her cousin....guess Tori thinks Brady's into big colorful buttons!
Emille's says: "Happy Birthday Aunt Emille...Nurses are better than anybody!"

We have been so blessed over the last 48 hours hosting our dear friend Mark Berryman. I first met Mark when I was a sophomore at Harding University. He coordinated the Africa Internships and taught a class on Africa Missions. I was in his class and I participated in an internship that took me to Eldoret, Kenya that set my heart and feet on a path that would change me forever. Mark coordinated and traveled with our group of interns to Kenya where we worked with a wonderful team of missionaries for 6-8 weeks. This was the summer of 1990. Mark mentioned in conversation yesterday that in the past year he has visited with 34 former interns who have returned to Africa and are presently missionaries on the field. Those are just the ones he has visited with in the past year. There are many more than 34 who became missionaries as a result of those internships.
Randy picked Mark up at the Togo border on Wednesday. They arrived here at lunchtime. We ate our lunch and we literally sat at the table talking until it was time for me to serve our dinner. What a blessing to be in conversation with him. The fellowship has been sweet and the encouragement deep. Our kids have enjoyed Mark's company as well. This morning he was in the front yard playing Hide and Seek with all 4 kids. He and Tori played Tic Tac Toe this morning and Tori was having a blast.
Randy took Mark out to visit some of the Aja Christians yesterday. It was supposed to be a brief visit...but it was not! They left at 2:00pm and didn't get home until 8:00pm! Randy said the Aja leaders had alot of questions for Mark and Mark responded with great counsel and some questions of his own. They were very encouraged to hear that Mark had such an impact on our family coming to Benin, as well as an impact on Murphy and Christine Crowson, too (our former Benin teammates who were instrumental in the start of this church at Ainahoue). Once it sank in that because of Mark, that Murphy and Randy had come to Benin, they fell to their knees thanking God, saying to Mark, "we thank God for your work because it is because of you encouraging Murphy and Randy to come, that our families now know salvation!" Even for Mark, it was a sweet moment to meet some of the believers converted because of the work of his former interns.
They were a little late getting in because they were asked to walk across the village to visit a man in the church who had been discouraged. When they arrived, they again thought it was just a brief visit. Then the man became so excited, broke out the large bottles of fruit cocktail and then shared a special treat with Mark and Randy....hippo meat! Apparently a wild hippo had been shot by a nearby hunter who says the hippo was eating some of his crops when the hippo would come out of the river at night (it is forbidden to kill hippos unless the hippo is a danger to the community) This man Mark and Randy visited had a large truck so he had been called in to haul the dead beast to the butcher. As payment, this man was given some of the hippo meat. This was definitely a first for both Mark and Randy!
On another note.....
Our kids have had a strange virus this week that seems to pass quickly. It started with Jonathan...for 2 days he had a fever between 99 and 101.5 We treated with Tylenol and Motrin. He never showed any other symptoms and seems fine now and has had no fever for 2 days. Yesterday Lael woke up with fever and has no other symptoms. Around lunch yesterday Timo told me he was not feeling good and when I checked he had a fever of 100. I gave him Tylenol and within 30 minutes he was asleep on the couch....he said he was just really tired...and he really looked like he did not feel well...J and L never looked sick. It turned out that Timo was up several times in the night with fever and being sick at his stomach. He seems to be doing better now. So we are watching Timo and since we will be in Cotonou tomorrow...anyone who has any symptoms of any thing will be taken to the doctor!

Today we will be dropping Mark at the Togo border where he will rejoin our missionary friends in Togo. We will then head on to Cotonou where we will be picking up former teammate and great friend Greg Bailey. He will return to Aplahoue with Randy and the kids on Sunday for the week. I fly out Sunday night to join my mother for 2 days in London before heading to Kenya for the Come Before Winter Renewal for Missionary Women. I am so excited!

Keep checking in to hear about Randy's adventures with our 4 sweet kids over the next 2 weeks! I am sure the updates will be fun! These kids are so blessed to have Randy for a Daddy. He will make sure their time is memorable!

March 20!

Praise God! Today we heard good news!

March 20, allegedly, We have a court date that we might possibly....if all things go well...then we could possibly.... hear the verbal pronunciation that according to Benin law we are the official parents of Kadi Lael Vaughn.

We really are thankful to have this date on the calendar. We continue to proceed in faith.

If things go well that day, it will be 2-4 weeks later that we receive the official written declaration .

Although there are still many steps to be taken, We are making progress daily. Yesterday we were able to send our paperwork to the Department of Homeland Security in Accra Ghana. Our agency in Texas, Christian Homes and Family Services, has also sent their paperwork regarding our family to the same place. We are being told that sometime in the month of April we will recieve approval to apply for Lael's immigrant visa to the USA!

March 20, I (Kelly) will be in Kenya at the Come Before Winter renewal. Randy's parents, Ronnie and Judy Vaughn will be here in my place. I will greatly miss being a part of that day but I rejoice that we have finally been given a date to anticipate.

We love you Payton!!

Check out Becky's blog for some more great pictures from her recent trip here to Benin. We are missing them so much and we are still thinking and talking about all the fun we had. The time we shared was truly blessed!

I had another great national leadership meeting yesterday. I accompanied 4 of the leaders from the Churches of Christ to meet with our colleagues in the Christian Church for our monthly council meeting. I love seeing the unity between these brothers. I am amazed at the vision they have and their efforts to advance the Kingdom with or without foreign financial help (they accept money from occasional overseas partners, but they also know if the work is to go forward in strength, that they must completely own the responsibilities, including finances). They also launched a new Christian Development Action Center (it has another name in French but I can't remember it). This is the social development arm of the national church...akin to 501c3 organizations often affiliated with congregations in America. They are hoping this opens the doors of possibilities for touching the the lives of the poor, advancing literacy training, and assisting women in creating micro-commerce opportunities.

Be praying that we will have success in our adoption activities this week! We're eager to rejoice in significant progress. We know God is good all the time, and that God's timing is also good all the time, so we are trusting Him for this timetable. The Bible reminds us that God's paths are beyond tracing out!

Blessings on your weekend!
R&K

Today we thought we were waiting for the final document for legal guardianship and that simultaneously we would receive the date of our final court hearing. We received neither one. We also knew that the President had specifically requested to speak with Ega. We (Randy,Kelly, Lael, and Ega) left our house at 7A and Laurance arrived to stay with T, T, and J. The President of the Court did meet with Ega briefly and this went well. We did not receive the final document because of a typo!!!! Our lawyer had to leave the court while we waited there, so that he could go to a cyber cafe and re-type the document without errors. When he returned to the court, the person who was required to issue our file a particular number had left for Cotonou and our lawyer was told to return on Tuesday to retrieve the document. Our lawyer was frustrated, as were we, to say the least. Once he retrieves the document we will receive the court date. We are pleading for the court date to be Friday the ninth.

At the same time we have started the process of working with our local Embassy as well as the U.S. Immigration office located in Accra Ghana. This is proving to be a complicated process as well. We will be going to Cotonou Monday in hopes of filing papers for Immigration to approve of us as adoptive parents. We have been told by various people who have been through this same process, we can expect a time frame of anywhere between 6 weeks to 3 months.

Pray we break the record for speed on this next step. Right now our track record does not fuel positive expectations.

Thank you for your prayers and words of encouragement along the way. It is not always easy to maintain a perspective that it is God who is in control.

I am so thankful for my sister Becky Brooks!

Everyone hold on to your treasure!

We had SO much fun at the beach...laughing, playing in the pool and trying to run away from the waves...great memories and wonderful late night conversations. God so richly blessed our time together.

On the Plane....plus some random thoughts from RV

Kelly just called from Cotonou where Becky and Payton are at the airport, heading home to their T - O - N - Y and B - E - N - J - A - M - I - N (I was really impressed with Payton's ability to spell!) It has been a great week with them...so much packed into a few short days. They blessed us so much. Becky spoke encouraging words over us every day. Such words are not easy to come by in these parts. That's one of the things we miss so much....we miss being a part of a community of people who speak blessing over one another. We're looking forward to that as we return home soon.

ADOPTION "UPDATE": Rather than a court date, we were told by our attorney that the Tribunal president would like to talk to Ega personally. We are all scheduled to go on Friday at 8.00a . . . pray that Ega's consent will be clear to this man and that there won't be any more delay. We are praying that rather than scheduling a subsequent hearning for next week, that we'll just take care of the adoption hearing then and there. We're asking that God make known on earth what has already been declared in heaven!

I was blessed today to have some help watching Jonathan and Lael so that I could get out of the house to visit some believers in their home. I was on foot (Kelly has truck in Cotonou), so I got in some much needed exercise...time to clear my head and pray out loud to my God...except for the half dozen elementary kids who heckled me the entire 20-minute walk to Kaiteme. Now, I know I'm supposed to revel in a "Jesus-Model" mentality where I love having children following me wherever I go...but it was not fun today. But I have matured some over the years....today I just kept walking and praying, not being so bothered by their obvious (?) lack of sensitivity that I was trying to have an alone-time with God (in years past, I have gone from, "wow, this is just like Jesus must have felt to have all these kids shouting my name" to "scram kids - beat it - you're bothering me - go home!"....)

Anyway, I arrived at my destination of the village of Kaiteme (ky-uh-tim-ay) where I visited Ega (Lael's birth father) and a newly baptized believer named Doto. It just happens that they were together when I arrived! Ega was in the middle of offering him counsel on a situation going on his life...offering him a new perspective on how GOD sees the situation. I was blessed that Ega was the one offering the counsel. As well, Doto told me that last night, Ega had gathered together several new believers for some intimate prayer for their journey of faith...love seeing the on-going maturity in this man. Doto left after an hour and Ega and I spent the next 3 hours talking about all sorts of things. It was a blessing to me. We got to recall our friendship history, brainstorm on how to help a man in a desperate financial situation, pray together and shared a couple of soft drinks together. As I walked home, the 20-minute walk seemed so short because I was thanking God so much for my friendship with Ega.

The past couple of days, I have been especially blessed by the live worship DVD by Hillsong, "Mighty to Save." It is so good! Kelly and I have loved their live worship albums for over a decade...we love the live DVDs. It is so cool to escape from the aloneness of this place and worship our Savior alongside thousands of other worshippers. One of the things that blesses me about Hillsong is how many original songs are birthed out of their own congregation. What a testimony to God's activity and a testament to the leadership's effort to equip the body for works of service.

I'm somewhat jealous of people who compose songs....believe me I have tried to write worship songs of my own but they never go anywhere. Even Ega reminded me today of a song that God gave him when he was studying the story of Cain and Abel (to my credit, I was the one who taught him the story?!!!) Anyway, I have a lesson that I am preparing in my heart...it will be the final lesson I give to the Aja people. I don't know when that day will be to deliver my sermon, but we'll talk about the family of nations on their knees in worship at the Throne of God! I love hearing the Vision of what the angels shout to God in praise (Rev 7.11-12)...I want to share those same sentiments in a song here...I just can't compose the melody. I'm praying God gives it to someone else so I can share the song when I give my "farewell address".

I have to be honest and say that since I did not grow up in a fellowship that permitted DANCE at all, much less as an expression of worship....well, I have not always appreciated the artful expression it is. On the "Mighty to Save" project (Hillsong), there is a worship song called "None But Jesus" where a group of authentic worshippers express their praise in dance. I have not always enjoyed the "dance teams" on all the Hillsong projects, but I have been blessed by the expression of this group. Of course, too, the Aja people are excitedly expressive in their dance as they worship God...nothing like Hillsong, but still an expression of what's in their heart!

One other lyric that blessed me tonight from the "Mighty to Save" DVD...standing before the throne of God declaring to our Father, "I know that you love me." Simple words of truth. Powerful confidence and reassuring faith. That's good worship.

Kelly will return tomorrow with what I'm sure is a full camera of photos taken the past couple of days at the beach and today's farewell to B&P. Check back soon for those!
I'm sure you're all ready for some thoughts from Kelly for a change......

-Randy

* Can you believe it's already March???!!!

Waiting . . . on God's Sovereign and Perfect Time . . . Waiting

Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.

Yes, yet another day has passed and we still have no date for our adoption hearing. We continue to marvel at this "waiting game"...marveling at my impatience, and yet struck at the marvel that indeed the date is already set in heaven! But when do we get to hear?! Essentially, OUR need to hear is so that we can make other plans. Isn't the Lord a planner, too?! Doesn't He sense our need to know this date, so we can make plans for more dates down the line? It's absolutely crazy! For a split second, each time our attorney says, "maybe tomorrow", I get this rush of frustration and anger, and honestly I feel like punching my fist onto the table and screaming. Yet so quickly the Lord's reminder sweeps in with His great peace...a peaceful nudging to recall His faithfulness and that, in reality, HE was the one who set this whole adoption into our laps in the first place...He has the plan and He is in control. And we wouldn't have it any other way!!

A dear friend of our family loves to say, "God is seldom early and never late." (did I get that right?) I thought I was a pretty patient person before all of this...maybe God is teaching...uh...training us for something in the future. Or perhaps in the mystery of God's mighty plans, His untraceable, creative ways are just simply higher than our ways. The latter brings alot of hope and peace...it just requires faith! ha

Continue to pray with us that we will soon hear the date for our court hearing finalizing Lael's adoption here in Benin. Our attorney did say that in the petition, he requested a court date for March 9th...a perfect date as far as our calendar is concerned. He thinks we should be able to get that date...pray it is so!

Once the adoption is finalized in Benin, we have a host of other steps that involve US immigration and administrative details regarding Lael's Benin birth certificate, her Benin passport, etc.....

Kelly leaves on March 11-26 for a women's retreat in Kenya...we are praying with eagerness for the adoption hearing to be on the 9th so that she can be in attendance and not miss the Come Before Winter retreat.

We have some great guests coming our way over the next month...Mark Berryman (6-9), Greg Bailey (11-18) and my parents (18-26)! We love visitors, especially when they are people we love so much!

Persevere in prayer with us please.....
-Randy & Kelly


** Kelly, Tori, Timo, Becky and Payton all left today to spend a couple of days at the beach prior to their flight on Wednesday. I get to spend some Daddy time focusing on fun wrestling matches with Jonathan, sweet snuggle times with Lael and some serious obedience training for both!

Women Together in Great Joy!

On Saturday, over 40 women from various Churches of Christ and Christian Church congregations celebrated their fellowship together! Because of Becky's visit, we organized at the last minute a meeting at our house so that these women could come a greet Kelly's sister and have a good reason to praise the Lord together! Becky shared a powerful word from the Lord, challenging these women to meet regularly for prayer and as well, to assemble ALL the women together sometime this year for a celebration of worship! The women pictured are representatives of 7 of the congregations among the Aja people and from over half of the Christian Churches (in another people group). Later on this year, they will gather ALL the women together for a great time of praise and fellowship.


Kelly translated into French, and then we had one woman translate into the Aja language and yet another lady translate into the Fon language. It was quite the linguistic event! When it was all over, the ladies were given Cokes and cookies...eagerly served by the 3 best little helpers, Tori, Timothy and Payton!

Happy Birthday to our February 25th birthdays!!! My dad, my niece and my sister-in-law all share the exact same birthday! Tori was sure proud of all 3 of these...it was alot of work to do 3 b-cards!

PAPA: I think you can read most of yours, except the "I love you Papa" in blue on the right side. Thought she did pretty good drawing some of her favorite things about Papa!
LAURA: Of course Tori loves horses, so when I told her that Coronado's mascot is the mustang, she knew exactly what she'd draw for you! Hope your birthday was great!
TONI: Now this "double-T" thing is pretty complex, but I think she did a pretty job, huh?!

We took some fun pictures of the girls this morning....both are so pretty! I'm so proud to be their Daddy!

-Randy

God Bless Benin

A DAY WITH EGA AT HIS HOUSE