Beautiful Sweet Prayer

Our niece Abigail has taken it upon herself to pray for her cousin that God has His eye on in the Philippines! Here is an email from my sister:

It's amazing to me sometimes how our Lord speaks through young children (Matthew 21:16 And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,“‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?”)  The past few nights when we pray together Abigail has, entirely on her own, prayed for your son/daughter.  Just something simple like, "And Dod, we pway for the little giwl or boy in the Fillipeeeeens that doesn't have a mommy or daddy yet."


Prayer comes from the most beautiful and unexpected places, doesn't it? I'm so thankful!

Going to My Heart!

At 11:30pm on Saturday June 9 I left with a group of 13 others to head the airport where we hopped on a plane to fly to Santo Domingo, to take a bus to San Juan de la Maguana where a little piece of my heart lives year round!

We're working and playing and loving at the Rose of Sharon orphanage this week. Will you keep us in your prayers this week? Pray that we are dangerous for the Kingdom and that we see God moving!

Pictures to come upon return (most will be posted on Facebook, but some favorites will get posted here!)

A Picture Update (Part 2)

Cyber space finally released the remaining pictures to me (twice...thanks Internet) (see A Picture Update Part 1 if you have no idea what I'm talking about).

To continue where we left off...

 Why did I post a picture of bird poop you ask? Because we had just paid to have our sidewalks, porches, and roof cleaned and within 12 hours this brazen bird had doo-doo'd on my porch. Seriously bird?

 The Calvary staff took a retreat to the Nature Inn at Bald Eagle State Park at the end of May. This is the view from the room (which I ended up not staying in since I forgot all my toiletries at home...meh, whatev)

 Abigail and Uncle Marc at the park

 She loved having Uncle Marc push her even though is is a proficient leg pumper!

 What concentration!

 Mr. David just hanging out...

 Tucker requires as many pillows as his dad apparently

Beat after a long day of frisbee... (this is actually how Tucker sleeps!)

 You know it's going be a rough day when you wake up with bed stuffing on your head

Just a cute picture of Lily! (squinting because the flash was too bright...sorry Lil)

$4,000

That is how much YOU helped us raise to send TWO of the boys at the Rose of Sharon Orphanage to University. They're working on some paperwork/birth certificate issues and once those get resolved the boys will be on their way! I am so excited to get to tell them that some Americanos cared enough about them to give generously to see their dreams come true! My heart is bursting!

We're always accepting donations to the college fund - or if you are interested in sponsoring one of the boys or girls check this site out: http://www.calvaryglobalkids.org/ (this includes kids from the orphanages/homes in the Dominican Republic, Myanmar, and Rwanda that Calvary supports).

Feel free to ask me any questions you may have!

A Picture Update (Part 1)

A busy month of May in the Pensyl house hold - keep scrolling for a peek!

 We went food shopping and saw a limo in the parking lot of Wegman's. Honestly. Who takes a limo food shopping?

 Marc and Lily spooning on the couch. I can't get the man to cuddle with me, but apparently Lily knows the way to his heart...

 Mr. Cutie Pants. I love this guy.

 Karin and Bridget's wedding!

 Beautiful flowers!

 Cutting the cake

 Serving

 They were very nice - no cake smashing here!

 Marc, Sara, and Bridget

 My birthday was in May and Marc showed me that he knows the way to my heart! Please look in between the wine bottle and flower vase...

 Please look again...

 Finally a shot without Mr. Weirdo Pants in the background

 My sort-of-romantic card from Marc and the pups...

 Tyler and Jess welcomed baby Jaxson into the world on May 11! He's a punctual little guy. And so stinkin' cute, I could him forever!

 Jay (brother-in-law) just letting off some steam after a day of work

 Abigail acting more normal that her father...

 :) Cutest little girl on the planet!

Pushing her imaginary baby. Hopefully baby was strapped in because she was getting some air!

There are about a dozen more pictures but they're currently lost somewhere in cyber space. I'll post when I get them!

Something We Want You To Know About Our Adoption

One thing that throws me off my game every single time it happens is how no one wants to talk to us about our decision to adopt our first child. This baffled me and, quite honestly, offended me for the first six or so months we were sharing the news. After conversations with one close friend and one old friend's mom it hit me that the reason (I think) that people clam up and act awkward and then don't continue the conversation is that they think we're adopting because we can't have children. Then that has the potential to lead to conversations about sex and reproductive systems and for as open about sex as our culture is, we're secretly really closed off about it.

The Pensyls chose to adopt our first child because we wanted to, because we could. We are blessed to have the time and finances to handle an adoption at this point in our lives. We didn't want to have biological children first and then always "What if..." ourselves about adoption.

Can we have biological children? Who the heck knows! We've never tried. We certainly plan to try once our first child is here and settled into our family. And if we can't? Who the heck cares! We'll adopt again (and again and again!)!

So please talk to us about our adoption. This is one of the most exciting moments in our lives and we want to talk to you about it. And yes, things move incredibly slow for a long period of time, so there might be months were we have no new news to share with you, but please keep asking and act interested when we tell you the same sliver of news that we told you last time. And both of us hate talking and sharing personal details of our lives so if we act awkward that's just us, so please push past it and show us that you care about us.

Dossier Approved!

We received a note in the mail that the Intercountry Adoption Board (ICAB) approved our dossier on April 20! They approved it just shy of six weeks after receiving it and we were told it would take about 6 weeks so we're right on schedule (not that that means anything, but it's still exciting!).

In a nutshell this means the Philippines government has approved us as parents and now they are looking for our child!! He or she may not even be born yet! It blows my mind when I think about it.

This means our "average wait of 36 months" can official begin (as of April 20 - hey look at that! We're already three weeks in!). Remember though - we're praying big prayers and we'd appreciate it if you joined us. We trust fully in God's timing, but are asking Him for a much shorter wait time!