Nashville, here we come!

Sophie might just have a future in the recording business.

Early this week, we worked on producing a short 15 second commercial for the foster home. We have a volunteer at New Day right now who is great at audio/video production, and he brought some cool equipment with him. Chad had a terrific idea to record a few of our kids singing a Chinese song to play in the background of the commercial. So the other day, he came over to the foster home to record Emily, Sophie, and Victoria.

Emily and Victoria excitedly began singing - loving every minute. But as soon as Sophie saw the huge microphone and the other equipment, she curled up in the corner of the playroom, covering her ears. Clearly, she wanted nothing to do with whatever was going on.

After recording the song a couple times with Emily and Victoria, Chad suggested we move from the playroom into a quieter place to cut down on background noise. So everybody moved into the preschool and began singing again. This time, Sophie stayed close by Emily and Victoria, but still had no desire to sing. She continued her "Hear no evil" stance, with her hands cupped over her ears and a nervous look on her sweet face.

Hoping to calm her jitters, Chad offered his headphones to Sophie. A bit reluctantly, she put them over her ears but then immediately brightened as she heard her friends' voices coming through the head phones. Suddenly, she realized what was going on - and she wanted to be a part of it!

Chad spoke into the microphone just for Sophie to hear, "Ni shi wo de pengyou ma?" (Are you my friend?)

Sophie's face lit up! She grabbed the microphone from Chad and began singing her little heart out, refusing to take off the head phones. Later, she also asked to hold his recorder as well. Soon, she was holding all of the equipment and had essentially taken over as the singer, producer, and technician.

Below is a copy of the commercial - with the featured voices of three of our very favorite girls!

Unexpected Blessings

She wasn't who we expected.

After several serious heart cases, we chose to bring Bess to NDFH because her condition wasn't quite so serious. We knew our staff needed the emotional break. Though she definitely needed surgery, it wouldn't be as difficult as many of the surgeries we complete, and we thought she would be the perfect respite from months of hard cases.

Except she wasn't.

Within hours of arriving at the foster home, she went into congestive heart failure. We rushed her to the hospital. The doctors put her into a medically-induced coma to stabilize her. After several days, she was finally stable enough to have her operation, and the doctors did emergency surgery on a Sunday -- something they rarely do.

She recovered quickly and came home to our foster home. She has such a sweet and gentle spirit. She loves to cuddle, and when she smiles really big, she gets the cutest little dimple on her upper right cheek.

We're all in love.

She arrived not a minute too late.

If she had gone into congestive heart failure at her orphanage, there would have been very little anyone could have done, and our precious Bess wouldn't be here today.

When we think back on our decision to bring in an "easy" case, we can't help but be thankful for who we got instead.