Olivia's Birth Father Has Been Found

I received a call today from our agency and was told that Olivia's birth father has been found but that we needn't worry as he has signed relinquishment papers. What this means is that we now must refile a form with homeland security to get her status changed from abandoned to relinquished for her visa. The good news is that we may be able to get some information about her birth family which may be valuable to Olivia in the future. It seems that as we thought, Olivia's birth mother died at childbirth. What's not clear is if she died as a result of childbirth or from some other cause. We may be able to get that clarified. I have an amazing peace about all this. I guess it's confirmation that she has been born in our hearts and is truely our daughter. I know she will be with us eventually. My prayers go out for her birthfather, who just recently had this sad part of his life brought back forward. I don't know if he has had any contact with her at all, but whatever happened it couldn't have been easy. As things stand right now, they are redoing her birth certificate and some other official paperwork. Until that is done, we will not receive approval. Our agency thinks this shouldn't delay things more then a couple of weeks. When we receive copies of her paperwork, we will refile with homeland security here. We still hope to have her home sometime in November. Please pray the rest of this goes smoothly and that God is preparing her heart for us!!

Happy Birthday Little Olivia!!

Well this day seemed like as good as any to start this journal. We are "The Brubaker Bunch". The big difference between us and the more famous "B Bunch" is that this "Lovely Lady and Man Named Brubaker" didn't just meet but have been married for coming up on 19 years. We do have the 3 boys and 3 girls and they have come together in different ways....4 born in this family, 2 adopted into this family. One of whom we still wait for......Nien Thi Ha.....soon to be Olivia Kathleen Nien Brubaker was born on August 8th, 2002 in Hanoi, Viet Nam. We are not sure why her birth family didn't feel they could care for her but they did do the most loving thing they could do. They brought their tiny, premature baby girl to the local children's hospital and left her in a place they knew she would be found and cared for. The staff of that hospital took her in and cared for this tiny, sick little baby girl for several months until she was healthy enough to move into what would be her home for the next 4 years, until her new Mom and Dad could find her. That's where we come in......although we had no intention of adopting again this year...one night, at the end of January, while praying for children on the Holt International Waiting Child list, the face of one sweet little girl and the brief description of her (that reminded us of our older daughter Emily) drew us to her, both Elliott and I. The next few days, we thought about her and prayed about her, asked Holt for more information...found out that there were other families that had inquired about her and pursuing approval to adopt her. We prayed and knew that if little Nien was meant to be in this family the Lord would open the doors....and we would simply walk through. Well to make a long story a little shorter.....on March 3rd, 2006 we received a call from Holt that Nien would become our newest daughter. We have given her a new name to go with her new life....Olivia (peace) Kathleen (Rebecca's grandmother) and will retain Nien (for her vietnamese hertigage). And so we continue to walk (or should I say wait) and shuffle piles of paperwork, and trust that all will go well. In the mean time, little Nien celebrates one last birthday in an orphange, separated from her family.....who, with every new picture and "update" has fallen deeper and deeper in love with her.

Happy 4th Birthday Olivia Kathleen Nien!!!
We love you and can't wait to hold you in our arms!!