It's All Good!

Hi everyone! Sorry I've been so silent on here, but we've had a busy August! Can it really be almost over? I think I'm in denial that my front lawn is already covered in leaves. So many people are saying they love fall, but for me fall is just a glaring reminder that winter is right around the corner. Ugh. 
So like I said, we've been busy! We took a family trip to Alberta near the beginning of August for a good friend's wedding, and the week after Cassidy and I left with my parents to spend 6 days in Vernon, BC for my cousin's wedding, for which she was a flower girl! 

*BRAG ALERT*

 I have to say I was a little nervous about parenting solo, although my parents were of course a huge help, but Cassidy did AWESOME! Seriously, she completely blew me away. We were go go go the whole time, squeezing in naps when we could, and staying up late and spending MANY long hours in the car, and she was a champ! She didn't complain once, I hardly had to discipline her, she was happy and even though she had a couple of very traumatizing experiences with porta potties, it did not set back her potty training thank goodness! Traveling with her was an absolute breeze. Plus she really rocked the whole flower girl gig! She's a natural!

Here's a few pictures from our trip!

 Ready to go!

 I was actually freaking out as I took this picture and as soon as I snapped the shot, she was off of that thing!

She loved being a "fower girl" :)

 Her new friend Timmy so graciously sharing his goldfish with her!

Loving the water!

What a fun holiday, but does it ever feel good to be home! Cassidy was up at 5:30 or 6 every morning in BC but thankfully has fallen right back into her old routine and is sleeping till 8:30 again. Now that I'm home, I'm super busy putting the final details together for VBS at our church next week. Please pray that we will get lots of kids and that God will work in a mighty way for his glory!

Wait a second, the real reason I came on here was to give you an adoption update! I had last heard from our agency about 3 weeks ago.  They were still waiting to hear from our Central Authority in Regina. The agency that we are working with has never worked with anyone in SK before, so there were some things they needed to discuss. In the busyness of holidays, I kept forgetting to email to ask where things were at. Well! Today I got an email saying they had touched base with our guy in Regina and we are good to go to start officially working with them! This means we can start putting together our profile for the birth mother, as we continue to work on our home study as well. I know this is not huge huge news but to me every small step is one step closer to holding my baby in my arms, so I am rejoicing today! God is good! Our garage sale is in 2 weeks and our garage is a MESS! There is just enough space for us to park our car and the rest is full of stuff! This is a very very good thing, although it is driving my husband a bit crazy, as he likes his garage neat and orderly. People have been so generous in giving for this! The dates are September 6 in the evening and September 7 all day, so come check it out! There will also be baking for sale and I think there may be two cute boys with a lemonade stand :)

Thanks for your prayers! I know I sound like a broken record, but we really do appreciate them and you!

Quick Update

Hello all! So things are moving along nicely! I got an email from our agency the other day saying that they have received our application (YAY!) and we just had our first home study visit tonight, which was wonderful! The same lady who did our home study with Cassidy is doing this one as well and it was wonderful to visit with her again. She was quite happy to see Cassidy again and to see how well she's doing. 

I am so thankful that we already have one adoption under our belt going into this one. I am so relaxed about this and just excited, and yet I know I would be completely overwhelmed if this was our first. It's a different kind of adoption and their are different unknowns, but at the stage we're at it's nothing we haven't done before, which makes it so much easier. 

Our garage is slowly piling up with stuff to sell at our sale in September! People have been so generous in donating items and I have a lot more stuff that I know is coming yet! The tentative date for our sale is Friday Sept 6 in the evening and all day Sat, the 7th. I'm super excited about it! 

Summer feels like it's flying by, can it really be August already?? We have a busy month planned with two weddings in different provinces, Praise in the Park and DVBS at our church that I'm directing. Yikes! I like being busy though, and it'll keep my mind off of BABY because that's all I can think about most of the time. I wish we were further along in the process already, but I know that with every step we're getting there and it will all happen in God's time. Patience has never been my strong suit! 

We appreciate the prayers and support! Keep it up!

Love the Letkemans 

Praise in the Park!

Hello friends! I started this blog with the intention to write mainly about our adoption journey, but every now and then I want to write about other things I'm passionate about too. Hence, this post!

I am passionate about Jesus. I've been walking with Him since I turned 5 and it's been the most incredible journey. I can't imagine going through this life without Jesus by my side. I am thankful every single day that I was raised in a home where His name was preached and loved. I shudder to think what my life would've been like without Him. He truly is my best friend, my truest love and the ultimate Savior, and one of my most favorite things to do in the whole wide world is worship Him through music. I've been playing piano since I was 7 and I have been blessed to be a part of some amazing music opportunities. Praise in the Park tops the list!

Praise in the Park was started by my brother-in-law Mark Janzen, who wanted to do some sort of outreach to the (then town) of Warman. He came up with the idea of a giant outdoor concert in one of the parks. He put together a band (We That Breathe) and Praise in the Park was born. Both John and I are part of We That Breathe and this will be our 3rd summer playing with them. It's been such a blast! We came together from a few different churches, some of us not knowing others and having never played together before, but we just clicked and now we have such a great time every time we get together to play. It's truly a blessing.

God works in mysterious ways. In my life I find that the more I seek Him, the more He shows Himself to me, but sometimes there's those moments where you He shows you a glimpse of Himself in a BIG, HUGE way! I don't get those moments very often, but when I do I am always completely humbled and astounded. God did that with Cassidy's adoption. Throughout the whole process I felt complete peace, and while everything around me screamed "Worry! Freak out!", I didn't. I had a peace that passes all understanding. That was God. God has also done that with Praise in the Park. 
The first year, we met to practice the Saturday afternoon before the concert that evening. It was windy and despite the clips to hold down our music, they were still blowing around quite wildly. So we prayed. We prayed for God to calm the wind and for everything to be still. I admit that I doubted. I doubted that the wind would entirely go away. After all, this is Saskatchewan. That night, it was calm. Calmer then I can ever remember. There was not a single tiny breeze to be found. God did that. 
The second year, on the day of Praise in the Park, thunderstorms were in the forecast. We practised that afternoon and scary looking clouds loomed above us. Again, we prayed. People asked if it was cancelled and we said no. And we kept praying. The evening began and though the clouds never left, we never felt a single drop of rain the whole time. John and I stayed to help pack up the instruments after and then we walked home. As soon as we got in the house, the sky let loose with the most incredible light-show I have every seen in my life. The thunder crashed and lightning lit up the sky and the rain poured down. I remember sitting and watching with wide eyes, completely entranced at the wonder unfolding in the sky. I truly believe God held back the storm and then let loose, showing us that He really is all that we just sang about. That was one of the most incredible God moments of my life!

This summer Praise in the Park is on August 24 at 7:30 at the Lion's Park in Warman, same place it's always been for those of you who have been before. Last year we had  more people then the year before and we are hoping for even more this year, especially those that don't know Jesus, or are wanting to know Him. I am SO excited! God has blessed us big time already and I can't wait to see what He's going to do this year! So please, tell your friends, especially if they don't know Jesus, and let's fill the park and get loud for Jesus. He is worthy of all our praise! 
Psalm 150
"Praise the Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary; praise Him in His mighty heavens. Praise Him for His acts of power; prasie Him for His surpassing greatness. Praise Him with the sounding of the trumpet; praise Him with the harp and lyre, praise Him with tambourine and dancing, praise Him with the strings and flute, praise Him with the clash of cymbals, praise Him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!"

Once Was Lost

Hello friends! I'd like to introduce you to a fantastic couple and tell you a little about an organization they have started to help adoptive families. Meet Jared and Chantel Klassen. Here's a little of their story:

"Once Was Lost was created as Jared and Chantel were trying to raise money for their own adoption and noticed there was a lack of opportunities for fundraising for Canadian couples. They really wanted to help others trying to adopt to raise support and after some brainstorming, Once Was Lost was born!"

We are extremely excited to be affiliates with Once Was Lost. How it works is when you buy anything from their store, 50% of the proceeds go to affiliates. They sell jewelry, t-shirts, accessories, toys and items for the home. To make sure the money goes to us, when you check out put our names (John and Mandi) in the Notes to Seller box. 

Another great thing about Once Was Lost is that every $25 you spend you will feed a hungry child for a week! One whole week! Isn't that fantastic? 

This is our first official start to fundraising and I couldn't be more pumped! If you want to support us and make a purchase, the web address is www.oncewaslost.storenvy.com. If you want to read more about our story, click the affiliates tab and you'll find us there! Any questions, please let me know! 

Thanks again for your prayers. I've had many people already talk to me in person and through email and let me know they are praying. It always overwhelms me to think that people are praying for us. We are more grateful then words can say. God is so good!!

Ah Summer...

Hello friends! Now that I have a blog I want to write on it everyday. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) my everyday happens are not usually something I consider "blog-worthy" :p
Adoption wise, things are slowly rolling along. We have our first home study appointment scheduled for early August so until then we're busy doing paperwork. We have a list of things that need to be completed for our home study, such as criminal checks, child abuse checks, medicals, passports, etc. so we've been chipping away at those. Criminal checks are done (and clean, whew!) and passports are on their way! For anyone who says every passport picture is bad, you obviously haven't seen this one:

I know right?? On a sidenote, she looks like she's 5 here! Stop growing up child!
We also filled out the application for our agency and I'm going to send it off on Monday! Woohoo! Then we can start working on our picture book as well as the home study! Lots of people have offered to donate things to our garage sale in September, which is awesome! I'm getting really excited about it! I am also seriously considering having Cassidy stand at the end of our driveway with a sign around her neck saying "Help make me a big sister". No? Yeah, like she'd stand still for that long anyway, but I'd challenge anyone to try and walk away from that!
In other news, we are loving the hot summer weather. I just love the heat. I love having an air conditioned house to escape from it when need be, but I try to soak up as much as I can. We have been to the spray park almost daily and we BBQ as much as we can. Our weekends have and will be packed with family time. I love it!! Today we shipped Cassidy off to Grandma and Grandpa's and John and I spent the day cleaning up our yard. We're both beat now, but it looks much better! Ah summer, please never leave.
Thanks for reading and thanks even more for the prayers! Keep it up!

Let's Do This Thing!

Woohoo! I've always thought it would be neat to have a blog but I had no good reason too and I didn't want to bore people with my everyday goings on. Now I have a reason! As most of you probably saw, I just posted on Facebook about our news that we're beginning the adoption process again. A few of you emailed me different questions about the process so I thought blogging would be a way to answer all of your questions all at once!

For those of you who are just finding this blog for the first time and don't know me at all, here's a quick introduction. My name is Mandi Letkeman. I am (almost) 26 and I live in the booming city of Warman, SK with my handsome hubby John and my ridiculously cute 2 year old, Cassidy. We adopted Cassidy privately from a woman in Saskatoon when she was 9 months old. After her adoption was finalized in March of this year, we immediately started looking into where to adopt from next.

After some research into different countries, and much advice from friends, we decided to go with the States. Many people have asked us how we came to this choice. Basically the biggest reason is that we (mostly me!) want a newborn this time. I am unable to have my own children, so I really want to experience the whole fresh-out-of-the-oven phase. Later, for our third adoption, we would like to try adopting an older child or a sibling group from Africa, China, or somewhere overseas.

This adoption will be very different from Cassidy's. Here is an overview of how the process will work. First we had to get approved by our central authority in SK, which we have. Next was the grueling process of picking an agency. There are many different agencies in the States and it was hard to decided which one to go with. After much prayer and searching around, we have found one that we hope will be a good fit for us. Please pray that as we start to work with this agency that things will go well and we will have a good experience with them. Now we are working on getting our home study done. This is not new to us, as we had to do the same thing with Cassidy. We have gotten the same lady who did our study with Cassidy to work with us on this one and that is a big answer to prayer as she is simply fantastic! We are very excited to work with her again. As we do our home study, we also can start getting our profile package ready. This is the fun part! This will be what the birth mother looks at when she comes in and picks a family for her baby. In other words, it will be her way of "meeting" us. We have to make a book full of pictures of our family, our house, our town, our church, extended family and friends, etc. Basically, everything that makes us look good, as this will be her first impression of us! Then once all that is done, it gets approved by our central authority and is sent off to our agency. Then we wait!!
I am so thankful going into this that we have one adoption under our belt. It makes this seem much less overwhelming, although it is very different.

So if you're wondering "how can I help?" this next part is for you! We need to raise $35,000. I know that is a crazy big number but God has given me complete peace that this is His plan for us right now and I am more then confident that He will provide. Unfortunately, there are not many grants that are open to Canadians, so to raise this money we need your help! It feels very awkward for me to ask for money, but we really don't have a choice. Please consider this in prayer and if you feel led to help bring our baby home, please contact me either through this blog or by phone or Facebook to hear how you can help! Right now I'm busy planning fundraisers. The first one we are planning is to have a big garage/bake sale. We are planning this for September, once summer winds down. If you have any items sitting around that you need to get rid of let me know! Also, I need help with fundraising ideas, so if you have any good ideas or know of fundraisers that have been successful in the past, please write me in the comments area or contact me and share! I would appreciate it! Someone has asked me if they could share our story on their blog and the answer is YES! Please, if you feel led, share our story and spread the word!

Mostly, I'm asking for your prayers. Prayer is always our most powerful tool. Please pray that God will continue to guide us along this path and help everything to come together. Pray that he will already be working in the heart of the woman who is going to choose to give us her baby. Pray that His will would be done in all of this. It was (and is!) completely humbling to see how the Lord led in Cassidy's adoption. From the very first phone call, it was evident that this was His plan. We are praying for the same evidence with this adoption, and that through it all He will be glorified and lifted HIGH! 
Thanks friends. Love you all!!!