Baby Sam . . . Part 2

Welcome to the world,

Ava Grace Sam

Hello, dear friends. We want to introduce you to the newest addition to our family, our precious daughter Ava Grace. She made her grand entrance on Monday, August 25. She weighed 7lb 12 oz, and was 21.5" long. We thank God for a healthy delivery with a healthy mom and baby. We continue to praise God for good health for Ava and Betsy: Ava weighs about 10lb 4 oz at nearly 6 weeks old, so she is growing steadily, and her smiles and intent stares convey she is attempting to interact more with the world around her.

We're busy making preparations to leave the U.S. to head back to India for Emmanuel's 25th anniversary thanksgiving celebrations. Our tickets are booked for November 5; however, the travel date is dependent upon receiving the visas for Ava, Aidan, and Betsy. We've had a lot of adaptations to our plans for re-entry to India, but are trusting God's sovereign hand in his dealings with us and looking forward to the resolution of visa and medical issues in his timing. 

Ava's name has quite a few variations in meaning. We've seen everything from "bird" to "life" (derived from Hebrew "Eve") to "grace" to "bearer of good news" (probably borrowing from "Evangeline") to "sound" or "voice" in Persian. The meaning of her middle name, Grace, is a little more obvious :). We have no problem making a conglomerate of meaning out of the several available ones. Our hope and prayer is that our daughter will be a sweet song bird filled with the life of Jesus whose voice bears the  sweet savour of the good news of His grace to all whom she meets!

Please join us in praying for God to use us in the remainder of our time here, establish our steps regarding our time of departure, give us strength and discernment for the packing and paperwork, and prepare us for settling back into India. We look forward to seeing all of our family and friends there, but at the same time will be grieved to leave our loved ones here once again. Thanks for your prayers!