Nehemiah's Sum Hop Day

Two years ago today, January 6, 2009, we were in the beautiful country of Vietnam adopting our baby boy. The phrase Sum Hop in Vietnamese means, "To unite, to come together".
Our Sum Hop 2011 pictures in traditional Ao Doi.










I do not think I have shared a recap of his adoption story, so here it goes...

Avi Joy was an infant and we had been home for only 6 months when we started the process for our second child. It did seem a little unwise at the time, but we knew 2 years down the road we would want to have another child. I was already dreaming about another baby and told our social worker that in my dream my child was born in Can Tho. A province of Vietnam where Dillon helped run the American Red Cross orphanage. She just smiled at my active imagination!
Fourteen months into our Vietnam process we were told that the country of Vietnam would be going on hold for an indefinite amount of time and that we would not receive a referral, as we were #5 on the list.
We were heartbroken but knew God could direct us to other countries.
We were still paperwork ready for Vietnam, but switched our funds to the China program. We knew it was a five year process, so we also started a concurrent adoption with DHS. (Because China takes so long, they allow you to do this, so we thought our second child would be through DHS, then baby number three would be Chinese. And that leaving our foot, so to speak, in the Vietnam process would come to nothing.)
But that is not what happened. Our agency called and said that a miracle had happened and that all four families in front of us changed their processes. Two desired older waiting children and two families only wanted female infants. There was a little boy who had just become paper ready and lived in Can Tho and they wanted us to pray about him. But pretty much decide immediately so we could be grandfathered-in to adopting him as Vietnam would be closed by the time we traveled. (VN closed September 2008).
We then waited 8 months to travel and had many hiccups along the way. BUT it was all in perfect timing and we are so thankful and grateful for him. What a joy it is to love (and discipline!) this precious little man.
P.S. Then 6 months after we came home, we picked back up our DHS adoption and were matched with our daughter, 12, and will be finalizing her adoption within the next couple months.

All Vietnam 2009 photos
First Sum Hop day post 2010

I am working on a year in review (of pictures of him). We plan on celebrating by going to do a few things this week and I will post them soon.

"Salvation belongs to the Lord; May Your blessing be upon Your people. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!" Psalm 3:8
Perryman Family