April 1, 2004

Caring for and serving families in Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama,  Mississippi,
Florida, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana 

Would you be willing to host children from Russia such as these three children pictured from last year? If so please join us in Operation Hope 2004! We have just received information on the wonderful 14 children we hope to bring this Summer!    We have 3 sibling groups that we do not have host families for:  two brothers who are 10 and 5 years old; a boy and girl 9 and 10 years old; and two Asian girls 8 and 11 years old!  We also have a wonderful 8 year old boy and a 9 year old girl as well.  Let us know immediately if you are interested in these children!!  Anyone interested in participating this year, will need to begin preparations now!! Please contact Brenda at Brenda@childrenshopeint.org, or Tanya at Tanya@childrenshopeint.org, or 615-309-8109 for more information.

We have had a wonderful trip and spent the day running around Moscow.  We finally found our way to the Pushkin Museum with some difficulty, after several hours and many miles walked!  We were perhaps a little confident in our navigational skills.  Moscow is lovely - as was Smolensk.  What a beautiful country Russia is!  It took us a little time to get in the groove but now we fell at home - almost....  :) We have been adventurous in our eating with our goal of eating traditional Russian fare.  Although we did have Sushi last night :) Our son is wonderful - as you can probably tell from our previous emails.  We feel so blessed and know that he was meant to be ours. 

This is our second adoption from China and through Childrens Hope International.  Again, every detail of the trip was planned so carefully by the CHI staff and basically the only thing we had to think about in China was taking care of our child.  It's great to work with an agency that genuinely cares for the adoptive families.  We can't say enough good things about every one we have come in contact with at CHI during the past 3.5 years.

Little Zena continues to just charm everyone she comes in contact with. She is so sweet and happy.  She waves at people and reaches to touch their hands.  Last night another couple joined us for dinner and we sat the high chairs together.  The two girls held hands, touched each other's faces and tried to feed each other throughout the meal. 

Zara is such a precious big sister to Zena.  She feeds her, measures the formula and mixes the bottles, "reads" to her, checks on her while she's sleeping and whatever she thinks she should do to help "Baby Zena."  They get along so well and Zena just laughs at Zara and wants to be where she is!

Zena is standing and trying to take steps while holding the couch or ottoman.  She has made so much progress considering she couldn't even stand in our laps three weeks ago when we got her.  She continues to be so happy and smiles all the time. We took her to Zara's Kindermusic class on Thursday and Zena was more interactive than a lot of the other children who regularly attend.  Her nanny told us she enjoyed music and we had already observed that but it was so obvious in that group setting--God sure placed her in the right home with our love for music!

So many prayers have been answered.  What a precious gift from above these two girls are!

We are great and Bibi is wonderful.  What a blessing she is.  Here are a few pictures....one is of her and daddy wearing crowns on her first birthday at a restaurant in Lanzhou.  Thanks for all your help.

Our trip to meet Dmitry was wonderful!  He's such an outgoing, smiley and happy little boy!  After having his photo to finally see him was amazing. (Editor’s Note:  This family adopted one of the waiting children, thus had a picture of him before meeting him.) He was only shy with us for a couple minutes then took us into another room where he sang for us with a nice man that played the accordian.  Dmitry loves to sing, it's his favorite thing to do, then it's playing cars, which is great as our son, Alex went with us and he loves cars.  They hit it off from the moment they met and played very well together.  We are so blessed.  We hope our return is quick!  It was very hard to leave him as you know.  The 2nd day we were there he asked if we would be picking him up tomorrow and we said, no, then he said the next day?  It was heartbreaking...We asked our translator Olga (who is such a sweet girl) to explain the process that we had to go home and would be back in about a month (that's what they told us, we hope it's a month!).  Our 4 days with him were great, lots of playing, laughing and hugging.  Olga said she had never seen a child and the new parents bond so quickly.  Thanks so much!

Children's Hope International will be holding Chinese classes in May. On May 1st we will hold a 2-hour basic Chinese language class at the Chinese School (H.G.Hill Middle School from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.) in Nashville. On May 28^th, we will hold a class on Chinese culture and history. This class will be taught by Hongxia Liu from Vanderbilt University. Class will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Woodmont Hills Family of God Church, Room 201. These classes are open to all individuals who are in the process of adopting from China or who have already adopted from China.

We are delighted to offer you a series of Russian Classes held by Daniel Schafer, Belmont Professor. They will take place at Woodmont Hills Family of God Church, 3710 Franklin Pike, Nashville, TN 37204 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm on Fridays, April 23, April 30 and May 7, 2004.

April 23: Introduction to Russian Language and Alphabet - A presentation that will quickly teach the Russian alphabet and give some basic "survival phrases".

April 30: Ethnic and Religious Groups of Russia - An introduction to Russia's basic geographical environment and the peoples who live there.

May 7: Moscow, Smolensk, and other Russian Cities in the Context of Russian History - Gives some background on the city of Moscow and other cities that families adopting from Russia will visit in connection with their adoptions. 

Please visit our website at http://www.childrenshope.com/southeast/Meetings/support_group_activities.htm for more information. To RSVP, please contact Natalia at the office or natalia@childrenshopeint.org. We hope to see you there!

Calling all families and friends!  Choose your teams wisely because every bit of knowledge counts as Trivia Night rolls into town! The TN branch will hold this event on Friday, April 16^th, at the Cool Springs YMCA, in Franklin. The evening will begin at 6:30 and include questions in 10 categories, prizes for the winning team, a silent auction, and hor d’ouvres.   Admission is $20 per person.  Be sure and bring all of your friends as well!  Many thanks to CHI adoptive mom Rebecca Smeltzer for initiating this fundraiser, as well as our committee!

This should prove to be tons of fun…and a great way to help the children left overseas.   (Unfortunately, due to the location, no child care will be provided.)  For more information, please contact Carrie at the office or at carriem@childrenshopeint.org

Colorful eggs, bunny rabbits, and lots of candy!!!  Easter is here again and so is our annual Easter Egg Hunt.  The egg hunt will be on Friday, April 9^th from 3:00-5:00 p.m. at the Cool Springs House at Crockett Park, in Brentwood.  All Children’s Hope International families are welcome!!  Please bring your baskets and a smile with you.  Be ready for lots of FUN!  We look forward to seeing you there!!

 *Take I-65 South to Concord Road exit.  Turn left on Concord Rd.  Pass the YMCA on the right, continue to next light, and turn right on Wilson Pk.  Turn left on Crockett Rd.  At the light, just past the elementary school, turn left.  The House is on the left.  Parking is behind the house only!

Please join us for free information meetings:

For more information, please go to http://www.childrenshope.com/southeast/index.htm

 April 4, Jackson, MS

First Baptist Church, 431 North State Street

Chapel Parlor

2:00-4:00 PM 

April 5, Metairie, LA

East Jefferson General Hospital Conference Center

4200 Houma Blvd, Esplanade 2

6:30 -8:30 PM 

April 6, Baton Rouge, LA

Healing Place Church Annex, 14141 Airline Highway, Suite B

6:30 -8:30 PM 

April 13, 2004, Brentwood, TN

Children’s Hope Office, 7003 Chadwick Dr, Suite 350

6:30-8:30 PM 

April 16-17, Jacksonville, AR

Adoption Conference

First United Methodist Church 

April 9                   CHI Egg Hunt                         3:00 pm                         Cool Springs House, Crockett Park              April 19                 Home Study Group              6:30-8:30 PM                 Children’s Hope
April 16                 Trivia Night                            6:30 PM                          Cool Spring YMCA
                               (Humanitarian Aide)                                         
April   24               Dossier Class                      8:30 AM                            Woodmont Hills Church, Rm 201
                              Travel Class                        10:00 -12:00 Noon           Woodmont Hills Church, RM 201
                               Pre-Adoption Class #2                                                  Woodmont Hills Church, RM 201
April 23                 Russian Class                     6:30 PM                            Woodmont Hills Church, RM 201
April 30                 Russian Class                     6:30 PM                            Woodmont Hills Church, RM 201
                          

We are in the season of birthdays at our house!!  Now having three teenage daughters (13, 17, 17) who all joined our family through international adoption, I can tell you this is such a wonderful journey!!  So much has changed through the years in international adoption, but our driving passion continues to be the children who wait for homes!  We ask you to partner with us in helping them, both through humanitarian aide projects and telling your friends a families about the wonderful children who wait!!   There is no better time than today to begin your adoption journey…and we are here to help in any way that we can!! 

We don't want to burden you with a lot of information, but we do want to help you if you are looking for a way to adopt. If not, please let us know and we will regretfully remove your name from our newsletter.   E-mail me at my address below with any question you have.  I would love to hear from you. 

Brenda

Southeastern U.S.
 Brenda Barker, Director
 7003 Chadwick Dr. Suite 350
 Brentwood, TN  37027
 615-309-8109   Fax: 615-309-8483

 Brenda@ChildrensHope.com
 Also serving the following states: TN, KY, GA, AL, AR, MS, FL, TX and LA