Provision 4

What's cooking? Spaghetti. (This is one word I ALWAYS spell wrong. Thanks, Michelle, for pointing out my typo!) Nobody complains about dinner when I make spaghetti. I like that.

Today I want to thank God for Olivia.

And for all the ways He has provided for Olivia.

When Olivia was sixteen months old, even though she wasn't a U.S. citizen yet, we were allowed to bring her back to here (which in itself was a miracle!) to go to Shriners Hospital for Children in Portland, Oregon to have her cleft lip and palate repaired, completely free of charge.

It was a provision that she was even admitted into the program at Shriners because they usually don't accept children from other countries. But they made an exception for our baby girl.

That was seven years ago last Christmas.

Since then she's had one other major surgery -- a procedure to attach her palate to the back of her throat. This was primarily to help her speech, since she had a short palate and constantly had air escaping through her nose when she tried to talk. That surgery was also done at Shriners Hospital, also free of charge.

This Thursday, Olivia will have her first orthodontist appointment. Soon she'll have to start a spacing procedure to get her ready for a bone graft surgery. Shriners will do this surgery when she's ten or eleven.

Not only does this particular orthodontist have a lot of experience with cleft kids, but I also found out that his office accepts Medicaid for cleft lip and palate patients. Our kids happen to be on Medicaid, so ... perfect!

Next month, on April 16, Olivia is scheduled at Shriners for a lip and nose revision surgery. The surgeon will try to even out her lips and nostrils a little more. This isn't a "necessary" surgery. The last time we were there the doctor asked Olivia how she felt about her face and she said, "I sometimes wonder why one nostril is up and one is down." So, the surgeon said they would schedule this surgery. They want to do everything they can to make sure Olivia's not only functioning normally, but feeling good about herself, too.

Isn't that great?

So, on this beautiful, spring-is-in-the-air Sunday, I want to lay out my remembrance stones one by one. I don't want to forget how faithful God has been in providing for our little girl.