A family welcomes a little boy from Vietnam as their newest member.

Tin-Truc Thyunh ("Tin-Tin" to us) is four years old and from Vietnam; however, to us, he is as much our child as our other two, Hadassah Luther (six) and Promise Michaela (seven). He is our only son--and already he has become quite spoiled. LOL

My name is Rebecca Potter. I live in Green Bay ("GO, Packers!!"), Wisconsin, with my family, which consists of my husband, Bret, our daughters Promise and Hadassah, and now "Tin-Tin".

We just got Tin-Tin three months ago, back in October; already we feel as though he's always been with us. We have fallen in love with the little guy; he's already picking up English, and he's fallen in love with American cooking (in particular pizza and lasagna; also hamburgers). He is very smart, quick to learn, and we feel that he'll be ready for kindergarten by the time September rolls around.

Tin-Tin is perfectly healthy; however, he does have some language delays. Understandable, seeing he was born in Vietnam. He knows just a few words in English, among them being "Good-yum" (his way of saying "Something tastes good!"), "Go-bed-now" (his way of saying "good night"), "Mamma", "Daddy", "Sissy", "Doggie", "Kitty-Meow" (his way of saying "cat" or "kitten"), and "buh-bye". He also can say "I wuv you", which, coming from him, melts our hearts, each and every time.

Tin-Tin is a very loving, outgoing child; however around strangers, he turns shy, reserved. It takes a while for him to warm up. Still, he is very well behaved, and he is good at sharing his things, showing off his new English skills with his family. He loves going out to eat or to the movies; you can just see him concentrating hard on what's going on by the way he stares intently at the action on the movie screen, his face a picture of wonderment. It's really cute.

Tin-Tin is learning how to count. Already he can count to five in English; after five he gets mixed up. He'll say something like this" "One, two, three, fou', fih", "ten", "sebentee'", "twenny", "six", "million-thousan'". LOL He has no clue what he is doing or what he is saying; that is part of his charm.

Tin-Tin is learing how to distinguish his letters; learning to read. It's amazing to watch him concentrating; he is showing signs of being gifted; however, his language delays prevent him from showing more; yet once we feel he learns enough in English, his mind will take off like a rocket to the moon; then who knows what he will be able to do, accomplish then?

We applied to adopt a child from Vietnam two years ago; it was only about six months ago when we found out that we were to be getting a boy, a boy named Tin-Truc Thyunh. He was then two-and-a-half, residing in an orphanage with twenty other children. Tin-Tin was healthy; most of his buddies at the orphanage were not. Some had heartbreaking disabilities, including his best friend Phuon Bo, whom he still talks about today in pidgin English, half Vietnamese. We had no idea who Phuon Bo was; however, we did some research on the Internet, got in contact with the adoption agency that handled our adoption of Tin-Tin, and they told us more about the little boy's friend.

What we learned was absolutely heartbreaking. Phuon Bo was born with cerebral palsy that left him unable to walk or even speak; he was repeatedly abused physically by some of the older kids; now Phuon is in an orphanage; his parents abandoned him shortly upon finding out he was born handicapped; he's been at this orphanage ever since; however, due to the abuse, the bullying he's endured, he's incredibly shy, helpless as to defend himself.

Now we are in a quandry. Do we take Phuon Bo in as our own child after we just adopted Tin-Tin? What do we do?? We can't let this little boy back in Vietnam languish in a place where there's no love or guidance; this sad little boy desperately needs a family and a home to call his own!

Tin-Tin talks to Phuon Bo in his prayers every night; even during regular conversations. Somehow Phuon Bo will end up in Tin-Tin's conversations; it is as though he already thinks of his friend as his brother.

He doesn't understand the concept of adoption; yet we plan on telling him as soon as he is a little older. Maybe together we can help bring Phuon Bo to the United States; maybe by some miracle, some fluke, we can end up adopting Phuon Bo as our own child. Then we would have four children instead of three, two of them being from Vietnam.

That would be very interesting, to say the least!