A Little Update

We had an email this morning from Holly and Trena (the amazing women who run His Hands) stating that they sent our translated documents out in the mail in Monday. So we should receive them sometime next week. I am hoping early in the week. AS soon as we receive those I will have to take them to the Secretary of State's office and haev them all certified (and yes, there is a fee the government charges to do that). As soon as I leave their office I will then go to Fedex and have them overnighted to TECO in Houston; that is Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office. They certify the documents for Taiwan governement. I will also send them a return prepaid overnight Fedex envelope for them to send the documents back to me. As soon as I receive all of that I overnight (more like 2nd day air) it back to Taiwan. Once Holly and Trena receive that paperwork they can go file for our court date. Some families have had to wait a long time for their court dates, while others have had court dates assigned in less than two weeks. Please, please pray that everything in this process goes smoothly and very quickly, as the quicker this process moves the less money we will end up paying. The monthly fee for Leia's care has increased from what our paperwork said initially when we applied. The House of Hope has moved into a new house, they have grown and have had to hire new nannies therefore costs have had to increase. We were not prepared for that major jump and as of now do not know how we will come up with the money. If Leia is in their care for more than 2 months we will then have to use our money that we have set aside for all of our travel expenses. And she will be there more than 2 months, if not it would be a miracle sent from God. So,needless to say we are very short on funds. We originally thought we had enough saved from our own saving, donations, and fundraisers. Now back to square one of thinking of more fundraisers. Sigh....
Holly and Trena said they do not have any new pictures at this time as Leis is staying with a foster family right now and not at the House of Hope. She will be staying with the foster family until they find a place for her birth mom to live. She is very young and they cannot just send her away. Since it would be too difficult for her to be near Leia all the time Leia is with a foster family. Please pray for Leia's birth mom as Holly and Trena try to make the right decision of where to place Leia's birth mom. They are going to Taipei soon to look at a ministry for her to live. They are seeking God's guidance in this decision as they want to make the right decision and do not want her to be tempted to go back to living her previous lifestyle. So, maybe soon we will have new pictures. But none for now. The above picture is one that we received on referral day, but I have saved since I knew that we might have drought periods of new pictures...lol. I know Holly and Trena and everyone else at House of Hope is busy and can't be my personal photographers all day long. LOL. I will not post this picture to facebook but have asked for permission to post it on my blog for those who might wonder if it is okay. This is Leia's birthmom. I am assuming it was taking the day she made the call to us. We later learned from Holly and Trena that they had prayed about the referral for Sin Yue (Leia's middle name)and had decided that we were the family for her. Xaio Chi (Leia's birth mom) afterward asked (she didn't know they had already made a decision) if she could choose the family for Sin Yue. They decided to allow her this choice, as she had grown so much in the time she had lived at the House of Hope. They gave her three families to choose from, a little information about all of them and allowed her to choose. She chose us, such a God Thing! She then even suprised them more when she asked if she could be the one to make the call to tell us we ahd a referral for her baby girl that she was giving us. Amazing tears on both sides; tears of sadness for Xaio Chi and tears of happiness for us. That is the bittersweet part of adoption. That's all I have for this adoption update.

So, yesterday Logan starts playing with this pretend cell phone that Carson got for Christmas and he tells David that "Mater" called and needs to talk to him. For those of you who don't know, Mater is the "best backward driver" from the movie Cars. Logan told Mater that he would get daddy on the phone so he could talk to him. When Daddy was done he told Mater he would talk to him soon. It is hilarious when they start pretending. On Logan's birthday he saw a car on fire with Mammaw, so last night in his prayer he added for God "to please be with the cars out there."

Carson for the last couple of months has had this need that he has to be noticed. Yoc can't talk to any other the kids without him screaming Mamma. When he has your attention he says, "Love You." It doesn't matter what is going on if you are giving someone else attention he does this. I wonder what he will do when Leia gets home. We can only imagine....Him and Logan got a train table and all the accessories for it for Christmas and all Carson can do is remove the tracks and carry the trains around the house.

TODAY we are cleaning out toys. Packing them up for rainy day and packing some to go to Mammaw's and some to leave forever. The kids are sad about this but this makes Mamma very happy.