WE"RE GOING TO CHINA!!!!

WE'RE GOING TO CHINA!!!!!!!!  Someday soon!:-)  I just wanted to see how it felt to write that.  I'm practicing.  It felt really good by the way (or BTW as my girls say).

No new news.  But, I was rereading my own blog and read that I was going to talk "tomorrow" about God's timing.  I was just letting you all know how I feel about communicating about Chinese tomorrow's.  What tomorrow really means is "whenever I get around to it.'

So, I am around to it now.

I was contacted by some people telling me about a ministry called Grace & Hope.  They are an amazing ministry that gets sponsors to pay for children to get out of orphanages and get them into foster care.  It works a little bit like Compassion International or World Vision.  It takes about $40/month to get a child out of an institution and into a home.  Our Emme happens to be one of their babies.

What that means for us is several things.  First of all, a home is almost always better than institutional living.  A child living  in foster care often has less problems with attachment.  Furthermore, they have been held and spoken to and played with.  As good as the orphanages are, there is not enough staff to go around.  In this case, it also means that Grace & Hope will provide us with reports about progress and milestones as well as pictures of Emme throughout her first year.  G&H have social workers (for lack of another term) visit the foster families to get the reports and the pictures.  It is then their goal to get it into the hands of the parents adopting the child.  What a blessing and a gift!!!  How great is it that we will have pictures we would have had no other way of having without this organization?  Plus, our daughter has received quality childcare.

This brings me to God's timing.  I am sure I will never understand all the reasons things didn't work out with Mylei.  As time goes on and as I am still part of a yahoo group for Chinese children with spina bifida, I can only think that maybe part of God's plan was protecting me from some of the things that will be lifelong issues with these children.  Sometimes it overwhelms me just to read the conversations going back and forth.  I still believe God would have given us the grace and the resources to handle whatever was thrown our way with her.  And, we would have loved her and given her a great home and made sure she got great care.  But, I would lie if I said that sometimes I also feel a great sense of relief.  Emme will have issues I am sure.  But, she is the child God chose to give us and at least at this point, her needs seem much less severe.  And, then the icing on the cake, is that God sent angels, Grace & Hope, to provide care for her and pictures of the time we missed with her.  Why do I ever doubt his timing and goodness??

I wonder if he knows I can be ready to leave in a week??:-)