Moving Forward.....

Hello! Today our friends Heather and Bobby Eledge are traveling to China to get their new daughter, Harper!! Yay!!! Prayers for safe travels and sweet meetings for them. I can't wait to read and see pictures telling all about it. Also, our dear friends, the P's, decided to add another sweet boy from China to their family this year! Can't wait!! Our friends, the Sterlings, are home safe and sound with their five new children from Peru! Our friend Stephanie and two of her daughters are heading to China in less than two weeks to bring home Ava. God is so good! He sees all of the orphans all over the world, and is directing the paths of their family's to go get them! That makes my heart so happy!! Adoption makes me so excited! Last time we talked, I told you Claire will be having surgery on 1-16, but the plans have changed. She has to be off the bottle before we have that surgery. Well, today is Tuesday, and we were told this Friday. Guess who hasn't had a bottle since Saturday??? Yep, The Amazing Claire!! Cold turkey for this girl! SO probably March she will have the fistula repair surgery. And she is doing great! We started having her evaluations last week, too. Folks, I spent most of last week crying....mourning, really. Our sweet girl is testing cognitively as that of a 2-9 month old. She is 4.5 years old...I cry for the babyhood that she never had. I cry for what the lack of nutrition and stimulation have done to her brain. I cry for the injustice and cruelty she has endured. I cry that I wasn't there to take care of her myself and therefore this would not be her reality. I cry because I can almost guess what those first four years were like for her....almost. BUT, and this is a huge comfort to me, the Lord says that He will restore what the locusts have taken away! And I'm believing Him!! He showed me long before we got her home that He was going to make her new-in every way! And I'm believing him! He gave me a verse in Isaiah for Jack and Claire, "and the tongue of the stammerers will speak readily and plainly", and I am believing Him! And you know what? I'm not having to wait long to see Him do it!! Praise God! She now weighs 26.84 pounds and is 33 inches tall. In case you are wondering, that's almost 12 pounds and 2.5 inches since the day they placed her in our arms just 4 short months ago!!! Praise God! That's 8 pounds since we brought her home! AND, she is more and more active, alert, curious, responsive, ornery, and is one happy baby!! Her hair is growing a ton, and we have to trim her fingernails about once a week or she will claw us up! So, we start communication therapy with our beloved Teresa twice a week. And occupational therapy once a week for an hour, and soon to add physical therapy. What is all this going to cost us, you ask? Well, Chris' new insurance is amazing!! We have NO deductible to come up with and NO co-pay for therapy!! So, whatever we spend on gas is the cost!!! Can you see God's provision here, friends??? We could not have come up with a better plan, and yet God's way are so much higher than our ways! So, we are even more determined to get her birthday changed to a different year. I'd love to see the judge grant us a 2011 birth year, but I will be thrilled with 2010, too. I'm chosing to take my husbands lead, and see the positives in this. When I kept crying he asked, "why are you crying? The way I see it, her birthday is the day we got her. The day she went from surviving to living. So, to me she is four months old, and I don't know too many four month olds that crawl and walk, so my baby's a genius! And she'll only get better!" You know what? He's right!! That really is the day her "life" started, the day that God chose to redeem her out of the mire and into the sunshine. So, when people ask me how old she is, I tell them she's one. Because in a lot of ways she is, and hopefully we'll have the birthdate to prove it. If not, she's a lady, and a true lady never tells her age ;-) What does it matter, anyway? She will reach all those milestones when she's ready, She will do all the things we are waiting for her to do when she's ready. Until then, I am just loving every minute with this amazing, beautiful, fun baby girl that God gave us. Please keep a few names in mind when you pray: Lily, Ivy, Anouk, Evangeline, Harper, Ava, Astrid, John, and Therese....all are precious children adopted from China and in need of your prayers for different reasons. Also, Avery, who is not adopted, but could use prayers, too. Much love! Stay warm, Leslie