"He destined us for adoption..." Ephesians 1:5

Well, here we are: another blog, another wonderful reason to blog. Our family has been busy, trying to keep up with the daily routines of raising kids and working. Our house is full and often a whirlwind, and even with two in college, we are a busy house.

We have been home more than a year with Shane. Hard to believe. He is a different child from the little boy we met in October 2009. Then, he could barely walk, could not eat himself, could not hold a utensil, and spent most of his time on the floor, curled in a ball. Now, while he continues to deal with many developmental delays, he can feed himself, gets his own drink from the refrigerator water dispenser, climbs the stairs (and everything else he can!) and is beginning to follow simple directions. He understands many things we say, and will hum and tries to sing almost anything you can think of. One of his favorite songs in 'Hey Jude" and he has been known to break out in a beautiful version of "Alleluia" at Mass on Sunday (sometimes also at 2:00 am!). Shane has brought many challenges, and so much joy into our lives.Watching our girls and Mick with Shane is a blessing that we are privileged to witness. How great is our God to show these children the true meaning of selfless love, and the true gift of the life of a child, who would have had no future in China. We are so happy he is in our lives.

Sophie has been home almost 3 years now.She is at the Catholic school for the deaf, and we could not be happier with her education.She is reading at a second grade level, and with her two Cochlear implants, she can hear in the mild to moderate hearing loss range. She is speaking and signing, and her speech gets more clear every day. She keeps us on our toes, but there is not a day that goes by that she does not say she loves us. At night when she says her prayers she says: "Please God, tell all people, Mommies and Daddies, go to China, get orphans, need homes. No food, hungry. Please God, please..."



And so, with the understanding of the blessings we have been given in our lives, and with true gratitude to God for those blessings, we have decided to adopt again. The decision was made when I saw the face of a little girl who waits, and desperately hopes for a family of her own. At the age of 12, she has only a little more than a year for a family to find her or she will age-out and will never be able to be adopted. She has cerebral palsy, and can walk, and draw, and is smart and funny. She herself wrote a letter to the head of the CCAA to ask them to please find her a family. While we did not even know that this would be a possibility to adopt again, we saw her face, read over her file, and talked to many people who have met her when they were in China, and we knew she was our daughter. We have already sent her a letter to introduce ourselves to her,  and she is so excited to be adopted. We are now on the fast-track to get her, as she is older and needs to be adopted ASAP. I am adding pictures of WuShuang. You can see the sweet smile on her face and know that she is waiting and happy now that she is soon to get a family. We are also so blessed as the agency we are working with (Madison Adoption Associates) has waived all of their agency fees, and the orphanage has reduced their fee, all to help WuShuang find her forever family.


Please keep our family in your prayers as we move forward, again, with much faith in God's providential hand in our lives. And now...paperwork here we come!