Oh Happy Day!!!!

Ted's very fitting verse: "Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land." Proverbs 25:25

We are just absolutely elated this morning! We woke up to an email from Ted with our court date in it! And the date is...... September 28th at 8:15pm (Sept 29th 9:15 am Taiwan time)!!!! This is wonderful news, it's only 2 weeks away!

Ava's timeline has been much quicker than Lillian's. Last time we waited 3 weeks just to get the court date set, this time it only took 9 days. Last time the court date was still 4 weeks from the time we received word it had been set, this time it is only 2 weeks away. Praise the Lord!!!

Oh happy day, oh happy day! Our little Ava Mei MAY be in our arms by Halloween! I would love to put her in a ladybug costume...it would be so fitting! She would be 2 1/2 months old, so tiny, so precious, so perfect! God is GREAT!!! Oh how He has compassion on us!

"Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! O people of Zion, who live in Jersulam, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it'." Isaiah 30:18-21

Patiently Waiting for Ava

Hello all....well, not much to report as of right now. We sent the adoption documents back to Taiwan and they arrived on Monday. We are just waiting now to hear when the court date is. The waiting is the hardest part now, because there is absolutely nothing we can do except, of course, wait. There are no documents to work on, no phone calls or emails we need to make, no more trips to get anything done. So just waiting. Hopefully we will hear word of something soon.

We did receive a couple of pics of Ava with her care package that we sent over there. She has her tiger, Yi, and her blankets and outfits. She's just a doll and we can't wait to bring her home!

TECO Done!

Yesterday turned out to be a great day! As you know, Tuesday we got our paperwork from Taiwan for Ava and we took them to the SOS to get authenticated. Yesterday we drove to Kansas City to have TECO authenticate them as well. Normally this takes at least a couple of days for them to do. They have even posted a sign now that says to allow for 48 hours to process documents and they no longer do same day processing. The lady that works there remembered us from last time and asked why we were back. We explained the situation with Lillian and that we now have our new little girl, Ava, that we are working on getting home. She was so excited for us. We asked her if there was any way to get the papers done that day since they had already authenticated them once, the only thing different was Ava's name on them now. She said she would see what she could do. She said she would call us when the papers were ready.

So we walked down to our car, hoping to be able to pick them up that afternoon. We made it to our car and the phone rang! She asked us if we could come back up to the TECO office. We thought we must have forgotten something. Instead she asked us to stamp all the papers so that she could get them to her boss by noon so that there would be a chance they would get done today. I guess she must have been real busy, but really wanted to help us out. So we helped her out and stamped all the papers!

We went shopping around KC for a little while. We bought a glider! I'm so excited!!! It's so cute and comfy...it's a light sage green with swirls in the fabric. Very whimisical. We ate lunch at Oklahoma Joe's. Then we went to the Plaza and walked around for a while. Then we decided to go to Maggie Moos. This is like my most favorite ice cream joint in the world!!!!! So good! I don't get to go there often because there is not one near where we live. So whenever we're in a town that has one, Chris tries to take me there.

We were sitting in the parking lot at Maggie Moos, it was about 4:15pm. I looked at Chris and said she hadn't called yet and that I didn't think it was gonna happen today. Not 2 seconds after I got those words out of my mouth did the phone ring! It was the TECO lady (sorry I keep referring to her as that, but I don't know her name)! OUR PAPERS WERE FINISHED!!!!! So we picked them up and went straight to FedEx! We mailed them back to Ted at THOGL and they should arrive on Monday! What a great day and a blessing!

Next step is we wait for the court date. Once Ted receives the papers back, he applies to get the court date for Ava. So then the waiting begins....again. We can't wait to have our little girl home!!!