OK, I know I have not been good about keeping everyone up to date on what is going on. Everyone has been emailing and asking so I am updating on here for everyone. It has been so hard to even talk about where we are. We went from she will be home by Easter at the latest to she can never come home. This adoption has been such a roller coaster! But God has been in it with us, shinning a light when things get dark! When a door has slammed shut He would open it right back up! We serve a might God thank goodness or I would of hung up my towel a long time ago! So here is the story from the last update. I think the last time I posted was that we had a court date. Well 2 days before that court date the AIT (American Embassy in Taiwan, THE VISA people) came to look over Deana's new unwed mothers home. While the head of AIT was there she ask them about Braeley's situation and they told her point blank that the adoption would go through in Taiwan but she would never receive her Visa. We told Deana the minute we found out to pull our file from the court as we know of 3 people right now who have children over in Taiwan that can not get them home! We only had 1 day to get our file pulled before it was to late! So the day before our court date we pulled out. Since then we have had another Christian orphanage home "Home of God's Love" step in and come up with a plan as they have already dealt with the same situation several times. So as of today the plan is that Braeley will be taken to Home Of God's Love and left there by the social worker. At that point when the social services step out of caring for her the responsibly will revert back to her parents and then she will be declared an orphan. Sooooooooooo here we are again waiting......... I feel like that is all we have done for 3 years! But God is so good and I know there is a few lessons in all this that we needed to learn. We were suppose to hear this last week when she will be moved. The last I heard on Monday the social worker was giving them a problem. Barely is in speech as she is not on target for speech. After testing it was determined that the problem was the foster family was doing everything for her without making her ask. So she is now getting speech to help her catch up. The social worker is using this as the reason she does not want Braeley moved. But I think it is because the foster family does not want for her to be moved or to be taken to the orphanage. And I can understand this. My heart is so sad it has to be this way and my daughter will be so scared and along and I will not even be there once again to comfort her. But I have found a peace in this plan as it will let her grieve for her foster family and break that bond and be ready to bond with us. She is very close to her foster parents and they to her. So I think this will be good for both. The man who runs the orphanage is American and he can start to help her learn some English words to help her go home. There is a family in Taiwan right now that is dealing with the very same situation as us. Their daughter was in a foster family for ever, very close to them and spoiled and on gotcha day the foster family stayed for 4 hours crying the whole time and when the social worker finally took the child from them, 2 hours in, they took her right back. Back at their hotel the child stayed curled up in a corner for 4 days crying nonstop the whole time, hysterical. It scares me to read this blog as it felt like I was reading the story of our own gotcha day! I felt that I had went over in my mind the worse case scenario but I never even came close to what this family has been going through! I can't believe the social worker did not tell the foster family to either get control or leave. I think seeing her foster family crying uncontrollably scared her and and sent the message she was going into a bad situation. These families know the children will be leaving and I don't understand why they don't spend time getting them ready. I know it would be a hard job to raise a child and then give it back but they only make the child's transition so much harder when the pretend that day will never come! We will always be grateful for Braeley's foster family but it is now time for them to start the process of letting go. They were given the chance to adopt her but they choose not to so they could keep the door open to take other children who needed them. Anyway off my soap box. Please continue to pray for us for God to speed things up (we have now had our referral since Braeley was 10 months old and she is now 2 1/2), take out any remaining bumps in the road, and for safe travel. We have been told we will have her home by Christmas. I think that is a worse case scenario. I am thinking we should travel in late Sept or early Oct. We will see, after everything we have been through it is sometimes hard to believe we will ever get her home. But as always it is in God's time and we serve a GREAT BIG WONDERFUL GOD!!!!! I will post when we finally hear what is going on. Praying she does go to the orphanage. We have had such a hard time getting updated information and pictures. In the 2 years we have had our referral we have only got pictures 4 times. One with the referral, one the social worker took and some Deana went and took when she delivered our Christmas package, and 2 really bad ones in May that the foster family was forced to provided from her birthday. If she goes to the orphanage we will get pictures, videos and get to skype. We will finally get a chance to know our daughter!
Praying to find the end of our rainbow sometime soon :-)
Debby
