Our Busy Days

After Shayle's Graduation

Jacob having fun camping out

Shayle enjoying a rare treat, caffeine and a smore!

Pay Pay inside the tent

Everyone was still asleep as I went to get into my own bed at 6:30 am

Payton just after her dance recital

Of course every ballerina deserves flowers!

It has been a busy few weeks here in the Pierce household, not leaving much time for blogging haven't even had time to post about my first Mother's Day with Shayle and as a mom of five.

Darrel put up our large 10 man tent last Sunday evening and we all camped out in it on our land. We had smores, popcorn & a movie. The stars were out everywhere and it was nice to gaze upon more of God's creation. The kids really enjoyed it and Shayle thought it was lot's of fun.

This week four of us have had strep, including myself again! I am now taking my 3rd round of antibiotics and Shayle is taking her 2nd round. I have figured out this time, Shayle was the one who had it first, we just didn't know it. She then passed it on to Arron, Payton and myself. What I have realized is that this poor baby has hurt for so many years in her mouth, from her decayed teeth, ear aches, palate surgery and now strep that she didn't know any different. No wonder she had no appetite. She didn't complain of a sore throat and had no fever, I would have never guessed she was sick with strep. We just went ahead and tested her after three of us tested positive. After just one day on the antibiotic, she began eating so much better. More than she has eaten in a very long time. Anyway, hopefully we will all get well as we are flying to Disney World soon for a week with Mickey and the princesses. Shayle is so excited!

Throughout all the sickness over the past week, I managed to stay on task for all that the kids were involved in. We had three playing spring soccer which half of the games were cancelled due to rain earlier this month. Well, this last week we made them all up. We had a total of 11 games in one week with all of them being on the past two Saturdays except for one. That was enough to keep us busy, but Darrel is the coach to two of the teams. Also, Arron has been taking drivers ed and had class six times this past week for 2-3 hours/night. Thank goodness for car pools! Then Payton's dance recital was today, in which she had practice for the past three days. She also is one of the soccer players. Soccer was supposed to end last weekend and we thought we would have only the dance recital this weekend. Well, all I can say is that kids keep us very busy and God has a sense of Humor when we think we have everything planned out.

Shayle also graduated from Pre-K on Friday 5/22. She is excited to be home with mom for the summer!

Wordless Wednesday

One Year Ago Today

This photo was one of our referral photos, taken 02/08 just 3 months b/f we received her referral.

This photo was taken after Shayle's bath. She got a new pair of summer silk p.j.'s with panda's on them. Daddy and Mommy picked them out last summer before traveling to get her.

This is Shayle cheering for her sister, Myranda at her soccer game this evening.

Today marks one year since we received that wonderful phone call for Shayle's referral. I remember the day quiet well. I was busy cleaning my house when the phone rang. I thought to myself I would just let the machine get it so that I could get finished. Then as I heard our family coordinator from our agency speaking into the machine, I quickly ran over to pick up the phone. I was in a state of shock and excitement to hear her say, "We have a little girl on the shared list that I think your family may be a match for. She is five years old with a repaired heart condition. Would you like additional information and pictures to be e-mailed to you?" Of course I said yes, and then well that was the end of house cleaning for the rest of the day. I immediately turned on my computer and then called Darrel. We both fell in love with this sweet little face. However, we had always imagined adopting a little girl who would be three or younger. Her referral came just three days after Mother's Day, in which I had been praying and telling God that a referral would be the best Mother's Day gift ever.

In her referral info, we read that she liked animals, loved playing outside and lived in a foster family with several siblings. Well, we just happen to live on 40 acres with animals and 4 siblings! She even liked some of the same foods that were favorites of our other kids. God is so good. He not only created Shayle for us, He created her to like the things that our family likes. He does have a great plan for adoption, so if you are still waiting just know that God will bring your family together and it will be perfect!

Once we researched her heart condition a little further, we decided to lock her file on the shared list. This then meant we had 24 hours to get our letter of intent to adopt written along with some other paperwork completed and overnighted to our agency. Once you lock a file on the shared list, our agency then has to send our paperwork to China electronically within 48 hrs or the file will be released back to the shared list. This meant we had to act fast or we could possibly lose her file to another agency.

That night we continued to pray about taking an older child. My husband went to his men's bible study at church where they all prayed for our decision. All of the men in the group kept telling Darrel to take her. On the way home from church as Darrel was driving, he was listening to a Christian radio station. He wasn't really paying attention to what song was playing, he had his mind on this little 5 yr. old. When the song ended, a little girl's voice came on the radio and said, "Daddy, come over here and get me." Needless to say, this caught his attention. He still does not know what song had been playing and hasn't heard it since. I truly believe God will speak to us in whatever way will get our attention. After that moment he was convinced she was our daughter. Once he was home and shared this with me, God also confirmed in my heart that she was meant to be ours. We sent the paperwork in and six months later, we brought Miss Shayle Elizabeth Qiao Pierce home to Texas to be with her forever family. Thank You God for this sweet, precious daughter you sent to us!

Spring Soccer

Spring soccer began about a month ago. However, since we have had so much rain, we have had to cancel games more often than we have played. I have only been able to attend one of Payton's and one of Jacob's games due to cancelled games and the conference I attended. Shayle enjoys watching them play. Darrel is coaching both Jacob and Payton's team, which means every time we have to cancel games and pictures, I get to call all the parents on both teams.

Our Crazy Week

This past week has been crazy. Saturday shortly after I returned home from the orphan care conference, we found ourselves taking cover in our closet due to a tornado headed our direction. When it was over and the kids had quit crying, I snapped a picture of 4 of them huddled together.

Sunday, Shayle was on stage at church with the preschool choir singing in their spring concert. She must have felt like she was going to fall off of the risers because she held onto one of the standing microphones beside her. She was dancing around and having a great time.

After church, she went to a friend's birthday party which was a tea party. They were so cute all dressed up. Shayle went as a Chinese princess.

Sunday evening was our award ceremony for AWANA'S at our church. Darrel has been the game leader for the last four years and Arron helps him. I have taught 5th & 6th grade girls for the last four years. Myranda has been in my class the last two years and now she will move into our youth department this summer. I will miss her very much. Payton will now get to move into my class for the next two years, so I am excited about that. Shayle was excited to receive a participation award for cubbies. She wasn't in cubbies until January, so she did not get to finish her book. Next year she will move up to Sparks in kindergarten.

Tuesday was our 6 month post placement visit, which went well and was nice and laid back. However, just a few hours before our social worker was due to be at our house, our bathtub faucet broke and would not turn off. I had to shut off all water to the house. Of course, Darrel was at work and I knew it would not get fixed before our 2:30 appt. When she arrived she asked to use the bathroom. I had to explain what happened and that she could use the bathroom but I would have to go outside and turn the water on. She just laughed and understood. My oldest son also stayed home from school with fever the same day. Anyway, she was amazed out how well Shayle has adjusted and how much she has learned in the past 6 months.

Wednesday, I left to take Shayle to her post op appts. for her palate and tubes in her ears. The palate surgeon saw her and said everything was looking good and he was pleased with her repair. She does have one area that has thinned out, no hole yet, but could still develop one. Pray, Pray, Pray she does not develop a hole. This would require another surgery in the fall. Next we went to the ENT office to check her ears. This appt. was supposed to be short but ended up being 2 hours long. When he looked in her ears, he said the tubes were blocked. He sent us over for a hearing test. She did pretty well, but not well enough. After he read the hearing report, he decided he would need to try to clean her ears out. He said it would be traumatizing, and he was right. I had to hold Shayle down along with 3 more nurses while he tried to clean out her ears. She was so terrified and kept screaming "mommy, mommy". This just broke my heart, and I didn't want any part of holding her down. She began clawing and pinching my neck and then jerked my necklace off and broke the chain. He was able to clean out one ear, dried blood from her surgery was blocking that tube. The other ear we weren't so lucky, he could not clear it out. He believes she has fluid dried up blocking it. He then decided we would need to come back next week and sedate her in order to unblock it. So after all of that, I have to take her back this Wed. am to do the procedure. She will be in an outpatient facility near Medical City, which will require partial sedation with an anesthesiologist. Then we will go back the middle of June to check her hearing again and hopefully not have to go through all of this again. Pray for her this Wednesday, I know she is going to be scared when she sees the building and terrified to see the doctor.

Thursday, she had her first speech appointment. Surprisingly she did well and liked her therapist. She will be going 2-3 times a week for 30 minutes each time. Next time I won't be able to back with her, so hopefully she will do good this week.

Friday, she went to school and had a good day until later in the day she began vomiting with a stomach bug. I had began having a sore throat on Thursday and thought it was allergies, but when it continued to get worse, I had my hubby do a strep test and yes it was positive. Glad I went ahead so that I could start antibiotics. Shayle is better today and hopefully will not get strep throat. She can't understand why I won't kiss her on the lips. I'm trying to keep her well.

Next week she will have 2 days of school, 2 days of speech, and 1 day over at the ENT in Dallas. Please keep us in your prayers.

Student of the Month

Jacob came home in April so excited that he had been named Student of the Month for his elementary school. He was proud of the sign posted in our yard for the month of April. I of course was excited for him as well. His elementary school selects students of the month each month, from each grade.

Orphan Care Conference

I had the privilege to attend the Christian Alliance For Orphans National Conference a week ago. This is a large conference held once a year in different locations across the U.S. This year it was held in the Dallas area. A friend and I decided in January we would attend it together. It is such an outstanding organization whose main focus is on orphan care. Many agencies were there, including America World. It was nice to be able to meet a few people from our agency that we used to adopt Shayle.

In addition to agencies, their were many child advocacy groups as well as organizations who help aide in the expense of adoption fees. I had the opportunity to attend a session led by Emily Richards, Steven Curtis Chapman's daughter. She spoke on Loving the Orphan, A Journey of Hope and Faith. She has a powerful testimony which led us all to tears by the end of the session. God used her as an 11 yr. old to pray fervently for her parents to adopt a child. As time went by, her parents did not feel led to adopt but she continued to cry out to God. After 2 years of praying, her parents did finally decide to adopt and as many of you know they adopted not 1 little China doll, but 3. I stand amazed knowing what an impact her prayers have had on many adopted families. Through the organization Shaohannahshope, many have benefited with adoption grants and I have had several families share that after attending a Steven Curtis Chapman concert, that God confirmed in their hearts that they were to adopt. Without her consistent prayers back when she was 11, I believe their would not be as many adopted children throughout the world today. I have expressed to my own kids that no matter what God lays on their hearts, to always be in prayer about it. God uses all of us no matter what our age is. You can definitely see the fruit of Emily's faithfulness to pray for orphans as it continues today.

God had placed orphan ministry on my heart while doing all of our paperwork to adopt from China in the fall of 2007. Meanwhile, God also began speaking to my friend who also lives in my small town of 15,000. This past January, she had decided to attend the conference and asked if I would be interested in attending. God had been speaking to her about an orphan care ministry within our community as He had spoken to me. The conference offered a lot of insight on how to start an orphan care ministry through the local church. I gained more knowledge concerning foster care kids and how through an orphan care ministry, we can make a difference in their lives.

Not all people are called to adopt or to provide foster care, but as God's children we are called to take care of and to give to the orphans. Just think for a moment, what if God had not cared enough to send us His son Jesus to save us? God provided a way for us to be adopted into His forever family through the blood of Jesus. It took sacrifice to give up His only son on the cross, to take on every sin of mankind, in order for us to have eternal life with God. We are all orphans until we make the decision to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. I am so thankful God loved me in my time of distress and cared enough to adopt me! Just like God had to give sacrificially in order that we may be adopted, we too have to give sacrificially to adopt a child. There are many sacrifices made along the way but none will compare to the blessing of giving a child a home, a place where he/she will be loved, and the most important, introducing the new child to Jesus. A missionary friend recently told me that adopting a child is like bringing the mission field to you. She serves the Lord with her husband and 4 boys in Indonesia. She is exactly right, you never know how many will hear the Gospel through an adopted child!

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Their are so many ways in which we can all look after orphans/foster kids. During our conference, we listened to many testimonies of adults who grew up in the foster care system all of their childhood years. They described feeling desperately lonely and isolated while growing up. Many times they were bullied and made fun of by the other kids. These kids eventually have emotional breakdowns from feeling so unloved. They aren't looking for the newest video game or clothing, they are crying out in need of love, guidance and kindness. This is the area where all of us can help by becoming a mentor to these kids, no matter how old or young we are. They need mentors to guide them and to spend TIME with them, even if it is only 30 minutes/week. One testimony we heard was given by a young adult who did have a mentor while growing up in the foster care system. He spoke about how this man began visiting him and taking him out for ice cream as a young child. He admitted he was skeptical that the young man would return week after week, but to his amazement he kept coming back every week to spend time with him, to tell him he mattered, he was important and he was loved. At the end of his testimony, he said that they are still close friends and they continue to stay in touch, even though he is grown now. He also spoke of what a difference this mentor had made in his life.

Another way to help if you are not called to adopt is to find families in your church/community who are adopting, they can always use your support and prayers and if your able, give a love offering to help them pay for their adoption. Financing the adoption is the #1 reason people do not adopt. By giving financially to help aide adoption expenses to other families, you are fulfilling God's commandment found in James 1:27. Not only will you be helping unite a child with his forever family, you will also receive a blessing in return.

Today, their are over 143 million orphans throughout the world. Some have lost their parents through death and some abandoned. This number equals about half of the U.S. population. I know that not every orphan will have the opportunity to be adopted into a family, but I do believe that if awareness of this crisis is raised, many would be adopted and/or mentored.

If God has spoken to you about adoption, please be in prayer to seek His will. He will bless you more than you could ever imagine. He will provide for your finances to be able to adopt, I have witnessed God's provisions financially for adoption countless times. Trust me, as someone who has adopted internationally, you do not want to miss this opportunity if God is calling you to adopt. Just trust and obey, He will remove your fears and anxiety and give you a complete peace. I am so thankful God called my husband and I to adopt and that we did not give in to satan's schemes of doubt and fear and all the what if's. Shayle has been home with us for six months and it has almost been a year since we received our referral for her. I will do a post about that next week.

One last thing I took to heart from the conference was that God is the father to the fatherless, but we are called to be the earthly fathers and mothers to the fatherless and motherless. Please be in prayer for me and my friend who have such a great desire to carry out what God has called us to do, not only to adopt a child(ren), but to have full support from our local church and community to begin an orphan care ministry within our area. We all have a purpose in this life and I feel like I have found mine, to make a difference in the life of my own children as well as the lives of orphans.