One Year Gotcha Day!!!!

Shayle on gotcha day 11/3/08



Shayle on gotcha day 11/3/09





Today marks one year since God blessed our family in such an amazing way. One year ago Shayle became our forever daughter! Her world as she knew disappeared into a distant memory as she was given a new hope and a new future. Just as in Jerimiah 29:11 The Lord wants to give us a future and a hope. Novemeber 3, 2008 the Lord gave Shayle a new future and a new hope. I never dreamed how well she would adjust to her new life and family, but God knew. He knew before she was born that she was created with a plan to become our daughter. All the glory and gratitude belongs to God who allowed us to be a part of His plan. We were changed forever as He placed this beautiful little girl into our arms one year ago today.

Shayle has grown so much in all areas since being home. She has such a sweet and kind spirit who can be shy but also be outgoing at times. She adores her brothers and sisters and really looks up to them. She misses them when they go to a friend's house and wants them to be home. She has grown very attached to her grandparents and looks forward to seeing them. She loves her mommy and daddy as if we were her parents since she was born.

She loves school and she is learning many new things. She absorbs everything being taught and puts forth her best effort in her schoolwork. She is continuing speech twice/week and making progress. We think she has come a long way since being here with us. We are very proud of her!

In the last year she has been through a lot of medical appointments and surgeries. She has undergone dental surgery, cleft palate surgery, tubes in ears, speech, dental visits, catching up on immunizations, cardiologist visits & tests, she has had strep throat twice and the swine flu. With all of this going on, I am thankful to God she has progressed as much as she has. Each time she gets sick, she loses weight. We have had to stay on top of her weight due to her heart issues. At adoption she weighed 27lbs and was 39" tall at 5yr 8mo old. Now she is 6yr 8mo and weighs 34lbs and is 42" tall. We are happy she is growing and doing so well.

HAPPY GOTCHA DAY SHAYLE!!!!!!!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!!!!

Fire Safety Day

Fall Fun

Benjamen Zachary Guang Pierce

Ben turned 19 months last week on October 17th. I wanted to write about his name and why we chose it for him.

Benjamen is from the Hebrew Language, meaning "The Son of My Right Hand". The scripture given is Psalm 18:35, You have also given me the shield of Your salvation; Your right hand has held me up, Your gentleness has made me great.

We believe God has a great plan for Ben, all along he has been in the presence of our Lord with God himself holding him up in His right hand, with gentleness just waiting for the day Ben will receive his shield of salvation. We also decided to spell his name with the word "men" because we feel that God will make him into a "Fisher of Men" for His Glory!

Zachary is also from the Hebrew Language, meaning "God Has Remembered". The scripture given is Psalm 25:14, The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.

God has remembered him as well as all of the orphans around the world.

Guang is his given Chinese name in which we will keep. We feel it is important for him to have a part of his heritage.

When the meaning of Benjamen Zachary is put all together it means:

The Son of My Right Hand, God has Remembered!

Thank You God, that you have remembered our Ben and that you have a great plan for his life and it involves me being his forever mommy!

Cardiologist Visit

Shayle's visit went pretty well overall. The doctor will call us back at the end of this week to talk with us once she has had a chance to review her echo pictures from last year to compare them to the echo she did yesterday. She travels to a small town nearby for patients who do not live in the DFW area. She is located in Dallas and all of Shayle's records and images are kept in that office.

We did find out that if she should need a valve replacement sometime in her life, she will have to undergo major open heart surgery. This news was devastating to me since we misunderstood at our appointment last year that she would only need a heart cath. to fix her pulmonary valve. The heart cath. would be to repair her large heart murmur. The dr. told us that sometimes kids will need this as they go through growth spurts. Sometimes they don't need it until they are adults. We will just have to continue to monitor her weight and activity level to determine when it will be time for the surgery. Everyday, since before we went to China to get her I have prayed for God to keep her heart strong and I'm asking you as my friends and family to please put her on your prayer list. I will post again once we hear back from her doctor.

Fingerprint Appointment

We received an appointment for our fingerprints yesterday. We will have to wait two more weeks to have them done on November 2, just one day before we celebrate Shayle's one year gotcha day! Hopefully we will hear back quickly and can be DTC soon, praying by Thanksgiving. I want to send Ben a care package for Christmas and our agency told us we need to be logged in before sending anything.

Cardiologist Appointment

Prayer Warriors, Shayle will have her annual visit to the cardiologist tomorrow to check on her heart. Please pray with us that her heart will look great and that no additional tests or restrictions will be needed.

Compassion For The Fatherless

I am so excited about what God is doing through our local orphan care ministry. We finally have a website up and running, thanks to my wonderful husband. He did such a great job putting this site together. I have added a link to it on my sidebar.

We are just 3 weeks away from the first Orphan Care Sunday to be held on November 8th. We have partnered with Lifesong For Orphans to create an adoption fund within our adoption ministry. The adoption fund will help aide those needing financial assistance with their adoption. I am anxiously waiting to see how God is going to bless this ministry by helping families to adopt and unite orphans all over the world with their forever families!

Giveaway!

My Friend, Kim is having a give away on her blog. She has found these cute dresses through etsy and you can go Here to see her adorable Viv modeling one of them. You can enter to win one specially made for your daughter!

PA!!!

We received our PA today for Benjamen Zachary! This time it only took 3 weeks and 3 days compared to 7 weeks and 3 doctor's letters with Shayle. I am praising God for all He's doing and going to do in Ben's little life. I will post later on how we chose his name.

The Flu has struck our house

I have been keeping busy for the last few days. Five of the seven of us have had the flu. Poor Darrel was sick in bed on his birthday. We have had a few hectic days and some are getting better while I'm afraid for the two of us who haven't caught it, yet. Payton and I have not had it and I believe Payton may be next. She complained about her chest hurting and that she had began coughing at school today.

This was the week my hubby and I were to fly to North Carolina to attend a Medical Mission Conference with Samaritan's Purse and Franklin Graham Ministries. I have looked forward to this conference for several months and am disappointed that we had to cancel our trip. I know that God has a reason and He knows what is ahead. Fortunately, He knew I would need to be here to take care of my sick babies and hubby.

We are still waiting to hear about our pre-approval (PA) from the Chinese government. It has been three weeks since our referral, hopefully we will here soon. We also had our immigration come back last week, which we were so excited to see until I opened it up to see a rejection notice on it. It stated we were missing a page in our application. As we began looking through our paperwork, the only page I hadn't included was page 9, which is used when someone else fills out your application for you. I didn't think we would need to include it, but apparently they want to see that it is blank and that we did fill out our own application. We resent it last Friday including the blank piece of paper. This is a good example of how things are when the government is involved, things get denied for very silly reasons. Think about how bad it will be if the healthcare reform gets pushed through. What a scary thought!

Orphan Care Ministry

I am so excited to see God moving in such a big and mighty way in the lives of orphans around the world. We are the East Texas Coordinators for the Christian Alliance For Orphans. Last April, I went to a conference led by Christian Alliance For Orphans. I attended with a friend who also has a big heart for orphans. God began placing this in and on our hearts in 2007. The conference was outstanding and gave us great insight on how to begin a orphan care ministry within our church/town.

This summer we began meeting with a core group of six people who have the same desire to care for orphans. We are getting close to kicking off our local orphan care ministry on November 8th, also the First Annual Orphan Care Sunday throughout the U.S. The goal through Christian Alliance For Orphans Orphan Sunday is to get churches throughout the U.S. to speak out and be the voice for the orphan through scripture, videos and testimonies. Thoroughout the Bible, God gives us several commands to care for the orphan. One is found in Hosea 14:2b For in you the fatherless find compassion.

Orphan care can be accomplished through adoption but not all families are going to be called to adopt. Their are several options to care for the orphan/foster child. They need our prayers, our time, our love and our support. I can't tell you how important it is for those that are in our local foster care system to feel important and loved by someone. Many may not have financial resources to adopt but all of us can pray and give of our time. I would like to encourage you to pray about how you can make a difference in the life of a child. As Christians we are to defend the orphan as it says in Isaiah 1:17 Defend the cause of the fatherless.