Grace update!

This is Tina posting for Sarah, she is still unable to access Blogger (nor can anyone in their group). I have set Sarah's blog to "moderate comments", this means that your comment won't show up when you leave it, but it will go directly to David and Sarah's email so that they can see them, and then post them. Thanks!


Hello all! Thanks so much for the comments and prayers. Grace is doing much better, although she still has moments of real sadness. Please pray for her heart. She is clearly a very sensitve and thoughtful person. God will use these aspects of her personality in wonderful ways. But, for now, she is struggling, at moments.

On the other hand, today, she had lots of times of laughter and smiling. She loves to jump down stairs! All of the kids were so eager to hold her hand and to help her jump down the stairs. They have been so patient with her and so desire to show their love to her.


I thought that I'd give a little more detail about Grace's gotcha day. We walked into the conference room and she was sitting at the table. We smiled and waved at her. She seemed to recognize us. When they brought her to us, she walked into my arms. After about 5 seconds, however, she started crying very hard. It was so sad. The kids were a little overwhelmed. She cried for about a half an hour, obviously very distraught.


After a few minutes, we had Oma and Opa take the kids upstairs. Two of the other children were as happy as could be, but Grace and Quin (I posted her picture a couple of weeks ago), were both crying. Both of our families decided to take our girls up to the rooms. Grace calmed down a bit, but was still crying. She did not like being in the room and kept trying to get David to take her downstairs. She would say, "Uncle. Let's go goodbye." We said that he was Baba (Daddy), and she said, "Daddy. Let's go goodbye."


She tried various methods of opening the latch on the door (she is a smart little thing!!), and finally started stamping her feet. I have to tell you that she has the cutest little foot stamp that you have ever seen! David and I couldn't help but laughing, because it was so gentle and it wasn't much of a tantrum if that was her best shot. Of course, we felt terrible for her and kept trying to comfort her.

Finally, she calmed down and we had the kids come in one by one so they could see her. They understood why she would feel so distraught, and were sad for her. Oma and Opa took the other kids to eat and to bed in their room(s), and Grace ended up eating a bag of fruit snacks, but didn't want to touch anything else.

One of the interpreters came in, and she was able to communicate that she had to go to the bathroom. So, once she was able to do that, she was also much calmer. We got her ready for bed, and she went right into bed and right to sleep. I slept with her and she is quite a snuggler!!


She was pretty sad yesterday, but as I said, today was MUCH better. She had some sad moments of silent tears, but had many more moments of laughter and playing and smiles. She follows me around and doesn't let me out of her sight. She also is eating well now, and is not particular at all.

We visited a Miao village today and it was really neat. I can't wait to post pictures. Most of all, I can't wait to post pictures of our precious girl. She has a smile that lights up a room and is as cute as can be. She is a little peanut, but doesn't look quite as small as I thought that she would. The 3T clothes that I brought are big, but not enormous. She does have tiny feet, probably about a 5 or 6, so the shoes that I brought are too big. But, she loves her shoes, and really only wants to wear them. So, that works out!

Please keep praying for our little girl's heart. She is a tender little thing.