Happy Chinese New Year....

Today is New Year's Eve...........we aren't able to make it to Luke's families house cause well, we have 4 kids (not ours.....and well....one is 20yr old is that a kid?) not to mention our family. So we decided to stay home. But Luke's family will be coming on day 3 of Chinese New Year. Day 2 one of our "girls" is coming to our house with her family for dinner. Traditionally, day 2 is when the married women go back to their families house. This girl, well, young lady, Wendy, feels we are her family. Her dad and 2 brothers don't call or anything, she doesn't have any new numbers for them, so it has been decided for her to come "home". Granted we see her every Sunday and sometimes more, but still, she considers us family more than her own family.

We have many ministries. Alot of mine is with the teens who have come through our house and the unwed mothers we have come in contact with. At times, we just shake our heads at some of them. One of our girls, came from an alcoholic family, really a broken torn up family. Yet the few times she has gone back, she still gives them money, still feels "bad" for them. I guess it is just hard for me to understand how they have been treated so bad by family, yet they turn soft around them. It will be something I can never really understand, but just gotta be there for the mess afterwards.

It is now that I need to share somethings with my readers. Some things are sorta changing at Morning Light, yet things are getting better. One thing that will change alot is adoptions. After 8months or so of prayer, seeing advice and counsel and watching God open doors when we asked and God answering prayers in some pretty specific ways, it has been decided that we go under an agency. I know WHAT ????? some of you are saying, WHY??? Well, the more we have been doing all the work for adoptions, the more we have researched, the more realize that having an agency behind us will help us in many ways:

1. it will take alot of work off of us......not that I don't mind answering questions, but now the families can ask the agency and the agency ask me in say one big email, or after a number of cases, they can pretty much answer themselves...............currently, I am the main one trying to answer all the questions from every case we have and everything together and set.................folks, this is time consuming and in someways, I have seen it affect my family and my children as well

2. the agency is a wonderful Christian agency with a great doctrinal stand and we feel is not exhuberantly priced as some agencies are

3. the agency is not adoption ministry only, but for children's home and unwed mothers; they have children's home for the unadoptable children and ministry to those that otherwise are forgotten

4. having a Hague Convention approved agency (though Taiwan is not Hague country.....Taiwan isn't even a country by most countries termsLOL!!) this will help us have a bit more push behind us we feel; we feel that this will be best in the future as well

The agency we have been talking about is All God's Children International. They are in the beginning with us and the Taiwan program. We are taking it slow mind you as the program is still in the very very beginning stages. We ask that you pray for us as we work with them and pray for them as they have stepped out in faith to support us and this program. We feel that God is beginning to do wonderful things, we just need to be ready. Any questions about the program can be directed to them, but I do not know how many apps they will be taking. We will only take so many cases at a time. So, please be patient.

I leave you with this picture of baby A, Anna (our 6month old dd) Baby J and Baby C who were ALL AT MY HOUSE last weekend..............we discovered that 4 infants is way past our limit:-):

Goodness how time flies....

Well, goodness, I can't believe how long it's been since I have written. Life has been ...... can we say ...CRAZY!!!

We had court on the 29th for a baby. I think it went well, though the judge proved that th courts here don't know much. She asked me why we didn't TECO the state laws. I said according to last court time, we didn't need to. "Taitung has never done an adoption internationally before"..... *sigh* Then we had to explain a few things. She said she would do her best to get it done and if anything else was needed she would let us know.....I don't know what that would be??! weird

We are now waiting for court for baby C on February 5th. Pray that will go fast!!!
Also pray that paperwork and approval for baby J will go smoothly and that bio mom will do something unusual and cooperate for a change.

We have some unwed mother's ministry stuff coming up this year. God has a great year planned and I pray we can handle it!!!

Keep praying for us.

Another in court....

Baby C had his paperwork enter the court yesterday . So, now the wait begins for a court date. He is already AIT approved, meaning, USA immigration says he can go to the USA as he meets the standards of an orphan. Now we just need to get him through the courts here. Please pray that we get a court date quickly. The end of January is Chinese New Year. So January only has 17 working days in it here in Taiwan. If we don't go to court BEFORE then, that we can handle. But would like a notification of court date BEFORE then.

In January we will be sharing some good news of things going on here. We are really excited, yet scared at what the Lord is doing here in Taitung. We need prayer..............God has plans and we want to be prepared "don't be afraid, only believe."

I am sitting here....

waiting for a mom.........one of our to be adopted babies, the mom wants to see him. She is not changing her mind, and her family has no idea she is sneaking out to see him. She called the other day to say the court appointed social worker was at her house, but she wasn't there just her mom. When the social worker asked if they were willing to allow him to visit when he was older, the grandma said NO.....they want this basically erased from their family history.

Mom is her now, baby is playing as any baby does. She is putting him to sleep, I think it is good for her. Now he is awake;-)

Some will say that we shouldn't allow this, the mom to come and visit. But if she wants to, I think then she needs to. We are not taking the baby and forgetting the birth mom all together, she does need to cut the cord so to speak. For some it takes time, for some who had planned on giving baby up early in the pregnancy, it doesn't take as much time. For moms to see baby is healthy and fine, that is a step for them.

Well, that is about here on our end. Baby C got AIT approval, so we are going to enter the courts as soon as we get the papers.

Ok, off to answer some questions.

teens....

in case you didn't know, we also have a 14yr old boy at our house...................this is his second time here. He had been doing pretty good, but something has snapped (probably hormones). Fourteen yr olds are just aliens in human disguise.

I flipped last night. We got ANOTHER call from his teacher. Previously his teacher wrote in his book that all his teachers have complained about his excessive talking and disrupting class, even though they have told him to stop. Well, now parents are complaining!!! Just great. Between his bad mouth (cursing) and his lying, not too mention using the money that he "finds" in the middle of my living room floor..............now his teacher says he was poking girls waists. He says she poked him first..............it was innocent................so he says......not like the teacher said (he was standing there when she called)...............I really don't need this!!! he has worked off the money he took (though he doesn't think taking without permission is stealing), now DH has decided no basketball til after exams this week......which means he is with me---gggrrrrr!!! His mom is not in town much, so that doesn't help. I really don't know what to do with all the cultivated bad habits.

God is working!!

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Our 3 babies in waiting for their forever families.........keep praying that the paperwork and court dates get done quickly so they can go home!!!

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As I sit here and type, my boys are watching TV (some weird Japanese program, but it's in Chinese). P, our newbie nanny is feeding baby A and baby C is in a portable rocker type thing in front of me. He is trying to sleep I think (either that or pooping!!). My Anna is sleeping. We start homeschooling soon (I hope I don't get distracted!!)


We recently had someone put our site and information on her blog that she runs for unwed mom's needing to find homes for baby. We had some comments about our adopting to Christians only. They had really good things to say about the big name Catholic organizations here, but about the Christian ones, we are brainwashing kids and tricking moms to sending their kids to our "cult" or whatever. I wrote back and said that we never forced anyone to ask us to help them, the moms do it on their own. I did have good comments back then, but it was kinda funny.


We are working on some information packets so when we get our house going we can send it out. Yup, a house!!! We found one and hope by end of December have it up and running. Pray as we need resources to get cribs, beds, furnishings..................God has broughht us this far!!

Paperwork....

I always get nervous around paperwork time. I just feel that I am missing something and going to mess something up or cause things to draw out longer. And with the infants in our care right now, we want them out ASAP!!:-) Not that we don't love them, but for them to with their forever family and the family experience all the firsts, though I can handle experiencing the first sleeping through the night.

All the paperwork we have for our 3 current cases our out there, relying on the mail system and the court system. Unfortunately, neither are reliable!LOL!!.........our courts here don't have family court so we kinda just line up I guess. Technically the law states 2-4weeks after registration to have a court date, not have court appearance, but a date for court appearance. So, fun, it is out of my hands though. Here is where you prayer warriors come in handy:-)

I may post beginning of the new year some things that are happening resource wise for Morning Light Home. They might be considered good, and might not for some. But God has been opening doors.

Keep praying for our cases.I hope to post pix sometime soon.

Where do I begin?

Sometimes I am hesitant on posting things here. Should I be? I am afraid that posting things on here, if there is a mom or baby, everyone on our waiting list will start getting the "check the email every 5minutes" syndrome thinking it is a referral for them. I do hope that you all allow me to post here in freedom.

If you walked into our house right now, what would you see? Well, I have 3 infants napping, but all different spots. Baby J is in the big boys room on a mat on the floor, Baby A is in his portable cribby thing they have here, and my Anna Joy is in our room in her daddy's arms (where she is usually!!LOL!).............my friend is afraid I may hand over the wrong baby, that I might hand over my baby to someone !!LOL!! I THINK NOT!
My living room/dining room.......where we are most of the time........currently has a walker, 3 strollers, one portable cribby thing and a Taiwan style bouncy/cribby thing ( I seriously don't know what they are called). We are having to rearrange the furniture not to mention our schedule.
On Monday, our Baby J will go back to nanny and we'll get baby C for awhile................ .ahhhhh....... the joys?? I guess we could say that............

If we had a home for them to stay at with a nanny...... would there be more? who knows......sometimes the idea of doing this work scares me at what it can be and how God can grow things overnight.

Pray for a national coworker who would be willing to stay at a house.............. Momma J stayed here for a few weeks, but it was a bit rough on our family. She was easy to get along with, but obvious she is "mom" to her own mom.......... that happens in alcoholic families alot, the kids have to bear more responsibility than they should. BUT if we had a worker, single or widowed, who would be willing to stay at a house and help, that would be awesome!!! and so helpful.......... so pray for that............. God will do great things..................are you praying for that?

We have been busy....

Not ignoring you all!!!
October 8th, we needed to go get a 7month old who is in the process of being adopted. He was here not more than a week and started getting sicker than when we had picked him up (he was really congested on the 8th). The nanny called a 2am to take him to the ER and he was admitted right away with acute pneumonia. We PRAISE THE LORD that after a week in the hospital, he is now better than when we brought him home. God is doing great things!! Please keep praying for him and the adoption to go through.

October 30th, Momma J had her baby boy. She has had it rough. Her own mom was drunk that AM, but sober enough to come to the hospital later for the surgery. Momma J needed to have a c/section. She is resting and doing well.

All of this has given us a foot in the door with social services. The hospital social worker knows us well now:-)......and she might be referring a case to us for abortion counsel, or not to abort. The social worker was asking lots of questions about our work or beginnings of work with unwed moms and she says there is a big need for a home. God is opening doors. Please do pray that the social worker can convince this needy mom to at least just talk with us about her choices and not to abort.

Please do consider supporting our ministry. God is working in Taitung Taiwan!!!

Congrats are in order..

This gorgeous hunk just celebrated his first year of being with his forever family!!

And this beautiful princess after waiting way too long, the family finally got the final decree!!! they changed household registery and all...............they live here so it was a tad different, but still SHE IS THEIRS!!

Just an encouragement to say YES IT CAN HAPPEN AND WILL!!!! Congrats to the forever familes who are celebrating.........praying we can add more soon!!