♥ His Hands Taiwan

Love these ladies!

Love this ministry!

Love the nannies!

Love the babies!

Love the mommies!

Love the Lord for his leading!

Please click here and learn more about His Hands Taiwan! Pray for them, love them, bless them! Be a partner in what God is doing.

I am jumping a little ahead. This photo was taken at our last meal with Holly and Trena. All I can say is I didn't want it to end. We were just starting to scratch the surface of getting to know them and their beautiful families. We will never forget them. We ♥ them.

United at Last!

The end of our adoption story was a roller coaster. On Memorial Day weekend we received an email from His Hands Taiwan. They had called the clerk who had been assigned to our case to check on the status of our adoption. They did not receive good news. The clerk informed them that the home-study which had been completed on Maren's mother back on March 17 was invalid. The clerk said it would have to be "re-done". In addition to this Holly and Trena were having trouble locating Maren's mom. She thought she was finished with her responsibilities. Her phone number had changed and all of the phone numbers that they had for her were not working. In addition to that we learned that Maren was from Ping Dong county. Ping Dong has many social challenges. There is a lot of abuse there. It is difficult to rush anything through the social services office. It looked as though our adoption would not be completed for at least a few more months at that point.

God gave us a miracle! You can read that story if you click here and scroll down to June 2.

I share this background because the height of our joy came after a very dark low. Meeting Maren in June was a miracle that we will treasure forever!

We met Maren at the House of Hope. We wanted to come into her familiar surroundings, see what her environment was like, and ease into our hello. It was an amazing moment. It was just like I dreamed it would be. I imagined the moment over and over before it actually arrived. I envisioned that she would be happy and playing and I would sit down beside her with my camera in hand and soak her in. I was so happy to be there and to touch her.

Meeting Meg

One of Our Happiest Mornings On Earth

Alex and I love new places! We were excited from the beginning of this adoption that we would be traveling to Asia for the first time. When we were talking and praying about adopting and we learned about Taiwan Alex said, "Taiwan, yes, Taiwan, I like it. It seems right." It did not disappoint. It was right.

I woke up with a deep joy in my heart on June 19th. It was surreal. I did my best to soak in all the sights, smells, sounds, emotions. I am smiling just thinking about it.

The Novetel was the name of our hotel. The breakfast buffet was truly international. There were meats, cheeses, breads, croissants, Japanese noodles, English breakfast beans, Congee (an Asian rice porridge), eggs, bacon, juice, coffee. You name it. They had it.

People were very friendly and were interested in us. We were congratulated several times as we shared our reason for travel. It was delightful in every way.

After breakfast we packed up our things to catch the 8:00 a.m. shuttle to the High Speed Rail. We got to the lobby at 8:00 and asked the front desk where we should catch the shuttle. As we were talking the shuttle drove away. For a brief moment my heart sank. I thought our whole day might have just changed.

But.......

My knight in shining armor, Alex, hailed a taxi and we were on our way on schedule smiling from ear to ear.

We made it to the train station. Purchasing the tickets was easy. We were set.

By car I believe it would've taken us 6 hours to get from Taipei (in the north) to Kaohsiung City (in the South). But, the high speed train would get us there in about an hour and a half. Amazing!

The train was very clean and smooth.

We enjoyed the trek immensely. The landscape was interesting and beautiful.

We didn't really feel nervous. We were just excited!

We arrived at the Kaohsiung Train station at 10:06 a.m. Holly and Trena were waiting on us!

We loaded up our suitcases and were off to meet Meg!