Today (August 15)

Today we spent what felt like years in 3 different government offices doing paperwork.  First was the Civil Affairs office where we completed the first set of paperwork which we needed to take to the passport office.  At the passport office things got a little tricky when we learned that one of the officials that the orphanage had built a relationship with was gone on holiday.  We had to leave and go back to the passport office after lunch.  We were still  not convinced that it will be ready by Friday!  John, our guide, said that he would call on Wednesday and check on progress.  If it’s not as far along as it should be he said he would call the orphanage or some other adoption official.  But for me not to worry.  Yea right.  He obviously doesn’t know me.
Overall, we cannot complain with how Lyla is doing.   Night time seems to be our only issue, and we’ve made some adjustments and tonight worked much better.  We had one uncomfortable moment at the Civil Affairs office today when the orphanage administrator, the lady who brought Lyla to us, came in.  Lyla quickly abandoned everything she had, sippee cup and play phone, grabbed the administrator’s hand, looked at us and said, “bye!” and waved.  Really, I believe she was saying, “See you suckers!  I’m out of here!”  I thought, “Here we go.  Here comes the fit.”  But she didn’t.  The orphanage administrator said something to her in Chinese, Lyla shook her head no, the administrator repeated it, and Lyla came back to me.  End of story.  Please continue to pray for us.  We can feel them!  We are ready to come home, but we have 4 more days here and then we will go to Guangzhou.  Jinan is a little harder to be in than where Grace was from.  Our guide told us there are only about 120 adoptions a year here so they are not use to seeing Americans.  We are very much not liking the attention we are getting.  They are very nice and are just curious.  But the momma in me worries that they are staring at Lyla.  I hope they see that even kids with physical deformities are worthy of families too.  So tonight we want to thank you for your prayers.  Things are going way better than we could have ever dreamed.  Please continue to lift us up.  If there was anything specific I would say to pray for an on time passport for Lyla, and better transition to sleep for her.  We love you guys and we miss home terribly!!!  The only pic I managed to get from today…(for some reason I’m WAY busier than I use to be)