Hello to all. As we mentioned back in May, we decided to switch over to a private blog while we were in Europe so that we could share the details of Mikaela's adoption a bit more freely. We did maintain that blog while we were in country, so if you did not get the login information for that and would like to read the details about our trip, feel free to email us at 2polyglots@gmail.com, and we will be happy to send you the login information. Now that we are home, we can go back to using this blog. Our goal will be to keep both blogs updated, so most of the posts will be identical. To bring you all up to speed, I will give a really quick summary of the last few months.
Near the end of May, we flew to Eastern Europe. As we shared with you then, we were still short of the funding that we needed, and we were trusting God to provide everything for us. We are convinced that we were right to follow God even without knowing where His provision would come from, but we realized shortly after arriving in Europe that we had been very wrong not to communicate this information to our facilitators. We had never intended to be dishonest, but by not telling them how far short we were of the funds that we needed, we put them in a very difficult spot and jeopardized Mikaela's entire adoption. As a matter of fact, one of our facilitators told us that if we could not raise $7800 that day, he would send us back to America. We were devastated. We had already come to love Mikaela like our two bio children, and could not stand the thought of loosing her. We called my parents and begged them to pray, and they sent out an urgent plea for help. We couldn't imagine any way to raise that much money in one day, but God is very gracious. The members of our church banded together to raise that entire amount, and other friends and family raised the rest of the funds that we would need while we were in country. Rather than being angry with us, Reece's Rainbow even helped us raise a good bit of the money that we were lacking. We were so humbled and awed by God's mercy and the love that His people showed to us. We will never forget His goodness or the lessons that he taught us that day. Once we got through that initial crisis, we had a wonderful time in Mikaela's home country. We have wonderful memories of almost every day, and I am already wanting to go back. I think it will take Greg a little longer to get there, but he had a wonderful time too. The food was delicious, the people were kind and gracious, and the city was beautiful.
We returned home on July 2, and Mikaela has slipped into American life like she has been here from the beginning. She is a delight and a treasure. We can hardly imagine life without her. She has seen quite a few doctors since coming home, and most of the news has been very good. She had no parasites, no hepatitis (A, B, or C), no other diseases, and her heart condition seems to have resolved itself without surgery. We are so thankful for this. She does have hypothyroidism, but that is easy to control with medication. She is gaining weight and getting happier every day. She celebrated her first birthday on August 1, and we are so thankful to have been able to share that milestone with her.
That covers the highlights, and I will include a few pictures of our beautiful girl if I can figure out how to do that. Okay, I did get the pictures to post, but they are at the beginning, not the end of the blog. I have gotten so used to Wordpress, that it will take a little time for me to adjust to blogger again. Sorry about that. From now on, we will try to post all updates on both blogs.
