There's Someone I'd Like You to Meet

Introducing our sweet Leah!

These two pictures are from her file that is about a year old:

And these are from an update we received about a month ago:

• Leah is currently three years old, and I am sure most of you noticed from the pictures that she has down syndrome.  
• We have decided to give her a new first name, but we will use her Chinese name as a middle name.  We will be able to share her Chinese name when we are a little further along in the process.
• In spite of all of China's system changes, it only took us a week to get pre-approval.  We are so thankful!  We are hoping that everything continues to move smoothly and quickly so that we can get Leah home as soon as possible.  It is always hard to estimate how long things will take, but best guesses put us about 5-6 months away from traveling.

A final thought for today (taken from a book my friend Monica recently gave me about coming alongside people touched by disability -- I'm not done, but it is great so far!):

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
   because he has anointed me
   to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
   and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
   to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
               -Luke 4:18-19 (Jesus reading from Isaiah)

"When you hear the words poor, prisoner, blind, and oppressed, what picture appears in your mind?  Most likely, you think of someone else.  And that someone else is a person whom you deem to be weaker than yourself.  But when we truly understand grace, we realize that the poor, the prisoners, the blind, and the oppressed are us."
               -Stephanie O. Hubach