January 29, 2013 -- Praise God for our FINAL DECREE!!!

Wow. I don't even know where to begin writing every little miracle that happened today!!  I am overwhelmed just thinking about it and not wanting to leave anything out!  We were praying hard this morning that we would get the call from the courthouse that our final decree had been issued and to come pick it up.  As the minutes passed this morning the phone was ringing off the hook!  I was about to throw up every time the phone range....literally.  The minutes turned to hours and by 12:00 I felt defeated.  We would HAVE to get that decree during the morning time in order to get everything done we needed to this week.  By noon I was barely holding it together while I secretly felt the weight of the world crashing inside my chest.  It's one of those moments where you want/need time to stand still until the phone rings and it's for you.  After a small lunch, Grayson of course decided he wasn't going to take a nap.  And I of course just wanted to crawl in bed and sleep the rest of the day.  I love Taiwan and the people here, but we are ready to come home.
After trying to get Grayson asleep I gave up and decided to take a walk outside in the sunshine.  We walked with mom for a long time.  It was a much needed break and it was good to "try" and clear my head for the rest of the week.  We were contemplating when to fly to Hong Kong this week.  Once we got back to the home Grayson was playing with the other babies when Bev came downstairs.  She had a very serious look on her face and told me she needed to talk to me right away.  Not knowing if it was good or bad, I just froze in my tracks.  She went on to say that the court clerk just called and they have our FINAL DECREE!! I tried to hold it together, but then Bev came over and hugged me and started crying.  I lost it and soon everyone was crying.  Once we gained our composure we needed to get down to business!  The first decree was in, however, we must pick it up by 4:00pm or they will put it in the mail (which we did NOT want to happen).  I looked at the clock and it was 3:20pm.  I began running around getting myself ready, Grayson ready, and the diaper bag ready! Oh, did I mention that Ted wasn't in town??? He was in another city 1.5 hours away!  How on earth was he going to get here in time?  We called Ted and told him about the decree in which he turned and called the court clerk.  They decided that the only people that are allowed to pick up the final decree were Ted, his secretary, or the "adoptive mom"!!! THAT'S ME!! :) Problem solved.......or not.  As we all got ready, we then realized there was no one to drive us to the courthouse! Oh my.......my heart sank. Just about that moment Anna (Ted's assistant) walked in the front door! Praise the Lord!  She wasn't suppose to be home until later in the evening?? We yelled at her to go get the car!!!! We jumped in and headed to the courthouse while "hoping" we had everything in his file with us and all the "chops" (stamps) we would need to pick up the paper were with us.  We had to be there by 4:00pm!! Time was running out!  We rushed up the stairs to the 3rd floor where we met the court clerk.  He pulled out the "Golden paper" :) and I signed for it.  He said that was all he needed and we could go now.  We walked in of the courthouse at 3:55pm and walked out at 4:00pm...........................................(enter sigh of relief).  Another mountain moved by God.

*We then headed with the final decree to the HUCO office (Household Registration Office).  This is the place where everyone must register where they live, work, attend school, keep records, birth certificated, etc.  We walked in at 4:30pm.  It usually takes about 1/2 hour to complete all the paperwork and change the birth certificates to say that Matt and I are his parents now.  The business closes at 5:00pm and their computers shut down automatically.  Anything left undone will be completed the next business day. Ahhhh!!!  Of course the lady we had helping us was new to the job and required lots of help from everyone in the office.  Luckily, when we walked in there was no one in line (which is rare I guess).  So we were watching this lady struggle to change all the records when the other women working there began running around copying papers, stamping things, etc.  It was a great team effort! :)  Remember the office closes at 5:00pm - no questions asked.  We left at 4:58pm!!!!!!!!! Another mountain moved! Woot woot!

*You would think the day was done and the miracles were complete.......oh but wait!  There's more.  We desperately needed to move our AIT meeting to make it home this weekend!  Keep in mind they have already bent over backwards to help us out this week.  Ted called them and they agreed to meet us tomorrow morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT???!!!  So tomorrow we are headed to the AIT office in Taipei to "finalize" everything!  I cannot believe it.  Now, we still do not have his passport or his medical stuff cleared yet to take to the AIT office, but they have agreed to go ahead and meet with us in the morning.  Then after that we will head to get his passport finalized and and get his medical records (which normally takes 2 days to get). After getting those things completed we can submit those documents to AIT!!!!! Sorry, if that made no sense. It's all very confusing :)  Basically another mountain has been moved!! Praise God :)

Prayer request:
1. AIT will go smoothly tomorrow morning
2. getting his passport will go well
3.  Pray a lot for the medical office to do all his paperwork the same day (fat chance of that, but we can ask?).
4. Pray for strength and peace for us as the next few days will be nerve racking.  
5.  Pray that we will get home this weekend.  We MUST fly out by Sunday.....we are either flying to Hong Kong and back to Taiwan or we are headed home????
6. Safety during our travels around Taiwan to finish this up!

Thank you soooooo very much to all the prayer warriors that stayed up throughout the night to pray for us.  We will forever be grateful for all of you!  I will be updating the blog again tomorrow on the newest mountains moved!! Stay tuned.......................

 working on the orphanage today!!

On our walk today!

Taiwan version of Aunt Kelsey's car!

He loves the hop-n-pop!

On our walk around the lake :)

Guess who's blowing bubbles???

Playing with the Nanny!

Grayson finding out we got our FINAL DECREE!

Picking up the final decree at the courthouse!!! Praise God!

After picking up the final decree!

He's not sure what's going on, but he's happy too :)

Grayson always falls asleep in the car!

Waiting at the HUCO office with Anna helping translate! Getting his birth certificate changed to say that Matt and I are his parents now!!!!

The sign behind us means "blessings" in Chinese :) and indeed it was a "blessed day"

Look at this adorable hat we got Grayson!!! I can see some adorable pics in his near future with this!