God is Faithful Indeed!

GOTCHA DAY AT LAST! After all these months of waiting and hoping and praying, Daniel and Matthew are finally with our family! We cannot express the joy and wonder of God's grace to us in letting us bring these wonderful boys into our family!

 

This morning we got to skype with our family for about two hours. Daniel and Matthew are at the hotel with my parents/little siblings and seem to be doing well.

They both want to be called by their Chinese names which we fully expected and fortunately we have been pronouncing them correctly all this time so we already could say them.

We tried out our (extremely short) list of Chinese phrases and Daniel laughed at us. Matthew just sat there and stared. We hear that Matthew isn't feeling too great and was very sad to leave his friends. McDonald's helped him feel a little better but he was very quiet and subdued during the beginning of the skype call.

He didn't respond to much over skype until Daniel remembered to give my dad a flash drive and Matthew brought out his own. They both had pictures of the boys and their friends and Matthew perked up a lot and showed us all the pictures and chattered away in Chinese telling us who everyone was. He laughed at all Daniel's pictures and then proceeded to show us almost every item from the backpack he brought with him and wouldn't remove the item from the skype screen until he received appropriate response (which meant loud praise). He seems convinced that we understand Chinese and told us what everything was. Mom is going to ask the guide tomorrow what everything is. There seemed to be some soccer awards which Matthew was particularly proud of.

Daniel showed us all his art and some of his photos though he was embarrassed of some and didn't want us to see (so Matthew showed us). News is that Daniel and Joshua hit it off at once and spent the afternoon drawing. They held an arm-wrestling match for us to see over skype.

Mom and Dad were happy that Matthew showed us all his stuff as earlier he had been unwilling to show them his prized possessions. Matthew opened up more to us than he did to them and it was a good breakthrough. He seems much happier now than before he knew us.

Both Matthew and Daniel knew my brothers' names and they knew that John Morgan plays violin (it was in a note that we sent them). They also knew the happy birthday song and sung it for Stephen (whose birthday is today). My name, Abigail, presented more trouble for them ("L's" are not too easy) but they tried. Matthew took out his photo album (that we had sent them) and practiced everyone's name. The dog's name (Posie) was extremely humorous to him and he laughed every time he said it.

Practicing the dog's name

Daniel and Matthew were acting silly and playing with us by the end of skype and we had a good time after the initial awkwardness wore off. Daniel is all smiles and Matthew started smiling after the flash drives came out.

Praise the Lord! Daniel and Matthew are doing well.

Daniel with Mama

This is how Matthew felt until after McDonald's and skype with his older siblings. My parents say he is in great spirits now besides feeling a little sick.

McDonald's for Dinner!

Daniel started unpacking as soon as he got in the hotel room. Yeah, he was really ready for a family. He knows that our family is for good.