our mongolian miracle

i am incredibly sorry for not updating sooner. so many of you are fully engaged in this journey with us and i have not kept you up to speed these past couple of weeks. so here goes!

we DID receive some new measurements for our sweet girl. her head (the problem area, if you remember) did follow the growth curve, albeit way below the growth curve. that is good news. we'll take tiny but growing.

she is tiny. really small. 20 months old and about the size of an average 10 month old. it is pretty much guaranteed that she isn't getting enough nutrition. that is the biggest thing on my heart right now. i am pleading with God to somehow allow her to get some good food. noodles and milk just don't cut it for a baby.

she is in an orphanage, as opposed to foster care which lydia was blessed to be in. i did find a website for her orphanage although i don't put too much stock in it. china is famous for being great at outward appearances. but no doubt she is getting orphanage care - which can be loving at best and horrendous at worst.

we are now waiting for china to officially approve us to be her parents and then grant us travel approval. the time line we have been given to travel is december - february.

items for prayer...
nutrition. please pray for the orphanage to have an abundant supply of protein and for sarahjoy to eat a whole bunch! she is from the inner mongolian portion of china so i can't imagine a whole lot grows up there during the winter. maybe some yak or something yummy like that!

love. please pray for sarahjoy to receive affection and love from her caregivers. that she would be attached to someone special. her attachment now is what makes for a healthy attachment later so the care she is receiving during these months is incredibly crucial.

speed. we want our little girl. please pray for a super quick approval from china. what if we could even bring her home for christmas? would that be a cherry on top of our sarahjoy miracle or what?

money. our friends and family are clearly being the hands and feet of jesus. we are overwhelmed (as evidenced by my serious lack of up-to-date thank you notes!) please pray that God would provide 100% for sarahjoy's homecoming.

praises to jesus!...
sarahjoy. she is so precious and we can't wait to get our hands on her. lydia is SO EXCITED she can hardly stand it.

money. we are so thankful. wow. God is showing himself through some of the most unlikely of sources. one practical thing that is almost guaranteed - not many people are flying to inner mongolia in the winter. go figure! so it looks like we will have a substantial reduction from the estimated cost of our plane tickets! then again, we may have to pay for hypothermia and frostbite treatment.

thank you guys so much for your support. we could not do this journey without you. well, we could. but we would be a mess. so thanks. we can't wait to introduce you to our sweet mongolian miracle!

ashleigh

**i have had several people ask me about the info to donate. so here it is.
lifesong for orphans
po box 40 / 202 n. ford street
gridley, il 61744

make checks payable to 'lifesong for orphans' and write 'sanzone #1284' in the memo line.