Officially on our TA wait!!!!!!

Well we are officially waiting for our TA and we are coming to an end of our wait!  We are busy with the hustle and bustle of Christmas and my oldest, Aaron, is home from College during his break! We are excited to celebrate the birth of our Savior and cannot wait to just spend some time together as a family and hopefully not have to run all over creation and we will just be able to relax a bit as we gather our thoughts and whits about us this holiday season, plus prepare for our travel to China.


My daughter just asked me "Momma when is my brother Luke coming?" I told her I am not really sure, but it will be soon. Her response " Momma, why cant Santa go get him, you know his Reindeer are super fast, he tells them "Giddy up" and they go super speed, if he can deliver presents to everyone in one night then he can bring my brother to us for Christmas right?" Who wants to be the one to tell her NO? Not me!!!!!!

Tommy has his and Luke's bedroom halfway set up, we were going to set up bunk beds, but the room is big enough for two twins across from each other. Tommy has a small table with a light set up in between the beds so him and his brother can see to "sign all night long and you wont even know we are awake.. until we laugh that is heheh, then dad still wont even know we are awake hahah!"  that boy sure is smart in creating his Deaf friendly environment.

We are truly blessed beyond a shadow of a doubt in our lives. We have been crazy busy lately with our jewelery fundraiser (which was a very nice success and we are hoping to have the funds from that come in soon :) and we have been blessed by some others with donations, plus I have worked myself to the bone.....I am now back down to 1 job as of this past Monday,(well 2 if you count full time mommy!) I was grateful for the extra work, but I am so exhausted and was so stressed it was a lot for me, on top of all that I do at church with interpreting on Sundays, interpreting our Thursday night Deaf bible studies (what a rewarding and incredible time that turned out to be and I cant wait for my new son to become a part of that) and teaching ASL on Tuesday nights for family night at church, plus preparing interpretations for 2 Christmas plays was a TON!!! 

All of the blessings we have received aside...... we are still thousands short on the money we need to go get Luke. We will not be able to get our Travel Approval (TA) if we do not pay all of our fees within the next week or 2.  Then we need to come up with the money for the actual travel itself. I have applied for several grants and have not gotten any, but I am praying that there is a chance we can still get a grant and God will show favor on our family to help get our son home! It is a huge kick in the pride to have to ask others for help and ask for donations and fund-raise, but from what I see in the adoption community it is pretty much the norm.  I wish it wasn't so expensive to bring a new son into our home as I am sure if it wasnt we would do this again.... I am going to see what I can do to help set up an adoption ministry in my church (hmm I know of at least one lady in church that has the same goal..... ahem right Terry?) to help others who might have the yearning to adopt and the income to take care of another child daily, but not the $24,000 - $30,000 needed to bring home a child. I know before Luke even walks into the hotel room on our Gotcha day that he is already a huge part of my heart and that he is 100% for sure my son.  My children are so excited and pray daily for their brother to come home.  Luke has already been a part of our daily lives before he even touches American soil.  He is already an integral part of our daily routine.  


We are asking if anyone feels led to help us out in our journey to bring our son home... to go ahead and do so..... we still have our coffee fundraiser going at www.justlovecoffee.com/TheWorrellFamily   we would also appreciate any and all prayers as we head into the home stretch and are trying to scrap out these last funds, of which we still need a very large amount. 

We just had Angela at Lady Bugs N Love send Luke another care package for Christmas and we sent him a winter jacket (which we are hoping he will be wearing when he comes to us, this way we dont have to bring one or buy one in China), plus jeans, a camera and film, about 25 pictures of our whole entire family (Granparents, Aunts and Uncles and our HUGE dog too!), a remote control car and also a short letter to Luke.. I will add it on here! We are pretty sure he wont understand any of the letter, but we pray that somehow he will get that we are coming soon!  We are hoping to get some new pictures of him with this package as well. We havent had a new picture since August! 

our letter to Luke Xinhai:

Xin Hai,

We are hoping to travel to China to meet you very soon and bring you back home to meet the rest of your new family. Daddy and Mommy cant wait to come to Jinan to see you. Back here in New Jersey we have your bedroom all ready and you will be sharing a room with your brother, Tommy. Your 2 brothers and your sister are very excited to meet you and to start to get to know you and play and play and play with you! We are hoping to be in Jinan either January or February at the latest. We know it is soon that you will come to be with us. I am sure you are nervous, but please know what we will always love you and will help you to try and adjust to America as soon as possible. Dad and I have been learning some Chinese Sign Language (CSL), it is a very nice language, we both like it a lot. Many signs in Chinese and American sign languages are similar. We think you will be able to learn American Sign Language (ASL) very fast. We hope you enjoy the jacket we are sending you as we know it is very cold where you are and we hope it helps to keep you warm during these cold months. We had our first snow in New Jersey yesterday and it is cold here too. We hope you enjoy the toy we are sending too. We think you will have fun playing with it. We are hoping that you are able to understand our letter and understand that we are coming soon to get you and bring you home and that we will always love you and protect you and promise to always be here for you. We wanted to let you know that we have picked an American name for you, your name if you like it, will be Luke Xin Hai Worrell. We love you and cant wait to meet you.

Love,
Daddy, Mommy, Aaron, Tommy and Paige