Our First Court Date!

I'm not the only one that would have
mistaken this number for a telemarketer, right?!

FINALLY!!!!  

Yesterday morning, we received the long awaited news that our first court date has been set!  At this point, Austin and I both still feel like we are dreaming. The last 48 hours have been a blur made up of tears of happiness, tons of text/calls/emails, frantic travel planning and a general feeling of disbelief that we are boarding a plane in two weeks to meet our son.  We don't get to bring Shay home on this trip, but we are excited nonetheless.
  
Did you catch what I just wrote?!?!  

TWO WEEKS AWAY PEOPLE!!!!!  

EEEEKKKKK!!!!!

Let me try to calm down enough to tell the whole story. 

We have been waiting for months for the courts to assign us an initial date.  As you know from my previous post, we hit a snag waiting on our PAIR letter to be issued.  We found out on July 7th that our letter had been issued by USCIS (immigration) and our case was being forwarded to AIT (American Institute of Taiwan--aka the embassy).   Last weekend, Austin and I had a chance to spend a few days near Seaside, Florida.  It was a much needed getaway as I had really reached a point of utter frustration with our lack of progress.  While we were in Florida, we got an email from the Home of God's Love that they had received the letter from AIT and submitted it to court.  Despite this news, I felt frustration grow after we got home due to some conflicting information about whether or not the court would accept our letter due to it not being authenticated.  Some weeks I'm able to manage my emotions better than others, and this week proved to be one where I was struggling.  In other words, I cried a lot.  About anything and everything.  

Then at 6:01am yesterday morning, our phone rang. 

As you know, Austin is a firefighter.  The City of Franklin has an automated phone system that calls when overtime is available.  Austin had already hit the snooze on his alarm so when the phone rang, he said "that's probably overtime calling."  I reached for the phone and saw the "unknown name" and what appeared to be a telemarketer phone number.  I never answer the phone when a number like this pops up.  I click the on button and then immediately hang up.  For whatever reason, I answered and there was a delay (again, just like when a telemarketer calls).  No one responded so I pressed a button and heard someone ask "may I speak to Abby?"  At this point, I was half-awake and fully annoyed.  In the rudest voice I could muster, I asked "who is this?" to which I heard "this is Ted Skiles, calling from Taiwan."

<cue Abby jumping out of bed like she's been shot from a cannon>

I immediately apologized for being so rude.  He said he was calling to notify me that we had received our initial court date for Thursday, August 22 at 9:30am.  Initially, there was some confusion on if we actually had to appear in court or not.  Within a few short minutes, Ted called back and confirmed that we needed to book flights in order to be in Taitung for an interview with a social worker and to be present for court.  This was not necessarily the news we had hoped for, however, at this point, any news that means progress is good news.  Apparently, Taiwan is moving toward requiring all families to travel twice, once for the initial court date and again after the final ruling and subsequent AIT appointment.  We know another waiting family that was required to travel for the first court date, however, their case is in a different district than ours so we had hoped we wouldn't be required to make two trips.  Financially speaking, we aren't really prepared to make two trips but we are confident we can figure out that part of it (somehow).  We considered the option of me staying behind with Shay and just waiting until the next court date so that we didn't have to make two trips.  This was something we wrestled with most of the day.  After much prayer and consideration, we decided for me to return with Austin.  The two primary reasons being a) it would be super challenging to be a first-time mom in another country for an unknown amount of time without my mate and b) the time frame between our first and second court dates is unknown.  It could be as short as six weeks or much longer, no one really knows. 

So, here we are--it's Saturday night, our flights are booked, our hotel is booked and two weeks from now, we will be sitting in Los Angeles (LAX) waiting to board a flight to Taipei.

We will get to spend six wonderful days loving on our baby boy. I will choose to cherish this gift for everything it offers and will try to not concentrate on the heartbreak of boarding a plane home without him.  

We desire your prayers around the following:

• Safety while traveling (it's around 22 hours of travel time.....one way)
• For Shay---we know he will most likely be confused as to who we are and why he isn't with his nanny
• Our visit with the social worker--that he/she will see our sincere love for Shay
• For our court date--that the process will go smoothly and the judge will grant us a first decree quickly

The verse Austin and I have been holding on to this week has been 2 Corinthians 1:20:

"For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God."

The answer has always been YES!  He is SO faithful!

We love you all!
Austin, Abby & Shay