Sha Sha knows her forever family is coming

We received the most amazing email yesterday from Clare. Clare is overseeing the adoption from here as the wonderful Eng Kwang is traveling for the next month.  In the three days we have worked with Clare all that I can say is she is a God sent, truly an amazing woman.  She had the honor of telling Sha about us and wrote us the most amazing email describing it in such great detail we felt like we were right there in the room with her.  We debated if we wanted to post the email however we decided not to as it is Sha's special moment, we feel she should be able to share when she is ready.  Overall it went very good, she of course was surprised and had to take it all in.  Her biggest concern was leaving her friend Dong Ji.  DJ has muscular dystrophy and is in a wheelchair.  They are very close and Sha Sha indicated that DJ was the first girl who was friendly to her when she returned to ICC. Sha's concern is who will watch after her when she is not there.  As unbelievably heart breaking as that was to hear it shows that she is a compassionate person which is a great trait to have. 

Clare also gave her our care package which had a photo album that contained pictures of us, the house, Jack, her school, and one family pic of all grandparents, aunts and uncles.  The package also contained a stuffed animal pug (of course), a ladybug necklace, and Polly Pockets (which were not a big hit with her-haha...I'm still in the learning phase:)  It also contained a letter we wrote introducing ourselves to her. I will share that part of the email with you. I also included the photos of this moment they captured for us. Just to note, while Clare was telling Sha about us, Lis, another worker was preparing her two friends as well. The photos are when Sha came back and was showing her friends her new family. DJ is in the red shirt and Clare is in the blue.  Although tearful, they are a true treasure. She is wearing the ladybug necklace.  I told her in the letter that the necklace came with a matching pin that I will be wearing when we meet her for the first time.

" I explained you had sent her a package with a letter and picture and some gifts and she looked at your letter and said she couldn't read it, so I gave her the translation that had been typed for her and she began to read. She stopped after reading after a little and asked me to just tell her what it said, so I told her briefly what you had written and asked if she wanted to see you photos, she took the photo album and held it for a little while before she opened it. She stared at your picture for a while until turning over and seeing the house and asking what that was I explained it was your home (yours in Chinese implies, hers and yours). She flipped through the album, looking carefully at each picture, pausing on Jack's picture, then carrying on. Then I told her you had also sent some gifts for her and she took them from the packed one at a time. She pulled out the toy Jack and said excitedly it's just like the dog, exactly the same! But then added, I'm frightened of dogs. So I took her back to Jack's photo and we talked about him being a friendly dog and she didn't need to be afraid.

Then she took out the necklace, not knowing what it was, opened it and I fastened it on her then showed her the section in your letter about it. She smiled. Then she pulled out the polly pocket, she was not overly impressed, but she really likes the ladybug and kept holding onto it."

Thank you all for your continued thoughts and prayers, clearly they were heard.