Update on the kids: names and weights

A couple of updates on our adoption process since receiving our referral:

Names

We were told our kids names were Josianne and Jonathan, which we loved!  We told everyone and many of our friends began praying for our "Josi and Johnny".  You can imagine our surprise when we then found out while on vacation, that we had been given the wrong names.  Our children are actually Jeane and MiChiki (mi-cheek-e).  Slightly different!  

Family

We received a government document detailing how the children were abandoned.  The document revealed that their mother, age 41, actually brought them to social services and indicated that she could no longer care for them.  The document included her full name, birth date, the name of her parents and their village.  There was no mention of their father.

Medical

Along with the official abandonment document came the full medical report on the kids.  At first we thought, okay, nothing too bad.  Then we looked up the conversion from kilograms to pounds.  We discovered our little girl, Jeane, weighs only 15 pounds at 1.5 years old. For comparison, our chihuahua currently weighs 14 pounds. The report listed her as severely malnourished.  MiChiki isn't much better, although the report listed him as only slightly malnourished.  He weighs in at 19 pounds, 2.5 years old.  Both are now receiving regular meals and being monitored to encourage weight gain.

Prayer requests

• Please pray for our children and their birth mother.  We know that the separation has likely been very traumatic.
• Please pray for the children's health.  It will likely be several months before we are able to go get them, so in the meantime, we want their health to improve and for their stay in the foster home to be a peaceful time.
• Please pray for us.  We are so excited for our pregnancy and our two children in DRC, but are tending to feel overwhelmed when we dive into the logistics of having 3 children under the age of 5.   Please pray that we will continue to turn to God for strength and guidance throughout this journey.
• Lastly, please pray for our fundraising.  We have been incredibly blessed to have received the monetary gift that we did early on.  With accepting 2 children, our expenses have risen slightly and we will now have to raise approx. $7,500 for travel/stay in DR Congo.  We are having our first fundraising event in late July; an adoption garage sale.  So far we've had several families offering to donate items to us to sell and we've been combing through our home for things we don't need.  We are hoping for good weather and a good turn out!  

-Amber & Jim