Zoe...one year later

Today marks one year with our Zoe Olivia...One year ago she became a Deavers and lost her orphan status...so hard to believe its already been a year but also hard to believe its only been a year.  The picture above is our first photo.  You can see the reserved fear in her eyes.  That has been replaced by pure joy...she is now safe, trusting, attached, a sister, a daughter and a sweet blessing from GOd.

Zoe's name means life and it is so fitting....God knew what he was doing when he led us to name her Zoe.  She is so full of life!  WE've had several doctors look over her medical records and they have all come to the same conclusion..there is NO reason this little girl should still be alive.  Zoe was found abandoned at a train station as a baby.  A Chinese woman found her and cared for her as her own...until she began to get sick and had to be hospitalized.  She was dying in the hospital, no orphanage would take her, and a sweet British missionary team stepped up to the plate.  They took her into their home, gave her around the clock care for a year and 1/2 and nursed our girl back to health.  She got started on her needed, life saving meds and once she was healthy, she was transferred to a foster home where she spent her next 5 years until we came for her last year, today.  As far as Chinese orphans go...she was in the best possible scenario apart from a mom and dad to love her.  She was loved, fed, medicated, educated, taught and trained.  But her longing, her prayer every night was for a mommy and daddy of her own....and God answered the cry of her orphan heart and led us to her.

The picture above is our first day with Zoe in China.  She was full of nervous energy.  This girl has come SO far.  She came with a few English words but she is now fluent in English.  There is very little she doesn't understand.  She is reading on a first grade level and is slightly above that in math.  She has made friends, She loves to play and she is all girl!  Zoe had never been hugged or kissed which is a cultural difference and she now loves a hug and wants to be kissed on the head anytime I leave her or when she goes to bed at night.  She now says, "I love you" freely and without prompt.  She is stubborn but obedient.  She responds to discipline and correction so well.  She loves her sister and baby brother fiercely!  Her favorite memory over the last year she says is going to Disney World and seeing the Disney Princesses and she longs to go to the beach...shes seen the beach in pictures but never actually been....maybe next year!  She also wants to see snow...real snow...not sure that will happen in Lagrange GA!!  She wants to be a doctor when she grows up and she will surely make the best doctor after being the patient for so long.   She is learning about her heavenly father and reads the Bible that her Mimi and Grandaddy gave her often!

WE are so very thankful for everyone that helped us along the way on our journey to Zoe...she would not be here without generous friends and family that helped us get her home and the one family that gave us the confirmation that we were indeed supposed to bring Zoe home!  Thank you for everyone that has loved on her since she's been home, everyone that's helped provide for her needs from medical bills, to hand me downs to vacations to Christmas gifts...we are truly so grateful and you, my friends, are practicing "pure and faultless religion."

James 1:27  " Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself from being polluted by the world."