Making a Difference

(Dan) As the deadline to departure gets closer I took a look at the finances and realized that we still had some money from our fund raiser. I asked Catherine if there were any other needs that we could help with. After considerable thought she said that it would be nice to get some more books for the children. So today we hopped into Taxi's and drove across town to a 5 story book store.

It was fun to watch the Holt Staff (Catherine, Phoebe and Anson) discuss what they should get. They brought a suit case to carry it in and soon had baskets filled with school charts and books of all kinds. Anson asked me if we could check out and see how much money we had spent, and he was surprised when the total wasn't even half of our budget. I smiled and said keep going, he replied, I'm going to need a bigger suit case.

I hope that this Christmas season you'll remember the good that you did. We are so grateful to all of you who have helped us this trip with our fund raiser project. Your generosity and kindness has impacted children with cleft palates, books for waiting children, new borns who needed warmth and bottles and bottles of vitamins for all. Not only do we have a darling daughter (more on that later) but we had the privilege of lifting others lives which was mostly thanks to you who have helped us. Thank you again and Merry Christmas!

(Anson's thoughts) - How am I going to get all this out of here. 

You should have seen the pile on the floor.

Today we were pretty busy and missed Mei Mei's nap so we thought that she would fall asleep quickly. After a bath and bottle she settled in the crib as we were watching a movie. Thirty minutes later we hear this little voice babbling and playing. Helen grabbed a recorder and before long we had pause the movie to play the cutest game of copy cat. She cooed and peeked at us through the bars. Then we would blow kisses and say something and she would try to repeat what we said.

Another break through!  We are so excited to continue watching her learn and grow. Tomorrow is the big flight. Boy am I excited!