Will

If you've been reading along from the beginning this post might seem a little redundant. I thought I would just reintroduce William Jilei Knisely to those who are new to our blog and bring people up to date as to where we are in the adoption.

We first saw Will over a year ago. We had begun working with our adoption agency, Bethany Christian Services, some months before. An opportunity came up for us to view some profiles and video of a group of special needs children from Shanghai, China.

Bethany had sent two of its social workers to take part in a special camp called "The Journey of Hope", which had taken place in June 2009. The social workers were able to interact, take video, pictures,view medical records, and interview children and caregivers. The children put on a talent show at the end of the camp. The social workers then returned to America, where they put together both their own personal observations, video, photos, and records, making a personal profile for each individual child. Not a small task considering there were 40+ Kiddos at the camp. NOW these angels had to try and find forever families for each child.

This is what the worker's shared about Will. Of all the children he had the strongest desire to come to America. He is the youngest in his class but the smartest. His best subject is Math. We have since learned he scored well on some placement tests and is now attending a school outside of the orphanage(only a handful of students meet the requirements). He gets along well with others but is shy with adults.He speaks a little English and loves to play on computers. He likes the outdoors and nature. Will knows he is being adopted but we do not know if he has our letters and photo albums we sent yet. Will just turned 10 in June and has now started 6th grade in Shanghai.

We viewed some of the children on Bethany's secured website. We were struck by Will right away, however like all adoptions things move slower rather faster. But this past week we finally got travel approval. Keith will leave for Shanghai, Oct.22nd. He will get Will in Shanghai 10/25. Because of requirements both from our government and China, Keith will be staying in China for two weeks. Once all paperwork is complete he and Will will return Nov. 5th!