Bridget's Bible Verse

Our family has been trying to memorize Romans 12 the past few weeks. Every evening we all try to get farther in the chapter. Sad to say that us old folks don't memorize quite as fast or well as our children. Bridget has just been a spectator during all this time as we didn't even try to include her but she has been listening. The other night when we were all saying what we had memorized Bridget pipes up with, "I want to say my verse." We say okay and were quite shocked when she said the first half of Romans 12:1 "I beseech ye, therefore brethren, by the mercies of God...living sacrifice." She forgot a few words but each night since she has added more words and now she can say all of Romans 12:1, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." Not too bad for a child that was malnourished and without proper care for most of her first 18 months.
The funny thing is that Alina (6yrs.) has a hard time pronouncing words and struggles to say the verse correctly. Now that Bridget can say her verse we have been surprised at how well Alina now says hers. I guess a little competion was good for her :)

Government Fun

We are still waiting on Bridget's I-600 application to be approved but we have had some contact with INS. Last month we contacted our congressman who said to contact the Spokane immigration office because they were "responsive." They were right. We asked if there was a way for us to stay in the US and get Bridget's citizenship using another procedure. They responded immediately and said that we could wait for the I-600 and return to Malawi when it's approved or wait for her adoption to have been final for two years and then submit a different form. This was confusing as it would mean that Bridget's visitor visa would have expired (they are only good for 6 months and can be renewed only 1 time) and she would be in the US illegally. Our next question was how can she stay illegally to which they replied that she would be an "overstay" and the only problem would be that she would not receive any goverment services that a citizen would be entitled to. Huh? Because it appeared that they were saying it didn't really matter if she was here illegally, I decided to press it further and asked for more clarification. Then I received a very stern response saying that the government line was that Bridget could not be in the states while an I-600 was being processed and we had better return to Malawi because we were in the states "fraudently" and our application could be denied for her citizenship. Huh again?!
In spite of all this, we have received word from Rome that they still are processing her application and today we received notice that her application for a visa extension has been extended. We will just continue to wait.