Hello Hank, 
I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. I've been really busy
preparing for court on August 18, and painting the house and such. In 
case you missed it, MY LITTLE GIRL IS HOME!!!!!!  The court decided that 
she could come home, and four hours later, we picked up our little girl 
and brought her home!  Her first question when we got to the foster home 
to pick her up was, "Hey, what took you guys so long?"    
About Jan's business...
 HB> Jan has a wedding consulting and concierge business and I work with
 HB> her in my spare time (such as it is, ha ha).  Actually, she enjoys
 HB> working with people and is doing quite well for herself.
Now that one I understand real well, only from a little different angle.
My hubby, Don, is a professional photographer and I have helped him with
several weddings, sometimes working with the wedding consultant as well.
Unfortunately Don can't devote his time to it out here.  It seems that 
everyone is a professional photographer out here.  It's difficult to make 
a living at it here unless you've spent many years aggressively seeking 
clients.  When you have a large family to support, the odds of supporting 
them stictly through photography is a long shot.  So, Don is a retail 
manager and now does the photography and video's for the quarterly and 
annual meetings.  When we return to Michigan (hopefully in February) Don 
should be able to get back into the business quite easily.  There aren't 
many photographers in the area we're going to (two wedding photographer's
in a 50-75 mile range) so he should be able to do really well.  We've 
heard that the present photographers are booked a year in advance, so 
Don should be able to jump in with both feet and survive! 
 HB> I'm teaching my children about the way the Texas system really is; 
And I am teaching Michelle!  In fact, the system has already taught her
well.  Yesterday she told me that if they (CPS) were to ever come to her
school again to talk to her that she would tell them to go to h@ll and
leave her alone.  (She's only 10, and I didn't not correct her for her
language. How could I?)  For this year at least, Michelle will not have
to worry about them coming to her school.  I am going to home school her.
I have already had about 2 years experience as a home school teacher for
6th through 8th grades (teaching my twins and a friend's son).  So 
teaching 5th grade for one child ought to be a peice of cake!   She
is really looking forward to it and we have been talking about classes
and what we want to do.  It should be fun!  I will probably be taking 
her to the criminal trial of a friend of mine that is falsely accused
of having Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy. The trial begins next month.
I would like to be there to support my friend and I think it would be 
good for Michelle to see just how the legal system works.  Perhaps it
will help her understand how futile our efforts were.  Of course, I'll
have to weigh the emotional impact it might have on her first.  That 
definately needs to be taken into consideration.
 
 HB> ... in our case, the CPS worker
 HB> testified that Jan was *not* a threat to our own children (imagine
 HB> that!) and we were allowed to keep them.  We do not have any dealing
 HB> with CPS now and are not having any kind of trouble with them.
Thank Heavens!  We will be done with "Family Maintance" (sp) in February
and then our dealings with them will be over. I'm really looking forward
to that!  
 HB> If you only knew the particulars in our case, you would see that ours 
 HB> was a " small-town politics and old money game." 
I believe it!  It doesn't have to be a small town for that to happen.
There is a lot of intermarriage here between social workers, attorneys,
police officers and judges, who all wind up working the same cases.  In
fact, they have formed teams.  Certain social workers work with certain
police officers and judges - so they really are TEAM players.  It really
leaves no room for unbiased investigations and determinations.
 HB> BTW, so far, Jan and I get along quite well with the parole officer
 HB> assigned to her. He sees her a lot at church doing the same thing that
 HB> she has been doing for years...conducting the *children's* choir and
 HB> working in children's Sunday School and Vacation Bible School...Now,
 HB> since we are so active in our church, when she was sent to prison,
 HB> EVERYBODY in our church knew...do you think that she could be working
 HB> in those departments if any one of those parents even suspected that
 HB> she was a threat?  Hah on CPS! 
How wonderful!  I know that support had to be a tremendous help to you
and Jan and the children. I'm really glad that Jan is able to resume her
life in a normal fashion. :)  
 
 HB> Val, good luck, and in any case, please keep the faith and keep us
 HB> informed...Our prayers are with you and your family...
Thank you so much, and as you can see, IT WORKED!  Things are moving in
the right direction now (Daryl getting the help he needs and Michelle
being home).  In court, the attorney for CPS kept making a big deal out
of the fact that I refer to Daryl and Michelle as my children, when in
fact, they are my stepchildren.  Each time the attorney would refer to 
them as "your husband's children" I would correct him and say they were
MY children.  It really aggravated him, but my heart can not make a 
distinction like that.  They are my kids, for better or worse, and I love
them just as much as if I had given birth to them myself.  Biology alone
does not make a person a parent.  At the end of the trial the judge made 
statements to that effect, supporting my stand that I am indeed their 
mother, regardless of biology, and that there was no doubt in her mind 
that I truly love those kids as my own.  That is in the court record!
 HB> Hello to Don!
He says hello to you and Jan too!
Sincerely,
Val
~~~ ReneWave v1.00.wb2 (unregistered)
--- Mankind = One Family
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