Praying

BACK ROW: Chase, Ashe, Kadyn, Amy

FRONT ROW: Davyn, Austin, Kalie(Tink), Kyndall

This picture was taken Christmas day at our family get together. Pictured are my two children, Ashe & Amy. My brother's three children (that have been born, remember he has twins on the way!) Kadyn, Davyn, and Kyndall. The other three belong to my cousin Malisia. Chase, Austin and Kalie, or Tink as she is known by family.

A little bit of back-story is required to tell this story. Malisia moved back to Texas late summer this year to leave her husband and his abuse and cheating. The man, though I've never met him, is a real piece of work. He was very abusive verbally, has major anger issues (such as throwing game controllers when a game did not go the way he wanted), and has on more than one occasion cheated on my cousin. She moved from North Carolina back to Texas to be with her family for support through what she knew would be a troublesome seperation and most likely divorce. She spoke with her husband regularly, allowing him to speak to his children daily, all the while he would tell her that he was not ready to start divorce proceedings. Then out of the blue, Malisia gets slapped with divorce papers. Her husband had filed in NC and was petitioning for custody. The papers stated that there would be a hearing in 2 days to determine Temporary Custody until the divorce went to court. The trip itself would have taken 2 days, so there was no way for my cousin to make it to NC in time for the hearing. She faxed over a letter requesting an extension to allow her time to make arrangements to get there, find a NC attorney, and someone to watch the children since school had already started. They granted an extension, she recieved notice of the new hearing date in the mail, it had been for earlier that morning. The court had granted her husband temporary custody. The younger two children were required to go back to North Carolina with their father. The older child, not biologically his, would remain with Malisia. For all intents and purposes, she was screwed out of any chance to fight at the temporary custody hearing because she was not given enough time to do anything.

She was able to get her kids for Christmas, which is why we were able to take the picture above. She started the journey to return them to their father the day after Christmas. Last night I was recieving text updates on the trip from Malisia and another cousin, Taree, who travelled with her. The children were both stating how they did not want to return to their father, they wanted to stay in Texas with their mother. This of course made it that much harder on Malisia to return them. She is paying a NC attorney $4000 to handle her case while she is out of state. She has come close to giving in and just returning to NC to be with her children and even to go back to her husband. This would not be in her best interest. I am asking anyone and everyone who reads this to please say a prayer for my cousin, that she will have her children returned to her permanently and soon. She is under a lot of stress right now and I am sure depression is setting in if it hasn't already.