The Story of Two Girls...

I finally decided to share this story with you all... in hopes that you will all pray for this situation with us.

And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. Matthew 18:5

Four weeks ago when we first started thinking of switching to the Waiting Child Program one of our first questions was “can we get 2 children?” haha! I knew better than that… China is pretty strict unless you can locate siblings or twins there’s no way. When we were surprised with a call on Friday AFTER the new list had come out, Lyndsay told us there were two different girls on the list that she had in mind for us. The first one had been in the last list and had been locked by someone else and then released… the second girl had actually been on the list for a month already. I said, “both!” (still no) but we had to choose which one we wanted to look at. That was hard, but after some praying and thinking we finally decided on the one with the delayed motor development. Crazy Jerry’s prayer was if we should get the girl missing her arm, that we would get a call within 15 minutes about a job!!! Well, as you know, no call came… His reasoning was that if we should get that little one, then we were going to need more work, because of the extra stuff that might be involved, and he is right. We had been praying that when the time came that we would be matched with the right baby. So we truly believe that Jia Yi is ours. Of course though we couldn’t get the other girly off our minds… we felt like we had “rejected” a child… which is not in our nature at all… We sent in the LOI and financial statement that they needed to apply for Jia Yi for us. Then 2 days later I started freaking out that she might not be our Kimi… What if her lagging motor development was more serious? What if? what if? I was definitely freaking out! I was sick to my stomach, I needed an update to see what she is doing now… stuff like that. I called Lyndsay to ask her some questions and go over with her all the IA doctor had discussed with me. Lyndsay was great she assured me that if we got an update and Jia Yi was more severe than we thought we could handle, it would not be a problem to release her and they would not think anything terrible of us. I felt much better, my fears were calmed and I felt at peace with our baby.

This thought of the other little girl still ran like crazy through my mind. So I thought I would look around on the WC advocate site and see if I could find her. Sure enough, I found her and she had tears in her beautiful Asian eyes and snot running down from her little nose, big cheeks, round face, just precious and even more pitiful to think that she was missing her arm… she looked perfect! So wouldn’t you know it, I emailed Lyndsay again asking if she was just sure we couldn’t adopt two at the same time… the answer was the CCAA site said no. Over the rest of the week I stumbled across 2 other families who are in process to adopt two!!!! I was happy, but needed to find more info, because I just had to get the other little girl too!! All weekend I pleaded with God take the desire from my heart if this was crazy and not going to happen… my desires became stronger. So I emailed one family and asked some questions. I was praying the whole time!!!! The reply was simple, both children had to have special needs and we needed to convince the CCAA that this was likely the only and best way for these children to have a family in a pleading letter, proving we were prepared to handle the needs. Then the agency had to write a supportive letter. Then we would wait to see if China approved our request . Oh my!!! Then I asked on my advocate site if the little girl was still available… she was.

I wasn’t even sure if our agency would even want to try… I should have known better, but I decided that I would pray and fast Monday asking God to soften hearts that needed it to be willing to advocate for us. Also to calm me down so that I would have the right words to say… I was a wreck, I was so nervous… the life of my daughter depended on these decisions!!! On Tuesday I was way too nervous to eat, so I fasted Tuesday too. And prayed and prayed and prayed!!! Finally I called Lyndsay and told her about what I had discovered over the weekend. She was very EXCITED! And was going to look into it herself as well as talk to the Director of the Agency and see what he thought. I waited… the hours slowly ticked by… I could hardly stand it. When she FINALLY called (like 2-3 hours later, that’s all) it was good news! They were all willing to look into it, they wanted to talk to an agency that has done it before, but they hadn’t been able to reach them yet. They were concerned that we might have to put together another Dossier since there would be another child and of course they would have to figure out any differences in fees. I was so happy when I got off the phone with her that I cried. To me it was soooo important that they would want to try. And Guess what? The little girl was still available!!! I could hardly believe it! I just knew it was going to happen! Yet I was a little afraid to get too excited…

So we waited for the experienced agency to call back…

Finally Lyndsay called me late afternoon on Wednesday. She had just had a very good and informative conversation with another agency coordinator who had requested more than one child at a time on several occasions. They are more than willing to go ahead with this special request but we wanted to make sure everything was done right the first time… because if they say no the first time, they will most likely say no again, should we ask again!! Most of the requests were made by people who were already approved for one child on the special needs list, and then found the need of another, too. Basically our “chances” right now wouldn’t be terribly good, because #2 was not very old and had not been on the list very long. So some suggestions were a)to wait a while, at least 2 weeks and then ask, b) look for a child that has been on the list longer, c) look for an older child or a child with a more “severe” need, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, because at the time I really thought that we were supposed to have that little girl! So of course she said I could think about it, talk with Jerry and pray about it, then let her know, she was going to be out of the office on Thursday anyways… which was perfect for me, because I think I will be fasting yet again tomorrow while we figure some things out. Haha! When we hung up I did some instant praying!!! Oh my!!!

We had already decided for now any ways that we wanted Alex to remain the oldest child. That may change someday, who knows, but for now that is what we feel is right. So that means she can’t be older than Alex. I went outside, watered some garden and chatted on the phone with a friend, when I came in and checked email, an email came in from one of the waiting child advocate sites with a child that matched my requests… Guess what!!!? She was listed on there by MY Agency!!! I thought that was funny… then I saw her picture. It took my breath away… she is beautiful, and her eyes are amazing!!! I immediately thought God specifically sent her to me. She is a month older than Anthony!! Her special need is mild hemiplegia on her right side, which very well could be made worse by being institutionalized. Interesting. Oh my!!! I could take her, too!!! Good grief!! If anything, it showed me that there might just be another child that is meant to be ours. Now my mind is open again…

So now I really don’t know what we will do… I think we will continue looking during our two weeks. I am going to pray that God sends a family to choose the little girl missing her arm, because I think she is too young for our purpose to be approved. Tomorrow I will fast and pray … then Friday I will talk to Lyndsay about it all some more. Whew!!! Dramatic, huh?

The biggest prayer that we have at this time is for us to know our child and for China to approve this wonderful request!! We already feel it is God’s will for our lives, to bring as many orphans home as we can so that we can teach them about Jesus.

Stay tuned…