Is This him?

So once you've done the Pre-Application at AWAA, they will issue you a password to enable you to login to their Waiting Children Pictorial Listing pages.  I have been doing this off and on for months. There are so many children who need homes!  Many of these kiddos are designated as having Special Needs.  These needs range anywhere from having a Cleft Lip/Palate to heart defects, both minor and major, to all sorts of blood disorders, to brain injuries or developmental issues.  The list goes on.  It is so wonderful to see all the children in that list whose status is "Matched Children."  This means they have been matched with a family and are working their way to coming home forever!  I can't wait to see my son listed as a matched child!

Back on February 10, I was playing around on their site, and the picture of a little boy caught my eye.  Right now, that is all I can tell you about him.  I inquired about him that day, and was told that a US doctor was reviewing his file to determine how his health was.  I was also told that another family, whose dossier was already logged in and approved in China, was showing interest in him as well.  Of course, that family would have first right of refusal since we haven't even applied yet.  But, she promised to keep me posted on where things were concerning him.  I totally wrote it off, thinking that there was no way this other family would turn him down if the doctor gave him a clean report.

A few days later I heard form the agency.  They told me that this little guy did get a good report from the doc.  Great news!  She also said that the other family was reviewing his file.  "Good for them!" I thought.  "And great for him.  I hope he will be happy with them."  And, again, I let it go.  Yesterday, she called me back.  The other family had declined the referral, and we were next in line to review his file!  WHAT?!?!?!?  We had last night to discuss whether or not we wanted to review his file.

This morning I called the agency and told them that we did want to review the file!  Starting today, we have 2 weeks to review this file.  We can (actually we have to) talk to doctors.  We can ask specific questions.  We can research his condition.  But we have to do all of this, and be comfortable with a decision by March 9th.  Let the fun begin!

The WHOLE Beginning - It's Quite the Story

If you are new to the story, you can catch up here!

This story began so many years ago for me (Carrie).  In fact, I was in elementary school.  I can't remember how old I was, or what grade I was in, but it surely did begin so many years ago.  There was a girl who rode my school bus - I can't even remember her name.  What I do remember is how cool I thought it was when her family adopted a little girl from China.  I want to say this little girl was about 4 years old when she came home, I can't remember.  But I do remember that they named that little girl Sarah.  And I remember thinking that I wanted to do that one day.  It made a huge impact on me, one that has stuck with me for years and years.  

Fast forward quite a few years to November 7, 2010.  Jodie and I had been married for 9 years, and we had been blessed with 2 beautiful, wonderful daughters.  It was a Sunday, and I was taking my turn in the church nursery.  Jodie very rarely joined me, but he was there too.  There was a little boy in the nursery that morning - Baby James.  He was around 9 months old I think, but was the size of a 2 month old.  His mother had starved him down to about 3 pounds, and he was recuperating in a foster home.  I. Fell. In. Love.  He tugged on Jodie too - to the point that something inside of him that had been spiritually dead woke up that day.  During the weeks that followed, I tried so hard to find Baby James.  I was going to do whatever it took to bring him home.  As far as I was concerned, he was mine!  But I was wrong.  I never did find him, though I think about him still, and pray that he is okay and that he has found happiness and safety.  During that time, a dear friend of mine gave me a book -  There is No Me Without You (It's a wonderful book - look it up!).  She handed it to me, I took one look at it (it was 450+ pages), said, "Thank You" and took it home.  That book went from her hand, to my hand, to my bookshelf, where it sat for nearly 4 years.  

In June of 2014, I came across a blog post from a family who had adopted through America World Adoption.  They told the story of how they had always wanted to adopt, but had filed it away into the "Impossible Dreams" category of their life.  They went on to tell the story of how God made the impossible become possible for their family.  Reading the blog reminded me of a discussion Jodie and I had had before we were even married.  We had talked about how we would love to adopt one day, even if infertility wasn't an issue for us.  All of a sudden, I was back on the roller coaster of wanting to find my long lost child.  This desire had come in waves - ebbing and flowing in my heart almost our entire marriage.  But this time it was different.  This time there was a heaviness, an urgency about it.  So I began to pray.

I spent the next few months praying and reading and seeking God in this matter.  I wasn't ready to talk to Jodie yet, so I kept it to myself.  Then, I remembered that book.  I picked it up and read it in 4 days (which is unreal because I am not much of a reader).  Then my friend gave me another book to read.  Time was marching on, and I was still praying.  I was praying for clarity, for wisdom, and that if God was laying this on my heart that He was also working on Jodie about it too.  It seemed like every time I turned around there was something about adoptions, or orphans, or foster children needing homes staring back at me.  It just would not relent.  So I kept praying, and I tried to start reading this new book I had been given.  But I just couldn't read it.

This book is called Adopted For Life, and it parallels adoption of orphans with our Adoption into the Kingdom of God.  My friend had told me that this was the book that had changed the hearts of the unwilling spouse in so many cases.  But my heart didn't need to be changed, and I just couldn't read any more of that book until I knew where Jodie stood on the whole idea.  I had to talk to Jodie.  The time had finally come.  By then, it was October.

I was a nervous wreck, feeling sure he would just shut the whole thing down.  But I did finally get up the courage to talk to him. I told him about the blog, about the book, and about how crazy it was that I still remembered the date we had met Baby James.  Then I asked him if we could just start praying about the idea of adopting and educating ourselves about it all.  To my surprise, he said yes, we could start looking into it.  We both expressed our concerns about the cost of it all, and the enormity of it.  We really didn't know where to begin.  So, we went to our friends who had adopted 3 times.  They went to dinner with us and answered all our questions. We researched online and just tried to learn.  

In November, sitting out by the fire on the patio, I asked Jodie where he was on all of it.  To my surprise, he told me of a story that was nearly a year and a half old - one he'd never told anyone.  He had gone to a men's conference that my dad had invited him to.  There was a man speaking there about adoption.   God had spoken to him then, telling him that we were going to adopt.  But he never told anyone about that moment with the Lord.  I melted.  Here I had been praying for joyful obedience, for clarity, for Jodie and I to be on the same page, yet I was surprised to find out that we actually were!  I had spent the last 5 months preparing myself for this thing to just fall apart.  But instead, God showed up and showed off and that night we told Him, "Yes!"  That was a Saturday night.  On Monday, Jodie came home with a significant raise - after 3 years of no raises!  He was blessing our obedience already!!!

I was so anxiety ridden all of a sudden.  There was so much to do.  We had to find and agency, we had to decide on a country, we needed a bigger house.  The list went on, and Satan had me thinking I had to have it all done before the end of the year or it was all going to fall apart!  But God...

I finally took a deep breath, gathered myself, and prayed.  Now I was praying for clarity, direction, wisdom, but mostly just His presence.  We looked into adopting from Kenya, but that didn't work because they require you to live in country for at least 6 months.  We looked into domestic, but decided that we didn't feel we could foster a child, only to lose him or her back to the original family.  So we settled in on Haiti.  Jodie had been to Dominican Republic for a couple missions trips, so we had a bit of an emotional tie there.  But, honestly, I never had 100% true peace about Haiti, but I was willing and was working through it, and ready to pay up and get this ball rolling!  Jodie was not ready.  He was holding me up, man!  And I was getting frustrated!  But, I should know by now, that I should listen to him.  He's usually right (Yes, I did just put that in writing!).  Then God closed the door on Haiti too.  That through me for a loop, and I got a little frustrated.

So we went back to the drawing board, planning to have a clear plan in place, and hoping to be able to apply and start the process after tax time.  We took a step back and talked about what we wanted to do.  Jodie expressed and interest in adopting from a country in the America's.  So I went to searching and reading and trying to find out what agencies serviced what countries and what our new options would be.  I started getting emails from what seemed like hundreds of agencies across the USA.  They would tell me that they serviced this country and that country.  And then down at the bottom, there would be a blurb about China.  Every. Single. One. Of. Them.  And our eyes were opened to the significant need for families in the China programs.  It was as if God was taking the neon green marker and highlighting our path - right into China's Waiting Child Program.......