Referral Day! Year 3

Three years ago, our family received a phone call that I had painstakingly waited years to receive. It was a call from our social worker notifying us that we had a referral for a baby girl. It's a day I will never forget, and I hope one day, I can accurately share this story and many others from her adoption journey with Bethany.

It was the day before Austin's first day of second grade, and I had planned to do a few last minute errands. Austin and I were dressed and ready to leave, but as I was printing out my final Michael's coupon, the phone rang. I was hesitant to answer because it said "private caller", but I decided to anyway.

I am so glad I did!

Within minutes of our phone call, my social worker sent me an email with these two pictures, and some documents with more detailed information about our little girl.

That one phone call set in motion what can only be described as God's great handiwork. He took a child with no mother or father to speak of, and set her on a path to our family of three. In turn, God gave our family one of the greatest gifts we could have ever received; a daughter for Sam and I to love and care for, and a little sister for big brother to dote on (which he totally does!). Of all the babies that were waiting for homes in Korea, God chose this particular baby for our family, and I can't express in words how meaningful that is to me.

It was five more months before she was placed in our arms, but all of that seems like a blur now that she's been home for two and a half years. Today that little girl is happy, healthy, and thriving.

She is my sweet and mischievous girl who would rather play with swords and balls, than tea sets and dolls. She fearlessly follows after her big brother, jumping from heights no three year old should be anywhere near, but she's deathly afraid of loud noises and people dressed in costume. She is a chatterbox who loves to sing and dance at home, but I can barely get her to say "hi" to someone out in public. She is a girl after my own heart, and it is a joy and privilege to be her mom. We love her dearly, and by the looks of it, she already has mom, dad and brother wrapped around her cute pudgy little finger.

As I give thanks to God today for choosing our family for Bethany, I can't help but think of all the other children who have been left behind. There are so many children in this world who do not have families, and my prayer is for each one of them to first of all, know and experience the precious love of God, and second, for them to know and experience the love of a family. Please take some time to consider what you can do to help a fatherless/motherless child. It may be through prayer, financial assistance, mentoring, donations or sponsorship. Who knows, you might be just the person a child has been waiting for.

Our family has been blessed by the beauty of adoption, and maybe, just maybe, your family could be next.

Two Years Ago

Two years ago, I saw this face for the first time and fell in love.

And I've been loving this girl ever since.

 

 

 

 

Happy Referral Day!

One Year Ago...

I saw my daughter's face for the first time.

This is the call that forever changed our family.

I was more than happy to give up my #1 spot on the Holt web forum. :)

So excited to be a big brother.

Here's the blog post I wrote on my old site:

September 8, 2009
After nearly a year absence from Xanga, I am back and for good reason.
At 10:40am I got a call from what my caller id said "Private Caller". It turned out to be our social worker telling us the wonderful news that we had received a referral for a baby girl.

I had planned out our last day before school with a lot of errands. I expected us to be out most of the day and was upstairs on the computer printing out some coupons for a store we were going to (Michael's). Austin and I were dressed and ready to leave and I was printing out my last coupon when the phone rang. The caller id read "PRIVATE CALLER" and I hesitated before I picked up. Thank goodness I answered because it was our social worker calling to tell us that we received a referral for a baby girl! One can only imagine my utter shock and disbelief. I had fully expected to wait quite a bit longer for a referral. She gave me some initial information about her including her name and birth date and told me to check my email for pictures and more information. She also said the agency would be sending me paperwork to complete through email so I was to check for it within the next few minutes. As soon as we hung up I asked Austin to come upstairs and called Sam. My heart was literally pounding with excitement and nervousness as I told both Sam and Austin at the same time. I quickly checked my email but didn't open it. I first forwarded it to Sam because I wanted all three of us to see her for the first time together and for us to read about her together. Sam was on the speaker phone and together we read about our little girl and saw her face for the first time. I could barely contain myself - I was laughing, giggling, repeating every other minute, "Isn't she so cute. I think she's so cute!"  Austin kept repeating "Oh my... oh my... she's so cute." and Sam was mostly silent, quietly processing the entire situation, still in disbelief.

After finally getting off of the phone with Sam, my head was spinning. I quickly determined that my errands could be done some other day and basically spent the better part of the day staring at her picture, reading about her over and over again, and looking over all the paperwork that now needed to be done.

We have waited so long for this day to come (4 years, 5 months, 1 week and 2 days to be exact) and so many times I wondered if it would ever come. Through the ups and downs of our entire adoption process, God has been good and faithful. 

God was good and faithful

• when we made the decision to adopt back in 2004.
• when Korea denied our application due to my health condition.
• when He opened the doors for us to adopt through China.
• when I developed kidney disease and we decided to put our adoption on hold.
• when my kidneys improved over a year later and we were able to return to the China program.
• when we completed all our paperwork and were officially on the China wait list.
• when the wait times for China were doubling and tripling in length and it felt like my heart could take it no longer.
• when we made the difficult decision to exit the China program and reapply to Korea.
• when Korea accepted our application the second time around. 

And now one year later, God continues to show us that He is and always will be a good and faithful God.