Complete Joy

God is so good. When we pray, He listens. When we ask Him to speak, He does. He is faithful.

We received the updated special focus list from our agency this weekend. We spent the day yesterday looking through it and as we stopped and read each story, we couldn't shake the feeling that we were somehow "cheating" on our child. It honest to goodness felt like we were setting one of our children aside and trying to find someone else to replace him. It felt horrible.

We spent Sunday morning in fellowship with our friends, like we do every Sunday. We spent the morning praying together over our decision and what it would mean for us and for our future child. One of our friends told us that it seemed like we needed to decide which was more important to us, our life, our job, and our call here in rural Asia or our love and our call to this little boy. Justin and I decided yesterday afternoon that we were done fighting this feeling. Maybe what we had been seeing as a closed door, wasn't a closed door. We decided to allow ourselves a little more time of opening our hearts here. We had spent the last week trying to shut him out of our hearts, but it wasn't working. So we began to talk about what a decision like this would mean for our family. We had come into this journey planning that we would add a member to our family and live life like we had been living. A new life of course, with its own challenges and chaos, but for the most part, no major changes, for example the location of our home. We ended up coming up with a couple of plans, let's call them Plan B, Plan C and Plan D. We figured it couldn't hurt to have enough to make it to Plan Z, right?

This morning, I woke up and decided to do some research. I began looking up information about expats living overseas with children that have special needs and I found some encouragement. I decided to write an email to our good friends who have a huge passion for our job and also a huge passion for adoption. I shared with them our struggles and our confusion and asked them how do you decide between one or the other? They replied back and encouraged us to truly seek the Lord and His heart and to trust as He leads. We know that we are in this town, today, for a purpose. And we need to fulfill that purpose well with our whole hearts. We also know that we are called to adopt, and we also need to fulfill that calling with our whole hearts. And we will worry about what tomorrow brings when we get there and trust God to do the leading.

So this afternoon, as I poured over the Scriptures, asking God to speak to me specifically today, He answered me. I went through many verses in Psalm that proclaim the importance of trusting in Him, our Rock and our Deliverer. And then I ended up in John 15. Such familiar verses to so many of us, especially in our lives for the past 2 years. A theme in our company has been Abide. And I was reminded once again of the importance of abiding in Him and allowing Him to direct our paths. But for some reason today, John 15:11 stuck out to me, and I wasn't quite sure why, but I knew that it was something God was impressing on me. "I have written this, so that your joy may be complete." I opened my devotional that I have been reading through and flipped it to August 15, the day that Qi Long was found. And guess what verse was listed for that day. Yes, John 15:11. Not the whole passage, but just this one verse. And then this is what I read off to the side. "Joy is the experience of knowing you are unconditionally loved." A quote by Henry Nouwen. What more could God want a child of his to know on one of the hardest days of his life? That he was unconditionally loved.

We sent an email to our case worker tonight and told her that we were ready to take the next steps to make Qi Long a part of our family. We don't know where this next year will lead us. He could have medical issues that take us away from our job, he could not. All we know is that he is already so unconditionally loved by us, but more than any one, by his Heavenly Father, who lavishly fills my heart with confirmation in the little details!

And So We Begin

We submitted an application with an adoption agency today. We have been praying over this decision  and avoiding it and praying some more for about 4 months now. Well, really for about 5 years, but most recently it has been a big conversation between us for about 4 months. A long time ago, in what feels like a different time and world, we felt a pull on our heart strings to pursue adoption. We had some friends at that time that were also talking about it and so we decided to go to an information meeting together. All I remember about that meeting is how overwhelmed I was with all of the information. We browsed through some files of waiting children in the US. At this time, we already knew that we wanted to move overseas, and we realized that adopting a child and then moving them out of the country right away was probably not the best idea for our family, and probably not even allowed with the adoption agencies. Also, I had received what I felt like a very real promise from the Father that I would be having a biological child soon. I began to question that promise 3 years down the road and even decided to forget about it as we packed up our house and prepared to move overseas. As we narrowed down where we were going to move to, we realized that we could adopt internationally, but the rules for China stated that you had to be 30 years old to adopt. So there was my easy out. Lo and behold, He is faithful and He absolutely did fulfill that promise of a biological baby to me, which we found out about 3 days before leaving the country for 3 years. Oh, the Creator and his sense of humor!

Fast forward round about 2 years, and we find ourselves in May of 2015. I had a very unique opportunity to spend some time with a friend in China as she was finalizing her adoption process. I spent 3 days with her and her newest member of the family and also met several other families that were there in her group. I remember the afternoon that everyone had finally received the papers they needed, and were waiting for a van to come pick them up and take them to an airport where they could begin the journey of taking these precious children HOME. I remember standing in the lobby of that hotel with a friend, sobbing from the weight of it all. The fact that these kids were orphans, and now they were not. These kids had no families, and now they had families that were going to love them forever. These amazing children had been through so much trauma, so much heartache, and yet right here in front of my face I was watching a story unfold for all of these kids that pointed directly back to how our Father cares for us. He did not leave us as orphans of this world. He chose us, He looked for us, He pursued us, He filled out all of the paperwork and signed on the line with His very own blood. He adopted us into His family. My friend and I, we watched one little girl in particular as she ran around playing with another little boy about her age. The two kids ran into each other and her poor little nose started to bleed. As she screamed, she ran and threw her arms around the legs of her DADDY. This little girl, who one week before had no one to pick her up and wipe away her tears, now was running into the arms of a Daddy. It was literally to much for my heart to contain at the moment. Thankfully my friend standing with me was able to speak and she began to pray out loud for all of these children and we spent the next few minutes as they all said their goodbyes to each other praying for these families, for the kids that were headed to surgeries as soon as they arrived in America, for siblings that were going to greet them, for language that had to be learned, for a hope and a future that their Heavenly Father so graciously had already planned for them.

It was a beautiful moment and as I sent pictures to Justin the next few days, he began to fall in love himself. I came back home that next week, emotionally drained from all that I had experienced and Justin informed me that we would both be turning 30 in the coming months. He had been looking up information and he was excited and he said we can do this now. Honestly, at that time my head was having a really hard time processing everything and I knew that we needed to take some time to pray about this. I was emotional and my stories stirred emotion in Justin's heart and we didn't want to be making any decisions just because of what we had been privileged to experience that week. Yes, it was a beautiful thing and no my desire to adopt had never gone away, but it was too much right now. Our life is too crazy and we can't handle adding another kid, especially through adoption. So we prayed. I begged for confirmation. I am a Gideon if I have ever seen one. I am not satisfied with wet wool or dry wool. I want big marquee signs flashing as I walk out of my bedroom in the morning. Actually, I need one above every doorway, because what if I misread the first one and jumped to a conclusion before it even finished scrolling. One day, I told Justin that we needed to convince his brother and sister in law to do this with us. They had always talked about it with us, but it wasn't a subject that had come up in a long time and it was just funny when we said it out loud. But really, that would be so cool.

We finally reached a point after praying and reading scripture, that Father had shown us that this is where He wanted us and we realized that it was no coincidence that He took me to spend those days with my friend and her little boy. He works everything together for the good of those who love Him and ultimately, for His glory. We felt sure enough that we were ready to start bringing it up with our families. So one by one, we made the phone calls. We were so nervous of the responses we would get. Would they think we were crazy, stupid, immature and just a bunch of dreamers? Because sometimes that's how we felt about ourselves. Or would they be supportive, excited and joyful? Because that was how we felt most of the time. We were talking to Justin's brother one night and Justin looked at me with those eyes and I nodded back at him giving him the signal to tell what we were so excited about, and you would not believe the message that we received before we could get the words out. "Well, we just wanted to let you know that we have decided to start the adoption process." Our mouths fell open and I may or may not have started squealing. We said, "No way! We were just about to tell you the same thing!!" I went to bed that night feeling more confident than I had ever felt before that we were on His journey. And we couldn't wait to get started. We still had to wait a little while for some approvals from our company, and I have never seen Justin work so hard filling out a form before in his life.

We clicked the SEND button today. And we have to pay money now. So there is no turning back, right? Woo-hoo!