China
Russia
Vietnam
Dear Jaime,
It is 3:40a.m. I can't sleep. I just keep thinking about the news we got today; so I decided to write you and tell you about it.
This morning the FTIA office called and said that China had notified them that you were walking. But there was a problem - you had a limp. So they had taken you to the doctor and had you have an x-ray. They said you have congenital hip dislocation. So our coordinator called to tell me. I could tell in her voice she was worried and afraid to tell us. She said that if we didn't want to move forward because we had requested a healthy child, they could put in a request for a new referral. I knew what my heart said but I didn't feel like I should make that choice without talking to Tim first.
When I hung up I started crying, not because I didn't want you or that I thought your dad wouldn't want you, but because it was a confirmation that you were the child God had chosen.
I thought back to the time where my heart decided to adopt. You see a year and a half ago, God was really working on my heart. Your Daddy had been wanting to adopt since Emily was two. But all the unknowns and all the things out of my control had me convinced that I couldn't handle it. Then I started hearing stories about adoption on Focus On the Family and God started softening my fears.
One night I had a dream about a little girl who was coming to the Dyslexic Center where I worked. She was a beautiful little girl with blond hair and blue eyes and she was wearing leg braces on both legs. She had such a sweet heart that I fell in love with her. In this dream I had come to work and the little girl was really sad. My boss told me that she was being "sent back" because she needed an operation and since she had no parents there was nobody to pay for it. It just killed me to think that if only someone would step in and take her, she could get the services she needed. At that moment my heart broke. I woke up with such a passion for this child and such a yearning to take her in and help her. I just felt like the fears didn't matter anymore. God was in control. And I felt convinced that there was a little girl out there who needed me to adopt her and take her in.
I talked to your daddy and we prayed about it. That's when we decided it was time for us to take that step.
We called and got the application to adopt. But your daddy's heart was set on a little girl from China. So I thought the dream was only a way that God had opened my heart to adopt.
But I couldn't shake the feeling that there was a little girl out there who had special needs that needed us. So for the first two months of the process we kept going to the "Children in Waiting" list. It was a special site that gave information on children with disabilities or medical needs. But there was never a child that touched our hearts and most times they were already spoken for by the time the list got posted. So we decided that maybe that wasn't what God wanted us to do. So we agreed to request a healthy child.
Then our referral came and it said she was a healthy baby girl. You hadn't started walking yet but you were pulling up in your crib so we thought you'd be walking by the time we got to you.
Then the call came. And my mind went back to my dream. I started thinking about when I shared my dream with my sisters and my mom. It was a couple of weeks after I had had the dream. We were in Nashville, IN together. I realized that it had been in October because that's always when we go there to shop together. And I started thinking about your report. You had been brought to the orphanage the day you were born - October 7 - the same time I had had my dream.
I dreamt about you and knew you'd have something wrong with your legs even before China even knew.
How awesome is that. God had chosen you. God knew.
There was no doubt in our minds that God had chosen you for us then.
Tomorrow we will go and turn in our signed papers that show we accept our referral. Isn't it awesome to know we serve a Sovereign God - that He is in control.
I can truly say that I have seen "the Hand of God."
Pam
