Unexpected Bessing

I have been wanting to write this post for so long and now I can't even think of how to start. Yesterday, Justin and I accepted a referral for a beautiful little girl!!!! We are so in love and we can not wait to have our girl home.

If you have been following our adoption journey then you know that our September number was 47 for a girl. No, we did not jump to the top of the list in less than a month.

I need to rewind a bit to begin this story. On August 17 our adoption agency sent out an e-mail to advocate for two new "waiting" children. This means these children were not within the parameters of anyone of the wait list, including us. One of them was a sweet little boy who is still waiting for his forever family and who I pray finds one very soon. The other was a beautiful 2.5 year old girl. (I can't share her Ethiopian name, so I will call her baby M for now). As soon as I saw her picture and started reading about her, I said out loud, "Is this our Mia?" I really can't explain it, but there was just something about her that captured my heart.

I told Justin about baby M when he got home and we began to pray that the Lord would bring her a family. A couple of days later I just could not get her out of my mind. I came to Justin, crying, and told him that I couldn't stop thinking about her. I didn't know if we were the family, but I knew that I deeply wanted her to have a family. Justin told me I should e-mail our caseworker, K, and let her know that we were interested in learning more about baby M. So, I did.

A couple of days later I heard from K that there was another family who was already looking into adopting baby M. I was happy that she had a potential family, but also a little sad that we were not the family. I continued to pray for her and wonder about how she was doing.

On August 30 I got the call that would change our lives forever. I was sitting down to check my e-mail when I got the call from K. I knew that it was not time for an update call, so I was freaking out a little inside when I answered the phone. K told me that they were still looking for a family for M and asked if I wanted to learn more about her. I told her I did, but asked if I could call her back on my home phone. I sent Justin a text to tell her I was about to talk to K about baby M. He text me back that he was in staff meeting, but he would pray.

K told me all that she knew about sweet M as I listened and wiped tears from my eyes. I will not share all of our little girl's story, because it is her story. I will tell you that she does have special needs. We had not originally requested a child with special needs, but the Lord had been working on our hearts for some time now in regards to this issue. I will write more about this another day.

So, for the past month we have been talking to an international pediatrician, working with AGCI to find out as much as we could about Baby M, praying like crazy for God to show us clearly what to do, and ultimately falling in love with our sweet girl.

When we started our adoption we thought we would be adopting a baby girl 0-12 months from Rwanda. I never would have imagined we would be where we are today, but I know without a doubt that God's hand has been guiding us the entire time. I know He has been preparing our hearts for our little M, since before we even said yes to adoption.

I am happy to say that baby M is the Mia we have been waiting for. Yesterday, we called K and told her that we wanted to adopt baby M. I think we have known in our hearts for a while now that she was ours, but we just wanted to be sure. I can now say that we are sure that sweet M is the girl God has chosen for our family. We are no longer on the waitlist and she is no longer a waiting child!!!! Praise the Lord!!!

"In his heart a man plans his coure, but the LORD determines his step." Proverbs 16:9