REFERRAL!!

What?!?!?

That's right, Michael and I are THRILLED to announce that our little family is growing, and Kad is soon to be a little brother.

What?!?!?

Yes...LITTLE brother. We just accepted the referral of the most beautiful eleven year old girl we've ever seen. We've spent months trying to work out the details, and just when we thought there was no way it was going to happen, God worked it all out in a way only He could orchestrate. We're so amazed and humbled that He has chosen us to parent this sweet little girl.

To fill you all in on the story to this point, remember a few posts ago when I was telling you about my friend Mary meeting her kids for the first time. (if not, please take a minute and read it here) Well...her oldest daughter's best friend. The one who thought she would never have a family.

She does now!

It has been an amazing journey that should have never worked out the way that it has, but God obviously intends for her to be our daughter.

We first heard about "Y" on January 18th. Our hearts broke for this little girl, and we began praying for a family to be open to adopting her. Well...just five days later, Mike said (completely out of the blue), "Is it crazy if I think I'm supposed to be "Y"s dad?"

Ummmm....YES! But, crazy works for us!

So, we began praying specifically that if God intends for "Y" to be our daughter, that He would make the path to her clear and open.

First, we had to find "Y" an agency that would comfirm if she truly was "adoptable" and accept her into their program. There are very few American agencies that work with her orphanage, but we found a great Chrsitan agency who agreed. Ironically, just two weeks before we heard "Y"s story for the first time, we had already sent off for an information packet from them. The agency is America World Adoption based in Virginia, and they are WONDERFUL!

Next, we had to get accepted into their Ethiopia program, pay a TON of agency fees and complete a homestudy. At the same time, our agency would be working to complete "Y"s file so that she was eligible for adoption. The chances of our home study and her file coming together at the exact same time were slim to none. Its a good thing God does his best work with "slim to none" odds :)

"Y"s file came together in three weeks, and we got our home study done just two days later. And last week, on April 3rd at 8:12 am, we got the official referral call!

"Y" will soon become our daughter!

I'm so excited to tell her one day how desperately she's wanted, how fiercely we've fought for her, and how faithful God has been to all of us as we worked to become a family.

Adopting an eleven year old wasn't anywhere in our plans, but we're so grateful that God's plans are always so much better than our own!

We still have a lot of hurdles to jump as we complete our dossier and wait for a court date, but we're so excited to be one step closer to bringing "Y" home to her forever family!

You're getting your miracle, little Ms. "Y", and we're so blessed to be getting ours too!