Coty and I are so excited. We received a call today out of the blue from Bethany, our adoption agency, to give us some exciting news. We received our referral of a healthy and energetic 3 1/2 year old little BOY! (We are going to refer to him as "M" online.) That is the short story, now here is the long drawn out story that explains everything.
We kicked off a series called Life in the Fast Lane this past Sunday at church. Part of the series was to challenge our church body to fast and pray. The purpose of the fasting was to draw us closer to the heart of God and be open for Him to do great things in and through us. Coty and I made the commitment, along with the staff, to fast and do everything we can to align ourselves with God's heart. Looking back at the timing of all of this, I can see how God's timing was so perfect in all of this.
This morning, Tuesday the 19th, I was heading back to the office with fruit that could be juiced for our staff while we were all fasting. As I was passing under 575 my phone rang and it was our case worker. Lawanda, and the agency director, were on speaker phone and told us we received our referral and wanted to talk to both Coty and myself together. I hung up the phone and tried to find Coty. Of course she didn't answer, but I knew she was at Kroger. I sped up Towne Lake Parkway and finally got a hold of her on the phone as I was pulling into the Kroger parking lot. She hoped in the car, leaving the groceries in the buggy on the side of the road, to call the agency together. They told us the amazing news that there is a 3 1/2 year old boy who has been placed with our family. We were crying, screaming and absolutely in awe of God and His timing. We left Kroger, ran home to drop off the groceries (We left them in the middle of the floor) and raced to our agencies office. All the way to our appointment we were loving and talking about how God orchestrated all of this. We got to Bethany and they showed us his picture and our hearts melted instantly. He is so stinking cute. He is healthy and at the average development for his age, but has had a very tough life up until this point. He is underweight and needs lots of love.
As many of you know, we have been planning on adopting a little girl who has either special needs or who is deaf or hard of hearing. Up until this morning this was what we were processing and talking about. We have been taking classes to learn ASL and preparing for a little girl. God had something totally different planned for us and for "M". God designed "M" to be our son. God intentionally ushered us into this season of fasting to draw our hearts to His and for us to be so intimately connected with Him, that we would recognize this as OUR child. As soon as we heard that this little guy is nothing like what we had been planning for or even requested, God whispered into our hearts, like only He can, and said "this is your child. This is the one whom you have been praying for and loving from a distance." While the result is not what we planned or expected, God knew all along that this was going to be our child. He created "M" to be His in our arms. We cannot wait to bring him home. We are so excited that God gave us what He planned for us.
We have been told the average time from referral to actually making our first trip is around 3 months, but it could happen much sooner than that. After our first trip we will travel back 4-6 weeks later to bring him home. At the latest we will have him home by March.
Here is a little more info about "M":
He is a tiny little guy. He weighs only 22 pounds and is a little over 3 feet tall. He is perfectly healthy, except for needing a couple of extra meals, and he loves being around other kids. He has only been in the orphanage for a short time so he has been through a lot of transitions recently. There are no signs of fetal alcohol syndrome or any other illnesses. We did learn about his background and why he is at the orphange. They summed up his three and a half years of life into one paragraph and it is more than any of us could image dealing with. For his protection, we want to keep that between our family and him. When the time is right we want him to get the full story from us. We also can't post any pictures due to legal and privacy restraints, but know that he is cute.
We ask that you keep praying for "M". We do know that he comes from a very impoverished area of Ethiopia. Pray that he continues to grow and that the orphanage he is in is meeting all of his needs. Pray for a smooth transition into our family. Like I mentioned earlier, he has gone through a lot in 3 short little years and we want this to be as smooth as a transition as possible. Pray that we get our court date quickly and are able to get him home soon. Also, please pray for our girls. They are about to walk through some major transitions themselves and we want it to go as smooth as possible for them.
We are just completely in awe of God and His timing. He knew exactly what it was going to take for us to connect with His heart and to be ready for the child He created for us. God truly is the Father to the fatherless, and He has a PERFECT plan for each of His children. We are so humbled and honored to be able to be apart of what God is doing and that He chose us to walk through this journey to welcome home our son. We love you all and will keep you posted of when we get our travel date.
Jeffrey and Coty
