It has been a long & exciting 4 months so here is a recap....
On July 24, we received "the call" with news from our agency that they had a referral for us. I (Megan) was actually away on a girls weekend so this news, although very exciting, did not come at the most opportune time (a.k.a. I was freaking out)! Our family coordinator, Elise shared some information about the child and told me she would send me the records. Ryan and I were shocked/excited/nervous/every emotion possible when we opened the email.
We had received a referral for a sweet, precious 3 yr old little GIRL!
Her picture immediately brought me to tears. I didn't know what to do in that moment other than cry. After communicating with Ryan via phone all weekend while I was away, I headed home so we could get to work. We were informed that same day that India's adoption authority (CARA) was putting some new guidelines into place in the near future for all international adoptions. This meant we had to act fast to secure our referral with India.
We had to immediately meet with doctors to review her medical files [shout out to Dr. Norris & Dr. Amos for working under such short timelines], talk with our family coordinator about what to do next, and pray A LOT for confirmation that this was the child that God would want in our family. After a crazy couple of days we accepted the referral on July 27.
We were so nervous on the days in between because we were ultimately choosing our child. It was a major decision, but one that was made evident by the Lord and we were filled with peace when we told our family coordinator, "yes, we accept this little girl." It was the hardest, but most precious few days that we had ever experienced because of how huge this decision was.
So you may ask, "what took so long for the announcement?" Well, we had to wait for her original documents from the orphanage and sign them before it became "official." Sounds easy right? Get the papers, sign them, move on......well after waiting about a month for these documents, we found out that they had been lost in the mail. Our family coordinator was actually planning a trip to India at the time, so she ended up retrieving the documents by hand and bringing them back with her. Hallelujah! We received them on October 16.
Signed. Sealed. Delivered. >>>> Our dossier has been sent to India and we are now just waiting on our signed referral docs to come back from the Secretary of State from being apostilled.
It is funny sometimes how God works to show us that He is present and to test our faith in Him. As most of you know we originally started in the Ethiopia program and with a big leap of faith, we switched to India. And then, with another big leap of faith we went with 1 female instead of 2 males. Everything has been the complete opposite of what we had planned, but that is why we are thankful that we rely on an Almighty God for all our decisions instead of relying on our own simple minds.
Thank you for reading and for keeping our daughter in your prayers! We do not have a timeline yet on when we will get to bring her home, but we will be sure to update our blog when we find out!
Here's to #worldadoptionday !
Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. Psalm 63:3
To visit out fundraising site, click here.
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| #worldadoptionday |
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| pink packet for a GIRL! |
