Did I Say We Were Going to China?

The "ink" had barely dried on the last post when literally the next day I saw that our agency was advocating for two sisters, ages 8 and 5.....from the Philippines.  Honestly, my first thought went something like this, "Oh CRAP, what if those were supposed to be OUR girls?"  

I said we were going to China, right?  

Do you feel a U-turn coming up?

I tried to play it cool that night when the family was home and nonchalantly told them that Madison was advocating for two girls.  And I left it at that.  We had made a decision, we were going to China.

But the next day I still had this nagging feeling.  I texted Stacy, "Do you think we moved to China too soon?  What if these are our girls?" 

His response: "I was thinking the same thing."  

Super.  Great.  I just blogged about going to China!!  

So I emailed our liaison at the agency and said, "Don't kill me.....could we look at the girl's file?"  

Do you remember we JUST finalized our home study that week?  China, boy 0-3, girl 0-10.  

Michelle, being so sweet as she is, said that people change their minds all the time.  No problem.  Our caseworker's response when we asked, "Could you hold off for a couple days sending the final report in?" was, "Wow, you guys are on a roller coaster."  

Weee......(I hope you can hear my sarcasm!)

We saw the girls and fell in love (again).  One thing I know, our capacity for love is enormous.  And yet it's just a fraction of our Father love.  Pretty cool to think about.

Here's one of the hard parts about Fillipinos: they are on their own slow timeline compared to us Americans.  So the wait began.  And two weeks passed.  During this time we were tempted to not fall in love and think about how the girls would fit in.  But then we decided that IF these were the girls, how cool would it be to say, we fell in love with you the first time we saw you?!   We looked up their names (which we liked) and found out they meant "Messenger of God" and "Gift from God".   We put their pictures on our screen savers and prayed for them when we saw them.  

Lord, please let them be ours.

So we waited, and prayed, and waited some more.....

Then we found out that even though the government called and asked our agency to find a home for the girls, they gave them to another family!!!!!

NO WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NOT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We deleted their pictures off our screen savers (which we've done 3 times now for 3 sister-groups) and we added two more girls to our prayer list that their new forever families would love them like we would have.    

What was the lesson for these two weeks?  For one, we realized that our hearts are in the Philippines, not China.  We love the kids in China and believe one day we'll go there, but for now, when we think about picking up kiddos and bringing them home, we see Philippines.  Secondly, (as if this is a new learned lesson) we know that God has planned from the beginning of time who is to be ours.  He puts governments in place and he is big enough to put our family together.  

Adoption is a step-by-step, day-by-day journey.  The cool thing is that even though we feel we've had a set-back, I still have JOY.  God is so good!

Candie