It's a .....Boy?

So after I returned from Hong Kong, I still did not know which direction to turn. After a month of prayer, I began my search. I was not sure how to approach the search. It's like "which came first, the chicken or the egg? Which comes first, the country, the child or the adoption agency? I started looking at all of the photo listings possible of children in waiting. Nothing. Then I went to every adoption agency website I could find. I found two that I felt comfortable with and filled out an online pre-registration form just to see if we would even be eligible. I received a return email and a phone call from All God's Children International. After our conversation, Megan sent me a personal follow up email. I was so impressed with their level of communication. She made three points of contact before I ever picked up the phone. During our conversation, I expressed our priorities of desiring the healthiest, youngest, baby girl for the shortest amount of wait time. Given those priorities, she told me that we were limiting ourselves to working with either Ethiopia, or Nepal. That was interesting since God had just given me opportunity to meet Nepalese people while I was in China. Her next piece of information changed the course of our adoption. She asked me if we had any other children. I told her that we have three biological daughters to which she replied "now you know that makes you only eligible for a BOY." I was not aware of that. I was completely stunned. I asked her to explain the reason to me. She said that in Nepal, they believe that families need to be balanced and that girls are more adoptable, so since we already have girls, we could not get a girl from Nepal. In fact, if we already a boy and a girl, we could not adopt from Nepal at all.

So now I'm thinking that I have to consider Ethiopia. Is this God's way of saying that it is Ethiopia and not Nepal? Or is it His way of saying it is Nepal and His ways are not my ways! I got off the phone and talked to Jay and started to pray. I prayed over the photo listing of children from Ethiopia and I just did not feel compelled to that country. I was really beginning to think that God was leading us Nepal and felt strong affirmation when Megan said that we could get a 6-12 month old baby from Nepal within 9-12 months. Once we thought we might adopt a baby girl from China, and then we realized that there was a not as great as of a need in China anymore. So we wanted to go where the need was great. Nepal had a tremendous problem with human trafficking and was closed to adoption all of 2007 as the government was increasing the adoption standards. Therefore, no babies left Nepal for a year.

After prayerful consideration, I had to assess my motives for thinking I wanted a girl. When I got to the bottom of it, I determined that my reasons were not valid enough to not to follow God's lead. To me it just made sense since we already have girls (and all the stuff that comes with them). God convinced me that He is not practical. The second reason was rooted in pride. I did not want to worry about how other people would judge our motives. I wanted to save myself from having the conversation about getting a boy. I didn't want people to think that we just wanted a boy and that's why we adopted. Then I decided that anyone who knows us, knows better. So, here we go, a boy it is!

We have just recently finished our home study and are almost finished with all the family education. We are now working on our dossier and 3/4 of the way finished. They have told us that once we submit our dossier, it should be nine months! If you are wondering how you can pray for us there are a couple of things we need. We are praying that we will work within God's timetable and that we will not try to rush ahead. Also, we need God to show up in the form of $ and lots of them. We appreciate all of you who are walking with us and will get to watch God's hand in our lives.