One Year Ago Today, Part 2

And now for the rest of the story... (You'll have to read yesterday's to get the beginning of the story!)

When I left off yesterday, I was frustrated and the work on our dossier had come to a screeching halt because I had no peace about submitting it through our agency. By this point, I was watching Abby's file everyday to see if someone accepted her referral and on a day when I was sick at home, I answered a nudge in my heart to get the papers ready for the last step of sending them to the Consulate in DC...

So, I got up a little early on the morning of February 26, last year, and gave myself some extra time to stop and purchase the necessary money orders to send the package to the Consulate. I went on to Bible Study and on the way home I stopped by the FedEx box and sent it on its way.

As was routine by now, I came home to check the website to see the status of her file and for the first time in weeks, she was available again... No one was reviewing her file! How on earth was that possible? Her special needs were so minor... She was adorable... It could only be God moving hearts.

I immediately started calling her agency and sent an e-mail... This is a segment of my post from February 26 last year...

"Yesterday I was filled with a sense of urgency to complete the paperwork, so I'll trust that I was obedient to that prompting and not worry about the rest.

One thing I'm learning...this is truly a walk of faith...of taking one step at a time with no expectation of what will come next. I'm learning what it means to live surrendered, at least where adoption is concerned...hopefully it's a lesson that I will learn to apply more and more to all areas of my life.

There was a precious little girl on a Waiting Child list that we inquired about...but she was not to be ours. Now there's another little girl that I've watched for weeks...she was on hold for so long and I never expected her to become available again, but today she did.

It may mean nothing...and it may mean everything. The only thing to do is take the next step and inquire (I did that right away!) The best thing about trusting God though is that He is in control...when He reveals a step, we take it and then we stop and wait until He reveals the next step. We don't have to force anything, we just have to be watchful, sensitive and obedient. It sounds so simple, but too often I make it so complicated.

I can't wait to see what God does...He is so BIG... it's fun and humbling to watch Him in action. This is truly an amazing journey."

But God still had a HUGE mountain to move if she was to be ours...a mountain of money that we had already paid to our other agency. I e-mailed the agency, told them we were interested in adopting her and explained our situation and then there was silence, they didn't even acknowledge that we were interested. But I asked a few family members to pray that God would do a work in their hearts and at least agree to reduce the fees a little (so Scott would see that this was truly God's plan...ya see, I had it all figured out! LOL!)

Finally, on March 5 I couldn't stand it any longer, I e-mailed them again... I told them the story of seeing her and watching her for weeks and tried one more time to get an answer (they were busy with the referrals for that month). This time I got a response, the Special Needs Coordinator was going to print my e-mails and take them to the Executive Director to see what could be done...

Late the next day, I received an e-mail that said that since our dossier was complete, they would waive the initial fees plus give us the Special Needs Grant...it totaled to be the exact amount we had paid to the other agency...God moved mountains! But there was one last mountain, there was one other family reviewing her file, but they had some medical issues... Thankfully I didn't have to wait long for this answer...

The next day, the infamous packet of paperwork returned from Washington DC, fully authenticated AND we received an e-mail that Abby was ours if we accepted the referral! Somehow in all of this, I hadn't even given them our phone number so they could call us and tell us!

I will never forget that Friday afternoon! God moved mountains... I knew that whatever happened from that point on, I could look back on what God had done and know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that we were walking in the center of His will!