LOI!

What a crazy emotional week we have had. Since last Monday evening, we have received not one, but 3 referrals to look over. That, in an of itself is a bit unusual. Typically, if you receive a referral, it will be at least another month before you see another child's file. All 3 of the files that we have looked at/ prayed over/ researched/ etc. over the past week are of little boys whose true special need is that they need a family. They need to be loved. They need to belong. They need the hugs of a dad. They need the love of a mom. They need the friendship of brothers and sisters. And most of all, they need a chance to know Jesus. It is so difficult to look through files and try to decipher God's plan in all of this. We know each child so desperately needs to be adopted. We know there are so many more children than there are families, and we know that boys especially have a greater change of not being adopted at all, and growing up in the system. That being said, we know that for each file we turn down, there is a chance that child's file will never be looked at again, a chance they will never be adopted.

So, as we looked over these files- all of perfectly precious, chubby-cheeked boys between the ages of 11 months and 28 months, we prayed. We prayed for clarity, for peace and for John and I to BOTH know our son.

God answers prayer. After turning down 2 referrals, we received another suprise referral when we woke up Labor Day morning. We weren't expecting this referral. In fact, we had asked our social worker to just wait until the next list came out and not to try to match us. But, God had other plans. Lily (Our contact in China who matched us with our Lily, and is her namesake) locked one last file for us. She saw it and thought we might be interested. The file was a bit unclear. The baby was younger than we had expected. But....something told her we might be interested. Our sweet social worker Karla received the file. She almost didn't send it to us. He was young. We had already turned down 2 in less than a week. We had asked her to just wait......but something told her to send it to us....

We opened the referral. This boy was super cute. I mean super cute. Dark eyes, beautiful skin, precious face. BUT.....he was a heart baby. What do we know about hearts? And....he's young....11 months young. But....something told us to look further. So, after spending a day talking to specialists, getting an orphanage update, and praying/ talking/researching.....we are excited to announce that God has led us to send our Letter of Intent (LOI) to adopt this sweet baby.

We are thrilled and we are praying that God will take care of our little guy until we can bring him home. Please pray with us that his heart is healed, that he is safe, loved, fed and cared for until we can get to him. That somehow he knows he is already loved by his forever family.

At this point, we cannot yet post pictures as we are waiting for pre-approval to adopt him. But I can tell you that he is from Hunan Province and that his first birthday will be October 17.

As soon as we receive an update or we can post pictures, I will!

Blessings-

Meredith