Two Worlds Collide- a sister for Elizabeth

When Mr. Incredible and I started praying about adopting again, I had plan. I wanted a little black baby girl. (notice there isn't much room for GOD in I) Mr. Incredible wasn't sure about the timing - seemed too soon- but admitted that the whole process does take a while and so we started praying for the Lord's will to be done...

If you had asked me back back in August when I posted here , what God was going to do I would have said I thought I knew a direction. Little did I know! LOL! If God had revealed where we are now then, I would have RUN SCREAMING and NOT have posted. Funny how God works!? He only gives us what we can handle, then He stretches us and we can handle a little more, followed by more stretching... If HE had showed me the whole thing, I would have said it wasn't HIM. But now I can see how HE is WORKING. He has a plan. I have to trust.

Our world has collided with God's plan and we will never be the same. God is moving in our lives and giving us favor with foreign governments and we are now going to be adopting a little three year old girl with Osteogenesis Imperfecta (brittle bones) from China. Yes, we know she breaks easy. Yes, we know we already have five kids. Yes, we know it sounds TOTALLY INSANE. And yes, it is God's leading! Not what we imagined, thought of or even considered, but when God moves HE MOVES.

I was not going to ever use our adoption agency from Elizabeth adoption again and they knew it, but our name kept coming up and other families kept saying "no" to this little girl and so they contacted us. They contacted us the last day that Mr. Incredible was in Indonesia. A few days prior he had been in the Chinese city where this little girl lives. God had laid on my heart that his business trip would change our lives, I could only think of negative, VERY negative, ways "our lives would be changed". So when that email slipped in the inbox hours before Mr. Incredible was to end his business trip, I just had to wonder. It also turns out that she went on the waiting child list within hours of Mr. Incredible and I coming into agreement that God wanted us to look at adopting again. (remember that post?) Within hours of THAT!!!

This last Friday we submitted formal application to the adoption agency not knowing what China would say about the dossier, had an inkling but nothing official. At the end of the application was the "submit" button. Before I sent it off I called Mr. Incredible at work and we had one of those just to make sure, really?!, not too late to back out you know, no money spent yet conversations. He asked me what was so hard. Being real I had to say that I knew what this meant, the waiting, the strain, the work, the financial and emotional cost and I just didn't want to do it,... but I knew that God was leading us here. Interestingly, I had to click "submit" to complete the application, not "finish" or "done". I wasn't just clicking a button to finish an application, that click of the mouse was the difference between obedience and my way. Clicking that button indicated my/our submission to God's will for our family no mattered how it differed from MY plans. Never would I have imagined a simple task to cause such a pause, yet I KNEW that if I didn't obey, God could not be glorified.

The reward for obedience?! I can finally get excited(!!!!!), TODAY the Chinese government officials gave the go ahead to be able to *proceed. (it's amazing what submission does, we've been waiting for a couple of weeks for that approval!) *It also means that we will be able to bring her home a lot sooner- very important medically and emotionally (more on that later). That we can *proceed is such an answer to prayer and such a confirmation that God does truly want her to join our family. Oh, I forgot to mention... our *.

It's strange, we know we are going to adopt her, China knows we are going to adopt her, but apparently we are the first family to do what we are doing and so there is a bit of a hangup on the paperwork and until it is officially official we can't post identifying information or pictures :(. So bear with us until God straightens this out.

For whatever reason God has chosen us to be the parents of this little precious girl. He has seen her birth, her abandonment, her life, her many broken bones. We haven't (so far). He knows how Mr. Incredible hates needles and can't stand to see his children in pain. God knows my mother's heart and how tough it is to be with the children through their various procedures and surgeries, even if it's for their good... and yet we are going to have to be willing to break her so that she can be healed.

Well that's our news. Our world is colliding. Our family expanding. To God be the glory!

*as of 10/21/10 we received news that what we had previously shared is now confidential. So in the interest of keeping China and our adoption agency happy, I deleted some information. I am sorry it doesn't read as well now and you are privy to all the cool things that God is doing. But OH MY HE is WORKING!!!!