The Referral....

May 4, 2011 - I was just about ready to sit down to read a new book, Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas, when the phone rang. Ugh! I thought. I have just 30 minutes all to myself while dear Izzy was still naps and before the boys get off the bus and the after school activities begin. Really!!! Who was calling? Do they not know these precious times of silence are few and far between in this house? As I looked down and saw the number and name that appeared on my phone I knew this must be important. I better pick up this call. "Hello?" I said ever so inquisitively. " Hi Laura, this is Pam from CCAI's waiting child program. I have a referral......."

Let me back up from here as some of you may be asking yourself, who is CCAI? What is a referral? Has Laura lost her mind? She is talking crazy. Go back with me nearly 9 years ago to a Steven Curtis Chapman concert in Muncie, IN. Steven had his Declaration of Dependence tour and his entire show was more than a concert. It was an inspiration. He had Steve Saint on stage with the man who killed Steve's father while being a missionary to the Auca Indians in Equador. You can read about Nate Saint (Steve Saint's father) in a book called Through Gates of Splendor by Elizabeth Elliott. Anyway, Steven Curtis Chapman also had a slide show while singing the song, When Love Takes You In. His slide show consisted of pictures and video of the first time meeting their adopted daughter Shaohannah. I was a balling mess. What a divine picture of the love Christ has for us in adopting us into his family. Adoption was in the back of my mind ever since seeing those pictures and hearing Steven's story.
Well, life went on for this young married couple.  Ian was born in June 2003 then God blessed us with another boy, Aiden, just 18 months after Ian. Having two boys at such a young age was all that I thought I could handle for a while. As time went on, Jason and I started talking about adding to our family. Isabelle was born in October of 2008. Life was strolling right along. We had our 2 boys and our little girl. What could be better?
Now go back about 2 years. Jason had read a book called "A Hole in Our Gospel" by Richard Stearns. He recommended that I read it too. Some of you know that I was not a big fan of reading, but this book really captured my attention. I read it in just a few days and was moved by it. Was God trying to tell me something? A few months later another book was brought to my attention: "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. This time I read the entire book on the12- hour drive home from Indiana. Convicted again with the same message, care for the orphans and the poor. O.k. God, what is next? Jason and I were invited to attend a small group viewing and discussing "The Truth Project" by Focus on the Family. BAM! convicted again. At this point it was obvious God was about to rock my world with what He wanted me to do with all this conviction and knowledge I was getting. That is when the conversations started to begin between Jason and myself on what God was asking us to do. As Del Tackett  frequently says in "The Truth Project", we were thrown into a cocoon with God, wrestling and asking questions. Care for the orphans and the needy, what does that mean? What does that look like in this world?  What does it mean to live in this world but not be of this world? What does it look like to live in true obedience to my Lord?  Thrown into a cocoon I tell ya!!! Once we were able to emerge from this cocoon, the end result is this (among many, many other things).......we are in the process of adopting a little girl from China. The referral, as noted above, is a little girl that fits our medical checklist and age request that we have made to our adoption agency. We still need to do our home study and get a pre-approval from the Chinese government to adopt this little girl. If all goes well, the pictures that were sent to me this day are pictures of our daughter.

I will attempt to blog our process, setting up a stone of rememberance, so that those that read this will see the glory of God alone (Soli Deo Gloria) and His amazing transforming grace that only He can offer.

By the way, I have not been able to get back into my book I started, Bonhoeffer. Too many other things on my mind and things to research online.  : )