Memorial Box Monday on Wednesday

Well, I'm getting closer to Monday, sort of zeroing in on it. My story of God's amazing power in the life of our family left off last week with God giving us the money we needed to complete Song's adoption. That story, however, does not stand alone; it is inextricably linked to Alex's story of adoption. We began Song's adoption not knowing anything about Song, just knowing we were sending in a dossier and if we waited about a year we would received a referral for a little girl about a year old. It took about six months to complete our adoption dosser for China and we sent it to the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs in April of 1998 (the month and year Song was born, interestingly enough!). In May of 1998, we received our first newsletter from Gladney, our agency. Inside the newsletter was a page with pictures of waiting children, including the picture of little Dima who was about to turn 3 and had big blue eyes, was happy and healthy and needed a family. His picture took my breath away! I just knew I was looking at my son. John wasn't as sure, but being John he agreed to pray and soon he began to feel a real paternal love for this boy in Russia. So I contacted Gladney and then the real fun began! NOT! Apparently I should never have been given Dima's information since we were already in process in China. The vice president of international adoptions gave us an ultimatum: choose the girl-to-be-referred in China or the boy whose picture you've been carrying around for the last two weeks from Russia. A difficult choice, but really not a hard choice. Our China program coordinator was kind enough to say that she would ask China to put our dossier on hold with the hope that if we adopted Dima/Alex quickly we could turn right around and perhaps not have to redo all our documents. I remember thinking that was so sweet of her but I couldn't imagine that we could afford back to back adoptions, particularly since Alex's adoption was going to be at least $10,000 more than Song's adoption. How quickly we forget God's providence! Months after God's miraculous provision of $16,000 for a Chinese adoption I seem to have already developed doubts. Perhaps I thought He would only give us money once. Perhaps I just didn't think at all! God, fortunately, is forgiving when we forget AND He cares for His children, particularly His orphaned children. Once again, within no time at all He had provided another bonus check to John, this time for $10,000, just what we needed for Alex's more expensive adoption. How amazing is that? Even more amazing, I think, is that He knew Alex would be a very challenging child, and He knew we would need all the confirmation we could get that Alex was to be OUR child. Next week (maybe Monday but more like Tuesdayish) I can't wait to share the rest of the story. It's a good one! For the Memorial Box, I believe I will use the newsletter with Alex's picture in it. Eleven families had looked at Alex's referral information before us and they had all decided not to adopt him. I can only guess that God put scales on their eyes because that is one cute kid!