A lot has happened since my last post. First, we finally finished our Home study. Life happened and it took longer than we had hoped but it is all in His timing. The most exciting news is that we have found our beautiful daughter. 

 The initial purpose of this blog was to have our journey documented for Faith. It also became a way to keep family and close friends updated. I loved journaling how God was working in our lives and how he walked us through each step. I wanted to do the same with our 2nd adoption however I have really struggled with what to share. I want to protect our daughter's privacy yet I want God to get all the glory He deserves. So I am going to try to do both! 

As the home study progressed Brian and I felt like we were being called to adopt a child a little older than Faith. We then learned about the Special Focus. Children tend to be older with more needs that the children on the Shared List. With the SF program you can browse the list once you are accepted into the agency's adoption program. 

 Wonderful Waiting Kids is a website that advocates for children on the Special Focus list. We get an email when they add a child onto their website. We had already looked at a couple of files but never felt we should move forward. On February 28th, Friday afternoon, Brian called to let me know that he saw a little girl with Cleft lip/ Cleft Palate and high blood count on the website. They had posted a picture, summary and video. After viewing the little girl's video, my heart ached for the child. She was crying and so upset. I immediately had developmental concerns but thought we should review her medical file. So, we emailed the agency to request her file. On Monday we received her file and put it on hold. The little girl's name in China is Jin LiYa and is one month younger that Faith. The last medical update was from 2012, Tuesday we requested any recent medical information along with 10 questions. If you are reviewing a Special Focus file you have 2 weeks to let your agency know whether or not you are going to pursue the adoption. Over the next 2 weeks we prayed and read scripture so that we could make a decision according to God's will. We were hoping to get the update from China but we did not. As we approached the weekend our social worker called us to remind us that they needed an answer by Monday. I spoke with her about our concerns. She said we need to think about how we would handle Jin LiYa's needs if it is worse case scenario. So Brian and I continued to think and pray non stop about Jin LiYa. Is she our daughter? Can we care for her needs and met the needs of our other 3 children? So much to process!! We were already feeling the roller coaster of emotions that adoption brings. Saturday night Brian and I prayed that we felt like this child was to be our daughter. 

We could not find any reasons to say no. Sure, there were plenty of 'worldly' reasons to take off running and believe me we wanted to. But, we felt God calling us to completely step out on faith like we have never before. Completely trust him. 

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6 

That night we sent an email to our agency to let them know that we wanted to pursue Jin LiYa's adoption. I wanted to share our news with family and friends in a cute and creative way but, as usual, our excitement got the best of us and we immediately began to share our news. On Sunday, I consulted with Dr. Kyser at the International Adoption Clinic in Birmingham regarding Jin LiYa's medical file. We used the IAC with Faith from Referral to 1 year home. She went over everything with me and she validated my concerns. I told her we would be submitting our LOI the next day so once we brought our daughter home we would be seeing her at the clinic. They will help us from attachment to physical development and anything else we need. On March 27th we received our Pre-Approval to proceed with Jin LiYa's adoption. 

 Sweet Jin LiYa, 

 Since we first saw your precious face, we have been thrown to our knees in prayer seeking God's Will for our lives. We only want to please God and do His Will. We are relying completely on faith. 

"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly see Him." Hebrew 11:6