We were blessed with two wonderful sons by birth in '92 and '94. We felt pretty content that our family was complete. But, about 10 years later God impressed upon our hearts that in fact we were missing a few family members! We embarked upon our first adoption journey at the end of 2003. In fact our application for adoption was approved by our awesome adoption agency, CCAI, on December 1st, our 13th wedding anniversary. After all the paperwork and what felt like a long wait our adoption day in China was on our 14th wedding anniversary the following year!
Eloise HuanFen was 13 months old when the four of us went to China for an incredible two weeks and brought her home. We knew when we made the decision to adopt that we would like to have two little girls so they could grow up together. We imagined that they'd be a couple of years apart. But, when we started our second adoption (with the blessings of many gifts and a grant!) we didn't know that Chinese adoptions would slow down to a crawl. We sent our second application in July of 2005 and I traveled to bring Renice QingYang home in June of 2008! She was 8 months old and the girls are 4 years apart. But, we can see God's hand in the timing in so many ways, not to mention that we can't imagine having any other child but Ren! Loe fell in love with her baby sister the day they met and it their relationship continues to grow each day. Yep - they fight like crazy at times - but then laugh and play just as intensely. We are so blessed.
Adoption is so amazing. It causes us to see what a miracle it is to be adopted by God into His forever family. He grafts us in just as our girls are part of our family. We couldn't love them anymore if we gave birth to them. We pray for their birth parents and hope that we can meet them in heaven if we never do on earth. We continue to be open to God growing our family through adoption and it seems as though He has us on that path once again! We are working on our home study for a domestic adoption of either and African American or biracial baby boy or girl! We are SO excited to welcome a new little one into our family. We also know that here in America the abortion rate for African American women is extremely high and the percentage of families who are willing to adopt black and biracial babies is very low. God has made it abundantly clear that His hand is in this and He will provide for us - so far He has used a yard sale (we needed $1,700 to start our home study and that is exactly what we earned at the sale!) We have also continued to sell anything we can from our home as well as received financial donations and donations of items to sell from others to put towards our adoption fund. We are still needing about $1,200 more to make our next fee payment after our home study is complete. Can't wait to see God provide again as we obediently move forward in this exciting journey.
We are very open to talking about our adoption experiences with anyone who has questions or is interested. We were so anxious to talk to people who had adopted while we waited during our first adoption. So feel free to drop us an e-mail! blessedsahm@gmail.com
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