Closed Doors

We didn't hear anything back from the agency yesterday. I was a little disappointed, but also recognized the agency was in LA - and it was after hours by the time they had received our inquiry.

God woke me up early this morning at 5:30 and I couldn't get back to sleep, no matter how hard I tried. Now if you knew how much effort it normally takes to drag myself out of bed each morning, you'd know how incredible it was for me to be up and going that morning.

At 7:15 the phone rang. John wasn't up yet, so I answered the phone, fully expecting it to be for him. It was Terri with Grace International - it took a second to register, but then I realized she was calling about the little boy in the Waiting Newsletter yesterday!

We talked about the little boy, whom we learned was named Mekhrob, and the Russian adoption process. We were looking at a fast process, and an expensive one. Moscow, Russia is their most expensive program - running about $35,000 with everything. And, we'd be looking at pulling together our dossier right away, and traveling within a couple weeks. Grace International's accreditation in Russa expires March 1st, which means the first trip must be completed by that time. Apparently they have been assured that a court date (the 2nd trip) would be scheduled, as long as the first trip was completed before the agency accreditation expiration. So- that explains the very short timeline.

Terri explained she had received 80+ emails in response to the Waiting Child Newsletter - but there were only 3 families who were "immigration ready" - us being one of them. Basically she was going to share the same information with all 3 families, and then see whoever could be ready to say "Yes" to Mekhrob first. Not that it was a race between us all - but given the reality of needing to move quickly, she had to go with whomever first agreed to his adoption. Terri sent over some additional pictures of Mekhrob, so I've included them here...

After sharing the information with John, we began praying earnestly about the situation. I'm always ready to say "Yes!" in cases like this, but thankfully God has blessed our family with a little sanity in the form of John! About halfway through the day, I showed the kids Mekhrob's pictures and explained what was happening. To say they were excited would be a huge understatement!

To make the time pass a little more quickly, I also did some searching online about this little boy's name - Mekhrob. Even though he was born in Russia, his birth mom was actually Tadjik (from Tadjikistan - a former republic of the USSR). Assuming Mekhrob was a Tadjik word, I started searching, and found out that Mekhrob actually refers to the "Holy of Holies" in a temple or mosque. The Arabic version is Mihrab.

Embracing our children's heritage is something we highly value, and although Mekhrob is a challenging name, I thought it would be neat to find another traditional Tadjik name that would be a little easier in the US. Most of the names were challenging, just like Mekhrob, but eventually I came across "Kia". It means defender or protector...John loved the name like I did, and slowly we began referring to this little boy as Kia Mekrhob (we'd keep his birth name as his middle name).

Now, understand this was a huge leap of faith for us - after all, once you start naming a child, you've really made an emotional commitment to him! Understanding that on some level, we mostly referred to him as "he" - still afraid to become too attached. We continued to pray all day about "him" - asking that God would show us who He intended to be Kia's family...

Late in the afternoon, John was painting and I was "making the case" for Kia....We were both starting to feel like Kia was supposed to be part of our family, but weren't quite ready to step out and say "yes". And then the phone rang....

...and God closed the door. One of the other families came forward to say "yes" to Kia. I was very disappointed, but also accepted God's answer to prayer. We HAD asked Him to show us who He intended to be Kia's family, and He had answered. We didn't "like" the answer, but accepted it.

Perhaps today was an opportunity to meet Terri at Grace International, and God had another plan for our paths to intersect in the future. We don't always understand the big picture - and that is certainly true today.

Strangly enough, a short time after Terri had called, we received a phone call from immigration. I had left a message earlier in the day to check about switching our approval to a different country. Our homestudy had approved us to adopt 4 children, and since we are only adopting 2 girls from Haiti - we have 2 "extra" approvals; we wanted to switch one of these to Russia for Kia's adoption. That phone call didn't make sense to us - it had all the wrong timing.

So we move forward - still having two wonderful girls in Haiti to work on bringing home. Sometimes God's answers aren't always what we want to hear, but we know and trust they are always correct...Signing off sad and disappointed tonight...

"You've got to get off those waiting child newsletters..."

It was just a few days ago when John teased me about the waiting child newsletters that I receive via email. I've been receiving the Rainbow Kids newsletter for quite some time. Actually, I hadn't read it for months - and everytime it arrived, I was reminded to sign off the list. The newsletter arrived today, and almost immediately, I went to delete it. But right away I felt VERY STRONGLY that I should read it. This is exactly what I saw and read...

********************************
Rainbow Kids Waiting Child Newsletter

Here is our little peanut from Russia. His DOB is October 28, 2005. His Pictures were taken in November 2006. He has been in the orphanage since he was 3 months old. His Nationality is Russian and Tedjik. His Birth Mother was hospitalized at 25 weeks gestation with premature labor. She was stabilized and he was born at 34 weeks in the hospital. His birth weight was 4.0 pounds with apgars of 6/6. He was born premature but is growing well and has been proportional in size since birth. On November 1st his weight was 14 pounds, length 70cm, head circumf.44cm and chest circumf. 43cm. From 4 months of age to 12 months of age positive development has been observed. He can crawl and stand on his own, and he is taking steps.Russia is a two trip adoption and the family that is interested in this baby could leave for their first trip as soon as February of 2007 and will bring him home in March. A family must have immigration clearance to adopt this baby. All labs are negative.



*************************


I was blown away - immediately I forwarded the message to John and began praying. John came home for lunch before he saw my email - but looking at me right away, he knew something was up. "What waiting child newsletter have you been reading now?!" How did he know?!

I showed him the newsletter - he said I could pray about it. That was happening anyways, so I also emailed, and eventually called and left a phone message at the agency....