The Post We Have Been Dreading....

3 weeks ago we got "The Call."

Well, actually it was an email. It informed us that a couple from her native land will be adopting our sweet E.  Our world feels just shattered.   Perhaps it is hard to imagine how our souls could be so crushed upon receiving this news.  Logically, I agree and keep trying to tell myself that we had no official claim on her and we hadn't even met her.  But in our hearts, she was our daughter and a huge part of our daily lives already.

We had upgraded to the minivan (breaking our unofficial wedding vows to NEVER own a minivan) and Noah quickly claimed the middle row of seats for him and E, relegating Audrey to the rear row.  Each dinner prayer and bedtime prayer by Noah always ends with "And thank you for our new sister E, thank you she is far away in Eastern Europe, and Thank you for helping us bring her home. In your name we pray, Amen!"  We had her clothes (and clothes for the rest of the family) picked out for her welcome home family photo shoot. We had even started arranging her future marriage. 

It is with extremely heavy hearts that we celebrate her finding a family. She will be an orphan no more, and that is what truly matters!

So what now?

Our future child may have changed, but some things haven't changed:

We still have the capacity to love the stuffin' out of a child.
We still are a great family and can provide for a child.
We still have a heart for God's children in need of homes.


What we believe also hasn't faltered:

We believe that God nudged us to this particular child and this particular region of Eastern Europe for a reason.
We believe that God has been blessing us through this process with an amazingly supportive community, successful fundraising and even God's perfect timing. 
We believe that God tells us we are doing the right thing in His word.
 

So now we journey forth.  We wait to see what child God has in store for us and we have faith in His plans and trust in His perfect love for us!!  We never got to handpick our biological children, and God always did a pretty good job there, so we know He will do the same for us now!


And through this all, 2 children will end up with homes!  Praise be to God!