The Call

So much has happened in the past three days that I hardly even know where to begin. Friday morning I spent some time on the phone with my mother in law. I was sharing with her the new changes in the adoption process for Ethiopia. She reminded me that our daughter would come home in God's perfect timing and He would provide for all that was needed. I told her that we could really get a call any day letting us know that they had found Faith. And although I knew this was a possibility and I wanted to believe it, after you have waited for something for so long it begins to seem that it will never happen.

I put K on the bus and headed back to the house. I glanced at my cell and noticed a missed call...hmmm, not a number I recognized. My first thought was to just check it later, but then something said to check the message right then. It was our social worker. "We have a referral for you to consider, please call me as soon as possible." Suddenly I couldn't breathe and the room began to spin as I let out a cry. "Are you okay, Mommy?" asked T. "Yes, T, that was the lady looking for Faith. You have to go take a nap." I quickly wisked T off to bed and tried to compose myself before call the SW back. Deep breaths, Sonya, Deep breaths.

I got out a pad of paper and a pen. Sat at our kitchen table and dialed the number that would change our lives forever. They had a little girl for us to consider adopting into our family. A precious baby with a beautiful story, but first they needed to make sure we wanted a referral for a child with a "special need". I tried to ask useful questions, I tried to stay calm, and all I can say is it was surreal. All I could answer was, "We would LOVE the opportunity to consider this referral!" And so the SW said she would email us all her info right away.

I hung up the phone and then the tears began to fall. There was one more number that needed to be called right away. The number to the love of my life, my partner in ministry, the captain of my adventure. As Kevin answered the phone, I realized I couldn't talk..all that would come was sobbing. Our conversation went like this -
Kevin: "What's wrong?"
Me: "I can't breath."
Kevin: "Do you need help?"
Me: "We have a referral. They found Faith."
Kevin: "Are you kidding?"
Me: "No, they are sending the referral right now. Can you come home?"
Kevin: "I can't come home. This is a crazy day here at work."
Me: "Well, I have waited for years for this. I can wait a few more hours."

And so I spent the next few hours wandering around our house trying to accomplish "normal" tasks but mostly just wandering, praying, crying, laughing, throwing up and then back to wandering. I imagine if anyone else could have seen me I would have looked like a lunatic. Somehow though I had to pull it all together because in just a few hours I would have a house full of people coming over to make sandwiches for the homeless.

God carried me through the afternoon. Kevin arrived home to a flurry of children making PB &J and a kitchen packed full of sack lunches. He asked me, "How are you doing?" To which I responded, "Do not talk about it or I will totally lose it." And so we didn't. We carried on as normal as possible, said good bye to our guests, fed our children dinner and put them to bed. Now almost 8 hours after that phone call we could finally sit down together and open the email. The email that would introduce us to our daughter.

Earlier that afternoon, God had given us both the picture of Jesus standing at our front door knocking, holding our little girl and asking us if we would take her in. We knew when we opened this referral it wasn't going to be a matter of whether we would say "yes" or "no", because we already knew the answer was supposed to be yes. However there was definitly a mixture of excitement and fear as to what we would see and read. I sat down on Kevin's lap and he prayed for us, that we would know 100% that this was our daughter and that He would strengthen us for whatever the email would tell us.

As we opened the attachment, I wanted to just immediately go to the page that held her photograph, but we made ourselves go through each page line by line. As we read on, it was clear to both of us that this was our daughter even before we ever saw her picture. So many details were exactly what we had been praying for everyday for the past year and a half. And then as the photo scrolled up, the tears began to fall. There she was. Our beautiful, precious little baby girl. She is beyond adorable! We were overfilled with joy as we saw our daughter's face for the first time. Our "sonogram".... we will never forget that moment.

There is much more to tell, but I think this is probably enough for one post. Thanks to each of you for the part you have played in this journey and your unending support and encouragment.