On Christmas Day, 2014, Janet and I boarded a plane in Hong Kong International Airport, bound for Los Angeles. Riding next to us was a our new two-year-old son, Elijah, whom we had adopted in the People’s Republic of China just nine days earlier. He was the best Christmas present either of us has ever received. This spring, we’re on track to be blessed with another gift from China, a two-year-old girl we’re planning to call Peyton. How did we arrive at the point of adopting a second little one? Read on…
It has long been our plan to adopt two children. Originally, we anticipated adopting a girl from China and a boy from Ethiopia. We knew that orphanages in China usually have more girls than boys and vice versa in Ethiopia. God is known for laughing at our plans. As we waited for a healthy girl to become available, we began hearing about the high number of boys with health issues who were immediately available. Long story short, we spotted Elijah’s file, fell in love with him, and were matched. Around the same time, processes in Ethiopia began to slow dramatically. When we were matched with Elijah, we discovered that China offers a “dossier copy” option to those adoptive parents who have adopted once and are willing to adopt a second child from a special needs group. We told our agency representative that we were interested and they began to look.
On September 14, 2015, a huge tree limb fell from a fifty-foot eucalyptus tree in our backyard during a storm. It landed on the lower branch of a neighboring tree, causing that tree to lean toward our house. I took the next day off from work to schedule tree-trimming work. It might seem odd to include such a trivial item, but the incident put me at home with time on my hands at the exact moment Janet’s phone rang. It was our agency rep, asking if we’d consider a two-year-old girl in a file they’d just received.
After a brief file review, we began to pray. Her medical need, which we’ll discuss later, was daunting, but we almost immediately felt a certainty that she was the one God wanted us to adopt. Within hours, we said, “Yes,” to a review of her full file. We asked for names of doctors and parents who had adopted children with the same condition. Within a few days, we’d been contacted by several parents of kids with the same need and doctors who offered to review her file and provide consultations for free. We found that a local children’s hospital has doctors trained specifically for her medical condition and we were given significant information on how to care for her. As doors opened and questions were answered, our certainty grew. On October 7, 2015, we submitted our Letter of Intent (LOI) to the China. This week, we received their Letter of Acceptance (LOA), saying Peyton is ours if we can finalize immigration and pay all the fees.
Now we’re racing to make Peyton our little girl. We’re expected to travel in June. Our last adoption drained our reserves, so we need to raise about $25,000 through grants, donations, yard sales, and any other means we can find. We would be grateful if you could partner with us by praying for our preparations, spreading the word about our adoption, and giving what God might put on your heart. More to follow soon…