As I wrestled and as the kids and I unpacked Isaiah 6, He used my children to encourage me to step out and trust Him. Of course the kids didn’t know any of the dialogue going on in my head, so imagine what I thought
when I saw this one morning on Littlest One’s paper:
I knew what God was calling us to do so The Driver and I prayed about where to start. Initially, we started with our heart for Moldova and pursued adoption that direction because it just made sense, but were always open to Russia. Moldova had captured us when we learned that it is a hot spot for sex trafficking. 30,000 females go missing a year in Moldova. Traffickers prey upon innocent orphans who have recently “aged out” of the orphanage at 14 years old. They often don’t have options beyond a skanky, cheap dormitory or the street. Alcoholism, drugs and prostitution become their way of survival. Traffickers make empty promises of high paying jobs…and that orphan is never seen again.
We were headed to Moldova until a few weeks ago when rumblings from the Moldova adoption community began to surface that Moldova is changing their process and intends to resurrect a law that is already on the books. They intend to enforce a law that states that adoptive parents must stay in-country for 1-3 months for bonding. If their social worker does not deem them bonded after such time, they can cut off the adoption. Everything this family has invested in a child thrown out. Nice. We knew we couldn’t be in another country for that time frame so we began to pray about changing our focus to Russia.
Let me backtrack to February of this year. As we were working on compiling our homestudy, I happened one day upon a site that advocates for children in need of families. I also happened upon the picture of my daughter-to-be and knew right away that she was my daughter. I can’t really explain how I knew,
but something deep inside of me just knew
I knew that I was looking at my daughter.
So I pursued her, but right away the door shut. The regulations of her region in Eastern Europe would not allow a family with five children to adopt her. I accepted the closed door for what it was and moved on…sort of.
(Another part of the unfolding will be posted tomorrow…)
I’ll always love the story of how you came to find her 🙂
I can’t really understand my excitement at realizing that I’ll get to meet that little girl soon. Can’t imagine what it’s like for you!
That girl is in another country, several oceans away, in a building of some kind and will soon live in your home, upstairs on the left. THAT IS SO COOL!