Why did we adopt? Part 3

Each day God revealed to us about adoption or Africa. It was unreal!
The first day as I sat down to do my daily Bible reading, I randomly opened my Bible up and began reading. The passage I'd opened to was Mark 9:33. I began reading there. By the time I'd read 3 verses, I came to verse 36 which says, "He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, (37) Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me." I got the goosebumps. I didn't need to read anymore than those five verses. God had spoken.
Another day, my friend Emily had left a little gift hanging on my front door knob. It was a beautiful bracelet made in Africa. She just thought I'd like it and since she was home visiting from college, she brought it for me. Hmmmmm....
Each night we prayed that God would show us clearly what he wanted us to do with the dream he gave me. Then each day we waited to see what He'd do.
On Friday, the final answer came. I was at a convention when my phone rang. It was Blaine. He'd been at his last physical therapy appointment. Physical therapy was a frequent appointment he'd had for the last 6 months since the accident. This appointment had been made weeks before. As he walked in for his appointment, the P.T. asked him, "So what's new?" Blaine told him that we were considering adopting. He asked, "Where from?" Blaine sort of shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Ethiopia."
Now keep in mind this is early 2006 and very, very few people had adopted from Ethiopia at that time. Absolutely no one we knew. Or so we thought.
Dave replied, "Really??? Cool, that is where our youngest 2 girls are from. They've been with us for just a few months."
Are you serious??
Got it! Total confirmation.
So the phone call I received from him was almost giddy. He knew God has spoken and he knew what we were to do; adopt from Ethiopia! He told me to make the phone call and do what it to move forward. It was an exciting time!
It wasn't long before we decided that we should adopt siblings because our kids were older and the new child would need a playmate.
We chose Children's Home Society and Family Services because of another answer to prayer. Because of the supernatural way God chose to tell us we were to adopt, we really were conscious of asking Him each and every step of the way what He wanted us to do. We went to their initial meeting and during a break, I began looking through the calendar they make up with pictures of adopted children on each page. As I quickly paged through it, my thumb stopped on a page with beautiful children on it. " I wonder where they are from?" I read their story and as it concluded, it said this family currently lives in _______ (our town)! What? CHSFS a huge agency and does adoptions all over the U.S. But the one page I stop on and read about...this family with Ethiopian kids lives in my little town? More confirmation. Ok, we've got our agency.
After paying the initial fee, we signed up for the earliest pre-adoptive classes that were available at CHSFS. We had to wait 3 months to get into those classes. Ugh...we were so ready. Why did we have to wait, Lord?
We could never have forseen what was coming our way.