Why did we adopt? Part 4

Finally! After 3 long months of waiting (wasted time, I'm thinking) the week of our pre-adoptive classes arrives. Our class takes place on a Thursday, all day and Friday, all day.

The Sunday of the week of our class, Blake began to get sick. By Monday, I was very concerned. He was having bizzare symptoms that led me to think he had meningitis. We didn't mess around and took him down to the ER at our children's hospital. They ran test after test. We were there all night. Blake basically lay there, too sick to care what they did to him. Eventually, after a chest w-ray was taken, the doctor shocked with the news that they thought he had cancer...lymphoma. His white blood count and his red blood count were way, way out of whack. We were to go home and see his pediatrician that day.

Wham! Like a boot right in the stomach.

We did go to our pediatrician and she talked with him about the possibility of this being cancer. He was only 16 and he was sure he would die and began immediately thinking about who he could give his worldly possessions to. Makes me teary just thinking about it.

She told us to come back each day that week to repeat the blood work to see what happened.

We were stunned, broken, and confused.

It took me about a day of this to think..."Hey, God clearly told us we were to adopt. We can't do it if Blake has cancer. He'd be undergoing treatment and it just wouldn't happen. Hmm...this is NOT cancer. This is a spiritual battle to stop our adoption and it's not going to happen."

We prayed over Blake. I prayed Ephesians 6 over him and for him. Each time I read it, I was more and more certain that Blake would be fine. We went every day for a repeat of his blood work and it changed very little but did increase slightly on Wednesday.

We had an appointment for him on Thursday morning at 8:45am and our class began at 9:30am and we were 30 minutes from the agency. I got permission to be slightly late to our class by the agency (they are VERY strict about being timely). We took him that morning and had his blood drawn. We sat, waited and prayed. I was so confident that he was ok that I had my niece waiting in the parking lot to drive him home so we could go straight to the class!

The doctor came in very surprised. She said his numbers had risen to almost normal and that it must have been a rare virus that attacked both lines of his blood, where usually it either on or the other, not both. Well, that's all we needed to hear! We got Blake into his cousins car and off Blaine and I went to our class, in complete awe of the goodness and faithfulness of our God.

We walked through the process and only had to wait 6 short weeks before we were matched with 2 adorable little brothers, Mihiretu and Misganaw. What a shock it was to us to know that we were going to be parents to a baby again, as at the time of our referral, Misganaw was only 5 months old! We were absolutely over the moon!

We felt like we were the most blessed people on planet earth. God had clearly spoken to us, showing us what He wanted us to do. He led us through the entire process and had placed the boys in our family that He had planned for us. If we hadn't made it to that particular class on that particular month, we would not have been matched with our boys. They would have gone to someone before us.

But God...

He knew. He showed us clearly to proceed. Adoption is a faith journey like none other we have ever been on. When hard times or bumps in the road (or mountains in the road in some cases) come, DO NOT GIVE UP! This is the time to do battle. By adopting, we are literally taking enemy territory. Think about it. The enemy hates adoption because it is by that very thing...adoption, that God has brought each Christian into His family and made us His children and heirs.

Praise His name!

Our adoption battles have been particularly fierce. After adopting the boys, we decided God had one more child for us to adopt. We proceeded with much joy and enthusiasm but it was very short lived because the very next day, we lost our home and everything in it.

It was battle time again.