The prayers I pray most often are
these: That God make His will known to me, and that He grant me the
grace necessary to do it. And I also ask Mary for her “yes”, her
“Fiat!”, her “let it be done according to your will”. As it
turns out, these prayers, when prayed with a sincere heart lead to
crazy things!!
About two years ago, God began placing
on my heart this call to seek “the least of these.”. To add to
our family, but specifically “father the fatherless”. This
desire to adopt a child that might otherwise die, was so strong....
yet at this time it was also not possible. We had just had our
fourth child and in the heights of recession Brian's company had
placed temporary pay cuts and unpaid time off, in efforts to keep as
many employees as possible.. and even with that layoff was a very
real possibility. But, nothing is impossible with God :) At an
“Infant Jesus of Prague” triduum I remember Fr. Ben preaching
that the Infant Jesus had never been known to deny a petition and
that He was particularly good with “working out babies” lol.
So, in the petition box I asked that if this was in fact the will of
God, that He make it possible. The next year and a half were ALL
God. A mortgage modification of astronomical amount, Brian's company
relocating him to ten minutes from home, a raise, a promotion,
another raise... all in a recession! Each time something would
happen, I'd stand back in awe... “My gosh, He's doing it....”
Now as finances are stablizing....
just waiting for “the call”, the “GO!” from God (not that
Jasmine's persistent pestering for another sister wasn't a clear “go”
from God lol). A couple months before we depart on a pilgrimage to
Rome and WYD with a group of 25 that we had been planning for over
two years, the signs start coming. First an unlikely person hands me
some baby things and tells me to save them for my next child. I was
not thinking about children at all at this point because we were so
close to the trip and had so many things to prepare.... I took
notice, and let it sit in my heart, but said nothing. Then a couple
weeks later Brian asks me “out of the blue”, when we are going to
start discerning if we will adopt again. Ok God, we'll start looking
….. I started browsing agencies and while a lot of countries I
could talk myself into being excited about, I didn't feel the “pull”.
And then a surprise email from God's Littlest Angels in Haiti comes through, stating that the long time laws were likely changing and adoption from
Haiti might be much easier soon. We took God's hand, and started
walking this path, open to wherever it may lead. Just days after
this occurs, I am handed this CD (this person knew not of my adoption meanderings at this point, just simply said that I must listen to this), and while the talk was good seeing
the cover was even more amazing to me. It spoke volumes.
Then we
head off to pilgrimage! Going into pilgrimage I had prayers for so
many family, friends, general intentions... but the only intention
for us was that if God could direct us further, as to His will
regarding this adoption. In the first week of our pilgrimage, one of
the pilgrims comes up to me in the morning as tells me “I had a
dream that you called me over to babysit your newly adopted child
last night!”. I remember praying to God “Ok! The answer is “yes”
just show me where you want us to go.” The following days continued
relatively uneventful (adoption-wise... they were PLENTY eventful
pilgrimage-wise! LOL). And two days before we leave I offered in
prayer, that I would wait until He showed me who to talk to next or
what to do, or where to go. The day before we leave I am informed
that our tour guide has to fly out early and we will be assigned a
new tour guide to get us to the airport and see us off. In walks,
Deacon Louis from Haiti! CRAZY! As it turns out he is not just an
angel of a person, but he just helped a family adopt a little boy
from Haiti and told me to call the Missionaires of Charity in Haiti.
Upon arrival home I began talking to Sr. Joie in Haiti. I love her!
She is simply amazing. She was so excited in hearing of the things I
told her, and she also agreed that God was calling us to adopt a
child. However, she reccomended that I look into another country as
she did not trust the law changes in Haiti and she wanted to
absolutely sure they were in the best interests of the children and
that families would not get stuck in process as a result. The
conversations were very filled with the Holy Spirit, and I feel God
wanted me to talk to her. It solidified my call to adoption, but
also helped me realize that I needed to find a country with a more
stable program. Enter Ethiopia.... I remember one of the first people that said something that made sense to me regarding this path was my sister. Since I had been researching adoptions in Haiti she had been drawn to Ethiopia. She said "Maybe God drew you to Haiti to get me excited and find Ethiopia... so that we would go there together." Haiti was perfect for so many
reasons... The children were beautiful. There was such a NEED. The
poverty was heart breaking, mothers were choosing between watching
their children die and placing them in an orphanage in hopes they
might have a better option. 1 in 5 children die before the age of
5... it goes on and on. I wanted to be part of the solution to THAT.
Ethiopia, has the same scenario... 6 million orphans in a country
less than twice the size of Texas. Most of the country lives in
extreme poverty.... It was the same situation in a different
continent. The only difference was, with Ethiopia everything we
looked into, every person we talked to just opened the door wider. Upon mentioning Ethiopia to Brian, his response was that he was actually feeling drawn to Africa as well. I begin researching and we
already met the criteria for adoption, I already knew a reputable
agency with a program that was running smoothly, every person we
talked to that went through their program had nothing but inspiring
things to say. There was no question asked, that wasn't answered in
a way that brought peace. On top of that my sister was likely going to be adopting from there, and we would have children from the same country, likely the same orphanage to grow up together... and we could go share the process as a family! And then I started looking at the
children, watching the videos, reading about the country, and God
spoke to me and said “GO!”.
