I'm no Joan of Arc…
I don't get clear messages from God on a regular basis. Most of the major decisions I've made in my life, I've prayed about and hoped I was in God's Will, but I generally did not "go forth with an unwavering certainty of God's blessing". However, where our children have been concerned, God has spoken very clearly to me. It was some time in autumn/winter of 2001 when God told me about our son. We had finished the paper work to adopt our first child from China and were experiencing the "wait". We were watching a music video at our church band practice and a series of faces were flashing quickly on the TV screen. The face of an Asian teen-aged boy flashed on for a few seconds and in that instant, I knew we would have an Asian son. We had requested a boy or girl in our adoption application, but I knew our son would come to us later.
In September of 2004 I was longing for that son, still feeling that pull back to China. However, our decision to live on one income, so that our daughter could have a full time parent, had put us in a limited financial position. We didn't think we had any options. A good friend, also an adoptive mom, kept urging me to look into Special Needs adoptions. I finally contacted our agency by email to inquire about their Waiting Children program, fully expecting an email response within a week. Within an hour I received a phone call from the program coordinator. As it turned out, there was a baby boy with Cleft Lip/Palate in China who needed a family. I made it clear that we had no financial means to adopt, but the coordinator assured me there were grants available and that other families had received help from friends, family and churches as well. It was a real leap of faith for us to proceed with no certainty of where the money would come from, but we felt God's assurance that this was our son. It was amazing how God gradually provided funds during the nine months following that leap of faith. With grants from two organizations, A Child Waits Foundation and the help of friends, family and our church, we were able to bring Robert Ethan Dangzhifu Adams into our family in June 2005. He is, without a doubt, the son God had told me about long before he was even conceived. We are extremely grateful to God for A Child Waits Foundation, which made Ethan's forever family possible.