Our Story
We began the adoption process in May of 2005 because we truly felt that was the way the Lord was leading us. We both agreed that China was the country that we should pursue.
When we talked about the age of the child we wanted to adopt, our comfort level was only up to age 3, so that is what we requested. We also said we would take a sibling if that were to come up. We later found out that if you already had four children you could only adopt one child from China and we had four children ages 11 to 17 (two girls and two boys). Interestingly enough, we both came to each other one day with the undeniable feeling that we would be getting two children. We saw no earthly way that could happen with the rules that were in place so we just kept moving forward with the idea that we would be getting a baby girl.
We just waited with everyone else to get our referral and watched as the time between referrals began to grow. Since we live in a three bedroom house with fairly small bedrooms, it was decided that we would need to move the girls into our room so we could accommodate three beds, and we would take the girl's room. We rewired, dry-walled and painted the boy's and girl's rooms with colors they picked out.
Just before Christmas of 2006, with only three groups ahead of us, an urgent request was put out for two boys, ages 12 and 13. The older boy needed to be adopted as soon as possible before he turned 14 on Jan. 24. On top of that, the boys were brothers. We felt a pull toward these boys and did not want them to be separated but we didn't see how we could take two children when we already had four children. We emailed the adoption agency to see what the possibilities were. The response came quickly that the rule would be waived for this very special circumstance. We had heard correctly a year and a half earlier that we would get two children.
From that point on, the Lord made it very clear that these boys were meant for our family. In the very short time (2-3 weeks), that we had to get ready to travel and to top it off, we once again needed to switch rooms since we could not fit four boys into their existing room. So in a matter of two days we repainted the rooms we had just finished, and squeezed two sets of bunk beds into our room.
So many amazing things came together. One of those was this organization, A Child Waits Foundation. As you can imagine, two children meant twice the cost. We don't know what we would have done without the caring and generosity of this organization. Their help was invaluable. The unexpected blessing lifted our spirits and continued to give us hope and confidence that the Lord was truly guiding our steps.
The boys are learning English and adapting quickly to America. They have eaten American food so well but they do get very excited over Chinese food. They seem to be happy and are finding their place in our family. We can't wait to see God's plan for these boys. They are a blessing to our household. Thank you.
David and Elizabeth DiMaria
Taylor, MI
