SO Many Unknowns

Things are pretty exciting at the Pierce house these days. It is quite a daunting task to pack for FIVE for a sixteen day trip in another country!!! I have tried to pack a little each day for the past week. We have two Christmas trees up and lit.....one with several decorations, and one with none. I actually have gifts wrapped to go under the tree. I am much farther ahead with Christmas this year than I have been in MANY years past. However, considering I am going to be out of the country for half the month of December, I'm probably actually behind on things.

Despite the fact that I have been very busy, I have done so much thinking about our sweet Ansley Grace. When we received our update on her about six weeks ago, we were informed that she had not been told YET that she was being adopted. With our three previous adoptions, even though I sent care packages with photo albums full of our family pictures to be shared with our daughters to be, I seriously doubt that any of them understood what was about to happen to them. Ansley Grace is 8 years old. I doubt, though, that she has a concept of what adoption really is either, and I actually also doubt that she has received any of the care packages I have sent to her. She was flown to the United States about a year ago and was hosted for 3 1/2 weeks by a wonderful family in Oregon. Her host mom said she did GREAT! But I can't help but ponder on what is going to go through her little mind when the official from the orphanage, which is going to be a man, brings her to an unfamiliar place and hands her over to us. Yes.....it was a very frightening experience for our 18 month old, three year old, and 28 month old in the past. I can only imagine what it may be for her. We know she has been with the same foster family for the past two to three years, and that they have lived in an apartment on the grounds of the orphanage. She has had a family......a mother and father figure, as well as foster brothers. It almost seems cruel in a sense, to think about taking her out of that. The last several pictures we have received of her depict a child who doesn't appear unhappy in any way. She has been clean, she looks healthy, and other than the mix-matched outfits and her toes hanging over the ends of her sandals (Molly Kate and Callie Beth have some shoes like that, too), she looks well taken care of. So what can we offer her that she isn't getting there?

I could start by listing all kinds of material things we are going to be able to provide for her that she has probably never had before. Christmas morning is probably going to be pretty exciting for her. Is that good? Probably not entirely. Our other girls have far too many "things." I can dress her cute......in fact, I have LOTS of matching outfits for all three girls. I am thoroughly going to enjoy that while I can. We are going to love her to pieces.....we ALREADY love her, and I have to admit I can't wait to wrap my arms around her and hold her tight. Surely, though, she is hugged and loved where she is now. I mean, how could you have a child living in your home for two to three years and not love her? 

I could go on and on about things we might give Ansley Grace that is better than what she is receiving now, but in all honesty, there really is just ONE thing that is going to matter the most in her life once she becomes a part of our family, and that is the knowledge of the love and saving grace of Jesus. Actually, I know our little girl has very few material possessions of her own, and her experiences in life have been limited. But even though we are going to fill those needs in her life, our greatest goal should be to teach her about the ONE who created her and blessed us to be her mama and daddy. I truly believe, too, that if we will depend on HIM as we travel to get her, He will work out all, if any of the kinks in the process. 

God has been SO true and faithful to us in our past adoptions. What precious children He has entrusted to us, even if some only for a short time. I really don't believe in coincidence, but God's timing in this adoption speaks loudly of His perfect will and plan. I can't wait to share with all my family and friends daily as it unfolds. Thanks, in advance, for all the prayers that I know and feel are being lifted for her and for us, too. 

Another Chapter To Our Story....

OUR STORY

Some day in the not so distant future, I am going to owe our sweet Ansley Grace a big apology for not doing a very good job with sharing the preliminaries of our journey to her. We truly have been excited from the beginning about adding her to our family, but with our family circumstances during the past year, it has just been a little more difficult for me to focus on getting our story in writing. SO, I am going to try to catch up!

One week from tomorrow (Nov 29) Roger, the girls, and I will be leaving for China to adopt our fourth beautiful daughter. For the ones of you who don't know how this all came about, I would like to share our story.

Twelve years ago, I felt the tug at my heart from God that we should adopt internationally. Although Roger didn't feel that tug at the same time I did, if didn't take much to get him on board with the idea. It didn't all transpire immediately. In fact, it was thirteen months later, after a lot of research and even more dead ends, that God revealed to us that we should adopt a child from China. We began the process in January of 2006, and were told that our adoption would take approximately 12 to 16 months. God had other plans. The months of waiting for our first daughter turned into years. In fact, it wasn't until December 20, 2010 that we first saw the face (a picture) of our daughter to be, Molly Kate. We traveled to China two months later, and she was placed in our arms on February 27, 2011, at the age of 18 months. It had been a LONG journey, but she was so worth the wait.

During our long wait for Molly Kate, I don't think it ever crossed either or our minds that we might go back to China again to adopt a second daughter, but God had big plans for us, and in June 2012, we both felt the calling again to go back to China for another little girl. This time we knew we would be required to adopt through the special needs program. We filled out our medical checklist, which basically listed the special needs we felt we would be comfortable to handle. The same day we submitted our checklist to our agency, I saw the profile of this cute little girl on the Waiting Child Profile page. The children whose files are on this page are ones who have either been waiting to be adopted for a long time, or ones who have multiple or more severe special needs. Roger and I decided we would ask to see the file of this child. We were told there was a LONG waiting list of people who had requested to see her file, and that she would most likely be chosen before they got to our name on the list. Every day I checked to the profile page to see if she had been matched with a family, but she was still there. Five weeks later we received the email stating that no one had chosen her, and asking if we were still interested in seeing her file. The rest was history. Roger and I both knew from the beginning that she was our girl, and about a year later on June 25, 2012, Callie Beth was placed in our arms for the first time, at the age of three.

Adopting a three year old was a little more challenging than adopting an 18 month old had been, and Roger made it quite plain that she was our LAST adoption. However, God had other plans AGAIN, and in November of 2013, He gave me the calling, LOUD AND CLEAR, that we were supposed to go back to China for daughter number THREE. I was a little nervous about mentioning that "calling" to Roger, but he accepted my news with an open heart and agreed to pray about it. God revealed it was meant to be in a BIG way, and so we began our third adoption process in February of 2014. We again submitted our medical checklist, and was very adamant that we wanted another little girl very close in age to Molly Kate and Callie Beth. That meant we didn't want a child under the age of 4 or over the age of 5. Our wait began to be matched. It was the following October when we were on our way home from vacation that I saw "THE PICTURE." I hadn't been on the computer for a couple of days, and that night when I checked my email and the daily update I received of waiting children from different agencies, there was OUR agency (it was very seldom on the update) and the file of the cutest little 17 month old girl, with special needs we had NOT checked we were comfortable in dealing with. Yet, she was calling our name. We requested her file, received it three days later, and on September 15, 2015, Eiley Joy was placed in our arms for the first time, at the age of 28 months.

THIS time Roger was REALLY serious that this was our last adoption, and I honestly felt like it was, too. Eiley Joy was a stinker out of this world, and kept me on my toes. She was also the sweetest, most loving, snuggle bunny. It's not that we didn't ever think about going back to China again....it's just that I don't think Roger and I could every imagine making the trip back with her. And even though we had never felt incomplete before our previous adoptions, we were just a content family of eight. Our whole world changed, though, on December 9, 2015 when our precious Eiley Joy passed away unexpectedly. It was the most devastating event of our lives.
.
When one loses a child, there can never be a replacement for that child. Our Eiley Joy was SO special. She had a way of wrapping herself around everyone's heart, and was a living example of the love of Jesus. I truly believe, though, that when God closes one door, He opens another, and He truly opened the heart of both Roger and me to the thoughts of adopting again. It was about a month after Eiley Joy had passed away that I called our adoption agency to inquire about starting the process again. The news I received wasn't the most encouraging. I was told we might have to wait up to two years to be matched with a child. We knew we would be required to adopt an older child because of our ages, but we had no problem with that. In fact, we were very adamant about not adopting another younger child because we wanted Eiley Joy to forever be our baby girl. The thought of waiting for two years for a match and then another 10 to 11 months that the adoption process takes was just a little overwhelming. Roger and I talked about it, though, and decided we would go ahead and submit our medical checklist. If God meant for us to adopt again, we would be matched with a child. If He didn't intend for us to, we wouldn't be. I attempted to submit our medical checklist the next day, but I couldn't get the link online to work. I called our agency, and was told it was probably just a glitch in the system, and to call back the next day and their tech person would help me. Well, in the meantime, I just happened to go to the Waiting Child Profile page......the same page where we had found Callie Beth's and Eiley Joy's files, and there she was......the cutest little 7 year old girl. I opened the file and read the info about her, but her special needs seemed a little complex. Her file said she didn't talk, that she didn't know her name, or her colors.....and it went on and on about what she didn't know. After reading it, I felt like her needs were probably a little more than we needed to try to take on at that point in life. We actually requested the file of another adorable little girl on the Waiting Profile page, but even though she was so precious, her needs were ones that we definitely felt like we didn't need to take on at the moment. As soon as we had made that decision, I immediately looked back at the file of the first little girl, and there was an UPDATE. She was being hosted by a family in Oregon, and the host mom had written the update after having her in their home for three weeks. It seemed that everything in her original file was NOT correct. Supposedly she didn't talk. The host mom shared that not only did she talk, but she talked A LOT. And all the other things that the file said she couldn't do, we found out that she really COULD do all them. It was a green light for us, we requested her file the next day, and about a week later we said "YES!!!" to start the process of adding her to our family. Roger and I truly felt like she was a gift from God. No....she was not a replacement for our Eiley Joy....NO child could ever replace her. We felt, though, that we had enough love in our heart to give to another little girl, and God showed His grace by leading us to her.

On December 5, Ansley Grace will be placed in our arms, at the age of 8 years old, for the first time. This journey is totally different from our other three. She is the first of our girls to have lived with a foster family. She is currently living with a family who she has been with somewhere between two and three years. They live in an apartment on the grounds of the orphanage. It is our understanding that her foster parents receive a place to live and food to eat in exchange for caring for some of the children from the orphanage. Not only is she our first daughter to live in foster care, she is older. We realize that being adopted may be much more difficult on her than it was our other girls, even though her host mom said she did GREAT during the time she spent with her host family. We are hoping and praying that her transition into our family will be just as good. Of course, Molly Kate and Callie Beth are making the trip with us, and we feel like that will help SO very much. They are excited beyond words about getting a BIG sister. They call her their LITTLE big sister, though, because if the measurements we have received are correct, she is even smaller than Molly Kate. We think she is going to be PERFECT for our family! God has never let us down before, and we know HE chose HER to be our daughter. :)