Friday, March 28, 2014

The adoption story: Part 1

So if you are reading this, you may be thinking, WHAT? Since when did she decide to adopt! I had no idea this was in the works?! And let me be the first to tell you, that if you thought that, you are not the only one! But fortunately our God is big and is able to weave and fabricate incredible stories and events without us even realizing it. What I’m about to tell you is nothing but pure divine intervention. The story may have to be told in a couple parts, but we will see how far I get. But regardless, let me start from the beginning.

One day in August, 2010 I made a huge life choice (although I didn’t even realize its magnitude at the time) and flew down to Nicaragua to stay in a town I had never heard of with people who I had never met before. That very week I fell in love with a country, a culture, a people group, a dozen children and even more so with one in particular. Her name was Yelka; she was just over a year and a half old. She was tiny. She couldn’t walk, and was the shyest one in the house. We formed an almost instant bond and even after knowing her for just a few weeks I couldn’t imagine ever having to leave her. At the same time though, I knew that I was a single young girl, recently graduated from college and with no means nor reason to adopt. So I said, oh God, I would love to adopt her, but left it at that and assumed that it was something that could never happen.

So jump forward about a year. My family came to visit in Nicaragua!!! Woohoo what a great time it was to have them here to see me and what I was doing. But what does that have to do with anything? It doesn’t really except that they also saw the connection that was forming between me and this little munchkin and from that point on never ceased to question when I was going to adopt her and bring her to visit them in the US. So from that point I began to pray really asking God to reveal whether or not it was in His plans for me to adopt. (But again, still assuming that I would be married before it ever if it did, go through)

Now moving to the more recent past, the Director of Adoptions for the country of Nicaragua happened to be at our ministry June or early July of 2013 and upon meeting Yelka asked about her story. We explained that her father had already passed away and that her mom was sick. When the director heard that, she expressed her desire to have her put up for adoption. In that moment it was communicated (I doubt by me, but one of us sitting there) that I had it on my heart to adopt her. I expected her to grimace and give me all the reasons that it would be better to find someone else, but wouldn’t you know it, she was excited and told me to go for it and to get moving quickly!! That comment obviously created an explosion of emotions all at once. I was excited and nervous and anxious and even doubtful all at the same time. While I knew that this was something that I had desired for years, I still wasn’t convinced that it was actually God’s will and that it was actually going to happen. So I began to pray a little more intensely. I relaxed a little knowing that before the adoption would be able to go through I had to have Nicaraguan residency (something that I had been planning on getting for a while anyways) and that could take some time.
It happened to be that I had already planned a trip over to Waspam area (the region of the country Yelka comes from) for mid-July. Although I had met Yelka’s birth mom a number of times, this time we decided to take advantage of the trip to talk to her about giving consent for me to adopt. Conversation between the two of us is rocky. Me speaking my broken fragments of Miskito and her trying to get by with the little Spanish she knows, creates for an interesting relationship! But fortunately we were able to have this important conversation with a translator. And wouldn’t you believe that she said yes! She said she would be willing to give up this little girl and let me be her forever mommy. I was stunned and taken aback. . . Could this actually be happening? I will say thought, there was still that thought in the back of my mind of God is this really YOUR will?! I made it a point to pray more about this topic.

About this time I also decided to send out an email to a handful of close friends and family asking for their prayer as well. My aunt responded encouraging me to choose a sign. Pick something clear and ask it to come from God as proof that He is in support of this adoption. 

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