A little more about our little girl

We thought we would back up a little bit and share a few more details about Moriah. She was born February 2nd, 2007 in Zhengzhou, which is in the Henan province. This is the most populous province in China. It is south of Beijing. Up until recently the orphanages in the Henan province did not participate very much in international adoption. Thanks the the hard work of our adoption agency and others, many more abandoned children from this province are finding forever families. They are also working to improve the care that the children in the orphanages receive.

Moriah has spent some time in the orphanage, but most of her life has been spent in foster care. We are thankful for this and know that the Lord has had His hand on her life in many ways that we will never know.  She will be just over 19 months when we meet her. Her current weight is 19 pounds, so she is a little peanut. My dilemma has been what size clothes to buy? Should I take size three or size four diapers? We're going to take a variety of sizes and hope for the best. It's nice that the weather will still be warm, so our packing can be light. 

We were required by the state of Colorado to take 24 hours of parent training. We had been putting it off for many months. Finally, we got serious about taking our classes. We weren't sure how much we would learn. (After all, we have been parents for 10 years, we thought). Surprisingly, the classes were very good. Many of them focused on attachment and development issues which can occur with adoption. We both felt like we learned a lot. We also met some wonderful people who are in the same process.  

The directory of our agency reminded us this last week to "hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst".  We are trying to keep that perspective, while remembering always that God is in control. We know that while this is a wonderful and exciting event for us, it may not seem so for Moriah. She is being removed from all that is familiar to her and being placed into an entirely new situation. We have prayed for her for months and we continue to lift her to the Lord: that he would comfort her heart and give us wisdom in helping her to grieve her loss and adjust to us. We were able to send a care package with a little photo album, so we hope that our faces won't be completely strange.    

It is exciting to see how God has brought us to this point. Next Wednesday, September 3rd, Andy and I will head to Beijing. We will spend a few days there and then fly to Zhengzhou where we will meet Zheng Mei (soon to be Moriah Mei). We will spend the rest of the week there and then finish up our trip in Guangzhou.  It will be an exciting and life changing two and a half weeks. Meanwhile, our parents have graciously agreed to tag team to care for our other three children.  

So, this weekend we plan to finish packing, finish building the crib, spend lots of time together as a family of five, and reflect on the goodness of the Lord to us.

 

Our Journey to Moriah

It has been quite a journey and the adventure is about to begin. We began this journey in Feb 06 when the Lord placed upon our hearts the name Moriah from Gen 22: 14 "The Lord will provide; as it is said to this day, "On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided." And indeed our God has supplied more than we could ever think or imagine.

The purpose of this blog is to chronicle our journey to Moriah Mei Leong and share it with you, our family and friends. As we have come to discover throughout this process that this has been more a journey of faith and dependence in our Lord Jesus Christ than anything else. We have been reminded throughout this journey that we too were once orphans. Moriah, Andy, Amy, Kimberly, Caleb and Josiah all have this in common, that we were once foreigners and aliens, strangers to the promises of God. But it is written, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." Thanks be to God that we now love Him because He first loved us! Well, it has been a long road filled with seemingly endless trips to base legal, Fed Ex, and our adoption agency (CCAI) but now finally on 3 Sep that often long and winding road heads to China! So, our hope is that you will join us as we embark on our journey to the little girl the Lord has called to be ours...