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.