I always believed that God would give us biological children when my husband believed that we would grow our family through adoption. The first time I seriously considered adoption was after we experienced dealing with a special needs child and how much we wanted to give a child with a "disability" the ability to be all they can be for the Lord. About two years ago, we found Reece's Rainbow, an organization who advocates for many children around the world with Down syndrome and other special needs. They have children listed available for adoption, but how could I possibly pick out one? I knew that God would have to choose a child for us if this is what He wanted us to do. I stopped looking into adoption all together, but my heart still longed to make it a reality.
One day, I was reading on a blog I read frequently of a couple's infertility journey, and I clicked on someone's comment which brought me to a blog of a family who adopted from Eastern Europe. There were buttons up and down the side of their blog advocating for children to be brought home. I glanced down through the blog, and one little girl just jumped out at me. Vika! God put her on that blog for me to see. God brought me back to Reece's Rainbow! You can find her here. I found out later that Vika had already been placed into an institution and that there were some families who were really advocating for her. Some of them had gotten the chance to meet her in person and had to leave her behind, others had just grown a love for her. After much prayer, much reading, much research, and much talking, we knew that Vika should become a part of our family! I was actually able to make contact with a missionary, who works in the orphanage where Vika currently is! She is so awesome! She was able to meet Vika and give us an update of Vika with pictures! At this point, I had no idea how the Lord would provide for the money it would cost to bring her home or how we would be able to give her all of what she needs, but I knew that God would provide everything we needed to bring her home into our family and the families that already adopted her in their hearts long before we did.
Once we knew that we should move forward with making a commitment to her, we found out that another family had already committed to her. It would have been very easy at that point to let it all go and move on with our lives. But our hearts couldn't let her go. So, we spent much time in prayer over her, over what the Lord had for us and our family and for Vika. I knew that if the Lord made her available to us again, that we would know 100% for sure that she is what He had for us.
Through circumstances only God knows, Vika became available again, and we knew that God had prepared us to make the commitment to her. He knew that we would need to remember the circumstances through which He gave her to us for the times when everything seems impossible. And I am sure that I will be returning here often to be reminded just how much God has already done in our lives and Vika's.
So here we are at the beginning of a big mountain. Every step we climb will only be by God's grace and with His help. There will be a lot of boulders along our hike that God will have to move out of our way, but we know that with Him all things are possible.
We are doing our best to bring Vika home as quickly as possible. She had extensive surgery to her legs this past summer sponsored by a Swiss organization - LAdS. One of the keys to success is follow-up physical therapy. She can't come home soon enough!!!
