Moving Forward

We decided to get away for a few days and head north to Holmes County, which in Ohio is known as "Amish Country".  It was a great couple of days to get away, refocus, and re-energize on how to move forward with our adoption of two children.
On Wednesday, June 29, I got an e-mail from one of our Reece's Rainbow contacts.  Her e-mail was to tell us that the little girl whom we had committed to adopting had been adopted by a Ukrainian family.  In the end, a family is a family, no matter what country they come from, no matter how far they have traveled to adopt a child.  In a way, it was no surprise to Doug and I that this little one was not the one to be our daughter. (Committing to a child does not "hold" him/her for your family.  It is truly a method to tell someone you are interested in a child.  That child can be adopted by a family in the country or another foreign family if the child's file is shown to someone and a family expresses interest in that child.)
A week prior, I was sitting at the computer late one night, and as I turned off the computer, I saw Maia's picture on my computer screen.  A voice came to me so audible it was plain to hear.  "Your little one will not be coming home to you."  I touched her cheek on the computer, said a prayer for her, and went to bed.
We knew there was a chance we wouldn't bring this little one home. New laws going into effect on July 11, 2011 in the country would make only a certain number of children with disabilities available for adoption under the age of 5.  With the new law in place, our little one would not be adoptable until she was 5 by a foreign family.
So we feel blessed that "our" little one has a forever family and does not have to wait until her 5th birthday.
Our trip to Amish Country gave me time to re-focus.  We have beenon overload the past two weeks-- hurrying to get paperwork overseas by a certain deadline fighting with UPS to actually ge tthe paperwork there, waiting and wondering if our paperwork would be submitted before the July 11 closure.  Now that we know our paperwork was submitted (on Thursday, June 30--the last day possible before the closure), we can sit back and evaluate our situation.  Doug and I still feel very called to adopt a child with a disability in addition to the young man we love very much.  At this point, we know that we have several months until we travel.  We are going to travel and ask for a "blind referral" for a child between the ages of 2 months and 48 months with Down Syndrome or other disability.  If between now and our travel date Reece's Rainbow has additional children become available, we might commit to another.  Either way, we know that God has the perfect child in mind for us.