Fast forward two and a half years. I'd had my second beautiful daughter and we were "living the dream", but still every now and again I my heart would quicken and I'd get that twinge in my heart when I'd think of China. I just knew one of my children must be there.
It was January 2, 2006 and I was standing on the railing of our home taking down Christmas lights when the Lord spoke, to me and said, "I want you to adopt from China, but I want you to sit on it." My first thought was pure excitement! Then I thought, "wait a minute God... You want me to adopt, but I can't say anything?! No fair! You know how much I hate to wait.. much less keep quiet!" None the less, sit on it I did, until March. During those 3 months I prayed continually. My prayer to Him, was that our adoption would be so much, "of Him" that we could not tell our adoption story without telling how God orchestrated it. I knew this would be the case. He had told me we were to adopt from China and we were to do it debt free.
Finally, in March, I spoke to Kurt about it. At first he wasn't on board with the idea, but as we continued to discuss it, he came around. Kurt's biggest concern was money, both for the adoption and long term. I told him, it wasn't our job to find all the answers, but to follow God's leading. If He told us to adopt, it was our job to obey. And if He wanted us to do this debt free, He would provide the way. It didn't take long before not only was Kurt on board, but he was even ok with adopting from China! After some discussion we had decided to adopt a healthy girl under the age of 4 in order to keep the birth order of our children.
In April 2006 we began our paper pregnancy. I filled out the on-line application and our paper chase began. It took 6 months to complete the chase and our dossier was sent to China. We mail our dossier to China on October 13, and we received our Logged In Date, the 2nd week of November. During this time, I was feeling God was leading us to expand our criteria for adoption. So on Thanksgiving, while I was at work, and after much discussion with Kurt, we decided to expand the age range, we would be open to a boy or a girl and we decided to consider special needs as well.
Our agency, America World Adoption Agency, has a web page for unmatched, special needs children. I had decided I wouldn't go to their page, for fear of falling in love with the wrong child. I wanted to receive the child God had planned for us, and I was afraid I would just get in the way of God's plan if I was looking at all the children and trying to pick one myself.
On December 31, I was at work. I was sitting in the office, absent mindedly playing on the computer and talking to Kurt on the phone. Not really paying attention to what I was doing, I went to AWAA's special needs page and began looking at the children. When I realized what I was doing I thought, "Man... I told myself I wasn't going to look at this page! Oh well, I'm here, might as well finish looking!" I scrolled through the children, most of which I'd seen before, and wasn't drawn too. However, when I got to the last child, I clicked on his picture and instantly, I knew, that I knew, that I knew, he was my son. The little boy's name was Zhou Qiang, which means strong and brave. It said he had hemiphlegia, or one sided paralysis. Really, it didn't matter what he had, I knew he was to be our son.
I didn't tell Kurt right away, as I still wanted to be sure I wasn't interfering with God's plan. But the next day, January 1, 2007, I was driving Hwy 52 heading to do a home visit for a woman wanting to adopt a greyhound. I hadn't intended on saying anything to Kurt, but once again, without thinking, I mentioned he should go to the AWAA Waiting Childrens page. As soon as I blurted it out, I thought, "OH! I said I wasn't going to say anything!".. Just another indicator God was at work. I told Kurt to scroll all the way to the bottom and look at that the last child. I said, "I know it's a boy, and he special needs, AND he's older than Ashleigh, but just take a look". Kurt's reply was, "oh, I like him!" So, after a little discussion we decided to move forward and request his information. On January 2, we requested Zhou Qiang's information and we never looked back!
On May 1, we climbed on a plane for China and on May 8th we met and finalized the adoption of our beautiful son, Nathaniel Qiang Jacumin.
Total borrowed for the adoption - $0.00!
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