OUR REFERAL!!!

I cannot believe that I am writing this! This is unbelievable, so surreal, impossible... but nothing is impossible with God! Today, less than 48 hours after receiving our approval, we received our referal. I worked today and finally was able to reach our family coordinater at our adoption agency about 11 am. She asked if I had checked my email today (I had not). She said that some families were receiving their referals today and I should check it to see. There were so many signs that this was actually happening but I still didn't believe it. I had to wait until my lunch at 12:30 to check my email. I told myself that if it were there I'd wait to open it with Greg. When I saw an email that said referal I didn't really believe it was for us(perhaps someone else has sent us theirs to see). I opened it and saw it was addressed to us and a thumbnail shot of a baby. I started screaming(remember that I was at work) "this is it! this is it! this is it!" Many of my coworkers came running as I opened the picture of the most beautiful baby girl I've ever seen. Seriously that is my impression. I always wondered what that moment would be like, what I'd think. I guess I'm already seeing her through mommy vision, because she is Beautiful and I mean BEAUTIFUL. She looks to be about 5 months old, not sure of her age yet. She is so bright eyed. We cannot post her picture until we pass court.
The courts close in Rwanda for the month of December so we cannot get a court date until January. We will travel probably late Jan. or Feb. No one really knows yet.
We were also expecting a baby that was older. We had requested 0-18 months but it seemed that most of the referals were at the higher end of peoples age ranges. We hoped for younger because we'd like to get her out of the orphanage as soon as possible but thought she would be older. It's wonderful to know she will spend a much smaller portion of her babyhood as an orphan.
I made Greg wait till he was with me to see it, he can't open his email at work anyway. When I got to Mom's I came rushing in with a video camera and asked Aiden and Mom if they wanted to see a picture of Carrington. Aiden was cute, very excited. Mom crying and saying "are you serious?" before she even saw the picture.
I cannot believe this recent turn of events. Three days ago I thought that we were at least 4 months away from this day, today I am looking at my daughter's beautiful face! God is so good.

Our adoption

We have created this blog to keep our friends and family updated about our adoption. We have wanted to adopt for years. We didn't know when this might occur or where from. In February we felt a very strong leading to adopt now and from a country that I had never expected... Rwanda! Before February we didn't even know it was possible to adopt from Rwanda. At some point I will relate the whole story of how all of this fell into place. Long story short, we are adopting a baby girl! She will likely be 18 months or younger at the time of her referal.
All of our adoption paperwork arrived in Rwanda on 7/17/09. We have been waiting for approval from the minstry of gender and family promotion in Rwanda. Things seemed to be slowing down more and more and I was discouraged because it looked like the soonest we might travel would be May. Then yesterday we were thrilled to receive the email we've been waiting for saying that we are approved. We were at Greg's uncles house in Tennesee. I asked Greg to check our email even though it was Saturday and unlikely to be anything there. I left the room and when I returned Greg had this silly smile on his face and motioned for me to come to the computer. I thought he had to be joking. I immediately had an adrenaline rush and was afraid that he was kidding. As soon as I saw it I started to shake and cry. I was so overcome with emotion. I was very relieved because we were concerned that the approval could still be a long way in coming. Also no one seemed to know exactly how Rwanda would react to us having a foster child the same age as the child we are requesting. Such a relief. I was so joyful and full of praise. I drove the whole way home on cloud nine, yet I still didn't know just how wonderful the news really was. When I got home and had a change to look at our "non-objection letter" more closely I realized that the approval was dated Oct. 21st! We have been approved for 5 1/2 weeks and didn't even know it! Apparently there were a lot of families that for some reason the ministry had failed to inform. This puts the process so far ahead of where we thought we were. We could be very close to getting our referal and seeing our daughter's face for the first time!
I guess this just goes to show how little control and knowledge we have in this process and that we must trust in God and His perfect wisdom and timing. Here I have been stressing over how long its taking and all the while we have been approved.
God is all knowing and He is in control, therefore I don't have to be. This is a lesson I must learn over and over again. I am praising Him today for this amazing Thanksgiving blessing.
As I learn more about this blogging thing I will give more details of the process and especially how wonderfully God has lead. Right now I can tell you that I know without a shadow of doubt that He has chosen one little girl for our family and us for her. She is ours completely, not born of my womb, but born of my heart, and a part of God's master plan!