November 1, 2007... (God story part 1)

(first of all, hope you don't mind me sharing this, Jeanette. Thought it was just too amazing not to share!)

...was just an ordinary day. It was a Thursday and our dear friends were in Beijing, China, preparing to meet their daughter, Elizabeth. While in Beijing, they took the 45-50 minute drive to Tianjin* where the Shepherd's Field Children's Village is located. They were able to walk around and see the sweet children who lived in those houses. They saw one little girl, in particular. She was known as Shia. Our family was living vicariously through their website and saw the above picture of a sweet little girl. A very sweet, baby girl. At the time, that picture was just another sweet Chinese baby girl. Our dear friends watched each child and held this sweet baby girl, rubbing her back and praying over her. They prayed for a family for this sweet girl. They prayed that her at the time, VERY large cheek would not hold a family back from adopting her. That God would provide a Christian family for this sweet girl so that she could know the love of a family. They left that day and Shia laid there with an amazing God watching over her, continuing to write her perfect story of faithfulness and love.

Seven months later, our family received a call from Melissa at AWAA. They had a 15 month old baby girl in the Jiangxi province who needed a family. We locked her file and immediately starting doing all the paperwork to make her our Katherine MeiLing. At the time, we didn't realize anything special about her file/pictures. Other than the fact that the background in her referral pictures was very odd considering most of the referral pictures coming out of her orphanage feature a very bright background and a yellow, wicker chair. Kate's referral pictures featured hard wood floors with a bright blue, gingham mat, and a brown couch in the background. Plus, her file said she had lived in some odd named Children's Village that we had never heard of and brought up no google results (we now realize that it must've been something that was lost in translation.) Elizabeth's mommy later told us that the minute she saw Kate's referral pictures, she knew that this baby looked familiar. However, at this time, she did not know why.

Two months after receiving the referral for this sweet girl who we affectionately refer to as Kate, we received an update of our beautiful girl with the most joy in her face and absolutely no puffy-ness of her cheek. The next day, another sweet friend sent a string of emails which resulted in letting us know that she had found these same pictures in a Philip Hayden photo album, while looking at her friend's son who was also at PHF... the little girl's name was Shia and she was living in Philip Hayden's House of Love. 30 pictures and dozens of emails later, our friend's find was clarified. Little Shia was our Kate.

We quickly thought back to Jeanette's travels to Philip Hayden in the fall and wondered if she possibly had any pictures of Little Shia/Kate. I searched her blog and found a picture that I thought was her. Mom emailed Jeanette and sure enough, it was. Plus, they had VIDEO.

But the amazing thing came a few days later. Jeanette remembered Shia. She remembered how large her sweet cheek was. She remembered praying over her that a Christian family would be able to adopt her, to love her just as she is.

It all made sense... The puzzle pieces fit together. When she prayed for a family for Kate, she was praying for US. No one knew it at the time (well God did- of course!) but she prayed for our family... Kate's family! Somehow out of all the families waiting to adopt from China... and out of all orphans in China, the files at the CCAA... on the shared list... somehow, this sweet girl is going to be a part of OUR family.

Tell me that's not amazing.

Tell me that's not a God story.

The picture we had seen on November 1, 2007 was not just any sweet, Chinese baby. She was our baby girl. Our sweet Katherine MeiLing...

And yet there are still people that say there is no God.
What does it take?

*- I had thought that the PHF was located in Langfang, but it turns out that all Christian organizations were kicked out of there, so it is actually located in Tianjin. Sorry for that!