The Young GIrls

God answered our prayers this morning about which girls from Liberia were going to join our family. I called Rachel Zackey from Children Concerned this morning to tell her about our difficulty in choosing two of the girls and worrying about the third. She immediately told me that she received a call last night from a family in Tennessee that wants to adopt Hannah. She was the oldest of the three and the one described as happy and loves to sing and dance. Our God is a great God! I then began to explain how difficult it was to choose between Maria and Hannah, but that my heart had immediately gone to Maria. I explained that the thing that concerned me and made the decision so hard was that I was afraid she would be waiting for her parents to come back to the orphanage and take her home. (Maria is the one that has only been in the orphanage since last summer.) Rachel told me that Maria has told her how much she wants a new mom. Our God is a great God! He is so faithful to answer our prayers!

God has chosen two beautiful little girls to join our family, Suzanna, who will be 7 on September 5Th, and Maria, who will be 8 on October 16. We now need your prayers for the next step. The orphanage will now find both girls' parents to have them sign over their parental rights and to go to court to sever those rights. Rachel explained that sometimes the parents do change their minds. Please pray that God will give these parents the courage and comfort to make this most difficult and final decision. Also, please pray that this process will be a quick one. As soon as this is done and our dossier is in Liberia we can tell the girls we are adopting them and begin to establish a relationship with them.

We need your help with one more thing. We want to give the girls middle names that are really special. We want to do this with our dossier so that the names will be on their birth certificates, court and adoption decrees, as well as their passports. We have already decided on Grace, probably for Suzanna. Grace is special for so many reasons, including that it was my grandma's name. We'd like your suggestions for another middle name probably for Maria, unless it goes better with Suzanna and vice versa. Please email us with your names along with what they mean if needed.

Thank you, precious family, for all your prayers, wise counsel, support, and love. We know without a doubt that God put us here with you at Grace to go through this journey together. We love you!