Please read Hope Reborn Pt. 1 first – this is so long, that I split it up a bit.  🙂

God laid her heavily on my heart one morning. I was literally physically sick with the grief that MP did not have a family and sick too, that Grace and MP did not have each other.

Stephen and I talked it over and decided to petition our agency to allow us to adopt 2 within 1 year – a rule breaker for sure in this province and one that would require a special waiver from our ministry here. And then we waited to hear back from our agency, as the administrator was away at the time.

A few days later, as is my morning ritual, I did my prerequisite blog drifting and landed on the RQ site (those familiar with China IA will know what I mean). And first thing I noticed was a fellow mother from Grace’s CWI who had posted MP’s info and a photo on her blog. My heart dropped about a million miles. By the time I had even looked at the forum, hundreds of people had viewed her post. One family in particular was asking their agency to view MP’s file. I sat at my computer and prayed. My prayers were two fold. One: Thank You so much for providing a way for MP. Two: Why did you bother stirring me up about this? Why God?

Over the course of the next couple of days, we had numerous difficult things occur.The thoughtful, tenderhearted advocate Mom felt terrible about the controversy. For that I am so sad. I am so thankful that God moved in her spirit to step out for MP and others. She has blessed everyone in the process and I am so pleased to be called a believer with people like her to stand alongside of – truly!

Our facilitaing agency offered to go to bat for us with China, something that we are so thankful for.  Their zeal in finding families for the children in China’s WC program has been truly inspiring.  We got excited and then walked away from their offer, concerned that we were jumping ahead of our local agency.

The family who had asked to view her file offered to back away from the pursuit of MP’s adoption for us. We declined their offer and told them to proceed. We had not heard back from our agency and we desired first of all that MP would be united wth a family. After 2 days of attempting to gain more insight into her medical condition and having the hopeful family e-mail us for personal information (which I felt very resistant to giving out until an official match had been made and now I see why), they attempted to lock her file and found that her file had already been locked!

And that leads us to MP’s new family!

Once I received word from both the advocating Mom and the first hopeful family that her file was already locked, I went back to the original forum where MP’s  info had been posted and suddenly I felt I knew who they were. After following her link to the family’s blog, making contact with her and reeling from the reality that our pursuit of MP was officially over, I randomly went to their blog archives and picked a date. And then I threw down the gauntlet to God.

“Why God? Why did you put me in the middle of all this? Grace is grieving her friend. I don’t know why I care as much as I do. Why did I feel such a hesitation with the first family? Medically they could have offered her so much. What are you doing?  Show me that this is a family who will love her, who will understand her, who will connect the girls so they can continue their relationship.”

And then He answered me in a very personal way. Out of all the posts, many many months ago, MP’s new Mama had posted a reference to a children’s book. Something so personal and meaningful to me.  Something obscure.  Something that only I know.  MY FAVOURITE CHILDREN’S BOOK. And yes, I am screaming. 🙂   

 (And in case you are wondering, the name of the book is Verdi, which is not exactly Green Eggs and Ham, as far as popularity goes.)

My God is just that big. There is no coincedence with Him. He gave me a guidepost. Something to hold tight to. He did not have to answer me in any way shape or form – but He did. And in the time since, I have spent much time reading their blog. They are a fun, loving, sensitive, God loving family. MP is going to not only be loved, but she’ll have brothers and sisters (one who even shares her country of birth) and a Mom and a Dad who are delighted with their new blessing and a heritage of faith. What more could one ask for?  Well, in retrospect, the icing on the cake is our proximity to them.  One long day’s drive away.  We live much, much farther from each and every one of the other girls who’ve left Grace’s orphanage and joined their forever families.  Only God.

Now, back to Grace. The one who, in *my* world, it was all about in the first place.

Grace has opened up a lot over the past few weeks. She’s seen me cry openly. She’s heard me speak even more boldy for the orphan crisis in the world. Funny how I’ve suddenly had additional opportunities to be bold.  She has seen my heart be truly broken and she seems to be able to trust me with more and more of her stories and cuddles and thoughts.  She has no idea why, but I do.  God does.  It is Hope Reborn.  God opening our hearts so He can do His own special brand of heart surgery.  Softening the clay before it (we) are molded into His image a bit more closely.  Giving us hope in the midst of confusion.  For my daughter.  For me.  And hopefully, most of all for a little girl awaiting her family in an orphanage in China.

I hope to close this post, this chapter of the story once I hit publish.  I plan on writing one more thing.  Something to MP’s new family.  I hope they can see God’s hand even more clearly.  And alongside them, I will pray MP home.

Grace has many memories of life in China.  That makes so much sense.  She’s a bright, imaginative, intelligent little girl (and that’s not just me bragging!).  She spent almost a full seven years in her orphanage.  The kids there were her world and definitely her family. 

In a family there always seems to be those you are happy to see occasionally, those who seem easier to get into a tiff with and those who are ever enmeshed with you at a heart level.  Those are the ones that help mold you and who you can never separate from because they are such a part of your experience that it is impossible to know where you ended and they began.  This is the case with Grace’s heart sister.

By all accounts they shared a crib and then slept next to one another in their low framed, high barred toddler beds.  Once they grew to about six years of age they were moved to a new floor and building with bunk beds that was used for the older kids.

When we met Grace she had numerous photos with her.  Within moments of meeting her she wanted to show us the photos and would list off her friends and the workers and her volunteers and we began to get glimmers of the very large and people-filled world she lived in.  She was so blessed to have a volunteer (several in fact) that obviously were taken with her (more on that another day) and there were many photos of one little girl in particular(YF) with Grace.  We just assumed that they were good friends and that perhaps they were best friends.  She would talk of many girls, but we kept waiting for YF to be adopted a few weeks after we returned home – surely that would be comfort to her.  Funnily enough, the girls saw each other on Skype, chatted a bit (I enjoyed meeting her new family!), but she was still crying at night for her friend. 

A couple of months later, we received word from Grace’s volunteer X that he was registered to be married.  Grace was happy  and suddenly married people and weddings were of new interest to her.  A few days later, after much miscommunication and poor Mandarin on my part, we discover that it is YF’s volunteer, JY,  is X’s new wife.  And suddenly, it makes sense.  X and JY were the connection between Grace and YF, not the other way around.  Are you following? lol 

Soooo, with that in mind, I start back tracking to other things I know.  The orphanage staff had told us (even since coming home) that Grace’s best friend had been adopted before her and was living in the US.  I had been able to make contact with another family that adopted from her CWI at the same time and was told that “Yes”, they had met the family, but the family had seemed uninterested in a further relationship.  The girl in question was MH.  When I would ask if it was MH that she was missing, she would repeatedly smile and say, “No”.  sigh… back to the drawing board.

Meanwhile, over the past 4 months, Grace has spent literally hours pouring over her photos.  She would always list off everyone in the photos.  There were many stories about X, but never a whole lot about the other children, other than their names.  That is until a few weeks back.  Suddenly after many weeks home, in her hopeless, sad, exhausted cry, she began calling out for MP at night.  There was a name!  And I knew just who she meant. 

 MP is a little girl that I had picked out of Grace’s photos from the beginning.  I had prayed for her, even thought, “Wow, I wish we could go back for her”, but kind of let it go.  Suddenly a few weeks back, all of that changed.  God laid her heavily on my heart one morning.