Merry Christmas, sweet girl

Adoption is an interesting journey.  By 'interesting' I mean stressful, exciting, filled with heartache, hopeful, overwhelming, and more.  When people find out we're adopting we hear many interesting things. The one we hear on a regular basis:  "You're such good/amazing/wonderful people for adopting!"

Let me tell you, we're very much human.  Jason and I argue, I get short with the kids, there are evenings I ignore everyone because I'm sooo tired, I sometimes spend money on stuff I REALLY don't need, and the list goes on and on.  There are many days I don't feel amazing or wonderful.

Yes, I'd say we try to do the right thing on a regular basis.  In general I'd consider us good people.  But we aren't saints or anything amazing just because we're adopting.

People adopt for many reasons.  For us it wasn't something we had to do in order to have a family.

* *insert pic of Henry and Sofia here* *

We are adopting because we were called to adopt.  OK - I got the call and Jason realized that the call was a good thing.  There's no such thing as strong-arming someone into an adoption.  If he truly didn't want to adopt the home study would have flushed out his feelings and we would have stopped the process at that point.  You can't fake a home study.

The whole 'calling' thing is a new thing to me.  I was raised Lutheran.  Stand up, sit down, say your prayers (on occasion) and eat your hot dish Lutheran.  The only people who talked about being called were those crazy Christians.  Lutherans are much too reserved to ever be called.

In January of 2010 I started feeling 'called' to Haiti.  It was the first time I really heard God.  It's hard to explain, but when it happens, you know.

Here's the amazing thing.  The time I started to feel called to Haiti was the same time our little girl was born.  God knew at that time what was going to happen.  God knew that she was meant to be with us.  And God took a chance on a nice Lutheran girl, and started to whisper in her ear.

The timing of it all still brings me to tears.  There are many more details to her story that make this so much of a God thing.

Our Plan C is God's Plan A.

Josette was God's way of getting us to consider adoption.

Magdaline was God's way of helping us realize that we need to start working on keeping families together.  (please click --> HERE)

And our sweet little girl.  Our sweet little girl is God's way of telling us that we need to fight for the orphans.  We need to be a voice for all the children in the world who don't have someone to snuggle them when they're sick, to nourish their bellies and their hearts, and to tuck them in at night.

Sweet girl, I love you more than even I can understand.  I am so thankful that God is trusting us with you.  I cannot wait to get you home and kiss your boo-boos, break up fights with your brother and sister, and get the precious gift of being called your Mama.

Merry Christmas, sweet girl.