February 1st 2006 a little boy was born in Beijing, China. In March of 2009 we began the process to adopt yet again, as we felt God calling us back to China.In May 2009 we saw the beautiful face of our 4th child for the 1st time. We had prayed from the very beginning that God would direct our steps and make it abundantly clear which child He had planned for our family. As I went off to bed one night, I decided to check the emails one last time. There was an email from our agency about a camp they had done in Beijing. I clicked on this and read the story of this wonderful experience and then followed the link to a list of children that were available for adoption from this camp. As I scrolled through each face,my heart felt sad that so many children had no home. All of these children on this list had special needs to some degree. I came upon a little guy in an orange shirt that made me pause, I continued until I had seen them all. I then called Will and had him look at the photos and short bios of the children. When he got to the little guy in the orange shirt he said, "Call about that one." I called our agency the next day about several of the children and when she got to the little guy in the orange shirt her voice perked up and so did my heart. She told me his name was Xinran and that he was 3. He was born with a heart defect and a cleft lip/palate. The heart defect had been repaired but she did not know what the actual problem had been. She read me a little about his personality and the comment that the orphanage nannies made-- they thought he would do well in a family with siblings. My heart soared! I asked to see his file. Many LONG weeks passed before we got his complete medical file. All the while this child grew in our hearts and nothing that was in that file could have told us this was not our child. When the file finally arrived, it contained detailed information about his heart surgery. Xin had been born with VSD-Ventricular Septal Defect- a hole in the ventricle of his heart a small hole that had been repaired with a great prognosis for the future. His cleft had not been repaired but it mentioned that there was a possibility he may have surgery on that too. We prayed and the Lord made it PERFECTLY clear this WAS our child! We accepted the refferal of Xinran Chang and finished our dossier as quickly as possible. Several months later we got a call telling us he had been given surgery to correct his cleft. So, Xin will have a long road ahead of him with speech and several more surgeries for his cleft until he is a teenager. But ,he has found his Forever Family and we have found our 4th child. We are filled with gratitude as the Lord answered our prayer of clarity in leading us to Xin. We are humbled at the opportunity He has given us to parent this special child. We look ahead to the day he is in our arms and we can begin to live as a family of 6.
Xin's Story
2010-03-17 03:50:11.0