Heres an amazing story from a very special family - Marvin and Kristi (Arkansas) and new daughters Esther and Edith (China) - IFS Dear IFS, This is our story in as brief of a sketch as I know how to give. Hopefully it encourages you to keep your hope in a living God who cares about us intimately. Marvin and I married young and had 7 biological children. In 2010 Marvin got off an airplane and experienced an aortic aneurism. Through a series of miraculous events, his life was spared with no resulting disability. This caused us to take a new look at our life. If he was given this second chance, it must be for a reason. In January 2012, we decided that maybe Marvins life was spared so we could help raise more children. We never thought of adopting before, but here we were around 50 years old with time to still help with other children and a chance to live our lives for something more than ourselves. What did we love about our lives? We loved raising our children. Why not keep doing what we loved? We applied to IFS in May of 2012 to adopt 2 little girls from China. All our older children were delighted to get two new sisters. Somehow, with my very patient spirit and several unfortunate events, we were delayed in getting our home study done until December of that year. God knew best, because in January of 2013 our oldest son died suddenly. Our family was crushed, and we gave up the idea of adopting to work through our grief. Through the encouragement of our social worker and IFS, eventually we decided to proceed, knowing our son would have wanted this. As you know, China assigns travel dates and when a family will receive their children. The way our tickets worked to fly, we left the USA the day before the first anniversary of our sons death and landed in China the day after the anniversary. Flying forward in time, we skipped that difficult date. Three days later, on the one-year anniversary day of his memorial service, our two new daughters were placed into our arms. Gods timing and provision were beyond what we could ask or think. Our grief for our son is endless and deep. Our whole family feels it everyday, but our new daughters in their short lives have known more grief and loss than we have. We hope we may be a comfort to them. They bring each of us endless joy. One of our older married daughters, after meeting her sisters, commented, Mom, its so nice to have little ones again. They bring us new life. Yes, they make me laugh almost every day. I smile through my tears. God has provided for them and also for us. We need each other and are doubly blessed. Kristi Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things. Psalm 107:8-9 (Posted with permission)
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 13:01:35 +0000
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