She Ming

Today our family submitted our acceptance to adopt She Ming from China!! Ming is a 12 year old boy who is currently living in an orphanage in Fuzhou, China. I'm sure you are wondering how this all happened.
Our family first became aware of Ming on our agency America World's website a year ago September after seeing his picture on the waiting child list. We adopted Jamae through AWAA back in 2004. Our friends, Scott & Alisa Shaw are also in the midst of adopting a daughter from China through AWAA. It was back in the fall of 2006 that both Alisa & I became aware of Ming and began praying for him. This past spring, Alisa asked our Orphan Ministry team at the church to also pray that Ming would find a loving Christian home before aging out of the system at age 14. Ming continued to be on my heart and I couldn't believe that a family had not stepped up to adopt him. I started to wonder if our family was supposed to consider adopting him. Last summer, I started to work on a Bible Study that I was going to be leading in the fall called, "What happens when women say YES to God". God made it very clear to me that he wanted me to step out completely in faith and say YES to something that He was going to ask me to do. I didn't know at the time that something was adopting MIng.
Then in September, AWAA informed us that on September 15, they were going to have to release Ming’s profile, at which point he could be adopted out through non-Christian agencies...or more probably be released to the streets. The evening of September 14, Jody called a family meeting. We discussed whether we were to be the family that would step up and take him in. Following a time of prayer, we unanimously agreed that the reason nobody else had stepped forward after all of those months was because Ming was meant to be in our family. On the morning his profile was to be released, we put a hold on it and declared our intent to adopt.
Since then, there has been a whirlwind of activity. We’ve submitted the necessary paperwork, undergone a home study, and been fingerprinted. We also submitted our paperwork to tell China that we are accepting the referral of Ming. Today that paperwork was sent to China. Now we just need to wait to hear from China that they have accepted us to pursue Ming's adoption. We hope to hear within a month.
This is obviously a huge leap of faith for us. We are well aware of the many challenges of adopting an older child, and it will be interesting to have Ming fit into the middle of our family (Ming is 5 weeks older than Madison). But the bottom line is that we believe God has ordained Ming to be in our family in just the same way that He has our other five children. We certainly need your prayers and encouragement. I look forward to updating you on our journey!