And then God changed everything.... Part 1

I am marveling over the fact that I am about to write the miraculous story of our second adoption, when I still have yet to write all the miracles surrounding Ethan's adoption!  That is sort of frustrating, and I am sorry it is all going to be a bit out of order, but I will write tonight about the story of how we were matched with this precious little one, and then another day soon, I will write more about how it all happened with Ethan (especially his birth story which is AMAZING!).  Until then though, this is the story of Malachi James.

As many know, for the past 11 months we have been pursuing an adoption through Foster to Adopt.  Jake and I adored our experience with Ethan, and it was mightily blessed by God. We couldn't believe he shifted us from our international adoption with South Korea, to an infant adoption in California, something that we swore we would never do.  God has his own plan however, and we are so glad he does!!  Ethan is a delight, and a bright shiny light on any and all dark days. However, even though we had an amazing experience with him, and the agency the Lord led us to to adopt him from, we decided not to pursue another domestic infant adoption for several reasons.  One, was that we just couldn't afford another domestic infant adoption.  Two, was that we do have a passion for siblings, and for older children.  Of course we love babies, but doesn't everyone?  We thought for sure that doing older kids, possibly siblings, was the way to go for our next adoption.  Not to mention, it is a free adoption when you adopt through the state. We briefly considered international adoption, but knew straight away that this would not suite our family and where we were at, and again, financially, it just wasn't possible.
   So we started our homestudy officially last September with an agency that works hand in hand with the counties.  This homestudy was our longest one ever.  The agency we went through was a delightful little office, with warm and friendly women.  But they were sincerely understaffed, so everything took twice as long as it should have.  We completed our homestudy officially in March, after a long 6 months of interviews, paperwork, fingerprinting, and well....more interviews and paperwork! When we completed the Homestudy, we honestly thought children would quite literally be thrown at our door.  We prepared the house, the beds, our hearts, and our kids.  And we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Nothing.  Not even a call.  We stayed in contact with our matching coordinator and she let us know that she was trying but there just weren't that many kids who met our criteria.  Say what?? We were open to special needs, older kids, siblings, and children with learning disabilities for crying out loud. Wasn't this the description of all the kids in desperate need of homes?  But what she was having trouble with was not the things we were open to, but the things we were not.  Things like children who act out sexually towards other children (due to prior sexual abuse). We just couldn't have that with having three other young children in the home.  Another thing that we decided was a "no go", were children who acted out very violently to other children and animals.  Our concern wasn't as much for our 11 and 9 year old, but more for little Ethan, who at a year and a half, is pretty defenseless. One other thing that we had said was that we were open to a level 1, 2, and 3, risk, but not 4 or 5.  In Foster lingo those numbers represent the "risk" of that child being returned to the custody of the parents. Level 1 are children whose parents have lost their rights, and are awaiting families and free to adopt (these are very rare for many reasons). Level 2 means that the children in this category have a high likelihood of NOT being returned to the parents, and are very close to being free to adopt. Level 3 are children they think will more than likely not be returned to the parents, but they have not determined for sure yet.   While we try to have respect for the system and how it works (although we do have some qualms, we know we are not experts either), we didn't feel comfortable with Fostering alone, so levels 4 and 5 were out.  We felt very passionate about adopting a child waiting for a forever family. And lastly, we were not open to children older than Jacob's age of 9, as he was passionate about keeping his birth order and not wanting children older than him.  We really wanted to honor that for him.
   What we were hearing from the agency, was that there were plenty of children who didn't act out sexually, but they were violent.  And there were plenty of non-violent children, but thy acted out sexually.  And there were some who had neither of those issues, but they were older than 9.  And some that fit all of those, but they were a level 4 or 5, meaning that they were likely to return to their original homes shortly.    We were discouraged, but not disheartened.  We figured all it would take was some time and some prayer, and the Lord would bring whom he wanted into our family when He felt the time was right.
   In the meantime, one day while I was doing homeschool with the children, I get a message from a dear friend asking if I saw the baby on Facebook available for adoption. She had heard about the child on the Facebook page of a woman in our homeschool group.  I was not "Facebook Friends" with that woman, although I knew her from the homeschool get togethers.  So I "friend requested" her so that I could learn more.  Just out of curiosity.  A few days later she accepted my friend request and I scanned through her posts to find the one about the baby.  I found it.  All it said was that there was a baby born in LA with Down Syndrome and that the parents wanted to place the baby for adoption. The adoptive parents would have to homestudy ready and live in California.  I read it a second time, and thought...."hmmmm".   My husband passed by me at the computer a few hours later and I said "We wouldn't really consider adopting a baby with Downs Syndrome right now would we?".  He looked at me and said "Why wouldn't we?".  I said " ummm, well, it's a life long commitment, and we are pursuing siblings through the foster care system, so that's why I thought maybe we wouldn't".  I then told him about the baby I had read about, and he asked me to write the woman in the contact area of the post to get more information.  I did.  And we waited.  She got back to us about 5 days later and said all she had was an email for a lawyer, and that if we wanted to be considered for the baby, then we were to send our homestudy/profiles, to the Lawyer.  I asked my husband that night if we should do it, and he said "Let's talk about it in the morning".  That's what I get for asking late at night ;-)   The next morning came and as I awoke and wiped the sleep out of my eyes, I saw my husband getting his Army boots on while readying for work.  I said "So what are we thinking?"  He had his back to me at the time and said "Well, it's a life time commitment.  I know full well all that a Down's diagnosis entails" (his little brother has Down Syndrome).  He continued... "I know it would be hard and he would need care for life, but I don't think God is going to let me retire to the easy life anytime soon, so I might as well be doing that.  And truly, if we were ever going to do anything that flew in the face of what this world says is good and valuable, and what this world says is not,  it would be this.   Send our profile, let's leave it in Gods hands.  If we get picked, he was meant for us, if not, then he wasn't".  And so I did.  That morning.  A few days later I got an email in reply from the Lawyer letting us know that they Birth Family had narrowed down the options to three families and that we were not one of the three.  We had complete peace about it knowing that we had trusted the Lord for the decision from the get go, so we praised the Lord that he would have a home soon.
Come back tomorrow for Part 2