God is Amazing! part 2

I have continued to see God's faithfulness and plan in the lives of friends going through the adoption process. I posted earlier about a friend who went from planning to adopt from Thailand to finding her son in India. Now, I want to tell the story of three families who planned to adopt from Taiwan. :) (If you've read this blog from the beginning, you may have figured out that we are one of the families who initially planned to adopt from Taiwan.)

During the late winter/early spring of 2011, there were three families researching adoption. All three looked into Taiwan and initially thought they would adopt from there. One family applied to an orphanage ministry called His Hands in February. The other two families (this family and us) contacted the ministry a little later and learned that since they weren't currently accepting applications, we would need to be on the waitlist to apply. Not long after, we found that the Thailand program had opened and we decided to apply.

So, at this point around April 2011, one family had an application in Taiwan, one was on the waitlist and the third was switching to Thailand. Time passed and we all waited. Then, suddenly at the beginning of this year (2012), the family on the waitlist to apply to His Hands heard about a domestic adoption opportunity. They pursued as they felt God's leading and were chosen by the birth mother to parent a little girl born in Florida! The full story of their journey to their daughter can be found in this post. But some of the coolest parts are how God had connected them with a different orphanage in Taiwan so that they would have completed a home study which allowed them to have their "parent profile book" and home study ready in less than a week when they heard about the birth mother in Florida. Their daughter was born that week. The timing was absolutely perfect.

Not long afterwards, at the end of March 2012, the remaining family planning to adopt from Taiwan was told by His Hands that as a result of the new adoption laws passed in Taiwan, couples under the age of 30 would no longer be eligible to adopt. This new law was believed to take effect at the end of May 2012. Any matched families who had submitted their paperwork to the courts would be allowed to proceed with their adoptions. Which meant that unless they received a referral, completed all the paperwork and got it all submitted to court in Taiwan before the end of May, they would have to start the adoption process all over again somewhere else. At this point they were second in line for a referral, but it is a very small program. April passed, they completed some of the paperwork ahead of time to prepare and the family ahead of them got a referral. Then on May 7, they got their son's referral! Their paperwork was submitted to the courts the next week. God's timing was absolutely perfect, even giving them a couple of weeks to spare. :)

It has been amazing to see what God has done, especially in light of what could have happened. If our family and the family who adopted from Florida had stayed in the Taiwan program, we would both have to switch programs now because we are both under 30 and were behind the other family in the process. Instead, God led us to our alternate paths and provided perfectly for each of our families.

He is amazing and now, out of the three families, it is our turn for our referral! :)