Jacob’s Story
In December of 2005, I was looking at waiting child lists of children in China. I fell in love with one little boy from Datong but before my husband could decide if he wanted to adopt again, another family stepped forward to adopt him. I began to look at other waiting child lists, thinking that perhaps God had a different little boy for us. Only one other boy pulled strongly at my heart. He was also at Datong and had spina bifida. We considered moving forward to adopt him, but God just didn’t give us the go-ahead in our hearts. Shortly after that, we were contacted by the agency who had the first little boy's file saying that the family who originally wanted him, had backed out. We knew he was our son--whom we named Jordan!!
A month or two passed and I continued to check the website of the second little boy. Week after week, he didn’t have a family. I began to pray and advocate for him on every adoption list I could think of. Still no one looked at his file. Finally I began to feel led to check into pursuing him ourselves after seeing several messages about China allowing two adoptions at once. After several weeks of persistent pleading, the agency who had his file agreed to petition the Chinese government on our behalf. We were just starting paperwork for Jordan, so we asked our social worker to approve us for two children in our homestudy. We also petitioned BCIS for approval for two children, rather than one the way we usually do. During that time, God very clearly gave us the name, "Jacob" and we knew that our next son would have this name. The verses He used were: Isaiah 44: 3,5 "...I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants...One will say, "I belong to the Lord'; another will call himself by the name of Jacob."
While we waited for news from China, God gave Jeff a verse that he wrote out and we tacked up on the refrigerator. It was: "You are my King and my God, who decrees victories for Jacob." Psalm 44:4 After a month of waiting—and being so confident that God was going to do a huge miracle for us-- we got the answer from China. It was, ‘No.” We were stunned. God had so very clearly given us the name, “Jacob.” We knew He had a Jacob for us. If it was not this second little boy in China, who was it? Where was he?
After encouragement from God to look for him, “leave the 99 sheep and search for the one that is lost,” I began to search other countries and waiting lists of children with special needs. Month after month yielded no results. Guatemala was the country that continued to be forefront in my heart, though. I asked God what type of special need I was supposed to be looking for, and he impressed on my heart that our next son had a congenital hand defect. Over the next week, I saw three different people with congenital hand defects and it seemed to confirm in my heart that God was leading in that direction. (I haven’t seen anyone with a hand defect since!) Eventually, I left my name with the Guatemala coordinator for The Shepherd’s Crook ( http://www.theshepherdscrook.org/ ), a ministry that helps agencies place children with Special Needs.
She told me that she rarely had children with that type of special need in Guatemala, but put our names on her list, just in case. I also contacted agencies about other countries and was told that they also ‘rarely’ saw a child with that SN. I started to wonder if maybe Jacob WAS in China after all, since that type of special need is not uncommon there.
About six weeks before we were scheduled to leave for China to get Jordan, there was an email in my inbox titled: “I have a little someone I want you to meet.” It was a three month old baby boy in Guatemala with six fingers on each hand. After a lot of prayer, I felt confident that this little boy was our Jacob. After three weeks, Jeff, however, was not so sure. He had two objections: 1., He did not want to adopt from a different country than China where he was comfortable with the program, and 2., He did not want to do two adoptions at once. God—ever faithful—answered Jeff’s objections with the following scripture where Rebekah asks God about the twins she is carrying: Genesis 25:23 “The Lord said to her, ‘Two nations are in your womb…’” Jeff said it addressed both his concerns…that there were two children at once…and that they were from separate nations. Neither one of us felt we could question God about funds, since we had just told our small group not to worry about money if God called you to adopt. Ha!
So we were off and running! We were scheduled to leave for China in two weeks! Since our homestudy was already approved for two, and our US Immigration approval was for two, we had the hardest part already completed--we just needed an addendum to our homestudy. I spent the next week doing nothing but adoption paperwork and was able to complete our dossier and send it to our agency. I had not planned on doing an entire dossier two weeks before going to China! Ha! I was very stressed by the end of THAT week!
While in China, as we saw the costs mounting for both adoptions, Jeff shared with me a verse God had given him in regard to the money situation. Ecclesiastes 11:1-2 “Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again. Give portions to seven, yes to eight...” Now Jeff is fond of telling me that “Eight is enough!” I told him to take that up with God. haha
We were told that the wait would be approximately 6-9 months after our dossier arrived in Guatemala, so we anticipate bringing Jacob home sometime during the summer of 2007 if all goes well. His given name is Tony, so we are naming him Jacob Anthony. His birthdate is July 14, 2006.
"Jacob I have loved..." Romans 9:13
