If you had asked me five years ago what I thought God had planned for our lives, I would have confidently stated to raise my two daughters to love and serve God, and for my husband Greg and I to continue in our ministries at church. My youngest daughter had just started kindergarten, and after 7 years of staying home with both of our girls, I had started back to work. 
As the fun children's song goes . . .
God specializes in surprises
You never know what he's gonna do
You gotta believe
'cause he knows what you need
and he's got some good surprises for you!
And so He did! Now, just four years later, our family has grown from four to six, and we are once again on our way to China to make it seven.
Our son Nicholas was our first surprise. We were 38 years old when he was born in September, 2003. I remember thinking at the time, "I am too old for this." Now as a 3 year old, he certainly keeps me on my toes!
God has a way of changing your way of thinking though, and in the summer of 2005, He planted a seed in our hearts, and we began looking into adoption. After much prayer and research, we felt led to China.
Nine months later, in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province of China, our son Daniel was placed in our arms. He has been such a joy and a wonderful blessing to our family. (And after all, age is just a number, right?)
We had only been home for two months, and once again my heart strings were being pulled to China. I had a strong feeling that I had a daughter there waiting on us to find her. It didn't take long for us to find the beautiful face of our daughter looking back at us from our agency's waiting child list.
Dang Xiao Feng was 9 years old, and we knew right away that we wanted her to be a part of our family. However, we also knew that it would take a miracle, because we had been home such a short time from our last trip to China for our son, and we never dreamed that we would be allowed to adopt again so quickly. There is usually a requirement of waiting one year between adoptions. However, because both Daniel and Xiao Feng were considered special needs, our agency was very open to allowing us to submit a Letter of Intent for Xiao Feng. We were so excited!
Currently we are waiting to see if the China Center for Adoption Affairs will allow us to proceed with our adoption of Xiao Feng and give us pre-approval. If they want us to wait, we will of course, but it will be so hard.
All in God's timing . . .
Jer. 33:3 "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not."
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