The Question We Are Asked the Most

It's incredible and surreal, but absolutely true. We are traveling overseas in September or October to pick up our daughter, a 4 year old little girl who currently lives in an orphanage in China. We were matched with her about 10 weeks ago after a very long wait. Her name will be changed from Jiang Hai Mei to Collins Mei Toth. Collins was my grandmother's maiden name. From what the orphanage has told us, she is something else! Her favorite thing to do is to sing and dance. She is quite the extrovert and LOVES to talk. Long before we were matched with her, I brought before God a sort of quirky request. Would he give us a little girl that was funny? My teenage boys would really enjoy that. My dad and grandmother were both funny, and they are both living in heaven now. The FIRST characteristic given to us about this child in her paperwork? That she had a "quick wit". You can actually look into her eyes in her picture and see it!

The question we are asked the most is, "How and why did you decide to do this?" It doesn't make alot of sense. We are on the cusp of an empty nest. Spencer is leaving for college this week on the complete opposite side of the country and Conner is starting his junior year in high school. We're no spring chickens. I'm 46 and Carl is 55. We certainly didn't have the money to pull this off. We're some of the busiest people I know already, barely able to juggle it all. And yet the raw truth is God spoke and led us specifically to do this specific thing. I think He delights in guiding our paths to do things that are out of the box. Things that don't make sense, things we can't do on our own. He lives completely out of the box we try to put Him in, in our very limited view of things. As we listen to Him and follow, He calls us to live out of the box. Out of what's comfortable. Out of what's ordinary and mundane. He is a dynamic God that is moving and working and pressing His light into very dark places. I know the heart of a child who has no one to love them has got to be one of the saddest, darkest places in the world. And so, He spoke to us and told us to do this. It came over time. There was a desire for more children. A fear of living with regret at the end of my life. It began coming at me in different ways, from Scripture, circumstances, radio programs, magazine articles... One night I was wide awake at 3:00 a.m., wrestling in my spirit about this decision. I prayed, "Lord, could you give me something NOW to guide me in this?" I climbed the steps to check on my boys, grabbed a Bible in Conner's room, opened it and began to read in Matthew. Just a few verses in, and there it was: "He who welcomes a little child in My name, welcomes Me." Crystal clear. Done.

It took Carl awhile longer. I tried not to manipulate or "spiritualize" it, because if this is what we were to do, he would be shown in time too. In the fall of 2005, the call was clear and undeniable. We told our families that Christmas. In their best estimate, Collins Mei Toth was born in the fall of 2005.