The Backstory

It happened right after Easter, when we were discussing the possibility of getting a dog. Our cat had died last December and the kids were asking for another pet. I had spent days researching the perfect breed, and asked Tom whether he thought we should buy a puppy from a breeder (so that we could be relatively assured about what traits the dog would have), or whether we should adopt a dog from a shelter. My husband said "If we're going to adopt anything, it should be another child!"

I was surprised, as we are now in our late forties and early fifties and our children, adopted domestically at birth, are older too. We had always wanted more children, but after three more adoption attempts that all fell through, we assumed that God's plan for some reason was for us to have only two children. "Adopt again, now?" I wondered, aloud. We decided to pray about it.

The next day was Divine Mercy Sunday, and we attended a healing service after Mass. As the priest laid hands on me, I asked God to help us discern his will, and to make it clear for us what he would have us do. THE NEXT DAY, while the Gospel account of the Annunciation was being proclaimed at daily Mass, I heard the Lord tell me, a woman who was not expecting to be a mother (again), that he was asking me to be the mother of a very special child. Both the Psalm and the Old Testament readings contained the verse "Here I am Lord, I come to do your will."

Who, me?

That clear sign I had asked for? It was right there. Unmistakable.

I called my husband to tell him, he responded "You don't have to convince me, let's do it!" Only TWO DAYS from idea inspiration to confirmation in prayer. It was definitely from God. If it was from me, I'd still be hemming and hawing about it, researching it to death and stuck in fear, unable to make a decision.

But now what? We didn't feel the desire or call to adopt an infant or toddler. We wondered, could we be called to adopt an older child? This is something that in the past we would never have considered. Everyone knows that those children are too damaged, too hard, too scary.

Except that our God is the God who removes all fear. Who opens hearts and gives grace. Who calls us to care for the orphan and tells us all things are possible with Him.

I called a friend who adopted two orphans from China over the last couple of years. I didn't know which countries were doing international adoption right now, which agencies were good in our area, how to even get started. I asked if she knew anything about how to find older children. She told me that there was such a thing as older orphan hosting, where a child would come live with your family for a month or so during the summer, and you could meet each other to see if a match might be a good for both that child and your family. She suggested that I start researching this option at RainbowKids, an advocacy site for special needs orphans (being older is one type of special need).

I started visiting several of the eighteen different hosting programs and quickly became overwhelmed. I contacted my friend to ask:

I clicked on photolisting after photolisting. The blonde-haired blue-eyed kids from Poland, Latvia and the Ukraine were darling. The Chinese children were precious. And of course there were plenty of kids in the U.S. foster care system as well. Hmm, Colombia has a program? I'd always wanted to improve my Spanish, and had an affinity for Latin America, having vacationed in Mexico and Puerto Rico.

And then it happened.

Jean Carlos

Jean is an outgoing, agreeable, and affectionate 12 year old. He is in the 5th grade and is a good student. 

He currently lives in a foster home in Colombia and is in good health. Jean is helpful, cooperative, and attentive to his foster mom and others in the house. 

Jean Carlos is Catholic and drawn to everything religious. He attends Mass every Saturday evening with his foster family and prays the rosary every night before going to bed. 

Jean would like an adoptive family that loves him, supports him, guides him, spends a lot of time together, and makes him feel like part of the family.

That smile. Those eyes. He shares our faith. And most especially, he looked like he would fit right in with our other brown boys.

I called Tom at work and told him I was sending him links to a few different photolistings from different countries and asked him to take a look. I didn't mention Jean, as I was curious to see if Tom would feel drawn to consider any other children.

He called me back a little later and said "Did you see Jean Carlos from Colombia? I really like him."

They say "When you know, you know." They are usually talking about finding your spouse. In this case it is about finding our child. We know. We have been called and we have been led to our child. We knew before we even called to get more information that he was the one. We knew so clearly that we started our homestudy before we even met him.

That not understanding why, years ago, those other three adoptions all fell through? Maybe, just maybe, it was because God had a different, better idea. One that required us to have space in our family, as it is not usually a good idea to adopt children older than your oldest child. One that necessitated us having some more parenting experience under our belts. One that foreknew that a very special child was going to need a family now, in 2016.

And thank God for that.