A new baby girl awaits us!

Yesterday at 4:20pm, my phone rang. With one hand I was gripping a dripping paint brush (painting window casings) and with the other, I held my cell phone that showed that all important Virginia area code. Aaaahhh! finally. I didn't put the paint brush down, but held it there and heard the fantastic news that China had chosen another little girl for us! The call lasted 59 seconds, but the excitement that it caused could surely be heard by the neighbors and grips me still.

After I got off of the phone, I hollered the news to the kids. They both came running and screaming with glee! I, of course, had to finish my last window, so 20 minutes later, the 3 of us speakerphoned David to Lauren and Marcus' continued delight. He rushed home immediately. As we sat on the floor in our painting-mess living room, I showed him 4 precious pictures. He said, "Stephanie, she's beautiful!" And I, of course, cried. She is beautiful. I wish we could pass along pictures. As soon as all is official, we will post them here!

So, who is this little lady? Her name is Song Zi Yin for now. She is a baby for real. She's only 9 1/2 months old. She was born on January 4 of 2009. She is healthy and alert and strong and beautiful. She does have a bilateral cleft lip, but that will be fixed up very nicely shortly after arriving here. Right now she lives in the Guangdong province of China, very near Guangzhou where the US Consulate is (this is where the adoption will officially happen.) We don't know when we will get to go get her yet. We're hoping for some time in December, but they can promise nothing. So, we wait :).

We begin again. There are steps to go through and paperwork to fill out. This time it is with a better understanding of who's in charge (certainly not us). And maybe with less of an understanding of Who our God is. He is too big to completely figure out. Who am I kidding! He's so big I can barely scratch the surface. But to whom else shall we go!?

I have been thinking a lot of our Meilynn today. I'm so sad she can't have this. I still long for her and hurt for her lonliness. It's weird being so excited about our new girl when there's another girl who will miss out and whom we will miss out on. It's sobering. I pray for her with a different fervancy than yesterday as I imagine how necessary Jesus is to her - in a way only an orphan can understand. I pray that God would place her in a family or give her Himself in a way I can only imagine.

On a much lighter note, we are still looking for the perfect name. Do you have any ideas? Let us know!