The Rest of the Story

If you notice the counter at the top of this blog, you will see that today marks the one year anniversary of when we were officially matched with Sophia.  In just a few short days (10, to be exact!) we will meet her for the very first time in person.  Wow!

If you are a newer follower of our journey, you may not know that God specifically brought Sophia to our attention twice in our quest to find our daughter in Taiwan.  We were "logged in", so to speak, with the orphanage our agency works with, but due to an increased interest in Taiwanese adoptions, the matching had slowed way down.  We were not looking for a baby, however, so our agency contact told us to keep checking the waiting children listing.  A few months earlier I had been checking around on other agencies' waiting children listings, and had requested information on a little girl listed with another agency.  The social worker attempted to get information for us, but couldn't find anything out from her contacts in Taiwan.  Meanwhile, we found another little girl on our agency's listing.  There was something about her pouty lips that looked familiar, but it never crossed my mind that I was looking at the same little girl that I had requested information on earlier.  The photo was different (she was older), the birthdates were different by a few days, and her name was spelled differently.

After we had been officially matched with Sophia, I met another adoptive mom who was adopting from Taiwan with our agency.  She was excited that we were adopting Sophia, as she had seen her photo as well, and was praying for a family for her.  She clued me in to another waiting children listing where Sophia was listed.  You guessed it...it was the same site where I had first seen Sophia and had requested her information!  What a way for God to confirm to us that Sophia was our daughter!

When we received Sophia's documents to review, we realized what had happened.  She had been with one foster family her first year and a half of life, but was switched about two years ago now.  The first family was in a different location that was probably supervised by a different orphanage.  So she was listed with an agency that used that orphanage.  Then, when she was moved to her current foster family, her file switched to Cathwel, our orphanage.  That's why the other agency social worker couldn't find any updated information on her.  We know that she was moved at just the right time for us to be able to find her with our agency because God willed it.  That's the kind of God we serve!

This is one of the first photos we saw of Sophia.  She is probably around two years old in this photo.

So now you know...the rest of the story!