We got a referral!

Yesterday was the day we had waited almost six months for!  I got "the call" from our social worker at 9:41 AM.  I had just arrived at the clinic for my physical therapy appointment.  I wasn't sure if it was our social worker, but I was hoping it was.  I had a dream that night that we had gotten the "the call."  It was certainly her with the news we had been waiting for.  I got a pen and a journal out of my purse.  The journal was the one that I usually take to church with me, and I had intentionally left it in my purse just for this reason. I tried to add James to the call.  He did not pick up.  We had agreed that if I got the call and he could not come to the phone that I was to go ahead and take the information from our social worker.  So I began to take down the information.  James did call back while I was on the phone, but I could not think straight enough to figure out how to merge his call in. I took down the rest of the information, and I managed to keep it together until I got off the phone.  I called James back.  As soon as I heard his voice the tears began to flow.  He wasn't sure if I was calling with good news or bad!  I composed myself enough to talk and gave him the information I had written down.  We made plans for me to meet him at his office after I got finished with therapy.  After I got there we would open the email from our social worker see her pictures for the first time together.

It was tempting to go ahead an open the email on my phone, but I waited.  My therapist is a brother in the Lord and I told him our good news.  He rejoiced with me.  I got finished with my appointment and went home to get our cameras.

We called my parents while I was on the way to James' office.  They were thrilled! We called James' mom, but she was not at home.  We got in touch with both of his parents later.  His mom was at a funeral home with a friend of hers who had lost her mother.  We were able to reach her there.

One of James' coworkers, shot a little video and took some pictures for us.

We are smitten.  She is six months old.  Their are so many details about her short life so far that confirm to us that God has hand picked her for our family.  We cannot post pictures online until she is home with us, so I have blurred them out for now.  We are not allowed to shared much information about her online either at this point.  After calling a few more of our family members, we went out for lunch at this Mexican Restaurant.  The weather yesterday was just perfect and we ate outside.  I called a sweet friend of ours who is also adopting from Ethiopia.  They received their referral last month.  She is a physician and I gave her some of Samantha's information so she could plot out growth charts for us.

After lunch, I came back home and made more phone calls and shared the news with some of our neighbors.  We made some copies of her pictures and I showed one of them to the doggies.  I hope they become good companions for Samantha.

I hung one picture on the fridge.  We don't have frames yet.

We are still on cloud nine.  We are amazed at the number of people that God has put in our lives who already love her and are awaiting her homecoming.