He knows the desires of our hearts….

Among the many unique fees adoptive parents pay is something called the “orphanage child-rearing fee.” It is a fee paid directly to the orphanage your child has been in to thank and compensate the orphanage for the continuous care they have provided your child. It is a set fee for all orphanages and is not influenced by how long your child’s stay has been. Only a handful of provinces in China will accept this fee via wire. For all the rest, parents must hand carry the fee…in cash…to China. Compared to the cost of US child care for an equivalent amount of time, the fee is not unreasonable. However, when faced with physically carrying that amount on your person in crisp $100 bills on “planes, trains, and automobiles” all the way to China the amount is huge and becomes quite nerve-racking! This is the situation that has been facing us (and hundreds of other adoptive parents for that matter) as Lily’s province (Guangdong) does not accept wired fees. Now, as most of you know, Kevin is a police officer. For him, the thought of carrying huge amounts of cash has been uncomfortable to say the least.

Last Wednesday evening, I had been watching a PowerPoint on travel from our adoption agency. It discussed all of this at length. After watching it, I prayed for Kevin. I was praying that the Lord would grant him peace about carrying the cash and to not allow it to rob him of any joy on the travel to China.

God is SOOOOO good (no duh!)! The next day, I had an email from our agency in my inbox saying:

Great News! Your child’s orphanage has agreed to allow us to wire the orphanage child-rearing fee…

Is that not awesome! We did not ask any officials or agencies to do anything, and, honestly, I did not specifically ask the Lord to move mountains so we would be able to wire the fee. I only asked for peace...and God changed the hearts of a government bureaucracy in time for us to wire the fee (and not have to carry as much cash on our persons to China) and to grant my husband some peace.

Once again, exceedingly, abundantly above all I ask or imagine…He is my God!

In Him,