Tuesday, September 13, 2011

OUR REFERRAL!

I know that it's been a while since my last post and now I can FINALLY explain why! As most of you know we have been patiently waiting on a referral. Well, in May I received an email from a friend who was in Ethiopia picking up her little boy. She explained that there was a little girl age 4-5 that was waiting on a family and she asked if we might be interested. I immediately called Stuart and he said "yes"! The trick was that she is with a different adoption agency so we would have to terminate with All Gods Children and switch to Celebrate Children International. So in May we started the process and to make an extremely long story short we have finally changed agencies and HAVE A REFERRAL!!!! I could not post anything until it was official and its been killing me.

So the details are: Her name is Marleigh Baredu McWhorter! She is 4 or 5 yrs old and she's ours! Stuart and I traveled to Ethiopia a few weeks ago and met her. The orphanage let us take her back to our hotel in Addis and spend a week getting to know our daughter. It was sooo amazing! It is obvious that she has been loved. She walked right up to us and gave us the biggest hug. The translator explained that we were her new "Mommy and Daddy" and we were in a puddle of tears. She doesn't understand any English so it was a week of charades but she understood that we love her and she loves us. It could not have gone any better.  We took her to the Dr while we were there and she is perfectly healthy. We were hoping for a clearer understanding of her age but we are still not sure. She has tiny little hands and feet but she is really smart and well coordinated. Her paperwork says that she is "Abandoned" with no family listed or birthdate.  I'm so sad for her but I have no doubt that GOD chose us and now she has family and we will celebrate her 5th birthday when she gets home. The hardest thing to do was leave her and fly home but I know that she is in good hands and we will be together again soon. We will travel again (hopefully) in December for her court date and then (hopefully) bring her home by February. Please pray for her process to go quickly!

Stuart and I have a hole in our hearts that won't be full until we get her home but we are overjoyed with the blessing that GOD has given us.

Lovingly,
Leigh Anne

3 comments:

  1. We are so stinkin excited. And you know that we are covering Marleigh in our prayers! Cannot wait til she is home. How fun to dream about her joining us for dance class and Wed night dinners! Love & Blessings, Aunt Kim

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  2. I hopped on here from the CCI page. Congratulations and I hope that the rest of the process is smoothing sailing for your family.

    Amy Wright

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  3. yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy....so happy for you guys....congrats congrats!! :)

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