The Road Not Taken

I could not sleep tonight as my mind was racing about our impending trip to China to get little Ava. I then began to think about the circumstances that has brought us to this point in our lives. Not long ago, Elizabeth and I had grand dreams about waiting until Connor and Frankie were done with college, then retiring and purchasing an RV and traveling around the USA and Canada. Then came one day at work when I had just enough time to scan the Washington Times and happened upon a story called "Angels in Adoption" which told the story of Steven Curtis Chapman and his adoption of two little girls from China. I read it, and called Elizabeth at her work and left a message on her voicemail that maybe it was time we thought about adopting a little girl from China. She called back an hour or so later, asking if I was serious, to which I replied that I thought that I was. We talked a little about it and I remember saying that I knew that we did not have thousands of dollars just laying around, but if we could not do this, then who could? We were better off than probably 99% of the worlds population and we could really make a difference in the life of a child. She said she would think about it for a few days. There we were, at that point in the poem by Robert Frost, where he happened upon a fork in the road, and could not take them both. What path would we take? A few days later, on our wedding anniversary, Elizabeth gave me as a present a little pink picture frame that had the word "Princess" on it. Clueless, I had no idea what that meant. I then opened a card and there was a petition to adopt a foreign born orphan. That was it, we took the path "less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." That article appeared in the paper on September 30, 2003, and 0n September 14, 2005, Elizabeth, Frankie, Connor, and myself were aboard a Continental Airlines flight from Newark New Jersey to Beijing China. Shortly, we would meet Zhang Shen Wen in the city of Nanchang, and our family was increased by one. Words fail miserably to describe the feelings I felt when I saw our new daughter for the first time. "Miraculous" I guess comes closest. In that same newspaper article that got this whole thing started, a man named Geoff Moore says "Adopting was as profound as any experience I've ever had in my life. As a Christian ... I've come to believe that God is in the adoption business..". Well, I think he got that right.

Now, we are on the cusp of going back for little Ava Elizabeth. I can not wait.

P