"My First Love"...

That got your attention, didn't it? :-) I want to take this opportunity to tell you about a very special little boy named Noah. Noah still lives in Elijah's former orphanage, but he has a family coming for him VERY soon! I'm so excited for him to finally have his forever family, and I'm very excited for his new family!  I know they will be so blessed by him. I want to tell you about an awesome fundraiser they are doing, then I'll tell you why Noah is so special to me.
























Noah's family is raising funds for their in-country expenses by hosting a give-away for an awesome Nikon Digital SLR!!! (Oh, how I would love to win this camera! You can bet I'll be donating so I can have a chance of winning it!)


Please visit their blog to find out more how you can receive some chances to win this awesome camera! Plus, just by posting this give-away on your blog or facebook, your name will be entered into a drawing for a $25 gift card from Bath & B*dy Works. Cool, huh?  If you click here, it will bring you to the main page of their family website. You might enjoy getting to know them a bit better.  I've gotten to know Grace, Noah's new mom, just a little bit over the past few months and really admire her for the integrity she is showing in this adoption process. They are a homeschooling family too!

Ok, onto Noah. :-)  Some of you that have been around here since the beginning may remember how the Lord spoke to me one night while I was looking at the RR website. I saw this beautiful baby photo of a little boy, listed as "Aloysha". God spoke to me (well, not in an audible voice or anything, but just a thought that would NOT leave me for days. I tried to get him out of my mind, but couldn't!). He said, "That's your son."  If you want the long version of this story, click here and scroll down to the last paragraph.  :-)



This is the sweet baby face that catapulted me into the adoption world!
How could anyone say no to those piercing eyes? 

 So, we started our home study process. On July 17th, we got updated photos of "Aloysha". Oh my goodness. He was so precious and cried over the new photos. What a sweet honey! These are the photos we used on the blog and on our prayer cards that everyone is familiar with. This photos are what cemented our decision, the boy we fell in love with, and the boy our church family fell in love with. AFTER we received these photos, we officially committed to bringing "Aloysha" home, who is now our beloved Elijah of course. Those last two sentences are important. :-)

Sometime the first week in August or the end of July, we received word that this photo above was not actually "Aloysha", but a different little boy with Ds. It was Aloysha's DOB, his medical listings, etc, but not his photo. I have to admit I did have mixed feelings about this. Like I said, we had fallen in love with the updated photos of Aloysha and we were preceding with his adoption no matter what. But why did this happen? Why did God call me to this other little face if it was not who we were supposed to bring home? OR WERE WE???  Did this happen because God wanted us to bring both of them home??? So, we prayed and prayed and prayed some more. Finally, the Lord brought both Pat and I to a place of unity and felt the Lord saying that he had another family for this little boy. Well, if you haven't figured it out yet, this sweet baby above is NOAH!  As it is obvious we did not bring Noah home with Elijah, Noah did end up getting listed on RR because of this case of mistaken identity AND he DOES have a family coming for him!  I couldn't be more thrilled that the Silva family is Noah's family.

Before any prospective adoptive moms freak out over this, please know this is a very unusual case. The system over in EE is not computerized, it's all paper. And the two little boys do (or did anyway) look a lot alike. Below is the side by side I made of the baby photo with Elijah and Noah's new photos next to it. I studied and studied it. I think Sarah said it best when she said, "It's like the baby morphed into 2 different little boys." 

Side-by-side comparison of the baby photo with Elijah on the top and Noah on the bottom.

 
But, if you look close at the eyes and shape of the forehead, you can see it's Noah. Plus, after actually seeing Noah in "real life", there is no question in my mind that the baby photo is Noah. It is truly amazing to me how God worked this all out. I am so excited that God used that one photo to rescue TWO little boys from the fate of an institution. To Him be the Glory!
 
I pray that you will take this opportunity to help Noah come home to his family that God designed for him from the beginning. Won't you please help?  Oh, also, don't forget to visit Sarah's blog, as she is also selling her handmade items to help Noah. Also, please consider adding her button to your blog. You'll find it on the top left of my blog.

So, now, you know "the rest of the story"...well, until tomorrow's post that is... LOL