PART 1
At age 18 a strong desire began to grow in my heart. I was always a bit different in a way because I loved children so much. Being the town babysitter which began at around age 10, there were many children that were dear to my heart. During lunch at the private high school where I attended, while all the guys and girls were hanging around flirting with each other I was volunteering in the Kindergarten class. When I started dating, if I got a call to baby sit for one of my families even if it was last minute, my date would get dumped for a MUNCH younger guy (or girl)!!! I guess you can say that children have always been a very special part of my life.

While attending college in Atlanta, I began working for a nanny service. It was the perfect job! I worked evening and weekends, and during the summers I would travel with families to exotic places and get paid to go! After graduating college, it was finally my time… moving into a one bedroom penthouse apartment in Atlanta was like a dream come true. (I still keep in touch with my roommates in fact I love them like sisters, but ahhhh dreaming about a place all to myself, it’s what got me through college)! I lived in that apartment for one year and then started a daycare in a house that I rented.

I will never forget that first year after graduating college…

I had been dreaming of adopting a baby girl from China since I was a teenager and now it was finally possible for that dream to come true! After several months of research, talking with families who’d adopted from China, reading books on the subject, and praying about it, I selected an adoption agency in Atlanta that specialized in foreign adoption. Then I had to go and tell my parents that I was going to adopt as a single parent. It was difficult for then to understand my desire, but they could see how passionate I was about it.

I will never forget that year in the apartment, not only because I could open the french doors and watch the most beautiful sunrise while lying in bed, but because something happened there that would change my life forever. A promise was made to me one night in that special place. A promise that took 13 years to come true!…

After doing so much research, I know I wanted to adopt but I was also really scared. I would lie in bed at night and think about that little girl. In China, it is illegal to place a child up for adoption. The mother must abandon her child, usually in a public place where she or he will hopefully be found. (Families are only allowed one child in China and they typically want that child to be a boy). Then the child is usually placed in an orphanage. Depending on the orphanage, some children are left in cribs bound tightly in heavy blankets; only a bottle is placed into their mouths every so often, with no cuddling, no lullabies, no comforting, just being surrounded by other crying babies. This lack of human contact can cause a child to die. An environment such as this can cause serious, life long problems including the ability to bond and form healthy attachments and relationships. This really worried me. Not to mention the responsibility. I would be solely responsible for making ever decision for her. No help, no support it would just be me. Even still, the desire in my heart greatly outweighed any of my concerns.

I would think about staring into those dark brown eyes and how I would get lost in them, my beautiful little China doll with dark silky hair! I prayed for that little girl every day. It sounds so strange to pray for someone that not only have you never met, but really a person that might not even exist, but I prayed anyway. I prayed that whoever was watching over her would show her favor until I could get her. That they would bond and love her and comfort her when she cried, that they would feel compassion and mercy for her.

Don’t get me wrong, I did one day want to meet that special someone and have beautiful children and look into their eyes and see myself, and have people tell me, “Your children look just like you”. But that brown-eyed girl, there was a special place in my heart for her. Even if I never got her, I would never forget about her or stop praying for her.

One particular night, I woke up from a deep sleep. It felt like someone was pulling me out of bed as if to say, “Start praying, start praying for your little girl!”, so I did. I was a little scared, I felt like someone was in the room with me. I turned on a night light, (which happened to have a porcelain plate with an angle on it that my father had given to me). I got down on my knees. I began praying about this baby that I wanted so much. I prayed to God about all my thoughts, feelings, and concerns. I wanted her so much but for some reason I felt like the dream of having her was so out of reach. It felt like it was just a dream that it was never really going to come true. As badly as I wanted to go to China and get my baby girl, I couldn’t help but feel that it would never really happen. That night God spoke to my heart, He made me a promise. He promised that I would get that little brown- eyed, dark haired baby that I was so longing for.

Boom, the peace I was looking for I had found and Project Adopt a Baby officially started! After months of paperwork, red tape, social work, Home studies and praying, the documents were finally mailed to INS (Immigration and Naturalization Services). Once INS stamped their approval, all the documents would be sent to China and I would begin the (then 9 months) waiting period!

The entire process from start to finish was challenging and difficult to say the least. Almost every time I went out to get a paper signed or turn in a document, something would go wrong with my car. Often I wondered why it was such hard work. Did I have to work so hard to make it happen so that I would appreciate it more, or did I have to work so hard because it wasn’t really meant to be? I pondered over that question many, many times. But one thing was for sure, God made me a promise and I held on to it.

During the time of collecting documents and going through the process of a foreign adoption, something wonderful happened, I met my future husband. We hit it off and before long we were officially dating. Doug knew of my plans to adopt early on and was all for it. One of his best friends was adopted from Thailand, so he thought it was cool that I was going to adopt form China. During that time we also got engaged! Doug had said that after I adopted her, he could adopt her as well and we could be a family. But soon after, China changed their laws and I did not meet their new age requirements. Our Adoption Agency introduced some other countries to us, but my hearts desire was to adopt a baby from China…

I was very devastated, but Doug and I set a date to wed! When one door closes another one opens, right? I was very excited to become, “Mrs. Doug Powell”. We could have waited three more years until I reached the new requirement, but I didn’t want to do that to our relationship. We didn’t want to wait three more years to start our lives together. Doug promised that one day we would adopt a little girl. The next summer we got married, and 10 months later we had Mason, 2 years later came Bowen and 2 years after that, Adelaine was born! I was ecstatic each time a child was born to us! Each one was a dream come true, but I never forgot that other dream or that promise.

Many years had come and gone since that time in Atlanta, but I’d never forgotten the promise that God had made to me, nor had I ever stopped praying for that little girl which had grown in my heart so long ago. I never questioned if the night in my apartment was real or not. I have thought about that promise and what it may have meant. Maybe the little girl that I loved so much but had never met, maybe she died that year. Maybe I would meet her once I got in Heaven. Maybe God would say, “I spared our little girl so much of the heart-ache and grief that life can bring and I brought her here to protect her. Here she is, this is your girl”. Maybe she some how is with another family. I just felt that I should continue to pray for her and so I did. I have prayed for her all these years.

Last year while Adelaine was still in treatment, something began to happen. I starting praying that if we were never going to China to adopt a baby that God would take that desire away. Eventually He did, it didn’t happen overnight, but eventually it did happen. One day I just woke up and realized that the desire was completely gone! I began to realize that maybe the dark-eyed, dark haired little girl that had grown in my heart so many years ago was not Chinese at all.

It wasn’t until I was healed from that desire that Doug and I began taking classes in Tampa to foster a child (with the intent of adopting). This past summer I was talking to someone about our plans to adopt and how I couldn’t wait to see those beautiful dark brown eyes. They asked, “How do you know she will have brown eyes?” All I could say was, “I just think she will!”

On January 11th, 2009, I met a very special little girl who needed a mother’s love, a family. On January 14th she came to stay for a visit with us in our home. The first night she was here, while I was checking on the girls, she woke up. The light shown just enough that I could see her face, when she looked up at me, I knew. I knew that this was the girl God had promised to me that night at my apartment. After 13 years of waiting, wondering, praying, God has brought her to us. He has delivered his promise in a way that I could never have dreamed of!

This is only part 1 of our story. I can’t wait to share part 2. When I think about the rest of the story it completely blows me away. For now all I can say is that Anika and Adelaine have laughed and giggled for 3 days straight. This special girl is like the missing piece that completes the puzzle. Instead of now having “the girls” here and “the boys” here like we thought it would be, she has managed to bridge the gap and bring all the children closer together. She plays equally as well with the boys (especially Bowen) and with Adelaine. The social worker has extended her stay until Tuesday. Thankfully, today we did not have to say goodbye as originally planned. It’s so hard not to share all the ways God is working in this.

Falling, falling, falling in love,

Angela

PS The name Anika means “Sweet faced”!

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