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About Elijah
 Why? How?
There are some of the questions I have gotten. Our
agency is Madison Adoption, they are small, but I have
loved working with them so far. Our agency also has a
yahoo group and you can ask to join and SEE all the kids
still available on their list along with the group of kids
available from the camp they just did in China in
February. Or you can go to the blog they did just for
this camp they had called Ox camp. There were about 30-40
kids that attended that camp in Tianjin (our boy being one
of them). Madison went and interviewed them, spent time
with them, and thus made them available for international
adoption with their agency. The exciting part is that the
officials from the CCAA attended the camp, loved what they
saw and asked them to come back THIS SUMMER! MAA just
returned from this second camp. This means MAA has even
more SN kiddos available this summer! All of the kids
from this first camp are SN and were ages 3-13. Right now
they have at least 50 kids waiting for their forever
families. That my friends is EXCITING stuff!!
I first inquired about our boy back in February. Wait,
back up a minute. I heard of an agency doing a camp for
these kids through some adoption board I am on, don't
honestly remember which at this point, might have been the
rate your China SN adoption agency, but don't quote me on
that one, anyway, I went over to check it out. I asked to
join the MAA yahoo group stating we wanted to adopt again,
at some point, I mean I could look, advocate for some
kiddos, right? I was so drawn to this one little boy, oh
there were SEVERAL CUTE boys and girls on this list,
several, but him, there was something about him. And…
and…. and, his paperwork, well it looks just like our
Emmali's did. NOW BEFORE YOU CALL ME CRAZY, oh wait, no
one here would call me crazy, you all might just think it,
you wouldn't say it, no you all wouldn’t do that :) I know
how to "do" this SN. I know what to expect, it's all
good. AND the best thing is Madison spent time with him,
they interviewed him and it seems to me that he, although
a year younger than Emmali, is ahead of where Emmali is
now, that is good news! Will it be work? Will there be
challenges? Sure, but I feel in my heart this time will
be easier, maybe because, well, I know what I am getting
into to, or maybe I just am ready, don't know how I know,
just do. Anyway, that day I first saw him, I showed him
to Dan. Now let me say, I show LOTS of pictures to Dan,
lots. I email him with photos of adorable little kiddos
when he is at work, almost daily I see some "cute little
face" and show him. This time we both looked and went on
like we do every other time, except.......... that night,
neither of us slept. It wasn't a bad not sleeping, we
just couldn't get him off our minds.
 Dan informed me the
next morning, "thanks a lot, I didn't sleep any, I could
not stop thinking about him all night". We then made lots
of excuses and reasons why we couldn't, one of the main
ones being, China wouldn't say yes, would they. Dan said
email the agency, it can't hurt to ask. I inquired. I
was told if that was the only reason, the reason that we
had only been home about 5 months, it wasn't a good one,
China waives it all the time for a SN child, then I was
honestly told there were a few families interested and if
I were really drawn to him to submit the initial form
(which cost nothing, they charge you nothing till you are
matched) and wait and see. So that is what we did. I
waited and waited, the first time for over a week. I then
emailed them again just to see where they were in the
process and watched the website daily to see if he were
"matched". She told me they were closed that day do to a
snow storm and that she was unsure but would find out and
get back to me. I then waited another week, and emailed
again. I got an email saying to call her. I did. I
shook and trembled through the entire phone call. Not
because of fear, I was just trying not to get "attached".
She was so nice, explained they had some paperwork issues
with the CCAA they were trying to get worked out, which
had been the day I was talking to her. She told me there
was still one family ahead of us and that they work with
one family at a time. She asked me several questions. I
explained why we were so drawn to him, why we waited to
submit our initial paperwok etc. She mentioned I never
mentioned he was cute. I said well sure he is adorable,
but that is not why I am so drawn to him, there are
several reasons, and I also said cute will only get you so
far, you'd better choose to love because only love is what
takes you all the way. She promised we'd know something
soon. I..... waited....... another......... week. An
eternity!!!
I received a phone call on March 13, 2009 at
11:51AM, I looked at the caller id, Madison is what it
read. I picked up the phone calmly answered and then I
was surprised to hear the words I heard. They were going
to call me to inform me of their interviews with him, but
this was not that lady, this was the person I had worked
with the whole time. She then said, thank you for being sooo patient. I won't go into all that happened but I
will say it was amazing, and then she offered me the
referral. I accepted, without even talking to my husband,
wow, I just realized that, I mean sure he knew, he would
say yes, obviously he would say yes, I then called him at
work to tell him, he had another son!
 Elijah is 4! He is currently with a foster family. When
our agency was in China in February of this year and asked
him if he would like a pet, he answered he would love to
have “a tiger, a monkey, or an elephant!” Well little man,
how about a few dogs and bird?? We have finished the paper
work and are waiting for approvals. We need to pray for
all the money to be there when we need it. Hey God did it
the first time, He'll do it again. And pray for Elijah
until we can get to him. I am thinking about 2 months or
so. Putting me in China one year from the last time I was
there. I assure you we knew we would be back, but I don't
think either of us knew it would be so soon!!!
Elijah turned 4 this past March 26. He is in Tianjin
China. Another amazing thing through all of this, is that
Elijah’s foster sister just came home this past November.
They have an adoption site here too, her name is Maili.
Maili’s family and our family were with the same agency
the first time and we had been in contact with each other
because of those adoptions, isn’t it just like God to do
that for both of us? Maili’s mom, Angela has been so
great, she sent me pictures of Maili and Elijah together
with their foster family, once again I am amazed at this
wonderful “family” I have in the adoption community!
You see once again, back in February that I thought that
was where this story ended, but I was wrong. A few months
after that there was another little guy still not matched,
and I could NOT understand why. I felt again drawn to this
little guy and wondered, maybe, could we? So I contacted
our agency once again. To hear that story visit the “about
Enick” page. Even though Elijah is younger, in my mind he
comes first, we “had” him first.
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