We came home from China last spring with our 6th child. Andrew was our 3rd adoption in as many years and had been a tremendous leap of faith. We felt certain our family was complete. If not by desire, then by necessity. We simply could not afford another adoption. Our family had felt for a long time that there was another little girl but, at this point, it didn’t seem possible. From our point of view, it wasn’t.

In the fall of 2007, I met a friend who was adopting a little girl through Christian World Adoption and she encouraged me to look at the list of available children. When I saw her face, I was afraid to call the agency. I just knew there would be a waiting list and I didn’t think I could handle it. I called about another child with a more difficult special need. There were 4 families already waiting. Frank said to “just ask” about her. We did and they told me no one had requested her file, would I look to look at her. Would I????? We took her file to several different doctors that same afternoon and they all agreed. Her special need seemed to be something we felt we could easily manage. I sat up that night reading the Bible and praying. I kept going back to 1 Samuel and Hannah’s prayer. For some reason she looked like a Hannah to me. It isn’t a name we have ever discussed or added to “the list” but it seemed to be her name. I prayed for God to make it very clear to me this time because I honestly didn’t have a clue as to how we could do it. At this point, we didn’t even have the application fee.

The next morning, Frank asked me what we were going to do about this little girl and I told him to keep praying because we had to let the agency know. His response was, “well, I think if we proceed we should name her Hannah”. Yep!!! We had both been given the same name for this little one. So……… her name is Hannah Grace.

(Due to agency requirements, pictures and details of Hannah will be added on Gotcha Day).