We have three biological children and at one time thought our family was complete. However, God had other plans. He began working in our hearts in early 2005. One night at the dinner table our daughter Molli blurted out “we need to adopt a little girl.” It was evident that God spoke through the heart of a ten year child, which confirmed our silent thoughts and stirred our hearts to action. We thought and prayed about it a lot and soon realized God was calling us to expand our family with another daughter. We knew there were many little girls in China that needed a loving family. We met with Children’s Hope International which strengthened our desire to adopt and we knew this was the journey in store for us.

In June of 2005, we began our journey. We were originally informed that the adoption process would take twelve to eighteen months. The timing was a little off! Our journey involved mountains of paperwork, marriage and birth certificates, home studies, fingerprinting, and background checks. After years of waiting with expiration dates coming and going, we had to update much of the paperwork such as home studies, fingerprinting, and background checks. We began to think our name was the “Updates” instead of the “Bensons.” Still no baby girl to cradle in our arms. Mary began to grow very weary in the process as she had taken on the majority of the administrative burden of the adoption. We begged God to let us know if this was really His will and not ours. We took comfort from Him in the following verse:
 

Over the course of time, our adoption journey has not been anything like we expected it to be. It has been joyful, trying, and stretching. Through it all, God's grace has sustained us. His strength has shown itself to be perfect through our weakness. What may have been impossible in our own efforts, has been made a reality through God's grace. We are delighted to have been on this journey to grow our family. There has been such a sweet sense of purpose and personal growth that only comes as we walk by faith in our daily living, and giving God all the glory!

Almost five years later, we finally received our referral from China informing us about our daughter waiting in an orphanage in China. We are overcome with the excitement of preparing to travel to China to meet our daughter and bring her to her new home. To experience this miracle and to share this with our current children is a blessing beyond description. Our adoption journey will soon end with our precious little girl, Rylie Shanlin, our daughter and sister, being welcomed into our home. At that time a whole new and exciting journey begins with a lifetime of memories for our new family of six. We are very grateful to Mary’s sister, Sue Horvath, for her generous heart in taking care of our children while we are in China.